Regarding Colonialism in Garcilaso’s Historia general del Perú Margarita ZamoraUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison a Enrique Pupo-Walker The eighth and final book of Historia general del Perú (1617) contains a memo- rable triptych of Spanish colonialism. The images of the abuse of political power, among the most vivid in Garcilaso’s writings, focus on the execution of the last Inca, Túpac Amaru, the persecution of the mestizos of Inca descent, and the de- nunciation of Spanish injustice by an anonymous Indian woman whose mestizo son is incarcerated awaiting torture. There is both pathos and a critical edge in these images, as they expose raw social and political iniquities in the practice of Spanish colonialism by giving a voice to the dissent of the colonized. This dis- sent, moreover, erodes Spanish moral authority, shifting the ethical high ground toward the political margins. The prevailing opinion among scholars has been that Garcilaso was a par- tisan of the Spanish imperial enterprise in which his conquistador father had a prominent role. This position blurs the differences, however, between two distinct historical actions: conquest and colonization 1 . It favors the heroic equities of the epic discourse employed by the historian to extol the valiant deeds of Spanish conquerors and Amerindian warriors, at the expense of the critical discourse that exposes the injustices and abuses in the imposition of a colonial system of political subjugation, economic exploitation, and cultural hegemony stigmatiz- ing the colonized 2 . This essay offers an integrated textual and historical study of Garcilaso’s political imagery, situating it in the concrete historical circumstances 1 Leonardo Padura notes that El Inca was Spanish America’s first anti-colonial writer «if the term is understood as opposition to the colony as a stage different from the conquest, and not in its nar- rowest and most common acceptation.” ( 1984, p. 240, my translation)