The Last Days of the Incas

by KIM MACQUARRIE

  Early in the morning on May 13, Juan Pizarro and about fifty horsemen

  emerged from the church [of Suntur Huasi] and mounted their horses as if they were going to fight and started to look from side to side. While they were looking about in this way, they suddenly put spurs to their horses and at full gallop, despite the enemy, broke through the opening that had been sealed like a wall and charged off up the hillside at break-neck speed.

  Juan’s cousin, Pedro, recalled how he and the rest of the cavalry had to first break through the native contingents hurling stones at them and then how they had to zigzag up the steep hillside, stopping frequently while their native auxiliaries cleared the way.

  We went up through Carmenca, a very narrow road, bordered on one side by a hillside and on the other by a ravine, deep in some places, and from this ravine they inflicted much damage on us with stones and arrows, and they had [also] destroyed the road in some places and had made many holes in it. We went this way and with great effort and difficulty, because we kept stopping and waiting while the few friendly Indians we had with us—fewer than a hundred—filled up the holes and repaired the roads.

  Assuming that the Spaniards were trying to flee the city, the Inca commanders sent runners racing to the distant Apurímac River, ordering that the great hanging bridge there be destroyed, thus cutting off that avenue of escape. The Spanish cavalry, however, once having broken through to the northwest, suddenly wheeled around to the east and then began riding rapidly through the country in the direction of the fortress. After much effort and having to breach earthen barricades that Manco’s warriors had constructed, Juan and his cavalry finally succeeded in reaching the grassy plain that stretched before the fortress’s massive northern walls.

  Pausing to regroup, the Spaniards now contemplated their next step. Before them rose three, thousand-foot-long, staggered walls of gray, gargantuan-sized stones, the largest of which weighed more than 360 tons and rose more than twenty-eight feet in height. The Incas had filled in earth behind each stone wall to form a flat terrace at its top. Native defenders could thus stand upon both the terraces and the walls and from there could direct a ferocious volley of stones, darts, and arrows upon the exposed attackers below. If the attackers seized one of the walls, the defenders could retreat upward to the next wall and terrace, and then to the next. From the bottom of the first wall to the top of the third stretched a vertical distance of at least sixty feet. On the broad summit above the walls stood a labyrinth of buildings and from among their midst rose three stone towers. The central tower stood the tallest and was four to five stories in height, cone-shaped, and measured some seventy-five feet in diameter; the two flanking it on either side were nearly the same height and were rectangular. Beneath the towers ran a warren of secret tunnels that extended out at least as far as the defensive walls and perhaps even beyond.

  Built during the previous century, Saqsaywaman—“the (fortress of the) satisfied falcon”—was so vast that the entire population of Cuzco, if necessary, could find refuge within its perimeter. With at least thirty thousand native warriors now defending it and with Villac Umu personally directing their efforts, the fifty Spanish cavalrymen and their perhaps one hundred native allies were now faced with a seemingly insurmountable task: they had to figure out a way to breach the massive walls and then to seize the fortress from its defenders.

  Juan’s brother Gonzalo and Hernán Ponce de León now led several frontal attacks. Charging across the grassy plain toward the fortress, the Spaniards immediately ran into a brutal onslaught of darts, arrows, and sling stones, propelled from above by shouting native warriors. The closer the Spanish horsemen approached the fortress’s walls, the thicker the hail of missiles became. During their final charge, Manco’s warriors managed to kill Juan Pizarro’s page, who was felled by a single sling stone, presumably to the face, and also two of the Spaniards’ African slaves, who more than likely owned no armor.* Many other Spaniards and their horses were wounded in the desperate assault.

  Retreating to a rocky knoll that stood on the opposite side of the grassy plain, the Spaniards dismounted and deliberated about what to do. Below them in the city they could hear the sound of horse hooves pounding the streets and also the sounds of shouting and fighting. Their comrades were clearly engaged with attacking natives in the streets below. High above the city and gathered together on the rocky knoll, the Spaniards felt isolated and exposed. As the sun began to set, Juan Pizarro decided to try a final attack; this time, however, he instructed his men to concentrate their forces on the main gate that created a break in the first wall. The gate was barricaded and had a defensive pit in front of it and two flanking walls on either side.

  Not able to wear a helmet due to the head wound he had suffered the day before, and with the last rays of the sun illuminating the fortress walls and towers, Juan and his fellow cavalrymen, shouting traditional cries of “Santiago!,” began galloping together across the grassy plain as stone missiles began to whiz down on top of them, bouncing back up from the ground like giant hailstones. Wheeling to a stop before the main gate and protecting themselves with their shields, the Spaniards leapt from their horses, then threw themselves against the wicker barrier that sealed the gateway. Somehow breaking through, the Spaniards now began to force their way up the stone stairway that led up to the first terrace.

  As the native defenders rushed forward to close off the breach, an increasingly heavy volley of rocks and missiles rained down upon the Spaniards from above, loudly clanging off their armor. The warriors’ fierce counterattack soon forced the Spaniards to retreat back down the stairway and out onto the plain. Shouting at his men to renew their efforts, Juan once again surged forward, however, swinging his sword fiercely and forcing his way ahead, literally hurling himself against a tide of native bodies. Juan’s cousin Pedro remembered what happened next:

  From a terrace that is on one side of the courtyard they showered us with so many stones and arrows that we could not protect ourselves, and for this reason Juan Pizarro shoved some of the infantrymen towards the terrace … which was low, so that some Spaniards might get up on it and drive the Indians from there. And while he was fighting with these Indians in order to drive them away … Juan … neglected to cover his head with his shield, and with the many stones that they were throwing one of them hit him on the head and cracked his skull.

  Bleeding from what was obviously a serious head injury, Juan nevertheless continued fighting until the Spaniards and their native allies had gained a foothold on top of the first terrace wall. With darkness descending, however, and still pummeled from the two sets of walls above them with a constant avalanche of stones, the Spaniards were gradually forced once again to retreat back down and across the plain, some remounting their horses while others stumbled backward, holding up their shields for protection. Manco’s warriors, meanwhile, advanced after them, shouting insults and lifting their tunics to bare their legs while others continued to relentlessly whirl and launch a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stones.

  Reaching the relative safety of the knoll, Juan Pizarro now collapsed. Native auxiliaries soon carried the Spanish leader down the steep hillside and back into the city. Mortally wounded, Juan would drift in and out of consciousness for the next few days, while the battle continued to swirl around him. Three days after his assault on Saqsaywaman, the twenty-five-year-old was lucid long enough to dictate his will, which a notary-conquistador duly recorded and then had the dying man scratch his mark upon:

  I, Juan Pizarro, citizen of this great city of Cuzco, in the Kingdom of New Castile, son of [Captain] Gonzalo Pizarro [Sr.] and Maria Alonso, [both] deceased (may God rest their souls), being of sick body but of sound mind … because I am indisposed and not knowing what our Lord God has in mind for me, I want to make and organize this last will and testament…. Firstly, I commend my soul to God, who created and redeemed it with his precious blood and body … [and] I order that if God decides to take me from this present lif
e because of the sickness I now have, that my body be buried in the main church [of Suntur Huasi] in this city until such a time as my brothers Hernando Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro carry my bones [back] to Spain, to the city of Trujillo, and have them buried there where they see fit…. I order that on the day of my death a Requiem Mass be sung, and that a Mass be sung on each of the following nine days….

  I [also] order that because I have received [sexual] services from an Indian woman who has given birth to a girl whom I do not recognize as my daughter, [that nevertheless] … because of the services of her mother I order that if this girl becomes of marriageable age and weds with the blessing of my brother, Hernando Pizarro, that she will be given 2,000 ducats for her marriage. [However] if she dies before marrying without heirs … it is my desire that those 2,000 ducats be returned to my heirs … so that her mother will not inherit them…. I [also] order that … my universal heir [will be] … and all of my worldly goods [will go to] my brother, Gonzalo Pizarro…. [This will was] made and approved before the notary public and witnesses … in the said capital of Cuzco on the 16th day of the month of May, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-six of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

  Two weeks after his injury, Juan Pizarro died, recognizing neither the native woman from whom he had “received services” nor his own mixed-race daughter, who by his own choice he insisted remain illegitimate. Juan did, however, pass on his fortune of 200,000 gold ducats to his already fabulously wealthy brother, twenty-one-year-old Gonzalo. Remarkably, Juan made no mention in his will of the battle that continued to rage around him in the streets, nor of the possibility that the desperate men who witnessed his final testament might at any moment be completely wiped out. Despite his final request, however, Juan’s remains would never be returned to Spain. Juan was the first of the five Pizarro brothers to die as a result of the conquest of Tawantinsuyu and his bones would remain forevermore buried in Peru.*

  With no time to worry about his stricken brother and with a growing legion of wounded men around him, Hernando Pizarro now ordered his brother Gonzalo to take over command of the assault on Saqsaywaman. The day after wounding Juan Pizarro, the native infantry within the fortress counterattacked, carrying the battle away from the fortress walls and out onto the rocky knoll that Gonzalo and the rest of the cavalry had occupied since the previous day. “There was such terrible confusion,” wrote one eyewitness, “with everyone shouting and they were all tangled up together … [fighting for] the height they [the Spaniards] had won. It looked as if the whole world was up there fighting with each other.”

  Receiving constant reports of the situation and realizing how crucial the battle of Saqsaywaman was for the outcome of his campaign, Manco Inca ordered that an additional five thousand native troops join the fray. Hernando Pizarro, meanwhile, similarly motivated but with far fewer resources, sent another dozen cavalrymen up from the city to reinforce the embattled men; he did so despite strong complaints from the remaining Spaniards, who by now had fewer than two dozen horsemen with which to defend themselves from the natives’ unrelenting attacks. “In the city,” one eyewitness wrote, “the Indians waged such a fierce attack that the Spaniards thought themselves a thousand times lost.”

  All day in Cuzco the fighting continued, again with hundreds of native warriors being slaughtered due to the Spaniards’ better armor, horses, and weaponry; nevertheless Manco’s warriors continued pressing forward, seemingly undaunted. Piles of dead bodies littered the streets of what had once been a glorious Inca capital but that had now been transformed into a smoking, burned-out shell. Above the city, on the grassy plain before Saqsaywaman, Manco’s fresh troops had arrived and now began pressing Gonzalo and his cavalry so much that “the Spaniards were in a very difficult situation with these reinforcements, because the Indians who arrived were fresh and attacked with great determination.” Only by redoubling their efforts were the Spaniards able to prevent themselves from being surrounded and annihilated.

  That night—exhausted, wounded, and increasingly desperate—the Spaniards were nevertheless ready with a new plan. Realizing that Manco might send even more troops the following day and that their exposed presence above the city only invited greater counterattacks, the Spanish captains had decided to mount a night assault on the fortress. The Spaniards knew full well that Manco’s troops would never expect such an attack; they also knew that the natives disliked fighting at night, especially on the night of a new moon, which was due this very night. Thus, despite the day’s fierce fighting, the Spaniards had somehow been able to supervise the building of assault ladders, probably constructed by their native auxiliaries. The ladders were similar to those the Spaniards had used on the Iberian peninsula for centuries to assault the castles of the Moors.

  Under the cover of darkness, Hernando Pizarro and many of the Spanish soldiers from the city now secretly climbed up the steep hill to join those above. Before them lay the Inca fortress, its gloomy shadows punctuated here and there by orange campfires on the upper terraces. As quietly as they could, the Spaniards and their auxiliaries began carrying their assault ladders across the plain, seeking out the darkest sections of the walls against which to stage their attack. Steel helmets and unsheathed swords glinted dully as the Spaniards placed the ladders against the walls and then began creeping upward in the dark.

  Pulling themselves onto the top of the first wall, the Spaniards attacked the first startled sentries before the natives even understood how the armored invaders had so miraculously appeared in their midst. Slicing and stabbing with their swords, the Spaniards quickly gained the terrace alongside the top of the first wall. Their native auxiliaries, meanwhile, climbed up after them, pulling the ladders up from behind. Soon, an alert was sounded and stones began to pelt down, the conquistadors nevertheless throwing their ladders up against the next giant wall and climbing up, holding their shields in one hand and their swords in the other.

  Caught by surprise, Manco’s troops were soon forced to abandon the two lower terraces but rallied on top of the third. Directly behind rose the complex of buildings and the three towers that loomed overhead in the night. With only a single wall remaining, the defenders had no other choice than to make a final defensive stand. According to one of the attacking Spaniards:

  I am able to certify that it … [was] the most fearful and cruel war in the world, for between the Christians and Moors there is some mercy, and those whom they take alive can take some consolation because of the ever-present interest in ransoms. But here among these Indians there is neither love nor reason, nor fear of God … and they kill us as cruelly as they can.

  With a ferocity born of desperation, the Spaniards swung their swords, fending off volley after volley of stone missiles with their shields. One man, an extremeño from the town of Badajoz, about seventy miles from Pizarro’s hometown of Trujillo, stood out that night. Hernán Sánchez was one of twelve cavalrymen Hernando had sent up earlier as reinforcements and was also one of the first to climb up a ladder set against the third and final wall. Using his shield to ward off the barrage of stones, Sánchez reached the uppermost level, then threw himself through the window of one of the buildings, discovering numerous startled natives inside. Shouting and slashing at them with his sword, Sánchez forced back the natives, who soon began to retreat up a set of stairs that led onto the roof. Like a man who had utterly lost his mind, Sánchez rushed after them onto the roof, howling like a crazed animal, only to find himself at the base of the central, cone-shaped tower. Sánchez now noticed a rope hanging from the top of the tower, which descended to the ground. Fastening his shield to his back, he began pulling himself up, using his feet to push off from the tower wall. Halfway up the tower, native defenders launched a stone from above “as big as a jug” on top of him. Just in time, Sánchez swung forward, causing the stone to glance off his back after smashing against his strapped-on shield. Eventually, Sánchez reached a higher window, leapt into another crowd of warriors, yet som
ehow still had the wherewithal to shout to his comrades below, encouraging them to continue their attack.

  Throughout the long night, the two sides grappled, the Spanish forces on one side pushing against Manco’s forces on the other. When dawn broke the next morning, the Spaniards and Manco’s troops were still locked together in a desperate embrace, neither side having slept now for a day and a night and with no rest in the offing. Despite the Spaniards’ best efforts, however, the native defenders still held the three towers and most of the buildings while the Spaniards and their native auxiliaries held the terraced walls below. Villac Umu, and his general, Paucar Huaman, meanwhile, continued to direct the defenders from somewhere deep within the complex of buildings. Saqsaywaman had one glaring weakness, however: it had no source of water. Further, the piles of stones, darts, and arrows that had once filled its storehouses were now beginning to run low. “They fought hard that day and throughout the night,” remembered one eyewitness. “When the following day dawned, the Indians on the inside began to weaken, for they had exhausted their entire store of stones and arrows.”

  With the situation beginning to deteriorate, Villac Umu and his general decided that there was not enough water and weapons to supply his defenders. Placing a sub-commander in charge—an ethnic Inca noble who wore large earplugs—the high priest ordered the defenders to break through the Spaniards’ ranks, thus allowing him and General Paucar Huaman to escape. Making their way to Calca, the two leaders urged Manco to send additional troops, hoping that with a fresh counterattack the Spaniards could be routed and destroyed.