Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Tupac-Amaru

TUPAC-AMARU (too'-pak-ah'-mah-roo), member of the Peruvian inca family, b. in Cuzco about 1540; d. there in 1573. He was the second son of Manco Inca Yupanqui, who, after the execution of Atahualpa, had been recognized by Pizarro as successor to the throne. After his father's death the eldest son, Sayri-Tupac, submitted to the Spanish rule, and was baptized and rewarded by a tract of land and an Indian commandery at Urubamba; but Tupac-Amaru refused to renounce his family claims, and retired to the mountains of Vilcabamba. When Sayri-Tupac died, the family claims devolved upon Tupac-Amaru, and as the Indians recognized him as the legitimate successor to the throne of the incas, the viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, resolved to capture the prince. In 1572, under pretext of sending auxiliaries to Chili, he ordered 250 men to march against the district of Vilcabamba, where they began hostilities against Tupac-Amaru. The latter resisted in self-defence, and, after he had been defeated several times, and his means of subsistence had been cut off, fled with his family and some followers to the mountain-fastnesses, where he thought himself secure. But receiving notice of his retreat, Capt. Martin de Loyola, with twenty men, crossed at night the mountain-stream that defended the inca's retreat, and captured the camp by surprise, carrying the unhappy prince with his family as prisoners to Cuzco. There the judge, Gabriel Loarte, by the viceroy's order, began a criminal process against Tupac, under the pretext that he had incited an armed revolt, and he was condemned to death and beheaded at Cuzco, while his children were transported as prisoners to Spain. — The name Tupac-Amaru II. was adopted by Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, who, claiming to be a lineal descendant of the incas, raised a rebellion against the Spaniards in 1780, and was executed in 1781.