MANCO Inca returned from Jauja to Cuzco with his thirty-four-year-old companion Hernando de Soto at the end of July 1534. His relations with the Spaniards were excellent. He was grateful to them for having placed him on the throne and driven the Quitans out of Huascar’s Peru. The Spaniards were still on good behaviour towards the natives – a temporary restraint imposed by Pizarro’s draconian edicts. They were delighted by their protégé Manco. Sancho wrote in June that his elevation as Inca ‘has proved highly successful, for all the caciques and chiefs come to serve him and pay homage to the Emperor because of him’. Almagro wrote in May that ‘a peace treaty has been made with him in the name of your Catholic and Imperial Majesty’ and the town council of Jauja wrote in July acknowledging that Quisquis had been expelled thanks to ‘the assistance and advice and friendship of this cacique’.

Once in Cuzco, Manco began to rule as Inca. He had to restore the country’s blind faith in the Inca, to gather up the reins of power, and to assert himself as supreme ruler. He had also to restore the prestige of the Inca capital Cuzco, of the official religion, and of the imperial administration. All these props of Inca rule had been shattered by the upheavals of the civil war and the Spanish invasion. Centrifugal forces were tearing at all parts of the empire, particularly in the areas beyond Jauja and Titicaca which had been absorbed by the Incas within living memory.

The Incas had been experimenting in the administration of their rapidly-growing empire during the decades before the arrival of the Spaniards. They tried to supplant the chiefs of conquered tribes with Inca officials and a decimal structure of administration. The decimal system was based on a census of tribute-paying adult males. These were formed into pyramids of 10,000 with officials at every decimal level from ten to ten thousand. At the lowest levels were foremen representing ten and fifty tribute-payers; above these came the curaca class, with hereditary officials representing units of 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000 (picqua-huaranca curaca), and 10,000 (hunu curaca). The system sounded Utopian, and it is difficult to tell how effectively it had been imposed at the time of the Conquest. It was operational in the Inca heartland of the central Andes, less so in the newer conquests to the north and south. The theoretical efficiency of the system appealed to the chroniclers, most of whom expounded it with admiration.* Above the officials in charge of decimal divisions, the Inca appointed senior governors from among his own blood-relatives. Each of the four suyos or quarters of the empire was administered by an Apo, a title also conferred on army commanders. Within the four suyos were a number of provinces or huamani, roughly corresponding to pre-Inca tribal areas, and each of these was governed by a centrally-appointed toqricoc. Although the Incas appointed only members of the Inca nobility to the top posts, Pachacuti had extended the title Inca-by-privilege to include all the Quechua-speaking tribes of the central Andes, and many of the decimal curacas were drawn from these.

The hereditary chiefs of conquered tribes continued to function alongside the centrally-appointed toqricocs. They were given honours and luxuries and their sons were specially schooled at the court in Cuzco. But their powers were shorn. Most functioned only in overseeing the collection of tribute and in selecting candidates for civil or military service. Each province was to witness a struggle for power between the tribal chief and the Inca toqricoc during the troubled years after the Conquest. The governors who had participated in Manco’s coronation had by now returned to their provinces and were reasserting the central authority. In some instances they were establishing themselves as autonomous local rulers. But in many parts of Peru the thin crust of Inca rule had melted away for good. Until it could be imposed again by Inca armies, the local tribes were reverting to the rule of their traditional chiefs and were resurrecting tribal deities.

Just above the lowest level of the Inca social structure was a class of people known as yanaconas. These did not farm the land or pay tribute in recognised communities, but acted as personal servants to the Inca nobility. Some were specialist craftsmen; others were semi-skilled workers who travelled about in the service of their masters. The yanaconas quickly recognised the new rulers of Peru. They immediately attached themselves to the Spaniards as personal retainers. They formed an invaluable source of information for the invaders. In return for their services, the Spaniards continued to exempt them from tribute and gave the yanaconas opportunities for plunder and self-aggrandisement at the expense of their fellows. With such incentives, the numbers of tribute-free yanaconas naturally swelled.

The Incas had sewn their empire together and balanced its population by a system of transmigration. Pockets of colonists from the Inca homeland were settled in outlying provinces to establish a loyal nucleus. These were known as mitma-kona, which the Spaniards rendered as mitimaes. In parts of the empire the mitimaes formed as much as a third of the population, some originating from the Inca homeland, others transplanted from different parts of the empire. With the collapse of central authority, the villages of mitimaes throughout Peru turned in upon themselves to form isolated communities. They were now Manco’s chief vehicle for re-establishing the authority of his governors.

Less useful to him were the communities of subject tribes that resided in Cuzco. The most important of these was the Canari, the Ecuadorean tribe that had been cruelly decimated by Huayna-Capac and Atahualpa. The chief of the Cuzco Canari welcomed Pizarro’s column as it approached Cuzco, and the Canari who had helped Benalcázar with such enthusiasm went on to serve the Spaniards as loyal auxiliaries throughout Peru. Manco therefore found himself surrounded in Cuzco itself by natives of dubious loyalty and a mass of collaborating yanaconas attached to the Spanish citizens.

The Spaniards were hardly aware of the Inca administration and its stresses. They dealt with the natives through a handful of interpreters. But they tacitly supported Manco’s attempts to reconstruct imperial rule, since they trusted him and preferred to deal with one puppet Inca. Manco, in return, endorsed their rule and advised his officials to co-operate in the collection of tribute for Spanish encomenderos.

Manco started building himself a palace in Cuzco, as was the custom for each new ruler. The site allotted to him was on the slope above the main square, between the back of Francisco Pizarro’s Casana and Huascar’s palace of Colcampata, which lay at the highest point of the city below the cliff crowned by Sacsahuaman.*

Manco was also allowed to practise the ceremonies of the Incas* religious calendar. In April 1535 he held the great annual feast of Inti Raymi to celebrate the harvesting of the maize crop. Cristobal de Molina, a young priest who had just arrived in Peru, was able to witness this splended occasion. His account of it is worth repeating at length. ‘The Inca opened the sacrifices and they lasted for eight days. Thanks were given to the sun for the past harvest and prayers were made for the crops to come…. They brought all the effigies of the shrines of Cuzco on to a plain at the edge of the city in the direction of the sun’s rise at daybreak. The most important effigies were placed under very fine, beautifully-worked feather awnings. These awnings were arranged in an avenue with one canopy a good quoit’s throw from the next. The space [between] formed an avenue over thirty paces wide, and all the lords and chiefs of Cuzco stood in it…. These were all magnificently-robed orejones wearing rich silver cloaks and tunics, with brightly-shining circlets and medallions of fine gold on their heads. They formed up in pairs … in a sort of procession … and waited in deep silence for the sun to rise. As soon as the sunrise began they started to chant in splendid harmony and unison. While chanting each of them shook his foot … and as the sun continued to rise they chanted higher.

‘The Inca had a canopy in an enclosure, with a very rich stool for a seat, a short distance from the route of these men. When the time came for the chanting he rose with great dignity, placed himself at their head, and was the first to open the chant. They all followed his lead. After he had been there for some time he returned to his seat and dealt with those who came up to him. From time to time he would go to his choir, remain there for a while and then return. They all stayed there, chanting, from the time the sun rose until it had completely set. As the sun was rising towards noon they continued to raise their voices, and from noon onwards they lowered them, keeping careful track of the sun’s course.

‘Throughout this time, great offerings were being made. On a platform on which there was a tree, there were Indians doing nothing but throwing meats into a great fire and burning them up in it. At another place the Inca ordered ewes [llamas] to be thrown for the poorer common Indians to grab, and this caused great sport.

‘At eight o’clock over two hundred girls came out of Cuzco, each with a large new pot of one and a half arrobas [six gallons] of chicha, plastered and with a cover. The girls came in groups of five, full of precision and order, and pausing at intervals. They also offered to the sun many bales of a herb that the Indians chew and call coca, whose leaf is like myrtle.

‘There were many other ceremonies and sacrifices. It is sufficient to say that when the sun was about to set in the evening the Indians showed great sadness at its departure, in their chants and expressions. They allowed their voices to die away on purpose. And as the sun was sinking completely and disappearing from sight they made a great act of reverence, raising their hands and worshipping it in the deepest humility. All the apparatus of the festival was immediately dismantled and the canopies were removed. Everyone returned to their homes and the effigies and terrible relics were returned to their houses and shrines.

‘These effigies that they had under the awnings were those of former Incas who had ruled Cuzco. Each had a great retinue of men who stayed there all day fanning away flies with fans like hand mirrors, made of swans’ feathers. Each also had its mamaconas, who are like nuns: there were some twelve to fifteen in each awning.

‘They came out in this same way for eight or nine days in succession. When all the festivals were over, they brought out on the last day many hand ploughs – these had formerly been made of gold. After the religious service the Inca took a plough and began to break the earth, and the rest of the lords did the same. Following their lead the entire kingdom did likewise. No Indian would have dared to break the earth until the Inca had done so, and none believed that the earth could produce unless the Inca broke it first.’

The ritual breaking of the earth by the Inca was one of the ways in which the personal mystique and authority of the Inca were asserted throughout the empire. But Manco Inca was having some difficulty in re-establishing that authority. He had been elevated by foreign troops during a period of turmoil. Some members of the native aristocracy were not yet sure that the testing period was over or that Manco had proved himself the most worthy of possible claimants. The surface calm in Cuzco during late 1534 and 1535 therefore concealed ruptures within the native community. Still deeper dissensions were also growing between the Spanish commanders and, above all, in relations between Indians and Spaniards.

When Manco marched out of Cuzco with Soto and later with Francisco Pizarro, he left his half-brother Paullu as his deputy in the city. Paullu was only a few months younger than Manco, both aged about twenty. Paullu’s standing as an Inca prince was slightly inferior, for although he was a son of Inca Huayna-Capac, his mother had been Anas Collque, daughter of the chief of Huaylas and not a princess of royal Inca blood.* Paullu somehow survived Quisquis’s attempt to extinguish the Cuzco branch of the royal family. He probably sought sanctuary south of Cuzco in the Collao, for his influence was always strong in the south. ‘He was recognised as ruler and as the son of Huayna-Capac by all the land as far as Chile.’ Paullu was disappointed that the Spaniards had selected Manco as Inca, but although he made a flamboyant return to Cuzco in early 1534, he did nothing to dispute Manco’s title. This brother in fact gave strong support to Manco in suppressing any threats to his authority.

Manco was more suspicious of his other relatives, but his quarrels with them were closely linked to a rupture that was growing between the Spanish commanders Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. In December 1534 Almagro sailed down to Pachacamac to ratify his agreement disposing of Alvarado. Pizarro was delighted with the outcome of the Alvarado episode and sent Almagro inland to replace Soto as Governor of Cuzco. He himself continued with the foundation of his new capital at Lima. At this juncture, early in 1535, news reached Peru of a settlement by Charles V that awarded the northern part of the Inca empire to Pizarro and the southern part to Almagro. The exact details were not yet known – Hernando Pizarro was to bring them from Spain at the end of 1535-but it seemed possible that Cuzco itself lay inside Almagro’s jurisdiction. At any rate, one Diego de Aguero, on first hearing the rumour, hurried after Almagro and overtook him at Abancay with the news that the King had awarded him Cuzco. This ambiguous situation naturally led the citizens of Cuzco to take sides between Almagro and the two younger Pizarro brothers, Juan and Gonzalo, who were in the city. Almagro had brought many men who had transferred from Alvarado’s army, and these resented the wealth of the established citizens of Cuzco. The friction increased rapidly until March 1535 when the Pizarro supporters almost provoked open violence. They armed themselves, fortified an Inca palace with artillery, and ‘scandalously emerged on to the square, on the point of starting a great altercation’. Juan Pizarro was just prevented from striking Hernando de Soto, who appeared too sympathetic to Almagro. A royal official, Antonio Tellez de Guzman, mediated, threatening both sides with severe punishment. ‘For’, he wrote to the King, ‘had the Christians fought one another the Indians would have attacked those who survived.’ The Governor Francisco Pizarro hurried south to try to pacify the explosive situation.

Pizarro reached Cuzco in late May 1535 and immediately tried to find solutions to its many problems. He negotiated an agreement with his old partner Diego de Almagro. The Marshal Almagro was to lead a great expedition to explore Chile, which undoubtedly lay within his southern jurisdiction. Pizarro gave considerable financial assistance to the venture. The obvious hope was that Chile would prove rich enough to satisfy Almagro and his followers. Soto offered a huge sum to be second-in-command, but Almagro preferred Rodrigo Orgonez.* Preparations for this great conquest of the remaining third of the Inca empire calmed Cuzco by absorbing the energies and stimulating the imaginations of its restless soldiery.

Pizarro also reopened the official furnaces to melt treasure acquired in Cuzco since the initial melting fifteen months earlier. Francisco Pizarro himself brought the largest haul of loot to be melted, and his greedy younger brother Juan brought the second largest. Hernando de Soto, Gonzalo Pizarro and Diego de Almagro had also succeeded in amassing large quantities, and the Crown took its fifth of everything.* The sight of all this treasure also did much to cool tempers in the city.

Manco Inca had now been ruling in Cuzco for almost a year. It was difficult for the young man to assert his sovereignty when his Spanish allies flaunted their complete control of the city. Some of Manco’s royal relatives therefore remained unconvinced of his suitability. They felt that Manco had not yet weathered the probationary period at the start of his reign. It might still be possible to elevate a rival claimant, or to reduce Manco’s autocracy. The native factions gravitated towards the rival Spanish groups. Manco made it clear that his sympathies were with Almagro. He had no reason to dislike the Governor Francisco Pizarro, who had elevated him to the throne and with whom he had been very friendly in Cuzco and Jauja in the first half of 1534. He may have been antagonised by provocation from the younger Pizarro brothers Juan and Gonzalo, both in their early twenties. Or he may have followed the lead of Hernando de Soto, the Spanish commander with whom he had spent almost all the past eighteen months. Soto supported Almagro’s claim to Cuzco, and the Marshal was by all accounts a charming man, who probably made a special effort to court the Inca.

Pizarro tried to smooth the differences between the native leaders. He and Almagro summoned Manco and the opposition party led by his cousin Pascac. They were invited to air their grievances at a debate. Manco and Paullu tried to maintain that any form of argument was an insult to the Inca’s divine authority. Paullu rebuked Pascac and his supporters: ‘How dare you speak so freely to your lord the Inca, saying anything you please with the consent of the Christians? Get down on your knees before him and beg his mercy for your effrontery. Behave as befits your rank. ‘When Paullu’s outburst was translated to Pizarro, the Governor struck the Inca’s brother for having tried to stop the debate in this way. ‘This greatly annoyed the Inca. In the end it proved impossible to make peace between the Inca and his relatives.’ The rift grew more passionate. Manco’s son Titu Cusi claimed that Pascac plotted to assassinate the Inca with a concealed dagger while doing obeisance to him.*

Manco now took action to smash the opposition. He enlisted the help of Almagro, who sent Martin Cote and other Spaniards by night to murder his powerful brother Atoc-Sopa in his bed.* This killing secured Manco’s position, although tension continued among the native aristocracy. It was inflamed by the interpreters attached to Pizarro and Almagro, who confused the Indians by claiming supremacy for their respective masters. Pizarro’s interpreter went so far as to threaten Manco for his partiality to Almagro. Manco was alarmed by the threats and by the possibility of revenge in the native vendetta. He left his house and Spanish bodyguard one night and hid with Almagro in his bedroom. Pizarro’s Spanish partisans learned of his departure and ‘a great mob of them went to rob and loot his house, causing much damage-and not even giving much of the loot to the Governor’. Almagro told Pizarro that the Inca had hidden under his bed. He insisted that the intimidation must stop and that the looters must be punished, but Pizarro took no action.* The outrage rankled with Manco. It marked a turning-point in his relations with the Spaniards. The citizens of Cuzco saw that they could plunder the Inca with impunity, and many dropped any pretence of deference to the native ruler. Manco for his part grew in self-assurance with the destruction of his opponents. He was maturing rapidly and becoming more aggressive – potentially dangerous and increasingly sensitive to Spanish insult.

Almagro left Cuzco for Chile on 3 July 1535 with 570 cavalry and foot-soldiers, excellently equipped and supported by great trains of native porters. Francisco Pizarro left soon afterwards, returning to the coast to continue the foundation of another city, Trujillo, between Piura and Lima. Soto also left. He returned to Spain, fabulously rich, and in 1538 obtained from King Charles a licence for his expedition to Florida, on which he met his death near the Mississippi. Other expeditions left for explorations of the unknown fringes of the empire: Alonso de Alvarado to the Chachapoyas, Juan Porcel to the Bracamoros and Captain Garcilaso de la Vega to the Cauca valley on the coast of Colombia.

While preparing the Chilean expedition, Almagro asked his protégé Manco to supply a native contingent. The Inca responded generously, sending 12,000 men under the command of the two most powerful figures at his court, his brother Paullu and the high priest Villac Umu. This native force was to prove invaluable to Almagro. The presence of Paullu ensured the friendship and co-operation of almost all the peoples of the southern part of the empire. The chief priest Villac Umu was a relative of Huayna-Capac and an eminence of great authority. Cieza de León wrote that this priest ‘dwelt in the temple. He retained his dignity for life and was married, and was so esteemed that he was equal in debate to the Inca. He had power over all oracles and temples, and appointed and removed priests. These [chief priests] were of high birth and powerful parentage.’ Spanish chroniclers invariably compared Villac Umu to their own Pope.

Various motives have been read into Manco’s sending of this force. One theory was that he was ridding Cuzco of two potential rivals – but Paullu and Villac Umu had been his most ardent supporters up to the time of departure. Another theory was that Paullu engineered his own selection in order to ingratiate himself with the Spaniards and gain influence in southern Peru. But Paullu had no reason to suppose that his presence on the expedition would make Almagro transfer his affection from Manco. A third theory was that Manco had determined to rebel and sent Paullu with instructions to annihilate Almagro’s army at an appropriate moment. The true explanation was probably far simpler. Manco still hoped to rule the Inca empire in collaboration with the Spaniards. He was therefore glad to send a strong force under his most trusted supporters on this great expedition, just as he had done on the various campaigns during 1534. This seemed an excellent opportunity to demonstrate his personal hold on the southern part of the empire.

With the departure in rapid succession of the Spanish leaders and of many of the Spaniards in Cuzco, Manco was left in a city administered by the young Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro. With this irresponsible pair in charge, Manco became subjected during the last months of 1535 to increasing harassment and insult. This treatment of the Inca himself reflected a hardening attitude towards the natives throughout Peru. The restraint that Pizarro had imposed with difficulty at the outset of the Conquest was now gone. With the arrival of Alvarado’s army from Quito and increasing numbers of Spanish adventurers from the Caribbean, the conquerors felt securely in control of the country. The newest arrivals, who had missed the great riches of the first conquistadores, were often the most brutal towards the natives.

This was particularly true of Alvarado’s men who had shown such cruelty in the march towards Quito, and who were now on Almagro’s Chilean expedition. The priest Cristóbal de Molina was on that expedition and recorded his disgust. ‘Any natives who would not accompany the Spaniards voluntarily were taken along bound in ropes and chains. The Spaniards imprisoned them in very rough prisons every night, and led them by day heavily loaded and dying of hunger.’ Many natives fled their villages to escape Almagro’s press-gangs, and the chiefs resented his demands for gold transmitted through Paullu. Bands of Spanish horsemen hunted down the missing villagers. ‘When they found them they brought them back in chains. They carried off their wives and children as well, taking any attractive women for their personal service- and for more besides … When the mares of some Spaniards produced foals, they had these carried in litters by the Indian women. Others had themselves carried in litters as a pastime, leading their horses by the halters so that they would become good and fat.’ The native porters ‘worked without rest all day long, ate only a little roast maize and water, and were barbarously imprisoned at night. One Spaniard on this expedition locked twelve Indians in a chain and boasted that all twelve died in it. When one Indian died they cut off his head, to terrify the others and to avoid undoing their shackles or opening the padlock on the chain.’

The men on this expedition perfected a system of raiding known as rancheando, which Pedro Pizarro described ‘ as meaning, in plain language, to rob’. ‘The Spaniards encouraged their Indian and Negro servants to become great rancheadores and robbers. In the camp, a Spaniard who was a good raider and cruel and killed many Indians was considered a good man with a big reputation. Anyone inclined to treat the natives well or to stand up for them was despised.’ As a result of their cruelties, isolated groups of Spaniards were ambushed and killed by some of the natives of the Bolivian altiplano and by the tribes on the south-eastern edge of the Inca empire. There was no organised resistance such as Benalcázar had met from the Inca armies on the road to Quito. But the expedition suffered great hardships and considerable losses in the high passes into Chile. The high priest Villac Umu escaped at Tupiza in late October and made his way back towards Cuzco. In the province of Copiapó ‘all the Indians whom they had brought from Cuzco fled, and the Spaniards were left with no one to fetch them even a pot of water’.

The brutality of the Chilean expedition was being repeated throughout Peru. The population ‘was becoming incensed wherever the Spaniards passed by. This was because the Spaniards were not content with the service of the natives but tried to rob them in every town. In many places the Indians would not tolerate this, but began to rebel and to organise themselves for defence. The Spaniards undoubtedly went too far in their abuse of them.’ The strangers who had once been welcomed as providential allies against Atahualpa’s Quitans were now taking possession of repartimientos awarded to them as conquerors. The conquistadores demanded great quantities of local produce – llamas, vegetables, cloth, wood, precious metals – as well as personal service from hundreds of native men and women. Wherever there were mines the natives were put to work mining, particularly in the gold mines of the Collao that had been designated as a royal repartimiento.

The Spaniards had come without European women. Although high altitude decreases sexual desire in lowland men, the Spaniards naturally wanted and took native women. In many cases they settled with one native manceba as their permanent concubine. The Indians showed no great objection to this, and the women themselves were often attracted by the dashing foreigners. ‘The Indian woman who proved most attractive to the Spaniards prided herself on the fact.’ But the ravages of the invaders disrupted the native social structure. ‘ From this time onwards they adopted the custom of having public prostitutes, and they abandoned their former practice of marrying, for no woman who was good-looking was safe to her husband – it would be a miracle if she escaped the Spaniards and their yanacona servants.’

The Spanish leaders selected for themselves Inca princesses, ladies who would normally have slept only with the Inca himself or with princes of royal blood. Francisco Pizarro himself lived with Huayna-Capac’s daughter Quispe Cusi, who was usually known to the Spaniards as Inés Huayllas Ñusta: Huayllas or Yupanqui were the surnames given by Spaniards to the Inca royal family; ñusta meant royal princess, as opposed to coya, which referred to the sister-queen of the Inca, or palla, applied to noble ladies not of royal blood. Pizarro was a fifty-six-year old bachelor who had never married a European wife. He was overjoyed when the fifteen-year old Inés bore him a daughter at Jauja in December 1534. The girl was solemnly baptised Francisca in the tiny church of Jauja, and three Spanish wives of conquistadores were even found to be godmothers. There were tournaments and celebrations among Spaniards and natives, all of whom were delighted at this product of the union of Spanish leadership and Inca royalty. Pizarro often played with his daughter Francisca, and arranged to have her legitimised by royal decree of 27 May 1536.* In 1535 Inés bore Pizarro a son whom he called Gonzalo. The Governor later arranged for her to marry his follower Francisco de Ampuero; their modern descendants are the powerful Peruvian family of Ampuero.

Diego de Almagro had been moving too rapidly on the conquests of Cuzco and Quito to acquire a native concubine before 1535. But he made a most profitable liaison when he reached Cuzco as lieutenant-governor. Manco had ‘a sister who was the most important lady in the country. She was called Marca-Chimbo, was the daughter of Huayna-Capac and of his full sister, and would have inherited the Inca empire had she been a man. She gave Almagro a pit in which there was a quantity of gold and silver tableware, which yielded eight bars or 27,000 silver marks when melted down. She also gave another captain 12,000 castellanos from the contents of that pit. But the poor creature was not shown any greater respect or favour by the Spaniards because of this. Instead, she was repeatedly dishonoured – for she was very pretty and of a gentle nature – and she caught the pox. Finally, however, she married a Spanish citizen [Juan Balsa] at a later date,…died a Christian, and was a very good wife.’

Hernando de Soto found himself a lady who formed part of a legend. The Jesuit chronicler Miguel Cabello de Balboa heard her story from Atahualpa’s cousin Don Mateo Yupanqui in Quito.* The romantic legend began with a union between the Inca Huascar and a great beauty known as Curicuillor, ‘the golden star’. Their daughter, also called Curicuillor, had a passionate love affair with Atahualpa’s ambassador and general, Quilaco, but this Inca Romeo and Juliet soon found themselves tragically separated in opposite camps of the civil war. They returned to one another after many adventures during the war, and were living in Jauja when Soto arrived there. He sponsored them at their baptism, when Quilaco took the name Hernando Yupanqui and his wife became Leonor Curicuillor, after which they were married by the laws of the church. Quilaco died soon after, and Soto attached himself to the lovely young widow Leonor. When Soto occupied the Amaru Cancha on the south side of Cuzco’s main square, he installed his mistress nearby.* They had a daughter, called Leonor de Soto, who married a royal notary, Garcia Carrillo, and lived in Cuzco.*

One of Atahualpa’s sisters called Azarpay accompanied the new Inca Tupac Huallpa and the Spanish army as far as Jauja. When Tupac Huallpa died, the royal paymaster Navarro asked Pizarro to give her to him – thinking that she could reveal treasures for him. Pizarro agreed, but Azarpay fled back to Cajamarca. She was discovered there by some Spaniards and brought to Lima at the end of 1535. The Governor himself installed her in his chambers, thereby arousing the jealousy of Inés.*

Although most Spaniards had pretty native girls as mistresses, they were most reluctant to marry them. They preferred to await Spanish wives ; and Spanish women soon arrived in Peru in considerable quantities. Garcilaso de la Vega, for instance, had a royal Inca lady as a concubine and produced the famous historian Garcilaso by her. But he eventually married a Spanish woman. Alonso de Toro kept and openly favoured his Indian mistress after marrying a Spanish wife. This so outraged the wife’s family that her father eventually killed Toro. Alonso de Mesa acquired a veritable harem of Indian women. When he started writing his will in 1544 he claimed five children by five women, all living in his house. But later in the will he recorded six children by six women, and then remembered that there was a seventh who was pregnant.*

The younger Pizarro brothers also arranged native ladies for themselves. Juan Pizarro wrote in 1536: ‘I have received services from an Indian woman who has given birth to a girl whom I do not recognise as my daughter’. Gonzalo Pizarro decided that he must also have an Inca princess. He conceived a passion for Cura Ocllo, the full sister and coya or wife of the Inca Manco. His demand for this woman scandalised the native nobility. Manco’s son described how the high priest Villac Umu and the general Tiso rebuked Gonzalo ‘with severe and angry expressions on their faces’. Gonzalo’s reply to Villac Umu was typically thuggish. ‘Who told you to talk like that to the King’s corregidor? Don’t you know what sort of men we Spaniards are? By the King’s life, if you don’t shut up I’ll catch you and play games with you and your friends that you’ll remember all your lives. I swear if you don’t keep quiet I’ll slit you open, alive, and make little pieces of you!’ Manco duly gathered together a quantity of treasure and handed it over, but Gonzalo wanted the other part of his demand. ‘ Well, señor Manco Inca, let’s have the lady coya. All this silver is fine, but she is what we really want.* Manco, in desperation, persuaded one of his sister’s companions called Inguill to dress up as the coya. ‘When the Spaniards saw her come out so well dressed and looking so beautiful they were delighted and shouted: “Yes, that one, that one! Weigh her in – she’s the coya.’” Gonzalo became insistent. ‘”Señor Manco Inca, if she is for me, give her to me right away because I cannot stand it any longer.” My father [Manco] had her well prepared. He said “Yes, congratulations. Do whatever you wish with her.” So [Gonzalo] went up in front of everyone, oblivious to all else, and kissed and embraced her as if she were his legitimate wife. My father and the rest were amazed and laughed greatly at this, but Inguill was horrified and frightened at being embraced by someone she did not know. She screamed like a mad woman and said she would run away rather than face people like these. When my father saw her behaving so wildly and refusing to go with the Spaniards, he realised that his own freedom depended on her going. He angrily ordered her to go with them. Seeing my father so angry, she did what he said and went, more from fear than for any other reason.’ Manco’s deception did not succeed, for he himself wrote later: ‘Gonzalo Pizarro took my wife and still has her.’

Manco was an obvious target for the greedy Spaniards in Cuzco. They all knew that Atahualpa had provided the legendary treasures of Cajamarca, and many therefore assumed that his brother could conjure up similar riches. The Spanish leaders were always pestering the Inca, and for a time Manco appeased them by revealing caches of precious objects. Even lesser Spaniards joined in the persecution, until the harassment became intolerable.* Villac Umu returned to Cuzco and reported the cruelty of Almagro’s Chilean expedition. The general Tiso, the empire’s greatest surviving military leader, brought stories from all over Peru of the crumbling of the Inca administration and of excesses by Spanish invaders. The Incas of Huascar’s faction were now aware that they had been duped: far from being liberated from the Quitan occupation, their entire race was sinking into the control of a foreign invader. Manco had clung to his title of Inca in the hope that with the elimination of family rivals he could restore the prestige of the monarchy. His hand was forced by the personal insults of the Spaniards in Cuzco, and his determination was strengthened by the advice of the elders Villac Umu, Tiso and Anta-Aclla, leaders of the native church and army. They exhorted the young Inca with passionate patriotism. ‘We cannot spend our entire lives in such great misery and subjection. Let us rebel once and for all. Let us die for our liberty, and for the wives and children whom they continually take from us and abuse.’ The arguments of these elders were successful. In the autumn of 1535 Manco Inca reached the momentous decision to oppose the Spaniards, to try to lead his people in driving the conquerors out of Peru. The decision meant the reversal of the policy of collaboration practised by Manco himself and his predecessors Tupac Huallpa and Atahualpa. The young Inca would now be leading a resistance formerly waged by his bitter enemies Quisquis and Rumiñavi.

Manco’s first move was to summon a secret meeting of native chiefs, particularly those of the southern Collao. He expounded the provocation suffered by him and his people, and noted that with the departure of Almagro’s army Cuzco was relatively free of Spaniards. He announced his determination to rebel.

That night, under cover of darkness, the Inca slipped out of Cuzco in his litter, accompanied by some of his wives, servants and orejones. Some yanacona spies who had been at the meeting informed Juan Pizarro, who went to investigate Manco’s house and found it empty. He roused his brother Gonzalo and a number of other Spanish horsemen and immediately galloped off in the darkness along the Collao road to the south-east of the city. They soon overtook some of the Inca’s party, who claimed that their lord had left in the opposite direction. Gonzalo Pizarro seized an orejón of the Inca’s retinue and ‘pressed him to declare where the Inca was going, and, when he refused repeatedly, they tied a rope around his genitals and tortured him astutely until he gave a great shout, saying that the Inca was not going that way’. But four horsemen had continued along the road, continually asking for the Inca. At the far end of Cuzco valley, near Lake Muyna, Manco heard the horses approaching and left his litter to hide in some reeds. The Spaniards rode back and forth searching systematically for him. When he saw that he must be found, Manco surrendered. He gave an improbable explanation for his nocturnal adventure: he had been on his way to join Almagro at the Marshal’s request.

Manco was brought back under guard and imprisoned on his return to Cuzco. His son complained that’ Gonzalo Pizarro ordered his men to bring irons and a chain, with which they shackled my father as they pleased. They threw a chain around his neck and irons on his feet.’ The natives were highly incensed at this treatment of their Inca. They fasted, sacrificed and offered special prayers to their gods for the Inca’s release and for an opportunity to be rid of the Spaniards. The latter considered themselves lucky to have caught the Inca in time. Pedro Pizarro commented that ‘had this Indian not been captured at this juncture all of us Spaniards in Cuzco would have perished, for the greater part of the Christians had gone out to inspect the Indians on their encomiendas.’

The abuse of the Inca increased during his captivity. Manco was later reported to have said that ‘he was urinated upon by Alonso de Toro, [Gregorio] Setiel, Alonso de Mesa, Pedro Pizarro and [Francisco de] Solares, all citizens of this city. He also said that they burned his eyelashes with a lighted candle.’ Manco said on another occasion: ‘I rebelled more on account of the abuses done to me than because of the gold they took from me, for they called me a dog and they struck me, and took my wives and the lands that I farmed. I gave Juan Pizarro 1,300 gold bricks and two thousand golden objects: bracelets, cups and other pieces. I also gave seven gold and silver pitchers. They said to me: “Dog, give us gold. If not, you will be burned.”‘ Cristóbal de Molina reported that ‘they stole everything he had, leaving him nothing. They kept him imprisoned for many days on this occasion, guarded day and night. They treated him very, very disgracefully, urinating on him and sleeping with his wives, and he was deeply distressed.’ Almagro’s son repeated these accusations and added that Manco’s persecutors ‘urinated and spat in his face, struck and beat him, called him a dog, kept him with a chain round his neck in a public place where people passed.’ These squalid reports were all repeated by men who hated the Pizarros, but they had a basis of truth. A royal emissary, Bishop Berlanga, reported to the King: ‘Any claim that the Inca should serve no one has been a fraud. For the Governor has exploited him, and so have any others who wished.’

Manco’s confinement took place in early November 1535. Tiso and the Collao chiefs had apparently succeeded in escaping from Cuzco at the time when their Inca was recaptured. Tiso rapidly made his way to the highlands north of Jauja, and whipped up revolt at Tarma and Bombón, on the encomienda granted to the royal treasurer Alonso Riquelme. The Governor Pizarro was in his new city of Lima and immediately ordered his local lieutenant Cervantes to suppress this insurrection. Cervantes marched out of Jauja, but Tiso eluded him, slipping away into the jungles to the east.* Meanwhile, the Collao chiefs returned to their tribes and ordered them to oppose Spaniards riding out to inspect their repartimientos. The first encomendero to be killed was one Pedro Martín de Moguer, followed shortly by Martín Domínguez. News arrived of the killing of Juan Becerril in the Condesuyo. Simón Suárez was told that the Indians of his encomienda would pay him tribute if he went to collect it; he was murdered on arrival. Similar ruses during these months achieved the deaths of some thirty Spaniards, on isolated encomiendas or in the royal mines.*

The Spaniards acted with characteristic vigour. Gonzalo Pizarro immediately rode out to take reprisals on the murderers of Pedro Martin de Moguer. He found the natives fortified on a rocky outcrop called Ancocagua in bad, humid country. He called up his brother Juan, who arrived with reinforcements. The Spaniards attacked under cover of a siege blanket but this was pierced by the defenders’ stones. Manco had been asked to send an orejón on this expedition, and the Spaniards now arranged for this man to call for the surrender of the besieged. The orejón, instead, bravely called on the defenders to resist to the death, and when the Spaniards learned this through an informer they burned the orejón alive. A second orejón was sent from Cuzco, and this man betrayed his compatriots. He advised four Spaniards to shave their beards, dye their faces and disguise themselves as Indians. One night, the orejón persuaded the defenders to admit him and his four companions within the outer circuit of their walls. While the four Europeans waited in terror of a betrayal, the orejón talked the defenders into opening their second gate. The Spaniards rushed in and the natives were overwhelmed. Many leaped to their deaths from the cliffs, and ‘ a cruel slaughter began at the hands of the yanaconas, who cut off legs and arms in a welter of bloodshed, while the Spaniards showed no greater mercy.’ The Pizarro brothers rode westwards from Ancocagua, to exact further reprisals on the Indians of the Condesuyo for the murder of Becerril.

Hernando Pizarro, who had left Peru over two years previously to take the first consignment of Atahualpa’s ransom to King Charles, now reappeared. He brought with him a large contingent of adventurers from the mother-country, the most notable of whom were Alonso Enríquez de Guzman and Pedro Hinojosa. His brother Francisco was delighted to see Hernando again, and soon sent him to be Lieutenant-Governor of Cuzco, in command of the younger Juan, who remained as the city’s corregidor.

Hernando Pizarro reached Cuzco in January 1536 to find that his younger brothers were still away on their punitive expedition. Manco Inca had just been released from imprisonment on instructions from Juan Pizarro.* Hernando met the young Inca for the first time and immediately undertook to win his friendship. He showed every possible favour to the native ruler, to the distress of the Spanish extremists, and Manco apparently responded warmly to this kindness. Hernando was acting partly on instructions from King Charles, who had been told of the Inca’s great co-operation with the Spaniards in 1534. and had ordered that he be given the respect due to a hereditary monarch. Hernando had himself witnessed the wave of sympathy for Atahualpa at the Spanish court. Cuzco was now less vulnerable, with the arrival of Hernando and his companions and with the hurried return of many encomenderos from visits to their repartimientos. It therefore seemed safe to release Manco and to attempt by kindness to atone for the insults that might have inspired the incidents in the Collao. Whatever Hernando’s motives for courting Manco, the rumour inevitably spread that he was ingratiating himself in order to obtain treasures that his brothers had failed to extract by bullying. Manco did in fact give Hernando Pizarro some precious objects, although the quantity was grossly exaggerated in later years.

The first months of 1536 passed in apparent tranquillity. The abortive revolts in the Collao, Condesuyo and at Tarma seemed to be extinguished. But the appeasement of the Inca, which might have succeeded six months earlier, was too late. Manco had suffered too much personal insult and was by now too well aware of the enormity of the Spanish invasion. If his resolve needed strengthening, this was done by the high priest Villac Umu, who insisted that the Spaniards in Cuzco could be defeated. For once it was the Inca who deceived the Spaniards. Manco was simply waiting for the end of the rains before assembling a great popular army against the invaders. At length the time came and Villac Umu and Manco despatched messengers to order a national mobilisation. Ever since his release from imprisonment,’ Manco was plotting to kill the Spaniards and to make himself king as his father had been. He had quantities of weapons manufactured in secret, and arranged large plantings of crops to have enough food in the wars and sieges that he hoped to wage.’

As the rainy season ended, great contingents of native warriors moved towards Cuzco, totally undetected by the Spanish invaders and their collaborators. In the sonorous words of Manco’s son Titu Cusi, ‘Villac Umu sent Coyllas, Usca Curiatao and Taipi to bring the men of the Chinchaysuyo; Llicllic and many other commanders went to the Collao to recruit the men of that quarter; Surandaman, Quilcana and Curi-Hualpa to the Condesuyo; and Ronpa Yupanqui’ to the forest tribes of the Antisuyo. The mobilisation and the native headquarters were to be at Calca in the Yucay valley. Here they would be protected by the Yucay river from the Spanish cavalry, but would be only fifteen miles due north of Cuzco.

When the time was ripe, Manco had to leave Cuzco to preside at a meeting of his chiefs and to launch the revolt. Remembering the swift recapture when he had tried to escape from Juan Pizarro, Manco now adopted a more subtle stratagem. He simply asked permission of Hernando Pizarro to go with Villac Umu to perform some ceremonies in the Yucay Valley. He promised to bring back a life-sized golden statue of his father Huayna-Capac. The hint of gold worked like magic. Hernando gave permission, and the Inca and High Priest left Cuzco, accompanied by two Spaniards and by Pizarro’s personal interpreter Antonico.*

Manco left on 18 April, Wednesday of Holy Week, after the close of Mass. There was an immediate outcry in Cuzco. The Indians in the city who had collaborated most closely with the Spaniards – and these included some of Manco’s own kindred – insisted that Manco would return with an army to slaughter them all. They transmitted their apprehension to the Spanish citizens, who formed a delegation to protest to Hernando Pizarro. He tried to allay their fears by insisting on his complete confidence in the Inca. He continued to take this stand two days later when one Alonso Garcia Zamarilla arrived with the news that he had met the Inca’s party in the wild hills leading towards Lares, some distance beyond Calca. Manco had told this Spaniard that he was going up into the hills to fetch some hidden gold, and Hernando said that this sounded plausible.*

But Lares was the site chosen for the Indians’ final pre-rebellion meeting. Manco sat in state over an assembly of Inca chiefs and military men. Two great golden jars of chicha were produced and each leader drank an oath staking his life on the extermination or expulsion of every Christian in the empire. The occasion was marked by appropriate speeches doubtless delivered in the ponderous, rambling but immensely impressive manner that characterises any gathering of Andean Indians to this day.

Finally, on Saturday the eve of Easter 1536, Hernando Pizarro was informed for certain that the Inca had rebelled and that his intentions were extremely dangerous. The Lieutenant-Governor promptly made an announcement to the people, telling them the terrible news and acknowledging his own gullibility. He then held consultations with the leading Spaniards as to the best course of action.*