WI: Tupac Amaru Rebellion Succeeds

I think that while they would adopt some Inca imagery and some manufactured and maybe a few genuine Inca traditions, Tupac Amaru's monarchy and administration is going to be designed at most levels to be more like a Spanish administration.
Yeah, I was thinking for all his Quechua nationalism that pragmatism might result in the capital still being Lima rather than Cuzco, AFAIK Lima was just too big and too important to try and ignore and the prestige alone would make it an attractive capital city for the new government.
Wouldn't the Spanish metropolis just send a sizeable professional army to crush a larger-scale rebellion? There are several good reasons why Hidalgo and Morelos failed in Mexico.
If they hold on long enough though Spain would simultaneously be facing the threat of republican France sitting right on their doorstep.
 
Yeah, I was thinking for all his Quechua nationalism that pragmatism might result in the capital still being Lima rather than Cuzco, AFAIK Lima was just too big and too important to try and ignore and the prestige alone would make it an attractive capital city for the new government.

If they hold on long enough though Spain would simultaneously be facing the threat of republican France sitting right on their doorstep.
revolutionary france-neo inca alliance?
stop it dude, i'm blushing.
 
Could this lead to a escalation of the war?
If the Spanish are having huge troubles in South America, then it seems prime-time for Portugal to attack the Plata. iOTL, there was a war between Spain and Portugal for the Banda Oriental, shortly around that time.

If the Portuguese make a real effort of it, say, send 5k soldiers, they could, say, conquer OTL Uruguai. At the very least.

Then there's the Dutch and Austrians. What are they doing right now?
 
did anyone turn the thermostat up?
damn son
but seriously now, a native led, enlightenment-inspired rainbow coalition emergin in south america, just imagine the butterflies this will cause in Europe?
i could see french, dutch and british writers painting Tupac Amaru ii as some kind of Marcus Aurelius of the mountains.

It certainly throws race relations into completely new territories that we've never seen OTL. My post had a lot of grammatical errors, made it at 3am last night, but carrying on from the rough sketch I painted; TAII is essentially the universal leader of South American independence; every independent state of note is directly dependent on his armies to secure their independence. The comuneros of New Granada were more or less absorbed into his armies, to a lesser extent so were the criollos of La Plata outside of Buenos Aires. The Paraguayans are notably independent but also on good terms with the new Sapa Inca. Chile is autonomous but essentially a tributary of the Inca too and also at its military mercy at the moment. The immediate concern is going to be governance; how is all this land going to be governed, what's part of the Inca state and what isn't? There's no San Martin/Bolivar situation here, and there's a clear central authority here with respect to legitimacy. IMO, I think the most likely scenario is that areas that are native-heavy and were conquered by the Inca are likely to be under direct administration. This is roughly what I imagine it looks like:

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The Comunero state(s?) in Colombia are pretty ravaged, and dependent on Incan and to a lesser extent British military support to maintain their independence from Spain. Internally, the factions are OG Comuneros, Incan monarchists, and Spanish loyalists. The former two control everything, the latter is very unhappy. The former are both on very good terms with the Inca, the second especially so. The second faction is a mix of former comrades in arms of the Inca, monarchists that see TAII as the only/preferred king of Latin America, and people with whom TAII's ideology(it's taken root as as an ideology at this point) of racial reconciliation, benevolent monarchism, and enlightenment philosophy as ideal. The latter group is the largest subfaction. The areas of former New Granada under Incan administration are areas that petitioned directly for the Sapa Inca to rule them post-war; key areas that left New Granada for the Inca state being all of Ecuador, Cali, Neiva, Medellin, and the only Pacific port of New Granada, Buenaventura. The jungles between Panama City, Buenaventura, and Medellin were ceded to the Inca by default though effective administration of Panama City is via military rule and via sea, the Darien Gap is as inhospitable as ever. The only reason Bogota isn't a part of the Inca is because New Granada's Comuneros gathered to the city as their base of operations for the remainder of the war in New Granada against Spain, shifting the populace from primarily pro-Sapa Inca to pro-Comunero. The Comuneros are in an odd place, as the Sapa Inca is effectively treated as the sovereign in name by the people but has zero administrative power over the region.

Chile is lukewarmly under Incan rule, though actual rule is very threadbare; independent in all but name and no taxes are payed to the Inca's coffers. While internationally unrecognized as an independent state, at a local level, it absolutely is. The Inca control its foreign policy, but even the militia is entirely Chilean in nature. A future issue for the Inca however, is that Chile has drawn a sizable number of Spanish loyalists from Peru and Alto Peru and it's likely the issue will come to head. The Sapa Inca was unwilling to continue with further warfare and as a result, the administration in place in Chile is largely intact and pro-Spanish. As a result, Chile is isolated from the rest of South America and is something of a mess internally, unsure of its future. This is the place where the Encomienda system is most intact in South America and has resulted in a notable segment of the populace trying to prod the Sapa Inca to once more march and assert Incan authority, and these voices have increased as a number of Spanish loyalists have fled to Chile, despite active Incan pressure to limit this flow of refugees.

Paraguay is independent and loosely allied with the Inca. With British occupation of Buenos Aires and a treaty between all notable states in the region signed guaranteeing free navigation on the Rio de La Plata, Paraguay is largely content geopolitically, but still largely impoverished and its economic situation doesn't look to improve much in the near future and that's likely to soon express itself geopolitically, shaking up the current period of peace outside of La Plata. Bickering with nearby Caudillo states is constant, and it's likely that wars will break out in the near future as Paraguay seeks to assert itself on the nearby Caudillo states. Important to note however, is the awkward place it found itself in. Paraguay's dislikes were in order, the Spanish, the Jesuits, and the Indians. It's alliance with a native power had been a contentious thing, but ultimately led to its independence and the vanquishing of the first two enemies. Now it walked a tightrope with the natives of Paraguay, weary of overly antagonizing them due to its neighboring colossus of an ally whose rulers have a personal vendetta against those who exploit the natives of the Americas, yet also utterly unconvinced with Incan ideology.

La Plata is largely, a mess. Caudillo states centered around local cities and towns dot the landscape and it's largely a wild, wild west. Some are heavily pro-Inca and have a strong working relationship with the Incan governor of La Paz, TAII's cousin Diego, with whom they conquered Buenos Aires with. Others, like the Caudillo state based out of Cordoba, are leery of Incan expansionism and hold less than stellar views of the new administration in the Andes, despite their shared revolt against Spain. As a result, some Caudillo states are courting British interests. While largely stable, constant lowscale warfare between petty states is the norm of the day and La Plata remains largely disunited despite attempts to confederate. Uruguay is under British control(unless Portugal joined in against Spain, in which case it's Portuguese).

As for the loyalists? Left with no friendly and nearby Spanish colonies, many have largely settled for the only option left; leaving. Many loyalists would soon find themselves attempting to settle in the remote jungles of the Amazon rim, Patagonia, the Chaco; regions of Spanish America that were largely empty before the Incan Revolution and that none of the states were willing or able to assert active authority. Formalized states are rare and infantile, but the populations of these areas have notably grown and these settlements are highly martial and anti-native in nature. But, this did have one important effect; natives were either exploited or expelled, and those that were expelled largely went to settle in the Inca Empire. This resulted in many natives under Lealista(Loyalists in Spanish) rule turning to the Sapa Inca and it wasn't long before the Sapa Inca learned of its hostile neighbors on its rims...
 
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My question is, who would be his heir? Tupac had three sons.

Another question, how would the next heir treat the Inca culture?

I imagine active callbacks to the Inca Empire in ceremony/habits/governance/fashion/etc. would go in and out of vogue, depending on the Emperors, the bourgeois, and the academic classes. As for individuals of Quechua or native descent and their social standing, it's inevitably going to be messy. The Empire(at least, in my theoretical best-case scenario wank) has turned TAII's personal motivators into its founding ideology, to the point that IMO it'll be to the Inca what 'Liberty and Justice' and their deathly fear of taxes was to America. The Inca Empire would be running on racial egalitarianism, economic justice for the lower classes, and (to the upper echelons) a strange mix between economic paternalism and social responsibility with a healthy dose of enlightened absolutism from which both the paternalism and social responsibility derive from. All of factions within the Empire are unified loosely by this ideology, or at least parts of it.

Now, Tupac Amaru's inner circle is a pretty healthy mix of all the major racial groups(except Afro-Latinos); Criollos, Mestizos, and Indio. The bulk of the army is Indio due to the nature of the revolt being primarily built on racial injustices thanks to the the Encomienda system though all are present. Spanish is unquestionably the language of communication for the army post-war due to the Indio elements being more diverse than simply Quechua-Aymara and the endgame campaigns taking place in New Grandad, though Quechua is likely seeing wide usage and for the first time in a long time, has a prestige language element to it in a similar vein to Latin, Persian, or Sanskrit. In addition, Quechua and Aymara were likely the primary language of the army up until around the fall of Lima, where Mestizo and Criollo soldiers became larger factors in the war. Spanish is likely seeing a very large influx of Quechua words right now due to the military, but Quechua is lowkey approaching some form of standardization as well, something which IOTL greatly hampered its usage. I think it's very likely that you'll see a large amount of interest in Quechua in all elements of Inca society as a result. I'd expect the following:

1) Quechua will shortly be standardized either colloquially or formally as it'll be incredibly useful in the revitalization of the Andes' economy and in the army
2) Indios who only speak Spanish, no matter their background, will be drawn to Quechua due to its increased prestige and the increasing social standing of the Quechua. As will all classes due to its 'Latin'-like status in the realm, especially artists and intellectuals
3) Aymara as a language is going to be succeeded slowly by standardized Quechua; consider the passage below:

Quechua shares a large amount of vocabulary, and some striking structural parallels, with Aymara, and the two families have sometimes been grouped together as a "Quechumaran family". That hypothesis is generally rejected by specialists, however. The parallels are better explained by mutual influence and borrowing through intensive and long-term contact. Many Quechua–Aymara cognates are close, often closer than intra-Quechua cognates, and there is little relationship in the affixal system.

It's going to survive, naturally, but it's essentially going to serve as the odd country tongue that's going to follow standard Quechua(which is going to draw from the Quechua-Aymara shared vocabulary pool heavily anyways considering how dominant it is within the Quechua language family anyways) along every step of the way. Essentially, two languages sharing one vocabulary to the point of easy comprehension off vocabulary alone but never quite intelligible. It's going to have a hell of a lot more impact on standard Quechua than northern Quechua ever will, anyways. 'Army Aymara' will essentially be what modern-day Aymara will descend from in the long term.

4) Spanish will remain the language of trade and government, though Quechua will likely be made co-official by TAII due to the origins of the modern Inca state in the Altiplano's Indio armies.

What does this all mean? The Criollos are likely the most lukewarm supporters of racial egalitarianism; IOTL the driving goal was to establish the Criollos as the leaders of society, not to topple the entire social structure. But in this world, they're ruled by an Indio, the army is largely composed of Indios, and so on. They've essentially got to play ball because they placed their bets that equality will still see them prosper over the previous situation(and they're right, to an extent). Criollos still make up the majority of the elite in the most important cities and towns of the Empire as most saw the writing on the wall and properly changed their allegiances. The largest of their excess has been reigned in and they've undeniably made concessions to TAII, his Indio armies, and social pressure from the true believers and sympathizers of his ideology. But they're still largely sitting pretty at the top; most of the new upper echelons of Inca society consists of war heroes and generals, the family and allies of the Sapa Inca, etc. The Criollos still own large tracts of land though production has largely shifted away from cash crops; revitalization of the Andes economy and ensuring the prosperity of the common man is high on the Sapa Inca's to-do list, and this means ensuring that there's yields enough for the people to make merry and have children. Can't do that when you're growing sugar, especially when your previous buyer is no longer buying. As a result, the majority of South America is experiencing a population boom due to the decreased demand for plantation crops and increased demand for food(especially due to the campaigns of the revolution). Through equal parts pragmatism and laissez faire economic pressure, the Criollo elite are largely following through on the economic paternalism and social responsibility aspects of Inca ideology, and paying some lip service to racial egalitarianism, though economic justice is very low on their list, they still want the same prosperity and control they previously had with a few pragmatic exceptions. Meanwhile the average Criollo is in an interesting position; their social standing has risen, but alongside them they're rubbing shoulders with Mestizo and Indio commoners with whom many marched alongside with in war. They've picked up a few Quechua loanwords, they're in somewhat high demand due to generally being better educated than their peers and the need to organize a functioning government, and they're strong proponents of economic justice. The Criollo elite and the Criollo common man are actually on largely different footings; whereas one fought, the other conceded with of course, obvious exception existing in both camps. While the Criollo elite are influential with soft power, their hard power is largely non-existent, as they know they could soon walk on eggshells.

Mestizos of all social standings are roughly where the Criollo common man; trying to juggle their rise in standing with the need to be above someone(the Indio) who's now on their standing. Mestizos were enthusiastic supporters of TAII's message of economic justice and the extent that they supported racial egalitarianism usually depended on their exact place in the previous Encomienda system; obviously, the ones with more or recent Indio family were naturally the more enthusiastic, the ones whose family were largely Criollo or other Mestizos less so. Mestizos with fluency in Quechua quickly rose in positions of governance and to a lesser extent, trade as the need to form a government and administration for the diverse Inca state, and as such, Quechua fluency went from an oddity to a coveted skill to rise in government positions and to fit into the small renaissance the Quechua's legacy was experiencing in Inca society. Views on TAII are near universally positive, though the idea of Sapa Inca is met with some degree of skepticism, instead largely viewing him as the monarch of the realm.

Indios are the social class experiencing the wildest shakeup. Indios are the core of the army. Indios are a plurality of the Spa Inca's inner circle. Indios are the people that incited, led, and rule a land that stretches to just about the entirety of the old Inca Empire, in some areas far further, that dominates South America as the colossus of the continent. It was, in a phrase, a brave new world. Racism didn't disappear, obviously. Indios were still near universally viewed as uneducated, even by other Indios sitting in higher social stratas, and the vast majority in this period largely remained as peasants, though even they would experience a notable improvement in their place in society through the actions of the Sapa Inca. Social mobility for Indios was largely tied to one institution; the state. Namely, the army, and for the more educated, the government. Army men were war heroes and they reaped the rewards of their service; many picked up Spanish over the course of the wars of independence, many formed ties with people of all places in society thanks to the wars, many married women far from their original homes, and as a result many an ambitious soldier was able to attain a position as a community leader of newly established Ayllus, translators, and in some truly exceptional cases, granted the title of newly formed(or in some cases, reformed) Kurakas or government administrators. These men would be at the forefront of the Sapa Inca's campaign to abolish the Encomienda system, where the plantations and mines of old were either reorganized or abolished into Ayllus in the name of protecting the common laborer. The Indio populace of the Andes would quickly balloon thanks to the abolishment of the Encomienda system, the end of the wars of independence which saw many of the old plantations shifting from cash crops to food, and the establishment of new Ayllus by those who were displaced due to the war, though these tended to feature families of all races due to the Sapa Inca's (now self-propagating) ideology of racial reconciliation. This is the origin of 'Nuevos Indios', a modern term used to describe non-Indios originating from an Ayllu. Anyways as a result of the revolution, Indos have seen a notable increase in their quality of life thanks to all of the above-mentioned factors though the social mobility of the average peasant remains low barring joining the army, which is seen as prestigious and became the primary means that Quechua's standardization would spread to average Indio peasant, as well as the slow spread of literacy from the army to the peasant. Many returning army men in the coming decades would act as teachers for their communities, teaching Spanish, basic reading and writing, and mathematics once the army's role in social works was expanded and the expansion of literacy fell under its umbrella.

Why is the army focusing on social works? Well, Andean romanticism, the need for many public works, and the relative stability and weak neighbors of the realm in the long term means that the army will functioning in the short term as the revived Mit'a system and long term, will likely be the means through which the Mit'a system is revitalized for good in a form that's palatable to the European mindset of many in the realm. I doubt that the Inca can fully resurrect the Mit'a system in the face of Britain and the incoming revolution/dominance of capitalism, at least not in the short term. Long term? The Mit'a may just be the Andean solution to the social ills that follow capitalism. Though alternatively, the Mit'a may be a compromise means to reform the Encomienda system. A return to humane labor for a set period in peasant communities to work mines and plantations, while the army performs the public works element of the Mit'a such as road building.

-My two cents on race relations for the average non-descript person. The Sapa Inca and the government deserve their own focus with respect to how it works, the reforms made, key players, and policy. Ditto for the army, which I can't really avoid talking about with respect to the experience of the average Indio
 
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@EMT got a pretty good idea on how the the whole thing would go. At least in a best case scenario.

In a not-so-best case scenario, the wars of independence would drag for a few years. We get independent states in several parts of América and several loyalist sectors.

From that, I personally see mainly loyalist remnants mainly in Chile, Nueva Granada and Parts of La Plata.

If things go not so well but not so bad either, we might still see San Martin and Bolivar rising up to the call to "complete the liberation of América."
 
Well, it is an interesting story
it will eb strange Britsh help Tupac Amaru against Spanish; perhaps happens as a revenge for the independence of USA
Also, the rebellion of Tupac Amaru was 100 years before San Martin and Bolivar
 
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Well, it is an interesting story
it will eb strange Britsh help Tupac Amaru against Spanish; perhaps happens as a revenge for the independence of USA
Also, the rebellion of Tupac Amaru was 100 years before San Martin and Bolivar
Not exactly...

Tupac Amaru II rebelled on 1780. Roughly around the time of the US' undependence. San Martin And Bolivar began their fight in 1808-1810, so it was about "just" 30 years apart.
 
Not exactly...

Tupac Amaru II rebelled on 1780. Roughly around the time of the US' undependence. San Martin And Bolivar began their fight in 1808-1810, so it was about "just" 30 years apart.
also we should take into account the changes in the mindsets of the criollo elites. bolivar would be born around the time of the rebellion, so if he's born he'll grow up with the stories of TA2.
how would this change his mentality?
 
also we should take into account the changes in the mindsets of the criollo elites. bolivar would be born around the time of the rebellion, so if he's born he'll grow up with the stories of TA2.
how would this change his mentality?

Bolivar may not actually be born at all, since he was born in 1783. His father was a Colonel, so in an extended revolt he may have never been born at all with his father away at war. Plus he may just end up irrelevant as yet another aristocratic Criollo in distant Venezuela in this scenario; the death of his parents are what allowed for him to be instilled with his ideals at a young age whereas everything gets thrown out the window if Gran Colombia is a bigger powderkeg than IOTL's Comunero revolt. As for San Martin, his father was a Spanish soldier and he was born in a Guarani town; he went to live in Buenos Aires in 1781, and began his life as a Spanish soldier in 1789 at the age of eleven; it's important to note that San Martin wasn't a Criollo, he was a Peninsular. Furthermore, San Martin's goals and motivations were murky until the abolition of the 1812 constitution.

San Martín resigned from the Spanish army, for controversial reasons, and moved to South America, where he joined the Spanish American wars of independence. Historians propose several explanations for this action: the common ones are that he missed his native country, that he was a British agent and the congruence of the goals of both wars. The first explanation suggests that when the wars of independence began San Martín thought that his duty was to return to his country and serve in the military conflict. The second explanation suggests that Britain, which would benefit from the independence of the South American countries, sent San Martín to achieve it. The third suggests that both wars were caused by the conflicts between Enlightenment ideas and absolutism, so San Martín still waged the same war; the wars in the Americas only developed separatist goals after the Spanish Absolutist Restoration.[10]

This suggests to me that he ends up living in Buenos Aires and pro-Spanish as a child over the course of the war as his father would undoubtedly be serving in La Plata. So maybe he ends up in a pro-Spanish colony(if any remain at the end of the wars), back in Spain, or in a Lealista settlement which would basically make him a Latin American Boer. Also worth noting is that San Martin started his career as a soldier at the age of eleven. If the wars drag on, chances are he may just end up fighting for Spain.
 
Yeah, I was thinking for all his Quechua nationalism that pragmatism might result in the capital still being Lima rather than Cuzco, AFAIK Lima was just too big and too important to try and ignore and the prestige alone would make it an attractive capital city for the new government.
Either choice would be highly symbolic (Cuzco the old Inca capital, Lima the seat of the Spanish Viceregal administration) and might suggest the direction that TAII's government would take. Cuzco is secure and the centre of his most loyal support, Lima much more iffy - which might suggest, if he feels confivdent enough, that he should go for Lima to impress his authority on that region.

Perhaps Cusco and Lima could be declared joint capitals, with the Emperor spending part of the year in one and part in thr other? I don't know if there's any precedent for such a thing, in either Inca or Spanish tradition?
 
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