As the messenger ran down the long stone stairway that led into the city, he also ran past stone conduits carrying water, past flowing fountains, past noblemen wearing gold earplugs and armbands, and past clusters of brown-skinned native inhabitants, most of whom wore white cotton tunics, although a few walked about naked with their bodies painted in intricate designs. In one area of the city a giant granite boulder, or huaca, protruded from the ground, reverenced by all, while a stone temple of the sun, cared for by the priests, rose up nearby. Further ahead stood a cluster of finely cut stone buildings, built on three levels. The news from Cuzco had finally arrived at its destination, for this was Manco Inca’s palace, his new, Amazonian-based home. It was here, in a provincial town located at 4,900 feet in elevation, surrounded by high jungle canopy, coca plantations, and chattering troops of monkeys, that Manco Inca had established his new headquarters. This was Vilcabamba, capital of the free Inca state—a province where, if any Spaniard ventured, he would automatically and without question be killed.
Although Vilcabamba lay only thirty miles from Manco’s previous capital of Vitcos, his new headquarters was located nearly six thousand feet lower in elevation and was over one hundred miles from Cuzco. Vitcos—Manco had painfully learned—had proven too vulnerable to a Spanish attack. Now, for the first time, Manco had moved his mostly highland followers to a new and utterly alien realm, migrating thousands of feet further down the flanks of the Andes to where the longest mountain chain on the planet meets the largest rain forest in the world.
The Incas’ new capital took its name from the runasimi words huilca, which means “sacred,” and pampa, which means “plain” or “valley”; it thus meant “Sacred Plain” or “Sacred Valley.” It was here, in a warm, fertile valley lying between two rivers—the Concevidayoc and the Chontabamba—that Manco’s grandfather, Tupac Inca, had ordered a typical Inca administrative center to be built; he had soon populated it with transplanted mitmaqcuna (colonists) from an ethnic group called the Pilcosuni. Wrote the chronicler Juan de Betanzos:
As word spread throughout that whole province about how the Inca [Tupac Inca Yupanqui] was conquering it, some of the chiefs of these Indians came in peace to the Inca. When they came out in peace, they gave him parrots, monkeys, and other odd creatures that they call “pericoligero” [giant anteaters], which have long snouts and tails and a clumsy walk. They also gave the Inca some feathers, plumage, and some gold dust…. This province is a land of gold, and there is gold in it. They also offered the Inca pieces of sweet cane filled with honey, and painted bows and arrows. These people who gave him obedience were given salt, which they valued more than anything that could be given to them. Seeing that these people went naked, as was their custom, they were given tunics and cloaks and made to dress. They wore the clothes that day and in the evening went to their shacks. The next morning they appeared naked, as was their custom, before the Inca [Emperor] and the Inca laughed…. In this way the Inca traveled through those woodlands and provinces of the … [Antis] conquering those who acted belligerently and treating well those who acted friendly.
In Vilcabamba, the transplanted Pilcosunis and visiting highland masons completing their mit’a labor tax soon chopped down the surrounding jungle canopy, cleared away the underbrush, then began erecting a traditional Inca town, complete with rectangular stone houses, storage facilities, a central plaza, fountains, water conduits, and a variety of governmental and religious buildings. Nearby, they cleared and planted coca plantations—the sacred leaf that normally only the Inca royalty were allowed to enjoy. Here, however, in reward to the colonists for the hardship of having to relocate, the mitmaqcuna were also allowed to chew the sacred leaves, which contain minute amounts of cocaine and tend to dull both hunger and pain.
Following up on the initial exchange of goods between Tupac Inca’s troops and the local tribes, the imported colonists soon set up a frontier trading post that eventually became a link in a far-flung Amazonian trading network that extended deep into the surrounding jungle. Regular pack trains of llamas began arriving from the highlands, bringing Inca goods such as salt, cloth, beads, and bronze and copper axes. These were exchanged for gold, bird feathers, honey, hardwoods, turtle eggs, and other local products that were soon packed securely onto the llamas for their return trip home. Naked and often decorated with distinctive body and face paints, whole families of natives from the various ethnic groups in the area soon began visiting the Inca trading post, bringing their loads of trade items either on their backs or else by canoe. All the while, they looked in wonder at the stone city that had arisen in their midst and at the exotic goods imported from the distant, cold, and treeless land that they had been told existed high above their own.
When Manco Inca arrived on his litter at the Vilcabamba trading post sometime in 1538, he brought with him those of his retinue who had escaped the recent Spanish invasion and sacking of Vitcos. With his sister-queen, Cura Ocllo, and with what was left of his harem, his temple priests, masons, architects, servants, carpenters, healers, royal guards, diviners, farmers, and herders, Manco soon began transforming the rugged frontier town into a makeshift royal city, the capital of a self-sufficient state. True, he had been forced to abandon the highlands, but Manco was nevertheless convinced that here, deep in the Antisuyu, he would be able to maintain Inca sovereignty. Ironically, the Antisuyu had been one of the first provinces his great-grandfather Pachacuti and his grandfather Tupac Inca had conquered. The empire they had created and that had once exploded across the Andes like a supernova, however, had now suddenly fallen back upon itself. It was now up to Pachacuti’s twenty-two-year-old heir to try to prevent its collapse.
Manco was not interested in simply maintaining a free Inca state, however. Despite his recent setbacks, he was still determined to continue his struggle to eject the bearded invaders from Tawantinsuyu—or else die in the effort. Although his new headquarters now lay hidden amidst the outer rim of the once vast empire his ancestors had ruled, Manco still maintained lines of communication that snaked out westward from Vilcabamba, climbed up the sheer face of the Andes, and then spread out across the highlands. Manco was also well aware of the fact that, even though his brother Paullu now wore the royal fringe in Cuzco and had assumed Manco’s previous role among the Spaniards as a collaborator, many Incas and other highland groups still looked to Manco for leadership, considering him to be the only legitimate Son of the Sun. With a massive native following who still considered him divine and with a new refuge in which he felt secure, Manco believed he was in a position to resume his struggle against those who had usurped his empire.
Manco therefore set about transforming his remote frontier city into a new royal capital, and also created a new command center for his struggle against the Spaniards. Under Manco’s guidance, Vilcabamba would soon become the headquarters for native resistance against the arrogant, bearded invaders. From his newly refurbished city, Manco would begin dispatching a stream of messages that would be carried high up into the looming mountains to the south, to the north, and to the west. Resist, he told his followers, the Spaniards are not viracochas but mortals; slaughter them and join me in driving the bearded ones back into the sea.
A political snapshot of Peru at this time would have revealed that, although Francisco Pizarro had received considerable reinforcements from abroad, the Spaniards still controlled only a handful of cities: Quito, Tumbez, San Miguel, Trujillo, and Cajamarca in the north; Jauja and Lima in the center; and Cuzco in the south. Wide swaths of the rest of the country—especially the countryside outside the cities, the entire southern half of the empire stretching from below Lake Titicaca halfway down into modern-day Chile, and nearly the whole of the eastern quarter, or Antisuyu—lay beyond Spanish control. By 1538, in fact, six years after the capture of Atahualpa, the total population of Spaniards in Peru still amounted to no more than two thousand—roughly one hundred of whom were women—in an empire 2,500 miles long. In addition, most of those Spaniards
were concentrated in Cuzco and Lima. The total population of natives in the area now known as Peru, meanwhile, most of whom lived primarily in the countryside, still numbered at least five million.
A basic rule of modern warfare states that an occupying army should have a ratio of from ten to twenty soldiers per one thousand inhabitants if an army is to adequately control a conquered population. To control the five-million-strong inhabitants of this portion of Tawantinsuyu, therefore, the Spaniards theoretically needed between 50,000 and 100,000 Spanish and/or auxiliary troops. Even with the collaboration of Paullu Inca, Spanish and auxiliary native forces were still greatly outnumbered and, not surprisingly, the Spaniards themselves made few excursions into the countryside. Instead, the Spaniards preferred living in cities, where their own forces remained concentrated, cities that served the same function as military garrisons. It was this basic weakness—the lack of a Spanish presence in the countryside and their concentration in a handful of cities—that Manco Inca was determined to exploit.
When news finally arrived in Vilcabamba of Diego de Almagro’s death, therefore, Manco’s resolve only stiffened. At one time he had hoped that civil war might break out among the Spaniards and that they would destroy themselves. With Almagro dead, however, Manco no longer had any such illusions; he now knew that he would have to rely on his own resources. In the north, his relative Illa Tupac—one of the high-ranking captains, now a general, who had participated in the rebellion of 1536—still commanded native levies, was still loyal, and remained unconquered. Manco soon sent orders for General Tupac to renew the rebellion and to kill any and all Spaniards in his territory. Not long afterward, Tupac and the various tribes north of the Huánuco area along the upper Marañon River rose in revolt and marched down the Andes toward the coastal city of Trujillo, killing any Spaniards, African slaves, and native auxiliaries they found along the way.
Manco himself now returned to the Andes, traveling to the north of Cuzco, where he personally began to organize groups that would become guerrilla fighters. Eventually, small, mobile groups of warriors began ambushing Spanish encomenderos, merchants, and other travelers, all of whom frequented the main Inca highway above Cuzco. According to the chronicler Cieza de León, Manco also incorporated a new tactic into his campaign against the Spaniards—outright terror:
The king, Manco Inca … had retired into the mountain fastnesses of the … [Antisuyu] with the orejones and old military leaders who had made war on the Spaniards. And as … the merchants from Lima and other areas carried their goods to Cuzco, the Indians attacked them and, after seizing their goods, they either murdered them or carried some of them away alive…. And returning with them on horseback to the … [Antisuyu] they tortured those Christians they had taken alive in the presence of their women, revenging themselves for the injuries they had suffered … [by] shoving sharp stakes into the lower parts of their bodies until they came out of their mouths. The news of this caused such terror that many Spaniards who had private or even government business to conduct didn’t dare go to Cuzco unless they were well armed and had an escort.
While Manco was raiding with his guerrilla forces to the west of Cuzco, Francisco Pizarro, meanwhile, was growing increasingly concerned over reports of the recent disturbances. Pizarro had been in Cuzco since roughly November of 1538, having arrived there some four months after the execution of Diego de Almagro. Informed at first by letter of his former partner’s death, Pizarro had no doubt experienced mixed emotions, as his relationship with Almagro had been a complex one. According to Cieza de León,
When he [Pizarro] saw the letters and heard what had taken place, he spent a long time with downcast eyes … and appeared to be grief stricken, presently shedding some tears. Whether they were feigned or not only our Lord God knows. Although …I have [also] heard it said by some of those who were with the Governor that when he heard this news trumpets were played as a sign of joy.
Whatever emotions Pizarro may have experienced, the destruction of Almagro and his force had allowed Pizarro once again to regain control of Cuzco. Now, however, after receiving reports that Manco Inca had returned to the Andes and was killing Spaniards anew, Pizarro wasted no time; he soon sent a powerful force of more than two hundred Spanish cavalry, under the command of Captain Illán Suárez de Carvajal, to capture or kill the renegade Inca leader whom he himself had crowned.
Suárez soon rode out west from Cuzco along the Inca highway, reaching the town of Andahuaylas, about one hundred miles distant. There, he learned from native spies that Manco was currently northwest of his position, using the nearby hills as a sort of robber’s roost from which to stage his guerrilla attacks. Determined to surround the rebel emperor so that he would be unable to escape, Suárez moved his force to the west of Manco’s position in order to block any movement in that direction. He then sent a force of thirty men—including seven crossbowmen and five harquebusiers under the command of a Captain Villadiego—to circle around to the east toward the other side. There the Vilcas (Pampas) River served as a natural barricade that would prevent any escape attempt toward the Antisuyu, except over a single bridge. Villadiego and his men were ordered to seize the bridge and to remain there until Suárez had located Manco’s position and had begun his attack.
Arriving at the Vilcas River, Villadiego surprised and captured several natives guarding the bridge, whom he tortured into revealing Manco’s location. The emperor was in the nearby hilltop town of Oncoy, the prisoners told him—he was attending a festival that had been thrown in his honor. What’s more, they said, Manco had with him only eighty warriors—he was thus relatively unprotected. The young Spanish captain—eager to receive both the awards and the glory of being the first to capture the rebel Inca king—decided to ignore his commander’s orders and instead to immediately attack. Villadiego thus abandoned the bridge and began leading his men along a trail that led from the bottom of the canyon directly up to the hilltop town above.
The day was hot and the Spaniards were forced to make the steep climb on foot, leading their horses behind them by their reins. Far above, Manco’s wife and sister, Cura Ocllo, was the first to see the invaders. She quickly alerted her husband. Manco immediately ordered that the four captured horses they had in their possession be saddled and readied for him and three other Inca nobles, who, like Manco, had learned how to ride. Manco then ordered the women in the town to line up along the hillside, brandishing an assortment of captured Spanish lances, in an effort to fool the Spaniards into thinking that Manco had a much larger force with him. Climbing onto his horse and wheeling about with a long Spanish lance in his hand, Manco now led his three horsemen down the hillside, followed by his warriors on foot.
As Villadiego’s men continued struggling up the slope, one of them suddenly shouted a warning, causing the Spaniards to look up and see the silhouettes of what appeared to be numerous warriors on the hilltop above, who now began shouting insults and shaking their lances. The Spaniards were further stunned to see racing down toward them four natives on horseback, carrying lances, with many more warriors racing behind them on foot. Caught by surprise on a steep path and with a sheer drop-off below, the seven crossbowmen raised their weapons to fire as the handful of harquebusiers desperately tried to light the wicks of their guns. As Manco’s warriors began hurling down sling stones and darts from above, a few of the harquebuses fired, felling one native, but by then Manco’s warriors were among them, smashing the Spaniards with their mace clubs, hurling sling stones, and pressing the Spaniards back down the trail so forcefully that many of the Spaniards and their horses simply tumbled off the slope, the men screaming briefly before hitting the ground far below. Manco and his four-horse cavalry, meanwhile, effectively used their lances to stab and skewer the remaining Spaniards, who presumably had never before been attacked by natives on horseback.
After a fierce struggle, the battle ended in a rout. Captain Villadiego, covered in wounds and with his arm broken by a native battle-axe, had eventually f
allen to the ground. The coup de grâce was delivered to him via a flurry of mace clubs. In his eagerness to seize for himself the glory of Manco’s capture, the young captain had committed two fatal errors: first, he had allowed himself to be caught by surprise on steep terrain where he and his Spaniards were unable to use their horses; and second, he had allowed Manco’s warriors to attack them from the heights above. Of Villadiego’s thirty men, twenty-eight were either killed outright or else fell to their deaths. Only two escaped, by running back down to the river, leaping in, and then swimming desperately across. Manco’s son Titu Cusi remembered the joy of his father’s success:
And so my father’s men, having achieved the victory, gathered the spoils from the Spaniards, stripping them naked of everything they could [and] removing the clothing and weapons that they had. [Then], gathering everything up, they took it to the town of Oncoy above. My father and [his men] … rejoiced tremendously and held celebrations and dances for five days in honor of the victory and of the spoils.
Despite his success, Manco no doubt realized that his current military situation was far different from the one he had enjoyed only a few years earlier. No longer did he command the mass levies of troops he had once raised to besiege Cuzco with—the same kinds of vast armies that his forefathers had once used to carve out their empire. Instead, Manco was now reduced to leading smaller groups that, because of their reduced numbers, had to avoid direct confrontations with larger Spanish forces. Nevertheless, Manco’s warriors were by now effectively ambushing Spanish supply convoys on the Inca highways, destroying small military contingents, amassing stolen weapons and horses, and then disappearing back into the hills. If the hallmarks of guerrilla warfare are mobility, speed, knowledge of local terrain, peasant support, inflicting frequent ambushes upon the enemy and then disappearing before a larger counterinsurgency force can respond, then Manco Inca had truly transformed himself into an effective guerrilla leader.
The Last Days of the Incas Page 36