Page:Native Religions of Mexico and Peru.djvu/197

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FALL OF THE INCAS.

Incas.[1] Other attempts, still attaching themselves to the name of some Inca, failed in like manner. And yet the mass of the Peruvians, in spite of their conversion to Roman Catholicism, remained obstinately attached to the memory of their Incas. One of their real or pretended descendants, in the eighteenth century, did not shrink from serving as a domestic at Madrid and Rome, as the only means of learning the secret of that European power which had so cruelly crushed his ancestors.[2] But on his return to Peru (1744 A.D.) his efforts only ended in his destruction. But this did not prevent a certain Tupac Amarou, who was descended from the Incas through a female line, from fomenting a rebellion in 1780, which it cost the Spaniards an effort to suppress.[3] Later on, after the revolution

  1. Herrera, Dec. v. Lib. viii. capp. i. sqq. (Vol. V. pp. 23 sqq. in Stevens's translation).
  2. See Alcedo, "Diccionario Geográfico-Historico de las Indias Occidentales," &c.: Madrid, 1786-9: article Chunchos.
  3. See Waitz, Vol. IV. pp. 477—497; Tschudi, Vol. II. pp. 346—351; cf. Castelnau, "Expedition dans les Parties centrales de l'Amerique du Sud," &c.: Paris, 1850, &c., Part I. Vol. III. p. 282.