Historical Figures

Gabriel Aguilar Narvarte

Gabriel Aguilar Narvarte (1775-1805) , was born in Huánuco in 1775 and his parents were Salvador Aguilar and Clara Narvarte. From a very young age he made various trips to the south of the continent, reaching the Chilean mining area and then Mendoza and Buenos Aires. Later, in Spain, he soaked up the ideas circulating at the time, such as those advocated by the French Revolution, and conceived the purpose of emancipating Peru, through the restoration of an Inca monarchy, based in Cuzco. Upon his return to Peru, he devoted himself to mineralogy, exploring for gold in the old imperial capital. There he made contact with the lawyer Manuel Ubalde - who had just been dismissed from the advisory services of the president of the Royal Court of Cuzco, Brigadier Count Manuel Ruiz de Castilla - and both agreed on the need for an uprising against Spanish domination. Although after the unsuccessful rebellion of Tupac Amaru II some administrative reforms had been carried out, such as the abolition of distributions and the replacement of corregimientos by the audiencias, in practice abuses and injustices by Spanish officials continued. For this reason, the initiative of Aguilar and Ubalde had immediate repercussions, being supported in their plans not only by main Indians but also by many mestizos, among them the alderman Manuel Velarde Ampuero, who descended from the Incas through his maternal line; the lawyer Marcos Dongo, protector of natives; the chief Cusihuaman; and the clerics Diego Barranco and José Bernardino Gutiérrez (the latter chaplain of the San Andrés hospital).
The conspiracy failed due to the denunciation of Mariano Lechuga, who revealed the separatist project to the oidor Manuel Plácido Berriozabal, on June 25, 1805. In December of the same year, the sentence was issued by which the Royal Court condemned Aguilar and Ubalde to death by hanging, an opinion that was executed in the main square of Cuzco on December 5, 1805 . The other conspirators were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and exile.
On June 6, 1823, the constituent congress issued a decree declaring Gabriel Aguilar and Manuel Ubalde worthy of the country and defenders of its independence.


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