Chap. VIII. ITS JUSTIFICATION. 131 



than that of Tupac Amaru. America had, in those days, 

 become the theatre of the most wide-spread tyranny ; but 

 the Indians of Peru were those on whose necks the yoke 

 weighed heaviest. Mitas and reimrtos were, in Peru, the 

 deadly plagues of Spanish invention, which devoured the 

 human race."^ 



I am enabled to give a more correct and circumstantial 

 account of the gTcat rising of the Peruvian Indians in the 

 end of the last century than has yet appeared in Em-ope ; 

 although, as this interesting suliject is a digression from the 

 main pm-pose of the present work, I shall be obliged to com- 

 press my narrative within the narrow limits of one or two 

 chapters.'' In this brief sketch of the state of the Peruvian 

 Indians under Spanish rule, I have endeavoured to establish 

 the fact that Tupac Amaru's rebellion was justified because 

 the oppression of his people had become intolerable, and 

 because all law was set at defiance by the Spanish officials. 

 He protested, not against the tyranny of the laws, but against 

 the infringement of laws, and the oppressive acts done in 

 spite of the laws, by those whose duty it Avas to administer 

 them. 



In writing on this subject one is apt to be carried away by 

 indignation against the Spanish rulers in South America; 

 yet, if we look round at the systems of colonization pursued 

 by other European nations, it will be found difficult to say 

 who has a right to cast the first stone. The Spanish colonies, 

 however, cannot properly be compared with those modern Eng- 

 lish settlements, to which thousands of the labouring classes 

 have emigrated, and either annihilated the natives, or fenced 



^ Ensatjo de la Historia civil del Pa- 

 raguay, Buenos Ai/res, y Tucuman, por 

 el Dr. Don Grerjorio Funes, Dean de la 

 Santa Tglesia Catedral de Cordova. — 

 Bueuos Ayres, 1817, 4 vols, torn. iii. 

 pp. '242-333. This work contains a 

 detailed and very interesting account 



of the insurrections of Tupac Amain, 

 and of the Cataris in Upper Peru. 



'' An account of the copious materials 

 from which my infonnation respecting 

 Tupac Amaru is derived will be foimd 

 in a note at the beginning of the fol- 

 lowing chapter. 



K 2 



