Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The Rebellion of Tupac Amaru II, 1780–83. This most important of colonial rebellions shook the high Andes and sent shock waves throughout Spanish America. The mestizo who called himself Tupac Amaru II claimed royal Inca descent, but whether or not he had it, the Inca name itself was the main point. He took it in memory of Tupac Amaru I, an Inca resistance leader and folk hero who fought a rearguard action against the conquest in the 1500s. The initial proclamation of the new rebellion was anti-“Peninsular” (a name given to Iberian-born Spaniards) and called for an alliance among American-born whites, mestizos, and indigenous people. Once begun, however, the rebellion became primarily indigenous and raged out of control, leaping south through the high plateaus of dense indigenous population like a grass fire, into Upper Peru (modern Bolivia), where it set off another, more stubborn revolt, involving a leader who called himself Tupac Catari. The rebellion, which consumed perhaps a hundred thousand lives before it finally burned out, thoroughly terrified the Peruvian elite and profoundly affected their behavior in the coming wars of independence."