José Antonio de Áreche

José Antonio de Areche Zornoza (died 1788) was a Spanish visitador in Peru (1777–82). He was responsible for the execution of Inca rebel Túpac Amaru II, his family and coconspirators.

Before his arrival in Peru, José Antonio de Areche was fiscal (prosecutor) before the Audiencia of Mexico. He was a follower of José de Gálvez, and adopted Gálvez's policy of reformismo duro (hard reforms; the Bourbon reforms). In New Spain he worked for the suppression of the guilds. Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli y Ursúa signed some measures against them.

José de Gálvez became Spanish minister of the Indies in 1776, and the following year he ordered Areche to Peru as royal visitador (inspector). This was the same sort of post that Gálvez himself had exercised a decade earlier in New Spain.

In June 1777, Areche arrived in Lima. As a direct representative of the king, he believed he outranked the highest colonial officials of the Viceroyalty of Peru and the newly created Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. His mission was to increase the revenues of the colony, investigate the honesty and competence of colonial officials and the general state of the colony, and institute legal proceedings and administrative reforms as he deemed necessary.

He increased the alcabala (sales tax) from 4 to 6%. The economy of the colony was bad, in part because of the separation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata from Peru in 1776 and the imposition of free trade in 1778. The tax increase (and other increases, such as internal customs duties and the extension of tribute payments from the Indigenous to the Mestizos) were intended to increase government revenues during an economic downturn, but they were viewed as oppressive by the poor, by the merchants, and particularly by the Indigenous. For the first year after their implementation, government revenues rose. (They had been falling for a long time.) Then the reaction began.

Areche's authoritarian personality and contempt for Criollos in public service made him unpopular. Viceroy Manuel de Guirior refused to give up total authority. Areche brought charges against him, leading to his dismissal in July 1780. Guirior was replaced as viceroy by Agustín de Jáuregui. He was eventually acquitted of the charges, but only after his death in 1788.

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