Perú

 



Description: red, white and red vertical bands; coat of arms in center with a vicuña, a quinine tree, and a cornucopia with gold emptying out of it surrounded by a green wreath.

 

 

NAME:                                  República del Perú / Piruw (Quechua) / Piruw (Aymara)

NAME ETYMOLOGY:      Popular etymology: "piru" in Quechua jeans "What?"; The conquistadors said, in Spanish, "What's the name of this place?", and the local Incas replied "Piru?"; Scholarly etymology: "birú", name of chieftan in Panamá who said gold was to be found farther south of Panamá.

POPULATION:                    27,900,000 (1997); 28,700,000 (2007); 30,400,000 (2014)

ETHNIC GROUPS:             Quechua and Aymará (45%); Mestizo (37%); white (15%); Asian (2%); black (1%)

CAPITAL:                            Lima (8,900,000–2014)

                Principal cities: Arequipa (770,200); Callao (port, 442,000); Trujillo (644,000); Iquitos (350,000)

LANGUAGES:                     Quechua and Spanish (both official); Aymará (unofficial)

RELIGION:                          Roman Catholic (81%); Inca (9%); Protestant (5%)

INDEPENDENCE DAY     July 28, 1821 (from Spain)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:        Men (68); women (72)

LITERACY:                         88%

GOVERNMENT:                 Democratic republic

MILITARY:                         115,000 active troops

ECONOMY:                         fishing, cocaine, mining, cotton, sugar

MONEY:                               Nuevo sol (3.4 = $1.00 US; 2006)   

GEOGRAPHY:                    Pacific coast; arid coastal stip; Andes = 27% of land; eastern slopes into Amazon basin (50% of country)

FACT:                                    Perú is the world’s largest coca leaf producer.

INTERNET CODE:             .pe

KILLED BY SENDERO LUMINOSO (1980-97): 20,000

 

HISTORY:

                5000 BCE             Evidence of first human settlements in Perú: cultivation of beans, cotton, gourds; use of weapons; construction of middens

                4000-400 BCE     Titicaca culture around Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and SE Perú.

                3200 BCE             People on Perú's north coast begin large-scale settlements.

                1800-400 BCE     Chavín culture

                1800 BCE -1400 Many pre-Inca Andean civilizations.

                400 BCE-700 CE        Tiahuanaco (or: Tiwanaku) culture.

                400 BCE-800 CE        Nazca culture.

                100 BCE – 800 CE     Mochica culture (the kingdom of Moche).

                800 – 1100           Huari culture.

                1100 – 1400         Cajamarca, Chimu, and Ica cultures.

                1200                       Manco Cápac organizes the kernel of Inca culture.

                1400 (ca.)              Kingdom of Chancas (west of Cuzco), with huge army, began war on small group of Incas, ruled by old king Viracocha Inca; this king's son, Cusi Yupanqui, led the Inca defense and surprisingly, against the odds, won the war. Cusi Yupanqui overthrew his father and changed his name to Pachacuti ("earth shaker"; "he who turns the world upside down"). Pachacuti (1438-1471) restructured the Inca tribe, rebuilt Cuzco with the great Inca stones as the center of his domain, which he expanded significantly. Pachacuti named his empire Tawantinsuyu ("four united parts") with Cuzco at the center of the four regions: Chinchaysuyu, Cuntisuyu, Collasuyu, and Antisuyu.

                1438 – 1533         Domination by Incas with capital at Kuskum (El Cuzco). Viracocha and his son Túpac Inca Yupanqui (1471-1493).

                1450                       Machu Picchu constructed by Inca emperor Pachacuti as private retreat or estate.

                1471                       Túpac Inca's son, Huayna Cápac (1464-1527) expanded the empire to its greatest size and power. The empire covered 1,400 miles of the Pacific coast and into the Andes.

                1513                       Vasco Núñez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro cross the Isthmus of Panama, thus "discovering" the Pacific Ocean for Spain. Francisco Pizarro and his brothers arrived on the island of Hispaniola in 1502.

                1516                       The future Inca emperor Manco Inca is born.

                1519-1521            Francisco Pizarro is involved in the conquest of the Aztecs under Hernán Cortés.

                1524-1525            Francisco Pizarro's first voyage south from Panamá along the Colombia coast was a failure.

                1526-1527            Pizarro makes second voyage south from Panamá, this time making his first contact with the northern end of the Inca empire. Francisco's brothers Hernando, Juan, and Gonzalo accompany Francisco, who was the oldest (and a half-) brother. Hernando de Soto (Florida conquistador), 62 horses, black slaves, 12 notaries, one Dominican friar, a number of Moorish women slaves, some merchants, and some native Nicaraguan slaves were in Pizarro's party of discovery and conquest.

                1527                       Huayna Cápac died of smallpox, which began spreading like a plague throughout the Americas when the Spaniards introduced it unintentionally in 1494.  Huayna Cápac's paranoid party-happy son Huáscar was crowned Inca emperor in Cuzco, but Huayna Cápac's serious son Atahualpa (by another mother) and his faction opposed his half-brother Huayna Cápac.

                1527-1531            Civil war between factions led by the warring half-brothers Huayna Cápac and Atahualpa. The war ended in a battle near Cuzco in which Huayna Cápac was defeated, captured, and slaughtered almost all of Huayna Cápac's wives and family.

                1532-1533            Incas conquered by Francisco Pizarro (1475-1541) with 168 conquistadores on Pizarro's third voyage south from Panamá.

                1533                       Pizarro captures Atahualpa in Cajamarca, where Pizarro slaughters most of the Incas' nobility and some of the Incas' generals. For the dramatic, first-hand description of the massacre at Cajamarca, see the online version of the "Letter from Hernando Pizarro to the Royal Audience of Santo Domingo, in Reports on the Discovery of Peru, Clements R. Markham, tr. and ed. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1872), pp. 113-127, at this URL: http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Pizarro.html.

                1533                       Atahuallpa is executed and Cuzco is conquered. Pizarro makes Manco Inca the puppet emperor.

                1533-1541            Pizarro distributes encomiendas.

                1535                       Lima founded by Francisco Pizarro.

                1536                       Manco Cápac leads a failed Inca rebellion against Spanish. Gonzalo Pizarro steals Manco Inca's wife, Cura Ocllo. Manco Inca starts a rebellion; he lays siege to Cuzco. Juan Pizarro is killed in the fighting. Another Inca general, Quizo Yupanqui, attacks Lima.

                1537                       Diego de Almagro returns from Chile and conquers Cuzco from Incas. The Spaniards capture Manco Inca's son, while Manco escapes and flees to Vilcabamba, which he creates as the new Inca capital.

                1538                       Pizarro defeats Almagro and has Almagro executed.

                1539                       Gonzalo Pizarro captures Vilcabamba. Manco Inca escapes, while Francisco Pizarro executes Manco's wife.

                1539-1616            Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of Inca princess and conquistador; historian.

                1541                       Pizarro assassinated by his conquistadors who favored Almagro.

                1542                       Name of Virreinato del Perú given to the region.

                1544                       The Spaniards murder Manco Inca; meanwhile Gonzalo Pizarro rebels against Spain and king Carlos V; in 1548 Gonzalo Pizarro is captured and executed as a traitor.

                1551                       The University of San Marcos (now the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos), one of Perú’s two most prestigious universities, was founded in Lima. It is known as the “dean” of Latin American universities, because it was founded four months before the University of Mexico. The Peruvian university that is also one of the othere top two universities in the country is the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, was founded in Lima in 1917. The Peru’s great late twentieth and twenty-first century novelist and writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, graduate from San Marcos.

                1555                       Viceroyalty of El Perú actually begun; Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, first viceroy

                1557-1560            The new Inca emperor, Sayri-Tupac leaves Vilcabamba and relocates his capital near Cuzco.

                1560-1571            Titu Cusi becomes the new Inca emperor, and he locates his capital again in Vilcabamba, 100 miles east of Machu Picchu.

                1571                       Tupac Amaru Inca  is the last emperor of Incas.

                1572                       The Viceroy of Peru, Francisco Toledo, declares war on Tupac Ameru; Vilcabamba is destroyed, and Tupac Amaru is beheaded at Cuzco.

                1588                       Bartolomé Álvarez, a Dominican padre doctrinario (priest who taught Catholic dogma and the Catachism), in the southern Peruvian diocese of Charcas, wrote a treatise to king Felipe II of Spain entitled De las costumbre y conversación de los indios del Perú; Memorial a Felipe II (edited in Madrid in 1998 by Ediciones Polifemo). In this book Álvarez says that the native Peruvians were using their second language, Spanish, not to teach Catholicism but rather to conduct legal cases against the Crown. [1]

                1604                       El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega publishes: Comentarios reales.

                1652-1697            Juan del Valle Caviedes, satyric poet; his Diente del Parnaso was published posthumously.

                1740                       Nueva Granada (Colombia and Venezuela) separated from Viceroyalty of Perú.

                1742-1780            Tupac Amaru (José Gabriel Condorcanqui titled Marqués de Oropesa), descendant of Incan Tupac Amaru executed in 1571), captured and executed in 1780 by colonial royalist army.

                1776                       Viceroyalty of La Plata (Argentina) separated from Perú

                1780                       Tupac Amaru II leads unsuccessful indigenous rebellion.

                1820                       José de San Martín (Argentinian patriot military hero), moves his forces north from Chile with aid from Lord Cochrane’s English navy.

                                                San Martín delays march on Lima because Peruvian criollos are not ready to revolt against Spain; Lima is primary stronghold of Spanish colonial power and culture.

                1821                       July 28:  José de San Martín declares independence of Perú.

                                                Spanish viceroy moves all royalist forces to northern Perú.

                                                San Martín needs help from Simón Bolívar.

                                                Cochrane’s navy deserts and San Martín’s forces are unruly.

                                                Country named "República del Perú"

                1822                       San Martín meets Bolívar in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

                                                San Martín withdraws humbly leaving field to Bolívar; San Martín’s wife dies; he returns to Europe never returning to South America.

                1822-1826            Bolívar takes over independence war seeing need to destroy last royalist forces; Bolívar rules Perú as absolute dictador.

                1824                       Bolívar defeates royalist forces in battle of Junín

                                                (December 9, 1824) Bolívar’s forces win final battle against royalists at Ayacucho, thus ending Spanish colonial presence in mainland American continent.

                1825                       Bolívar goes to Cuzco and Upper Perú (Lake Titicaca, Potosí, Bolivia) giving Bolivia independence and making it a separate republic under Sucre, Bolivia’s first president; Bolívar returns to Lima.

                1833-1919            Ricardo Palma, writer of local color, especially Tradiciones peruanas

                1872-1876            Manuel Prado, first civilian president

                1879-1883            War of the Pacific between Perú and Chile

                1892-1938            César Vallejo, poet:

                1895-1930            José Carlos Mariátegui, leftist philosopher, journalist, and theorist.

                1911-1969            José María Arguedas, magical realist novelist.

                1911                       Hiram Bingham (Yale University professor) "discovers" Machu Picchu, which he thought at first was actually Vilcabamba.

                1922                       Trilce, by César Vallejo, vanguardist poetry

                1923                       APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) created by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre

                1925-1930            Publication of Amauta by Vallejo and Maríategui: vanguardist and Marxist thought and literature

                1936-1939            Gen. Oscar Benavides, dictator       

                1936-present        Mario Vargas Llosa, novelist of Generación del Boom and magical realism

                1939                       Poemas humanos, poems published by César Vallejo

                1948-1956            Gen. Manuel Odría, dictator

                1962                       La ciudad y los perros, by Vargas Llosa, initiates Perú in Generación del Boom

                1963                       Fernando Belaúnde Terry, president for Acción Popular party

                1968                       Military coup; Gen. Juan Velasco Alvarado leads leftist military junta (1968-80)

                1971                       Gustavo Gutiérrez publishes: Teología de la liberación: perspectivas

                1975                       Military coup against Velasco Alvarado by Gen. Francisco Morales Bermúdez

                1980                       Elections: Belaúnde Terry president

                                                Guerrilla war by Sendero Luminoso begins

                1985                       Alan García, elected president for APRA

                1987                       Mario Vargas Llosa leads civic resistance to APRA's plan to nationalize the banks

                1990                       Presidential election campaign between Vargas Llosa and Alberto Fujimori; Fujimori wins, June, 1990

                                                June: Fujimori dissolved congress, suspended most of constitution, and installed press censorship, all in the name of fighting Sendero Luminoso’s terrorism

                                                Sept: Abimael Guzmán, leader of Sendero Luminoso, captured and sentenced to life in prison.

                                                The city of Cuzco (Cusco), adopts as its official spelling: Q’osq’o, thus intending to represent a more Quechuan spelling of the city’s name.

                1994                       Vargas Llosa becomes Spanish citizen and wins Spain’s prestigious Premio Miguel de Cervantes; also he becomes a member of the Real Academia de la Lengua in Spain

                1995                       Fujimori reelected

                1996                       Dec: Tupac Amaro leftist revolutionaries (not Senderistas) took hostages in home of Japanese embassador

                1997                       March: army frees hostages in embassador’s house and kills all guerrillas in the home; general international praise for anti-terrorist success

                2000                       Fujimori fled to Japan in 2000 to avoid arrest due to various scandals and accusations of illegal actions. The Congress refused to accept his offer to resign the presidency; instead they impeached and convicted him on many charges. He was extradited to Perú in 2007, when he was convicted for illegal arrests; later he was convicted of human rights violations, killings, kidnappings, death squads, murder, embezzlement. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

                2001                       Alejandro Toledo Manrique elected president; the statue of Pizarro is removed from the Plaza de Armas in Lima due to campaigning by his wife, Eliane Karp.

                2006                       Alan García Pérez elected president

                2007                       Yale University agrees with the Peruvian government to return Inca objects taken illegally from Machu Picchu by Hiram Bingham.

                2011                       June 6: runoff election for President between Ollanta Humala (Gana Perú Party) and Keiko Fujimori (Fuerza Party; daughter of Alberto Fujimori: see 1990 and 2000); Ollanta Humala won the runoff. For an eloquent essay by a Peruvian novelist in support of Humala, see the translation of: => “Perú: robar lo justo.”

                2011-2016            Ollanta Humala, president of the Republic of Perú. In political terms, Humala is center-left.

                2016-2021            Pedro Pablo Kuzcynski Godard (b. 1938), centrist (or conservative-liberal) technocrat (economist), elected president, from the new Peruvian political party, Peruanos por el Kambio.

 

GOVERNMENT: Federal Republic with parliamentary democracy since 1980  when Fernando Belaúnde Terry replaced military dictatorship (1968-80); president elected every five years; member of U.N., Nonaligned Movement, and Group of Eight (S. American countries)

 

PRESIDENT: Alan García (until 2011)

 

Political figures:

                Alán García Pérez, leader of APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) born 1948, serving since 1985 as APRA leader

                Guillermo Larco Cox

                Ilda Urízar

                Mercedes Cabanillas

                Gustavo Saberbein

                José Barsallo Burga

                Abel Salinas

                Luis Heysen

 

MAJOR INTELLECTUALS:

 

                Poetry:

                                Carlos Germán Belli (contemporary)

                                César Vallejo (1888-1938), Vanguardism

                                                        Los heraldos negros  (1922)

                                                        Poemas humanos  (1927)

                                                        España, aparta de mí este cáliz   (1937)

                Novel: José María Arguedas: Los ríos profundos (1962)

                Novel and Essay:

                                                Mario Vargas Llosa (born 1936)

                                                        La ciudad y los perros  (1962-63)

                                                        La casa verde (1965)

                                                        Los cachorros (1967)

                                                        Historia de un deicidio (1971)

                                                        La tía Julia y el escribidor (1977)

                                                        Conversación en la Catedral (1969)

                                                        Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1973)

                                                        “Masacre en los Andes” (1983)

                                                        La guerra del fin del mundo  (1983)

                                                        Historia de Mayta (1984)

                                                        ¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero? (1986)

                                                        Elogio de la madrastra (1989)

                                                        El hablador  (1988)

                                                        Contra viento y marea (1990)

                                                        Desafíos a la libertad (1994)

                Cinema: Armando Robles Godoy: The Green Wall  (1972)

                Political essay:     Víctor Haya de la Torre

                                                Mariátegui

                Liberation theology:

                                                        Sixto Severo

                                                        Gustavo Gutiérrez, Teología de la liberación: perspectivas  (1971)

 

POLITICAL SITUATION:

                severe economic problems

                cocaine production and traffic

                guerrilla war waged since 1980 by  Sendero Luminoso lead by Abimael Guzmán Gutiérrez (now in prison); this guerrilla war is contained

 


[1] John Charles, Allies at Odds; the Andean Church and Its Indigenous Agents, 1583-1671. Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2010.