The Fake Inca of Tucuman: Don Pedro de Bohorques

Abstract

In the middle of the seventeenth century a Spanish adventurer, dressed in a traditional Andean cusma tunic and wearing a silver diadem, convinced tens of thousands of Indians in a remote part of the viceroyalty of Peru that he was a direct descendant of the former Inca emperors. More than a hundred native chiefs accepted him as their overlord, carried him on a litter, furnished maidens for his service, and followed him in battle when he promised to liberate them from Spanish control. Although Indian rebellions occurred frequently in colonial Peru, this particular one is unique because a European led it. Initially this imposter secured approval for his actions from the Spanish provincial governor and Jesuit missionaries, but later.when the Indians rebelled, the fake Inca was apprehended, imprisoned for seven years, then hanged. The story of his “empire” is a ten year episode that has not been printed in English and is not widely known in Spanish.