Plebeian Republic

Combining social and political history, The Plebeian Republic challenges well-established interpretations of state-making, rural society, and caudillo politics during the early years of Peru's republic. Cecilia Mendez presents the first in-depth reconstruction and analysis of the Huanta rebellion--an uprising of peasants from the Huanta province against the recently established Peruvian republic between 1825 and 1828. By situating the rebellion within the broader context of early nineteenth-century Peruvian politics and tracing the Huanta peasants' transformation from monarchist rebels to liberal guerrillas, Mendez complicates understandings of what meant to be a patriot, a citizen, a monarchist, a liberal, and a Peruvian during a foundational moment in the history of South American nation-states. In addition to official sources such as trial dossiers, censuses, tax rolls, wills, and notary and military records, Mendez uses a wide variety of previously unexplored sources produced by the mostly Quechua-speaking rebels. She reveals the Huanta rebellion as a complex interaction of social, linguistic, economic, and demographic forces. Rejecting ideas of the Andean rebels as passive and reactionary, she depicts the barely literate insurgents as having had a relatively clear idea of national political struggles and contends that most leaders of the uprising invoked monarchism as a source of legitimacy but did not espouse it as a political system. She argues that despite their pronouncements of loyalty to the Spanish crown, the rebels' behavior evinced a political vision that was quite different from both the colonial regime and the republic that followed it.