- Witness to the Age of Revolution: The Odyssey of Juan Bautista T煤pac Amaru
- By Charles Walker, professor, Department of History, and director, Hemispheric Institute on the Americas; illustrated by Liz Clarke
鈥淛uan Bautista鈥檚 compelling story of resistance and survival is retold by a master historian and illustrated in an active and energetic style that draws the reader and the viewer deep into the world of people who fought long and hard to topple a powerful empire that once spanned the globe.鈥 鈥 Leo J. Garofalo, co-author of 鈥淒ocumenting Latin America: Gender, Race and Empire鈥
Some stories of the past are so remarkable, they deserve to be shown as well as told.
A new graphic history by Professor Charles Walker brings to life the odyssey of Juan Bautista T煤pac Amaru, whose account of his 40 years as a Spanish political prisoner was so harrowing that it was discounted as fiction and lingered for decades in obscurity.
PROSE AWARD
The Association of American Publishers recently announced Witness to the Age of Revolution: The Odyssey of Juan Bautista T煤pac Amaru as the winner in the category of nonfiction graphic novel in the association鈥檚 2020 Professional and Scholarly Excellence, or PROSE, awards competition.
Witness to the Age of Revolution uses images drawn from archival documents to chronicle Juan Bautista鈥檚 story and show readers how historians construct the past. Illustrated by South African artist Liz Clarke, the publication is part of a graphic history series published by Oxford University Press.
鈥淚 saw it as a fun summer project, but it took me two years or so,鈥 Walker said. 鈥淗istorians are trained to guide [readers] through writing. And in a comic, you can鈥檛 do that 鈥 you have to let the images speak.鈥
Walker briefly wrote about Juan Bautista in his award-winning 2014 book The T煤pac Amaru Rebellion. That book focused on the 1780鈥83 revolt that was launched in Peru by Juan Bautista鈥檚 half brother, Jos茅 Gabriel T煤pac Amaru, and spread to become the largest rebellion in the history of Spain鈥檚 American empire.
Walker said he had long wanted to give more attention to Juan Bautista and his ringside view of events during the Age of Revolution (1780s to 1820s) in the Americas and Europe.
A descendant of the last Inca rulers, Juan Bautista was imprisoned on both sides of the Atlantic after Jos茅 Gabriel was executed and much of his family arrested or killed. Juan Bautista鈥檚 ordeal included two years in jail in Cusco; a 700-mile foot march in chains over the Andes to Lima; two years aboard a ship to Spain; and more than 30 years of detention in Ceuta, a Spanish garrison city on the northern tip of Africa.
In 1822, he was freed with the help of a priest and a Maltese-Argentine naval veteran and sent to Argentina, where he was hailed as a hero. Juan Bautista died in 1827 in Buenos Aires without fulfilling his dream of returning to his native Peru.
鈥淚 want to chronicle his story but not speak for Juan Bautista T煤pac Amaru, whose first language was Quechua,鈥 Walker writes in his preface.
In his own account of his life, Juan Bautista expressed his 鈥渉ope that these memoirs make people think about how to prevent tyranny, which proved in my case to be so abominable.鈥
Kathleen Holder is a content strategist in College of Letters and Science. This article originally appeared in the fall 2020 edition of the and has been updated with the PROSE Award for Walker.