Inca Garcilaso and the "Mestizo Riot" (1567)

Abstract

In his General History of Peru, Garcilaso de la Vega mentioned Juan Arias Maldonado as the main source of information on the events that surrounded the capture and execution of Tupac Amaru, the rebellious Inca of Vilcabamba, in 1572. In his story, there seem to converge references to a “mutiny of the mestizos”, aborted in 1567 in several places of the viceroyalty. This article tries to clarify what happened and particularly the intention of Inca Garcilaso to collect diverse testimonies of those facts in order to put an end to the second part of his Royal Commentaries.