The Amuesha People of Central Peru: Their Struggle to Survive

In the year 1742, the national liberation movement lead by Juan Santos Atahualpa forced the missionaries of the Franciscan Order, their military back-up, and the Spanish colonists they brought, to leave the central montaña of Peru and allowed the Amueeha and Campa peoples of the area to continue determining their own destinies independent of the Spanish and later Peruvian occupational forces. In 1881, after 139 years of absence, the Franciscan Order returned to the area, entering the Chorobamba valley, inhabited exclusively by Amueeha peoples, where they founded the mission poet "Nueetra Seno­ra de la Asuncion de Quillazu." The following le the story of the Amueeha people living in the vicinity of the Quillazu mission and their struggle to survive the aggression of the mission, the colo­nlnto, and representatives of the national government.