The Last Days of the Incas

by KIM MACQUARRIE

  FELIPE HUAMÁN POMA DE AYALA, LETTER TO A KING, C. 1616

  “So numerous were the [rebel] troops who came here that they covered the fields, and by day it looked like they had spread a black cloth out over the ground for half a league around this city of Cuzco. At night there were so many campfires that it looked like nothing other than a cloudless sky full of stars.”

  PEDRO PIZARRO, RELACIÓN, 1571

  “No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution.”

  NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI, THE ART OF WAR, 1521

  WHEN MANCO INCA AND VILLAC UMU, RIDING ON THEIR royal litters, arrived in the Inca town of Lares, Manco was gratified to find chiefs and nobles from across Tawantinsuyu already assembled, having responded to his call for the secret meeting. Each of the four quarters of the empire was represented and most in attendance wore large earplugs of gold or silver, as nearly all, save the servants, were nobles of the highest rank. A few individuals wore specially woven alpaca mantles filigreed with gold or silver—the equivalent of prestigious medals received from past emperors for their services. In this small town some thirty miles from Cuzco were now gathered much of the elite that ruled Peru, the high-status individuals who formed part of the governing apparatus the Incas had used to control some ten million commoners.

  Native warriors fighting Spaniards on horseback.

  Those assembled were well aware, however, that representatives from certain areas of the empire—such as the Chachapoyas and the Cañari from the far northern provinces and many of the ethnic groups from the coast—were entirely missing; these had either sided with the Spaniards and were no longer part of the Inca federation, or else had decided to remain neutral and were unwilling to offer help. Nor were any representatives present from any of the native groups in the region that is now Ecuador, given the recent history of the Inca civil war and of the conquest there. For all practical purposes, the far northern region had been amputated from the Inca body politic. If the remaining empire were akin to a large, loosely stitched patchwork quilt of various ethnicities—with many patches now entirely missing—it was now Manco’s job to use his power and prestige to stitch that quilt back together again as best he could. Manco then intended to utilize every ethnic group under his command to exterminate the Spaniards; he could visit punishment upon those ethnic groups that had sided with the Spaniards later.

  As the various nobles chatted with one another and milled about, waited upon by attentive servants, Manco readied himself to inform them about his new strategy—a strategy that would reverse the commands he had been issuing for the last two years. Of great importance to Manco was the presence of the empire’s finest remaining military leaders: Generals Tiso and Quizo Yupanqui, along with several high-ranking captains: his relative, Illa Tupac, and Puyu Vilca. Along with the high priest, Villac Umu, who shared with Manco the dual function of supreme military commander, the entire military staff of the Inca Empire was gathered before him. All would play key roles in the major campaigns to come.

  Before the assembled crowd, and in full view of the sacred, white peaks of Canchacanchajasa and Huamanchoque, Manco rose from his low stool, or royal duho, to speak. Conversations died as the lean, bronze-colored faces of those assembled turned toward their young emperor and listened, their golden ear spools reflecting the brilliance of the sun god, Inti. For the first time since he had become emperor, Manco was now free to issue orders without the presence or control of the Spaniards. At twenty years of age, Manco had finally claimed his full birthright as the Sapa Inca—the “unique Inca,” or divine king. Looking around at the crowd, Manco spoke:

  My beloved sons and brothers, I never thought that it would ever be necessary to do what I am now thinking of doing, because I always thought and felt certain that the bearded people, who you call viracochas, which is how I used to call them because I thought they had come from [the creator god] Viracocha, would not … give me grief in all things … But now … I see … they are scheming once again to capture and kill me … And you have also seen how poorly they have treated me and how ungratefully they have thanked me for what I have done for them, insulting me a thousand times over and then seizing me and tying me up by my feet and neck like a dog, and especially after they had given me their word that we had formed a partnership together based upon love and friendship….

  I can’t help but remind you of how many times you have asked me to do that which I am now intending to do, saying that I should rise up against them and asking me why I had allowed them in my land. I didn’t think that what is happening now could ever have occurred. [Yet] that’s what’s happened—and because all they want is to persist in angering and tormenting me, I will be forced to do the same with them…. Since you have always shown me so much love and have endeavored to make me happy, let’s all join together and unite as one and send our messengers throughout the land so that in twenty days’ time everyone will arrive in this town, without the bearded ones knowing anything about it. I will send my Captain, Quizo Yupanqui, to Lima, so that the day we attack the Spaniards here he and his men will attack those [Francisco Pizarro and his men] who are there. And together, with [General Quizo] there and ourselves here, we will finish them off to the last man and thus we will end this nightmare that has been hanging over us.

  Manco finished: “I am determined to leave no Christian alive in all this land … thus I first want to surround Cuzco. Those of you who want to serve me will have to stake their lives on this [effort]. Drink from these vases only [those of you who will join me] under this condition.”

  Immediately after Manco’s speech, servants carried around two large golden jars of chicha. In full view of the sacred apu spirits associated with the nearby mountain peaks, each leader now stepped up, one by one, then drank from one of the jars before making an oath, reaffirming his allegiance to the Inca emperor and vowing to exterminate every bearded foreigner in the land. There were no abstentions. Those who had not already done so immediately sent chaski runners to their distant provinces, the latter carrying knotted quipu cords that bore a message to their sub-chiefs to begin mobilizing all available warriors. Manco Inca, the messages proclaimed, had ordered the extermination of the false viracochas. It was time now to prepare for a full-scale war.

  In Cuzco, meanwhile, Hernando Pizarro had also called for a meeting. Hernando now finally admitted that Manco Inca had deceived him and was most likely organizing a rebellion. Reports had been coming in, Hernando told the assembled Spaniards, of large movements of native troops in the Yucay Valley, only fifteen miles to the north. The renegade emperor was said now to be headquartered in the town of Calca, overseeing the gathering of native forces. Obviously, Hernando said, he had made an error in judgment in allowing Manco and Villac Umu to leave. Yet there was no time to waste in recriminations, for their very lives were in danger. The most important thing they needed to do was to try to disperse the gathering forces and, if possible, to recapture the emperor. If Manco could be recaptured, Hernando said, then they could force him to end the rebellion. If Manco were not recaptured, however, then they could expect a large native army to attack the city at any time.

  Wanting to find out if the reports of nearby troop movements were accurate, Hernando decided to send seventy cavalrymen, led by his twenty-five-year-old brother, Juan, to ride to the town of Calca in the Yucay Valley. Juan’s orders were to scout the area, to search for and to try to recapture Manco Inca, and to disrupt any native forces they happened to find. As Juan’s cavalrymen hurried out into the streets, arming themselves with steel swords, daggers, and twelve-foot lances, they soon began saddling up their horses, no doubt bitterly swearing that the Inca rebels were so many “dogs” and “traitors.” Church bells of bronze began to clang incessantly in the newly finished church that the Spaniards had hastily erected on top of the dark, immaculately cut gray stones of the Qoricancha, the Incas’ temple of the sun. The air was clear, sharp, and thin, and soon Juan Pizarro
and the rest of the cavalry were off, riding their horses out of the city along the road that led northward toward the Yucay Valley, the hooves of their horses clattering on the stone paving as the rest of the worried Spanish citizens stood about, watching their finest forces ride off and thus leaving them unprotected.

  Juan and his men quickly made their way up out of the city onto the lip of Cuzco’s valley, then past the giant stone fortress of Saqsaywaman, with its gray cyclopean walls and three towers. It brooded over the city like some strange medieval castle. The men then turned and headed over the green hills that separated the valley of Cuzco from that of the adjacent Yucay Valley. After a ride of a dozen miles, they finally came to the edge of the plateau and looked out over the blue-green Yucay (Vilcanota) River, wending its way in the valley below. The Spaniards reined in their horses, looking down upon a scene they had often gazed at before, but now scarcely believing their eyes. The valley floor that was normally green had somehow turned a beige color—the color of Inca tunics. Masses of native soldiers had appeared seemingly from nowhere, gathering in the valley until they were so numerous that it looked like masses of tiny toy soldiers had been poured out upon the ground. If there had been any question in the Spaniards’ minds that Manco Inca had indeed rebelled, the proof now lay directly before their eyes. Here, in this broad, sunlit valley, the rebellion that for the last few months had been undergoing sporadic outbursts in Peru had now concentrated itself into one massive Inca army. Even worse for the Spaniards was the fact that the army being assembled was presently only a four-hour march from Cuzco.

  Despite his initial shock, Juan Pizarro soon led his cavalry boldly down into the valley, the snow-covered peaks of the Paucartambo range shining clearly in the distance, then headed toward the town of Calca, which lay on the other side of the Yucay River. It was here, native informants had told him, that Manco Inca was directing the rebellion. Manco had taken careful precautions, however; thus, even before the Spaniards had arrived, native troops had destroyed all bridges over the river. Now hordes of Manco’s warriors stood yelling and taunting the Spaniards from the opposite bank, waving their axes and clubs and daring them to cross. With little choice other than to proceed, the Spaniards splashed their horses into the river and began to swim against the frigid, snow-and-glacier-fed current. Native warriors soon began swinging their woolen warak’as, or slings, and, as the horses struggled across, soon a hail of stone missiles either shot plumes of water into the air or else made metallic clanging sounds as they slammed into the Spaniards’ armor.

  Emerging on the opposite side, the Spaniards immediately spurred their mounts toward the sling throwers, who now began running, the Spaniards spearing them with their lances or slicing at them with their swords. The masses of native soldiers, meanwhile—newly conscripted peasants who had only just arrived—quickly retreated up the hillsides, having no doubt been instructed by their commanders that the steep terrain would prevent attacks by the Spaniards. After a series of charges and feints, Juan then suddenly broke off the attack and galloped with his men toward Calca, where they immediately began a door-to-door search for Manco Inca. Frightened native women and children stood outside their homes as the Spaniards searched the dark interiors, the latter no doubt cursing and swearing. Manco, however, had already escaped. Yet in his haste, the young emperor had left behind a hoard of gold and silver, many of his woman servants, or aqllacuna, and much of the native army’s supplies.

  For the next three days, the Spaniards remained in Calca, debating what to do, while the Inca army maintained its position on the hillsides, taunting the Spaniards continuously with insults and skirmishing with the Spanish sentries at night. Given the warriors’ great numbers, the Spaniards were surprised that the natives didn’t attack. The Inca commanders seemed strangely content to allow the Spaniards to remain virtually unmolested in Calca. Four days after their arrival, however, the Spaniards soon learned why no attack had occurred. A lone Spanish rider from Cuzco arrived in a great hurry and bearing a message from Hernando: Juan’s forces were to return to Cuzco at once with all speed. Massive numbers of native troops had suddenly appeared on the hillsides surrounding the capital. If Juan and his cavalry didn’t return at once, Hernando and his remaining Spaniards would be unable to hold the city.

  Juan lost no time gathering up his men and galloping out of town. Some of the Spaniards carried with them various objects of gold or silver that they had pilfered; most, however, were forced to abandon what they had found. Riding out of the valley and up onto the plateau, the Spaniards noticed that the masses of natives were becoming even denser. Native sling throwers harassed them so much, in fact, that it was all they could do to fight their way back toward the city. As the Spaniards galloped past the fortress of Saqsay-waman and caught their first glimpse of the round, bowl-like valley of Cuzco again, many of them no doubt suddenly swore out loud. There, on the hills around the city, countless native troops had appeared, where before there had been none. So numerous were the natives, in fact, that there were scarcely any unencumbered paths back down into the capital.

  The returning conquistadors now made a dash down into the city, rejoining the relieved Spanish citizens they had left behind along with a mere ten horses. Since Spaniards on foot were much less effective at inflicting damage on natives than were cavalrymen, Hernando and the 126 men who had remained in the capital would probably have been overwhelmed if Manco’s troops had attacked. Even now, with a total cavalry force of eighty-six horsemen, however, the odds against them were still enormous. Pedro Pizarro, who had returned with Juan from Calca, recalled:

  When we returned we found many squadrons of warriors continuously arriving and camping on the steepest places around Cuzco to await the arrival of all [their men]. After they arrived, they camped on the plains as well as on the hills. So numerous were the [rebel] troops that came here that they covered the fields, and by day it looked like they had spread a black cloth out over the ground for half a league around this city of Cuzco. At night there were so many [rebel] campfires that it looked like nothing other than a cloudless sky full of stars.

  In the days that followed, the Spaniards watched with growing anxiety as more and more native troops continued to gather, filling in the gaps on the hills around them. Clearly, the Spaniards had been caught off guard by the immense size and scope of the rebellion. Indeed, neither the Spaniards nor their native spies had even been aware that a massive rebellion had been brewing. That Manco Inca wielded enormous and unsuspected powers was evident by the vast numbers of troops he had assembled—and also by the fact that he had been able to keep the entire mobilization secret.

  A headcount revealed that the Spanish force currently trapped in Cuzco was comprised of 196 Spaniards. According to Pedro Pizarro, of the 110 Spanish foot soldiers the “greater part [of the infantry] was thin and scrawny men.” The Spaniards also counted upon a handful of African and morisca slaves, a number of native concubines, some five hundred native allies from the Chachapoya and Cañari tribes, and a certain number of yanaconas, who often acted as the Spaniards’ spies but whose loyalty they could never be sure of. Amazingly, even despite the Spaniards’ precarious position, some of Manco’s family nevertheless decided to join them—most notably Manco’s cousin Pascac, who in Manco’s eyes now officially became a traitor.

  On the hillsides around the city and pitted against the Spanish force were what appeared to be hundreds of thousands of Inca troops—too many to count, really. Even worse, the Spaniards had no idea how many more native troops were on their way. Trapped, isolated, and cut off from the outside world, nearly two hundred Spaniards—almost half of whom ranked as some of the wealthiest men in the New World—were now entirely on their own.

  As Manco Inca continued to build his forces, Hernando led several cavalry sorties into the hills surrounding the city, in order to probe the strength of Manco’s forces. Each time, however, the Spaniards were met by a virtual blizzard of stones, flung from slings by an enemy that
showed increasing confidence and whose sheer numbers severely hampered the cavalry’s movements. During one of their sorties, Hernando and a group of eight horsemen suddenly found themselves cut off and surrounded, pressed in on all sides by legions of emboldened warriors. As Hernando and the others tried to force a breach in the enemy’s ranks, one of the men, Francisco Mejía, suddenly found himself surrounded by a sea of clubs and grasping hands. Swinging his sword in desperation, Mejía struggled to remain in his saddle, but “[they] pulled him off his horse with their hands,” wrote one of the survivors, “and a stone’s throw away from the Spaniards they cut off his head and also the head of his horse, which was white and very beautiful.” Despite the natives now holding Mejía’s head aloft, the rest of the Spaniards somehow managed to force an opening in the warriors’ ranks and galloped back down to the city.

  If Hernando Pizarro and his men were going to survive, they would have to rely upon their cavalry and also upon their roughly five hundred native allies, who, like the Spaniards, were now also trapped in the siege. To increase their mobility and to allow different forces to fend off attacks from different directions, Hernando decided to divide the cavalry into three groups. He appointed three captains to lead them: Gabriel de Rojas—a skillful horseman who had only recently arrived in Peru; Hernán Ponce de León—Hernando de Soto’s partner, who had ridden with Soto in the vanguard down from Cajamarca; and Gonzalo Pizarro, who had stolen Manco’s wife. Hernando himself, as lieutenant governor of the city, remained in overall charge, while designating his brother Juan as his second-in-command.

  The military structure of the Inca forces arrayed against them was more complex than that of the Spaniards, mainly due to the greater number of troops. At the top of the Inca military pyramid stood Manco Inca, head of state, son of the sun god, and overall military commander. Alongside him stood Villac Umu, high priest and co-commander of the empire’s military forces. In charge of the actual siege armies around Cuzco was General Inquill, who was aided by his lieutenant, Paucar Huaman. Various other commanders led their individual legions, each of which was ordered to occupy a specific location around Cuzco in order to strengthen what had now become a classic military encirclement. Recalled Titu Cusi: