The Last Days of the Incas

by KIM MACQUARRIE

  A number of Hernando’s men were presumably equally suspicious of Almagro’s intentions. Most of these were wealthy encomenderos who owed their privileged positions directly to Francisco Pizarro. If Almagro did seize the city, then these same men might have the encomiendas they had just risked their lives for rescinded, and no doubt transferred to Almagro’s followers. They had won their encomiendas by force of arms, and by force of arms they would keep them. At one point, a group of them “seized their weapons in great anger and rode their horses out of the city, saying ‘Well then! Now that matters have come to a head, Almagro had better not think that he can give our native chiefs away to the men who came with him from Chile!’”

  Other Spaniards in the city, however, especially those who had received no encomiendas, had mixed feelings. Perhaps Cuzco did lie within Almagro’s jurisdiction, after all. If so, then if they sided with Almagro they might be in a better position to receive encomiendas of their own. Besides, after being cooped up for nearly a year together under extremely difficult conditions, more than a few of them had developed an extreme dislike for Hernando Pizarro, if they hadn’t already felt that way before.

  At thirty-six years of age, Hernando Pizarro was still the same tall, heavy, massively built, arrogant, greedy, selfish, and insulting individual that he had been before the siege; that is, he was still the man who wore his position, status, and accomplishments on his sleeve—and who treated almost everyone else as an inferior. The emperor Atahualpa is said to have remarked that he had witnessed no other Spaniard who acted so much like an Inca lord than Hernando Pizarro, for the two shared a similarity of ruling styles in that both displayed open contempt for their subordinates. In the Inca case, such behavior was culturally prescribed—the display of contempt was standard Inca ruling protocol. In Hernando’s case, however, such behavior induced a strong negative reaction in many of his fellow Spaniards and thus was a decided defect in his leadership style. For years, Hernando had referred to the illegitimate Almagro as that “circumcised Moor”—one of the worst insults, apparently, that a Spaniard in the sixteenth century could use against a fellow Spaniard. Hernando had also often abused his other contemporaries. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that not only did Diego de Almagro hate Hernando Pizarro, but so, too, did many of Hernando’s own men.

  Since the recent lifting of Manco’s siege, the Spaniards in Cuzco were now no longer holed up in the two buildings on the main square. Many had returned to their original homes in the city, at least those homes that had not been consumed in the great fire. Hernando had already reestablished himself in Huayna Capac’s former palace on the eastern side of the main square, known as the Amaru Cancha. Somehow, the palace had miraculously escaped being burned.* Hernando, Gonzalo, and about twenty Spaniards loyal to the Pizarros now set up artillery in the doors of the palace and used it as a redoubt, determined to resist if Almagro tried to seize Cuzco. Although some thought that Hernando’s distrust of Almagro was exaggerated, in this case at least, those suspicions turned out to be justified.

  On the night of April 18, 1537, at about two in the morning, a heavy cold rain beat down upon the slumbering city. Diego de Almagro, seasoned commander that he was, had chosen this precise moment—when his forces would be least expected—to attack. With cracks of lightning periodically illuminating the night, Almagro and his men entered the city and quickly captured the church of Hatun Cancha on the main square, one of the two buildings Hernando’s men had taken refuge in during the siege. Other captains now seized the principal streets of the city, deploying more than 280 cavalrymen in the process. Almagro’s second-in-command, Rodrigo Orgóñez, meanwhile—the same man who had beaten out Hernando de Soto for that position—led a detachment that surrounded the Amaru Cancha palace, where Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro and about twenty men were still sleeping, unaware that a political coup was unfolding just beyond their doors.

  It wasn’t until the Inca capital was already firmly in Almagro’s control that Hernando and his men realized that something was amiss. Leaping up, Hernando, Gonzalo, and the rest of the Spaniards grabbed their weapons and began a fierce battle against their attackers, who had seized the small cannons that had been stationed in the doorways and were now trying to force their way inside. Rodrigo Orgóñez, meanwhile, frustrated at not being able to enter, shouted outside in the rain that if Hernando would give himself up then he would be well treated. Hernando, ever disdainful, is said to have retorted “I will not surrender to a [lowly] soldier such as you are!” to which Orgóñez replied, “That he was Captain-General of the Government of New Toledo, and that he [Hernando Pizarro] was only a Lieutenant [Governor] of Cuzco; In any case, Orgóñez was a high-ranking man and Pizarro needn’t be so contemptuous [of the thought] of surrendering to him.”

  With Hernando and his defenders refusing to come out, Orgóñez now ordered that their palace be set on fire. Although the Amaru Cancha was built of high stone walls and possessed two stone towers, part of its roof was covered with a fine, maroon-colored tropical hardwood while the rest was roofed with traditional native thatch. Despite the rain, Almagro’s men soon succeeded in setting the thatched roof on fire. Sheets of flame now began to rise up, illuminating in red the faces of many of the besiegers. As the fire spread, smoke began flowing out from beneath the stone lintels of the palace’s doors, like a series of black, upside-down waterfalls. Almagro’s men, meanwhile, waiting expectantly outside with their swords drawn, were surprised that Hernando and his men made no attempt to surrender. According to Cieza de León,

  Hernando Pizarro was determined not to give himself up to Almagro’s men, and he told those who were with him that he preferred being burned alive than to obey their commands, and he placed himself in the doorway and defended it in such a way that no one could enter. There was so much smoke that the night was made darker because of it. Orgóñez … was not going to allow the men they had trapped to remain alive unless they … laid down their arms and gave themselves up. Then suddenly the big beams that supported the roof began to fall, the flames having destroyed the thatch. Seeing that … they were about to lose their lives, the Spaniards who were inside begged Hernando Pizarro with great urgency to leave this dangerous place and to surrender to the men of Chile, who after all were Christians. The whole house then began to fall down with a crash and the Spaniards, most of them burned and half suffocated from the smoke … rushed out to face the lances of their enemies…. As the captains [Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro] grappled with their enemies, they were seized and treated abominably … with blows and other outrages, which was unjust, as they … were brothers of Governor don Francisco Pizarro.

  Such was the reunion—“with blows and other outrages”—of the two groups of Spaniards who had been separated now for nearly two years, both having desperately fought for their own survival in different parts of the Incas’ vast empire. Almagro’s men now bound, chained, and imprisoned the two Pizarro brothers along with their twenty supporters. The following day, Almagro had them transferred to the temple of the sun—once the holiest place in the empire, now a makeshift Spanish prison.

  While Almagro occupied himself with the capture of Cuzco, Manco Inca, meanwhile, had been gathering an assembly of his chiefs at Ollantaytambo, some thirty miles away. Native spies had informed their emperor about the Spanish struggle over Cuzco and, once the city had been seized, about how most of Hernando’s men had gone over to the side of Almagro. Almagro was presently in possession of Cuzco with more than six hundred Spaniards, the spies told Manco, plus perhaps four thousand native auxiliaries. Manco was also well aware that a second Spanish force of nearly five hundred men was fast approaching Cuzco from the north. If either or both groups decided to attack him at Ollantaytambo, this time he would be unable to repel their attack. Looking out over an assembled crowd of expectant chiefs and captains, most of whom had fought alongside him during the last year, and also over the large number of feather-adorned, bow-and-arrow-wielding Antis in attendance, Manco address
ed them as follows:

  My dearly loved sons and brothers,

  I believe those of you who are present here and who have remained with me through all my trials and tribulations don’t know why you have been asked to gather here before me. I will tell you shortly…. Do not be alarmed by what I am about to tell you, but you know very well that necessity often compels men to do what they don’t want to do. For this reason, I feel obligated to please these [bow-and-arrow-wielding] Antis, who for so long have asked me to go and visit them. I will give them this pleasure for a few days. I hope that this [news of my departure] does not cause you grief because that is not my purpose….

  You already know very well that I have told you many times besides the present how these bearded people entered my land, under the pretext that they were viracochas, which because of their clothes and behavior, so different from ours, both you and even I believed…. I brought them to my land and town and I treated them well … and I gave them the things that you all know about, for which they treated me in the manner that you have seen….

  And realizing these things and many others too numerous to recount, I sent you to surround Cuzco in order to cause them some of the same disaster that they have caused us. And it appears to me that either their God helped them or because I was not present that it did not turn out as we intended, which has given me great sorrow. But as things don’t always happen as we want them to, we shouldn’t wonder or anguish over it too much, which is why I ask that you not be sad, because in the end it didn’t go so badly…. For as you know [at the battles of] Lima and Chullcomayo and Jauja we succeeded in some things and that is positive, even though they were not equal to the sorrows that they have inflicted upon us.

  It now seems to me that it is time for me to depart for the land of the Antis … and that I will be obligated to stay there for some days…. I am asking you not to forget what I have told you…. Remember how long it has been that my grandfathers and great-grandfathers and I have fed and watched over you, benefiting and governing your families and providing for them as you needed. For this reason all of you have the obligation of not forgetting us for the rest of your lives, both you and your descendants … and to show great respect for and to obey my son … Titu Cusi Yupanqui, and all the rest of my sons who will follow him. If you do this, it will please me greatly.

  The speech was no doubt both a solemn and a poignant one, for, despite Manco’s casual mention that he was merely off to visit his fierce Amazon allies “for a few days,” its real message was not lost on any of those present. Manco Inca, Son of the Sun, emperor of Tawantinsuyu, was abdicating control of the western, southern, and northern quarters of the empire. He was abdicating control of the coast. He was abdicating control of the majestic, snow-capped Andes—the home of his ancestors and of the Incas’ immortal mountain gods. He was abdicating control of Cuzco, his boyhood home and the capital of the empire, despite having fought for nearly a year to recapture it. He was abdicating control of Calca, of Yucay, of Ollantaytambo, and of the entire Yucay Valley. In short, the emperor was abandoning most of the vast empire that he had inherited and that his ancestors had founded. Manco was instead about to take refuge in the small, eastern portion of the empire, in what the Incas called the Antisuyu.

  Only in the rugged Antisuyu, Manco felt, could he and his loyal followers find safety from future attacks. Perhaps there, where the Andes sloped down and finally plunged beneath a vast carpet of seemingly endless forests, and where hirsute animals that looked like humans, or runa, swung through the trees, could he and his Inca nobles continue to rule. The rest of his subjects, millions upon millions of them, would unfortunately have to submit to the will and depredations of the invaders.

  For the audience of native chiefs, it was clear that their own widely scattered towns and villages would soon be heavily affected by Manco’s decision. And although many of them likely made their own individual speeches at this historic juncture, Manco’s son Titu Cusi recorded only one of them. A noble, wearing a knee-length tunic and with large golden plugs in his ears, replied:

  Lord Inca, how can you abandon your children, those who so willingly loved you and desired to serve you and who would give their lives a thousand times over for you if that were required? Which king, what lord, who do you want us [now] to follow? What betrayal, which treason, what evils have we committed that you should now abandon us with neither lord nor king to honor? After all, we have never known another lord or father except for you and Huayna Capac, your father and forefathers. Please, lord, do not leave us helpless like this, or at least make us happy by taking us with you to wherever it is that you are going.

  Manco responded to the chiefs by reassuring them that he would soon see them again and that he would also stay in close touch via messengers. Manco warned them, however, not to trust the bearded strangers and not to “believe a word they say because they lie a lot, and have lied in everything they have had to do with me.” As the living representative of the divine Inti, or sun god, Manco also warned the assembled crowd that the invaders would probably insist that their own gods be worshipped:

  If by chance they make you worship what they worship, which are some painted sheets [the Bible] … do not obey. Instead … when you cannot resist any longer, go through the motions when you are before them, but on the side don’t forget our ceremonies. And if they tell you to destroy your idols [huacas], and force you to do so, show them what you must and hide the rest—for that will give me great pleasure.

  Having made his decision—and no doubt realizing that the longer he delayed his departure, the more likely it was that he would be attacked—Manco moved quickly to organize his exodus. As his chiefs left to return to their provinces and to take with them the emperor’s disturbing message, Manco presided over the final religious ceremonies needed to guarantee his and his followers’ safety in the land of the Antis. In the words of the chronicler Cieza de León:

  Before leaving they armed themselves and, in a great square near their camp where an idol stood, they prayed to it with much crying, tears, and sighs, begging it not to desert them. And around this idol were others with insignias of the Sun and the Moon, and in the presence of these, which they looked upon as gods, they made sacrifices by killing many animals [llamas and alpacas] on their shrines and altars.

  With the ceremonies completed, and with thousands of porters, pack trains of llamas, Anti archers, his elite guard, and his wives and children, Manco gave the signal and the procession began to move. Manco himself rode in a royal litter, no doubt seated on a low throne, or duho, and with a canopy overhead. On additional litters rode other Inca elites, as well as the mummified bodies of Manco’s father, Huayna Capac, his grandfather Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and his great-grandfather and the creator of the empire, Pachacuti. The mummies’ attendants walked beside them, making sure that flies did not annoy these still powerful emperor-gods. Manco didn’t dare leave his ancestors behind—nor did he want to risk relocating the capital of his dwindling empire without their guidance and aid. Amid the procession also walked various priests, diviners, astrologers, weavers, stone masons, quipu readers, accountants, architects, farmers, herders, and even an oracle—in short, all the people necessary to carry on the functioning of the Inca state. Elsewhere in the procession walked Rui Díaz and five other Spanish prisoners, bound with cords and guarded by native warriors with their mace clubs at the ready.

  Slowly the expedition began heading northward, up along the banks of the Patacancha River, a tributary of the Yucay. Eventually, it reached the Panticalla Pass and from there began to descend down the eastern side of the Andes. As the procession gradually disappeared around a bend, behind them lay the broad expanse of the Yucay Valley, its sides checkered with cultivated fields, its lower flanks rimmed with terraces that bore a now abandoned crop of corn. Snow-capped mountains rose in the distance, as the Yucay River, glinting in the sun, continued to roll smoothly down the valley, past the high, now empty fortress of Ollantaytambo, throu
gh the tight granite gorge, then on and down, winding its way and gathering speed, as it snaked further and further into the heart of the Antisuyu, the homeland of the Antis.

  12 IN THE REALM OF THE ANTIS

  “This land of the [Antis] … is a rugged land with many high peaks and gorges, and for this reason there are many bad passes through which horses cannot travel unless the numerous bad areas are paved over with adobe [and] with an enormous amount of effort…. The whole forested [jungle] region … is very extensive [and] … slopes down towards the northern sea.”

  PEDRO PIZARRO, RELACIÓN, 1571

  “Those who dwell on the other side of the land, beyond the summits of the mountains, are like savages who possess but little and have neither houses nor corn. They have immense forests and live almost entirely on fruit from the trees. They have neither places to live nor known settlements [and] there are very great rivers. The land is so useless that it paid all of its tribute to the [Inca] lords in parrot feathers.”

  PEDRO SANCHO DE LA HOZ, RELACIÓN, 1543

  AFTER A CLIMB OF PERHAPS FIVE HOURS, MANCO’S PROCESsion finally crossed the pass of Panticalla, with the snow-capped Apu of Wakay Willka (Mount Veronica) rising brilliantly white on the left. On the other side of the pass they caught their first glimpse of an endless sea of clouds stretching out below them, all the way to the horizon—the fabled land of the Antis. Descending spurs of the Andes, like the flying buttresses of a massive cathedral, extended down from the mountains, gradually sinking until they disappeared into the swirling mists, their upper crests limned with a black mane of trees. Manco Inca, riding in a royal litter carried by individuals from the Rucana tribe—the male members of which were trained to bear litters from a young age and hence were famed for their smooth gait—no doubt paused for a moment, looking out over the immense vista before him. Manco knew that his great-grandfather Pachacuti had been the first to enter the Antisuyu, and that his grandfather Tupac Inca had carried out a number of military campaigns in that region as well. Fittingly, he was bringing both of these ancestors with him, each riding in his own litter, dressed in fine vicuña wool cloaks and with their mummified eyes appearing to look out over the same regions they had conquered so many years before.