Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua , heroine of the emancipation, born around the year 1742 . Her place of birth is the subject of many conjectures, so that some historians believe she was born in Pampamarca (current province of Canas in Cuzco), while others affirm that she was born in Tamburco, a district belonging to the Apurimeña province of Abancay, and there are those who they point out that he was born in the very city of Abancay. The truth is that she was the daughter of the Spaniard Miguel Bastidas and the Indian Josefa Puyucahua. She grew up in the town of Asunción de Pampamarca, where due to her condition and economic roots, she was able to figure among the Spanish people. . José Antonio del Busto affirms that his was a family of the village aristocracy, which based its importance on agriculture and livestock. The mestizo girl grew up with her brothers Antonio and Miguel Bastidas, as well as with her maternal uncles Narcisa and Marcelo Puyucahua. Physically she was a woman of singular beauty, with a distinguished bearing and a slender neck, despite the fact that her enemies would later refer to her as zamba . She was approaching 20 years old when she was courted by José Gabriel Condorcanqui Noguera, cacique of Surimana, Tungasuca and Pampamarca; and once the situation was formalized, the wedding took place in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Purificación de Surimana, on May 25, 1760. From their marriage they had three sons:Hipólito, Mariano and Fernando, who as adolescents collaborated in the great Andean rebellion of the Condorcanqui-Bastidas spouses. Micaela supported her husband not only in the war, but also in the commercial and transportation tasks to which he was dedicated. Politically, she was a leader; She possessed a gift of leadership, with which she managed to win numerous caciques, distinguished neighbors and even parish priests to the rebel cause.
Uprising against the Spanish
She held a leadership position, virtually number two in the movement, providing resources, weapons, and clothing to the troops. He even directed some preparatory actions when Tupac Amaru II had to be absent and actively intervened in the capture of the corregidor of the province of Tinta, General Antonio de Arriaga, executed in the plaza of Tungasuca on November 10, 1780. A week later (18 November) had a leading role in the successful battle of Sangarará she and she held the opinion that the actions should proceed quickly, in order to prevent the Spanish from recovering, and so she launched the offensive on the city of Cuzco. She issued edicts and proclamations, which are published in the documentary collection of the bicentennial of the rebellion of Túpac Amaru II , along with the reports and letters that Micaela sent to her husband. After the setback suffered in the Battle of Ink , on April 6, 1781, she fled to Langui but, due to the denunciation of a Spanish colonel surnamed Landaeta , she is imprisoned along with Tupac Amaru II, her children Hipólito and Fernando, and other members of her family. With spectacular custody, the prisoners are taken first to Urcos and then to Cuzco, in the presence of the visitor José Antonio de Areche. According to Virgilio Roel, Micaela was riding a white mule. On May 15, she is sentenced to death and her execution takes place three days later in the Huacaypata or main square of Cuzco, in view of her husband, family members and a large number of the public. She began by cutting off her tongue, after which she was to be dragged with a rope around her neck, tied hand and foot, and finally hanged and quartered. As she had a very thin neck, her winch was unable to hang her, so it was necessary to execute her with a manually pulled rope. Her remains were dismembered and the members distributed, as a symbol of repression against the rebellion, in different places in the southern Andes. She thus died horribly one of the greatest heroines that Peru has had, whose sacrifice for social justice opened a new horizon for the indigenous struggle.