AP+Juan+Peron,+Inca+Garciliano

Laura Mason
 * Inca Garcilaso **

"Having now related the lives of twelve Inca kings who created and governed the ancient Empire of Peru, from its beginnings till its end; having given ample description of their conquests, their generous actions, their government in peace and in war, and of the idolatry that they practiced in their ignorance of our holy religion, I have thus paid the debt that I owed to my country and to my maternal ancestors." – Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, //Comentarios Reales de los Incas// (1609). Born of aristocratic Spanish and royal Inca roots, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega moved to Spain when he was twenty-one years old, and never returned to his Peruvian homeland (“Garcilaso de la Vega”). Since he "grew up Inca," Garcilaso accessed his childhood memories as a first-hand cultural insider from stories told by his elders. When he wrote about the Inca Empire in his first manuscript, //Comentarios Reales de los Incas//, his call to knowledge still stemmed from his Inca heritage. He carefully marketed his own authenticity and uniqueness as a descendant of both Inca and Spanish elites. Thus, his writing claimed both cultural authenticity and political legitimization. A primary concern for Garcilaso was the method by which he could present the Inca Empire as civilized to a European audience. His text is firmly placed in the territory of defending the Inca status in the face of Spanish justification of the conquest (Hoffstrom). Garcilaso was not by any means anti-colonialist or anti-Spanish. Instead he tried to justify the Incas as having held legitimate rule during their time and as a class of people within colonial society worthy of special recognition. Garcilaso recounts a conveniently altered story of the Incas. He presents the Incas as having been chosen by the "father" – the sun – to bring civilization to wild and barbaric peoples in the Andes. Although highly unlikely in historical reality, the story includes nothing about warfare as a means of initial submission of subject peoples in the Cuzco region. The debate over legitimate government was over by the end of the sixteenth century, but a notable lasting effect was the inability of Spaniards to take Indians as formal slaves since this would immediately negate any statement of Spanish liberation (…en Perú). Garcilaso indirectly but fundamentally Christianized Inca religious practices in accordance with Thomas Aquina's classic view that "...sacred doctrine also uses human reason. It does so not to prove the faith - for that would detract the merit of faith - but to clarify some of its implications. Thus sacred doctrine appeals to the authority of philosophers in those areas where they were able to arrive at the truth through natural reason" (Aquinas VIII). So, for instance, young men of royal blood went through a schooling or initiation process to become knights. The basic assumption of Garcilaso was that both the Inca and the Spanish were good, but that other Indians were bad. Through exercise of reason the Incas practiced a natural religion that was evidence of the function of God within their Empire.

On another level in //The General History of Peru//, Garcilaso argues against the Spanish king in favor of the conquistadors because his father was one of them: "Nothing discouraged them, nothing repelled them, nothing exhausted them. Neither hunger, nor danger, nor wounds, nor sickness, nor bad days and even worse nights, could keep them from pushing constantly forward, over land and sea, in search of the unheard-of feats that, for all time, have left a halo of glory around their names" (Garcilaso 52). The distortion of Garcilaso's viewpoint is to favor the Incas as a series of philosopher-kings holding legitimate rule. Garcilaso's purpose with //Comentarios Reales de los Incas// was not to write an accurate history of the Incas, but to defend and justify their rule. In rewriting Inca history to suit his own ends, Garcilaso was careful not to write anything directly offensive to Spain. He claimed to translate Inca society for the Spanish in order to dispel wrongful information. Garcilaso's description is directed at glorifying the conquistadors, the land-owning elite, who struggled after the Spanish crown changed its policy of colonial government to favor bureaucracy instead of the earlier system of plantation-style land management. At the same time, Garcilaso was a mixed descendant of a Spaniard and Inca and witnessed this growing marginalized group who neither inherited their Spanish father's lands nor the continuing higher social status of Inca society. His political alignment was obviously with the conquistadors.

__Works Cited __  Aquinas, Thomas. "Summa Theoligica." Columbia University. Web. 05 Jan. 2011.

de La Vega, Garcilaso. "Historia General Del Perú, O Comentarios Reales De Los Incas (1800)."  //Portada//. Wikisource. Web. 05 Jan. 2011.

 "Garcilaso De La Vega (1539-1616)." //Library of José Durand//. University of Notre Dame, 2001.  Web. 05 Jan. 2011.

Hoffstrom, Charlotte. "The Creation of Inca History: Garcilaso De La Vega." //Yahoo! Associated//  //Content//. 17 Dec. 1997. Web. 05 Jan. 2011.

 "Inca Garcilaso De La Vega." .//..en Perú – Travel Culture History News//. 1 Jan. 2009. Web. 05 Jan.  2011.

**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Juan Perón ** <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">President of Argentina from 1946 to 1955, and again from 1973 to 1974, Juan Domingo Perón wrought long lasting changes in the nation's politics and social services. The government of Juan Perón was one of the most progressive in Latin American history in the 20th century (Smitha). This Latin-American Leader was a friend of the poor, hardworking masses and unashamedly nationalistic. He was born in the Buenos Aires Province on October 8th, 1895, and was the son of a wealthy rancher. Perón was educated at the Colegio Militar from 1911 to 1913 and at the Escuela Superior de Guerra from 1926 to 1929. He later taught at the same school. In 1930, he took part in a military uprising against President Hipólito Irigoyen and served as private secretary of the minister of war from 1930 to 1935 (ABC-Clio). With the rank of Colonel he spent a year in Chile as military attaché, published five books on military history, and traveled to Mussolini's Fascist Italy to study alpine military methods and tactics. While there, he also studied Fascism and began to wonder if something like that could work in his country (Smitha).

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;">In 1941, Perón was also involved in a coup d’état upon his return to Argentina. Along with other secret military officers, Perón overtook the department of labor and weakened left-wing party influence by implementing and enforcing both old and new laws, and creating new organizations to replace unions. In the year 1944, Perón became the vice president and minister of war (ABC-Clio). As his power grew, widespread opposition within the armed forces also grew. He was finally forced to resign from his three posts on October 9, 1945 and was later imprisoned (“Juan Domingo Perón”). This governmental crisis was mended eight days following, when labor supporters obtained Perón’s release. On October 25, he married Mariá Eva Duarte, who became fondly known as Evita.

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">In 1945, a new political group emerged in Argentina, with its main support among the most depressed sections of the agricultural and industrial working class. Called the Perónistas, the group supported Perón as its candidate for the presidency. The Perónistas campaigned among members of the working class, popularly known as the "shirtless ones," implying they did not wear suit coats like the middle class. The election resulted in a decisive victory for Perón. As president, Perón pursued pro-Labor and pro-Nationalist policies. He halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced Catholic religious instruction in public schools, and allowed Argentina to become a haven for fleeing Nazis (Halsall). On the other hand, Perón expressed sympathy for Jewish rights and, in 1949, established diplomatic relations with Israel. By 1954, Perón had initiated more than forty-five major hydroelectric projects designed to produce two billion kilowatt-hours of energy, twenty times the amount available in 1936. While in hindsight it can be said these projects had ecological drawbacks, they still represented an audacious step in the direction of making every citizen's life more rewarding. By 1947, Argentina had launched its own iron and steel industry. It was also moving forward in coal extraction and other raw materials using the most advanced technology available at the time. It began to make farm machinery, planes, and cars in modest numbers. Shipbuilding expanded 500 percent under Perón's regime (“Juan Domingo Perón”).

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">But Perón failed to sustain these progressive changes over the long haul. All of the gains of the Perón era have disappeared as workers' lives and fortunes have gone downhill (“Juan Domingo Perón”). Basically, Perón collapsed as a leader because his reforms were not radical enough. In the early 1950s, benefits to labor began to diminish, although through no fault of Perón's. The death of Evita in 1952, economic difficulties, increasing labor unrest, and his excommunication by the Catholic Church further weakened Perón's position, and in 1955, the military once again ousted his government. Throughout eighteen years of exile, however, Perón retained his labor support and influence in politics. He was eventually permitted to return to Argentina in 1973 and was again elected president, with his third wife as vice president. He died in office on July 1 of the next year (Halsall). Though he died more than thirty years ago, his movement survives in Argentina, and he will always live on in the hearts of his people as the greatest leader of their country.

__<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">Works Cited __ <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">Halsall, Paul. "Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974): Justicialism." //Fordham.edu//. Modern History Sourcebook, July 1988. Web. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> 7 Jan. 2011.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> "Juan Domingo Perón." Christian Falangist Party of America. Web. 07 Jan. 2011.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;">"Juan Perón." //World History: The Modern Era//. ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 07 Jan. 2011.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Smitha, Frank E. "Juan Peron and Eva to Eva's Death in 1952." //MacroHistory:World History//. Web. 07 Jan. 2011.