The Indigenous woman in the Colonial indigenous uprisings and since 1768

Abstract

In the last social uprising of October 2019 that paralyzed Ecuador, there was a massive participation of women and especially indigenous women. In this article, which reviews material from the “Uprisings” section of the National Archive, the participation of indigenous women in political uprisings in the colonial period and at the dawn of the republic is evident. It is worth remembering the role of Isabel Yarucpalla, ex-wife of Atahualpa and then of the conqueror Juan Lobato de Sosa, who denounced to the Spanish authorities the famous mutiny led by Alonso Ango, chieftain of Otavalo (Vargas, 1975). In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, indigenous uprisings were less abundant than between 1730 and 1803, a period in which the record of the participation of indigenous women in the uprisings is observed for the first time. An analysis of their role in these events is made from this.