Insurgencia y Alianza: Estrategias de la participación indígena en el Proceso de Independencia en Charcas. 1809-18121

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategies of indigenous participation in the independence process through the study of the rebellion in Charcas between 1809 and 1812. The author suggests that indigenous people took political action by taking part in events planned and organized from their own perspective. These uprisings took place when there were chances of success and when the feeling of injustice became intolerable. The strategies adopted in these moments were also strictly indigenous, and were intended to maintain the balance between the State and the ayllus, in a way in which the access to land and resources was guaranteed. The Alto Perú conspiracy and rebellion analyzed here, and which were triggered by both the appointment of a cacique by the king and the state of revolutionary struggle that had characterized the juntista movements of Chuquisaca and La Paz, show the existence of an indigenous political project. In the failure of this project lies the origin of a different development of the independence process, together with the exclusion of indigenous groups in present-day Bolivia.