Witness to the Age of Revolution
The Odyssey of Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru
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- $45.99
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- $45.99
Publisher Description
The Tupac Amaru rebellion of 1780-1783 began as a local revolt against colonial authorities and grew into the largest rebellion in the history of Spain's American empire-more widespread and deadlier than the American Revolution. An official collector of tribute for the imperial crown, Jos? Gabriel Condorcanqui had seen firsthand what oppressive Spanish rule meant for Peru's Indian population and, under the Inca royal name Tupac Amaru, he set events in motion that would transform him into one of Latin America's most iconic revolutionary figures. While he and the rebellion's leaders were put to death, his half-brother, Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru, survived but paid a high price for his participation in the uprising.
This work in the Graphic History series is based on the memoir written by Juan Bautista about his odyssey as a prisoner of Spain. He endured forty years in jails, dungeons, and presidios on both sides of the Atlantic. Juan Bautista spent two years in jail in Cusco, was freed, rearrested, and then marched 700 miles in chains over the Andes to Lima. He spent two years aboard a ship travelling around Cape Horn to Spain. Subsequently, he endured over thirty years imprisoned in Ceuta, Spain's much-feared garrison city on the northern tip of Africa. In 1822, priest Marcos Dur?n Martel and Maltese-Argentine naval hero Juan Bautista Azopardo arranged to have him freed and sent to the newly independent Argentina, where he became a symbol of Argentina's short-lived romance with the Incan Empire. There he penned his memoirs, but died without fulfilling his dream of returning to Peru.
This stunning graphic history relates the life and legacy of Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru, enhanced by a selection of primary sources, and chronicles the harrowing and extraordinary life of a firsthand witness to the Age of Revolution.
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This well-researched if stiff graphic history relays the remarkable life story of Juan Bautista Tupac Amaru (1747 1827). Walker begins by detailing the horrors that Juan Bautista's half-brother, Tupac Amaru II, and his family suffered at the hands of the Spanish after leading an unsuccessful rebellion in the Peruvian Andes from 1780 to 1782. Juan Bautista was eventually captured, imprisoned, force-marched across the Andes, and exiled to Spain. The story follows his brutal transatlantic crossing, imprisonment in Cadiz, and decades-long incarceration in Cueta. After winning his freedom and returning to South America, Bautista was able to write the memoirs that detailed his odyssey. Clarke's linework gives impressive precision to all parts of a panel, and there are some thoughtful symbolic touches, like the use of crossed-out names to record the deaths of those in captivity. But the narration is flat, and the insertion of primary source material, overlaid to show how historians reconstruct history, begins to feel gimmicky. There's a great story in here, but the prosaic narration and pedantic execution will turn off all but he most earnest students of history.
