DON DIEGO DE TORRES
Cacique Rumerqueteva
FIRST PRECURSOR OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FIRST CARTOGRAPHER OF AMERICA
Don Diego De Torres y Moyachoque was a mestizo chief and politician, born in Turmequé Boyacá in 1549 and died in Spain in 1590. He was the son of Doña Catalina de Moyachoque (Princess Moyachoque) and the conquistador Juan de Torres.
Don Diego De Torres y Moyachoque was a mestizo chief and politician, born in Turmeque Boyacá in 1549 and died in Spain in 1590. He was the son of Doña Catalina de Moyachoque (Princess Moyachoque) and the conquistador Juan de Torres.
When the reigning Cacique of the time died, Diego de Torres was proclaimed Cacique, successor by the Muisca indigenous people, which was recognized by the royal audience of Santa Fe, thus leaving Turmeque with a mestizo chief.
History tells us that between 1577 and 1578, Diego de Torres prepared a memorial of grievances addressed to King Felipe ll, with which he would denounce the abuses to which the natives were subjected by the colonizers
On the other hand, his brother Pedro de Torres, surely bothered by Diego’s actions and by the fact that he was a mestizo and would have both Muisca and Spanish heritage, issued some accusations against his brother, alleging that he could not be a cacique. For being mestizo, the title of cacique was removed in 1974 and thus the title was given to another cacique “Don Pedro Naizaque”.
Subsequently, Diego de Torres after granted permission, arrives in Spain to present his memorial of grievances, but is captured by different indications that the only thing they wanted was to protect the encomenderos. The ruling of the hearing acted against Diego de Torres and as a result his house and his fence in Turmeque were burned.
Apparently, his efforts to present the Memorial of Grievances, gave a positive result despite the accusations, leading to the appointment of Juan Bautista Monzón as visitor to corroborate the facts narrated in this document, a situation that, although it was evident, also caused problems for Monzón, and that in order to protect the encomenderos, Monzón and Diego de Torres are taken to prison for various false accusations. Sometime later, Diego de Torres appears before a new visitor, Juan de Orellana, and is released.
After presenting the memorial and overcoming the conflicts in which he was involved, Diego de Torres decided to stay one more year in Spain, where he Doña Juana de Oropesa married and continued to claim his rights to the cacicazgo, a situation that took him back to prison and later acquitted by the Council of the Indies, however the conflict over the cacicazgo was still not resolved when he died in 1590 in Madrid Spain in the midst of misery and full of debts, leaving a widow and three children.