Biographical Sketch Mid 16th Century

The mid sixteenth century was a very unique time period in which the Indians had to unite in order to resist the Spanish. A young man in his thirties, an Inka to be honest named Juan Santos was the man who led the resist against the Spanish. He had sent word as far as the cunibos, Andes , Amajes, Sepibos, and Simirinchis, and has had much success in gathering the majority of them. He even had word that the English would soon show up on the shores too help recover the crown while he went by land recruiting these tribes.

This revolt was mainly caused because the Spanish stole the crown from the Inka but other factors came into play. Every tribe had its reason to participate in the revolt but the main reason was that Christianity was being forced upon them and the tributes weren’t helping matters any.

The resistance would have been much more successful if the young Inka accepted blacks as humans and allowed them to fight along their side. Rumor has it that Juan Santos Atahualpa had died in Metrapo while others say that he was killed by some of his followers in seventeen-fifty-six. However the Franciscans wrote in seventeen-eighty-eight that he was still alive.

Never had the Indians ever united to this extent to fight off the Spanish or any other threatening culture. Perhaps if previous tribes such as the Aztecs united with other tribes that they squabbled with them might have prevailed in sending the Spanish away preventing these future dilemmas with them. Let this be a lesson to all nations that sometimes it is wisest to become allies with one or more opposing cultures to defeat another enemy.

Kenneth Mills & William B. Taylor, Sandra Launderale Graham, eds., Colonial America: A documentary History ( Wilmington : Scholarly Resources, 2002), PB pgs 299-307.