University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Spring 2020 The Chasquis of Liberty: Revolutionary Messengers in the Bolivian Independence Era, 1808-1825 Caleb Garret Wittum Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Wittum, C. G.(2020). The Chasquis of Liberty: Revolutionary Messengers in the Bolivian Independence Era, 1808-1825. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/5676 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CHASQUIS OF LIBERTY : REVOLUTIONARY MESSENGERS IN THE BOLIVIAN INDEPENDENCE ERA , 1808-1825 by Caleb Garret Wittum Bachelor of Arts University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 2012 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2015 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2020 Accepted by: E. Gabrielle Kuenzli, Major Professor Matt Childs, Committee Member Don Doyle, Committee Member Jennifer Reynolds, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Caleb Garret Wittum, 2020 All Rights Reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The resources, friendships, advice, and training of colleagues, friends, family, and institutions contributed to the formation of this dissertation. With respect to those at the University of South Carolina, I thank my advisor, Gabi Kuenzli. I am forever grateful for having spent six years of my academic journey as your student. It is one of the best decisions I have ever made. You saw potential in me and my work before I could even see it myself. Along the way, you always found the right balance of being both supportive and demanding. Thank you for answering all my questions, reading countless drafts of academic work, for forgiving my erratic capitalizations practices, and for challenging me to always explain the significance of my work. I look forward to many years as your friend and colleague. Thank you for everything. I am grateful to Matt Childs, Jennifer Reynolds, and Don Doyle, who served on the committee for this dissertation. Matt Childs, thank you for always making time, for all the advice, for continuing to believe in me, and for always challenging me to make my work better. Jennifer Reynolds, thank you for all of your comments and for helping me to think beyond disciplinary boundaries. Don Doyle, thank you for always being supportive and emphasizing the importance of writing and style to the historian’s craft. I cannot thank you all enough for imparting so much of your time, expertise, and professional support—this dissertation and my future work have benefited greatly from your influence. iii The University of South Carolina has been a marvelous home for me, helping me as a developing scholar. Thank you to the College of Arts and Sciences for the Bilinski Dissertation Completion Fellowship and seminars. I deeply appreciate the ample research funding from the Walker Center for international Studies and Office of the Vice President for Research. I have benefited greatly from the advice and support of faculty in the Department of History, especially Matt Childs, Lauren Sklaroff, and Kent Germany for serving as graduate directors during my Ph.D career. My graduate student colleagues have been wonderful personal and professional support. Thank you in particular to Charlton Yingling, Neal Polhemus, Andrew Kettler, Erin Holmes, Antony Keane-Dawes, Holly Genovese, Maurice Robinson, Stephanie Gray, Gary Sellick, Jill Found, Nathalia Cocenza, Samuel King, and Melissa DeVelvis. Across the academic profession, a great many scholars have offered a range of support from stimulating conversation to answering research queries. Finally, I would like to thank all my family and friends that have been my biggest supporters throughout my academic career. I have been blessed to have supportive parents, grandparents, and friends who have been there for me when I needed advice, encouragement, or to have someone to talk through my ideas. A special thanks to Allison Stafford. I’ve enjoyed sharing our graduate school adventure together, and I look forward to starting the next chapter in Kentucky. I could never have written this dissertation without your support. iv ABSTRACT This dissertation focuses on a group of South American revolutionaries and the ways they shaped and challenged the precepts of the Age of Revolutions that rocked Latin America, Europe, and the Atlantic World in the early nineteenth century. Specifically, it investigates revolutionaries like Vicente Pazos Kanki, an indigenous journalist and diplomat, who traveled throughout South America, the United States, and Europe in an effort to form republican governments that brought together indigenous, African, and European citizens into multiethnic republics. I call these revolutionaries the chasquis of liberty. A chasqui was the rapid-traveling foot messenger of the Andean preconquest and colonial worlds. I use this metaphor to illustrate the ways revolutionaries connected disparate struggles for independence and made hemispheric republicanism a reality by forming alliances with other nation states’ luminaries, like the U.S. politician Henry Clay. More than simple messengers, the chasquis of liberty envisioned an inclusive republicanism that stood in contrast to other republics in the Atlantic World that defended slavery and racial exclusion. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iii Abstract ................................................................................................................................v List of Figures .................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………………………………1 Chapter 2: A Social and Political Cartography of the “Opulent Provinces of Alto Peru, 1779-1808...…………………………………………………………………………...…22 Chapter 3: The Cry of Liberty: Sound, Riot, and Political Consciousness in an Andean Lettered City ......................................................................................................................57 Chapter 4: The Chasquis of Liberty: Revolutionary Messengers in Alto Peruvian Wars for Independence, 1809-1816 ............................................................................................92 Chapter 5: Liberty in Alto Peru: Rural Democracy in Alto Peru, 1810-1817 .................134 Chapter 6: The Land of Liberty: Vicente Pazos Kanki, the Amelia Island Affair, and the Limits of Hemispheric Republicanism, 1817 ..................................................................167 Chapter 7: Conclusion......................................................................................................201 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................211 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 "Demonstración Geográfica de las Provincias que abraza cada Yntendencia de las establecidas en la parte del Perú desde Salta, pertenecientes a el Virreynato del Río de la Plata,"Archivo General de Indias 1783 ..........................................................................28 Figure 3.1 “La Ciudad de la Plata ó Chuquizaca” by Ramon Pizarro, 1803 ....................68 Figure 4.1 “Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, “Coreon Major I Menor” in El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1615/1616). København, Det Kongelige Bibliotek, GKS 2232 4..........................................................................................................................................98 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On the 9 February 1818, Vicente Pazos Kanki, an indigenous man from what is today Bolivia, stood before the Congress of the United States of America, readying a speech to promote South American liberty. After the congressmen took their seats, Pazos Kanki began recounting the things he had seen during his winding path from a small indigenous community in South America to his lectern in Washington, D.C.. He recalled spending years fighting alongside ardent defenders of “the cause of liberty and independence” in Alto Peru, he recounted the debates over republican ideals he had fought in the press culture of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he mentioned the time he served as a diplomat for the South American Republics in London, and he defended his actions as leader of a short-lived project to wrest the provinces of Florida from Spain. 1 It was this final independence project that brought Pazos Kanki to the U.S. capital and would dominate his speech. The U.S. government had forcefully repressed Pazos Kanki and the multi-ethnic revolutionaries, from South America, Europe, and Haiti, who had tried to liberate Florida, and Pazos Kanki, in response, came to the U.S. capital to offer his “exposition, remonstrance, and protest” to the national leaders of the U.S. On that 1 Vicente Pazos Kanki, The Exposition, Remonstrance, and Protest of Don Vicente Pazos, commissioner on behalf of the republican agents established at Amelia Island, In Florida, under the authority and in behalf of the Independent States of South America , (Philadelphia, 1818). 1 February day, Pazos Kanki outlined an inclusive vision of citizenship and chided the