Pumakawa was the kuraka (Quechua for cacique) of Chinchero, soldier of the militia of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and interim president of the Audiencia of Cuzco.

Reason for this is because Amaru's uprising caught off guard colonial authorities[3] and caused major tumult in Lima, as the colonial authorities were largely unprepared and scarce of troops in order to deal with the revolt, for this reason, Spanish colonial authorities decided to organize an army composed largely of native conscripts, a tactic repeated in the Peruvian independence wars where the Spanish royalist army of Peru was composed, outside of commanding leaders, almost entirely of levy indigenous soldiers.

[5] Higher-rank Spanish authorities such as the Viceroy Agustín de Jáuregui, who resided in Lima for all the duration of the conflict, received most of the credit and praise for the capture and defeat of Tupac Amaru II.

Three decades later, despite being in his seventies, Pumakawa led the — essentially indigenous — militias of the Royal Army of Peru,[4] the bulk of the army, in the expeditions of the Peruvian viceroy José Fernando de Abascal sent against the junta of La Paz in Upper Peru during 1811.

Despite having won the battle of Guaqui as colonel of the Royal Army, he and a portion of his troops joined the insurrection of central and southern of Viceroyalty of Peru (Cuzco, Huamanga, Arequipa and Puno) started in Cuzco on August 3, 1814, demanding the full implementation of the Spanish Constitution of 1812 in Peru.