El Inca Garcilaso y la independencia de las Américas

Abstract

Independence-seekers knew the books by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega from upclose. Miranda held them as his preferred reading. Bolivar quotes them in his letters. San Martin read them in Cadiz and meant to edit them in 1816. Thomas Jefferson had copies in his personal library, The Florida and Royal Commentaries, which are preserved in the Library of Congress. Inca Garcilaso left his mark on men of action such as Tupac Amaru, Sucre, Bolivar, Miranda, Belgrano, Simon Rodriguez or Juan Pablo Viscardo y Guzman, as well as on intellectual debates that arose in Caracas, Lima, Quito, Mexico, Buenos Aires and Havana. This was happening in Europe too, where his works had a notable influence on the making of the concept of natural law, on social utopists and on the ideas of the Enlightenment. John Locke, Montesquieu, Diderot and Voltaire were avid readers of Inca Garcilaso’s writings.