Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (18 page)

It is possible that Friar Diego may have advised Titu Cusi to accept an invitation from his cousin Carlos Inca, who lived in Cuzco and whose son was given a splendid christening. We are told that the infant’s godfather was none other than the new Spanish Viceroy who had just arrived in Cuzco, Don Francisco de Toledo. Captain Ocampo, who was living in Cuzco at the time, says the ceremony was accompanied by ‘festivals, rejoicings, fireworks, dances, and many newly invented and costly conceits’.
Invitations were sent out throughout the region ‘for more than 40 leagues around Cuzco’ to all places where Incas were living. Ocampo says that ‘among the rest there went to the christening Titu Cusi Yupanqui Inca and his young brother Tupac Amaru Inca, who came from the province of Vilcapampa’. If they came, as was reported by Ocampo, they did not make their presence known and remained in seclusion at the Colcampata home of their relatives on the hill above Cuzco. As the good Captain Ocampo was obviously only reporting rumour and gossip, it is very doubtful if the story merits belief. But there is no doubt that after Father Marcos had been driven out of the valley, Friar Diego made good progress and won the esteem of the Inca notwithstanding the hostility of the priests of the Sun.

‘It happened’, says Calancha, that ‘one day there entered into the Province of Vilcabamba, a Spaniard called Romero. He sought a licence from the Inca to permit him to hunt for gold and silver since he thoroughly understood metals and all that pertains to mining. The Inca gave him permission. His prospecting was very successful. He found a rich vein and in a few days took out quantities of gold. It seemed to Romero that it would be a good plan to flatter the Inca, so he showed him the gold and asked for a new permit and additional time in which to take out a quantity. As soon as the Inca saw the gold he realized that it would prove very attractive to greedy Spaniards and would bring thousands of them, so he would lose the Province that sustained him.’ Accordingly he ordered Romero to be killed.

‘The unfortunate avaricious miner tried to defend himself. His loud cries for help and the resulting disturbance came to the attention of Friar Diego, who flew on the wings of charity to the Inca’s house in order to ransom that life, begging the Inca to pardon him, or permit the unfortunate one to confess. The Inca was advised that Friar Diego was coming running at full speed. Knowing what his purpose was he sent to tell him to return to his church and let him kill that man, because if he begged for him he would kill him too. The holy man returned weeping that the miner would have to die without confessing his sins. They killed Romero and cut off his head.

‘Friar Diego sent to ask the Inca to give him the corpse so that it might receive Christian burial, since justice had already been done. His request was denied because the Inca wished the birds of the air and the beasts of the field to eat the body. He ordered it thrown in the river and prohibited any one under pain of his displeasure to bury it or recover it.’

Nevertheless, Friar Diego went out several times at night in an effort to find the body and bury it. When the Inca learned of this he was very angry and threatened to kill the Friar if he left his church at night.

Not very long after this, according to Calancha, Titu Cusi gave a large and very wet party which Friar Diego, who ‘disliked noise and boisterous revelry’, was urged to attend. His failure to accept the Inca’s invitation is said to have caused much annoyance to the royal court. After the party it appears that the Inca had an attack of double pneumonia. Unfortunately Friar Diego attended his sick bed in the mistaken hopes of effecting a cure with his simple remedies or at any rate getting Titu Cusi to confess and secure absolution. Titu Cusi died. The nobles and one of the Inca’s wives then charged Friar Diego with the fatal end of the Inca’s illness. The Friar was put to death with great cruelty. Many pages of the Chronicle are filled with gruesome details. The
mestizo
Martin Pando who was Titu Cusi’s secretary was also put to death by the Inca chieftains. Friar Marcos, on hearing of the death of his friend Friar Diego, tried to return to the valley from which he had been driven by Titu Cusi, but was drowned in attempting to cross one of the rivers.

So ended the first attempt of Christian missionaries to convert the last of the warlike Incas.

Captain Baltasar de Ocampo gives a story of what was told him by those who were present at Titu Cusi’s funeral. He says that the Inca’s insignia, battle axes, lances, bracelets, the scarlet fringe, and a shield were carried in the hands of the greatest lords, in deep mourning, with muffled drums, and sounds of grief. Then they ‘proceeded to the House of the Sun, where was the Inca Tupac Amaru, the true and legitimate Lord, with the
Acllus
under the
Mama-cunas
, who were matrons to keep guard over them, for they were very beautiful’.

So now, in 1571, it became the turn of Manco’s third son, Tupac Amaru, brought up as a playfellow of the Chosen Women of the Sun and now happily married to one of them, to rule the little kingdom of Vilcapampa. His brows were decked with the scarlet fringe of sovereignty.

Unfortunately, due to the jealousy and fear of his half brother Titu Cusi, his training had not been that of a wise ruler or even of a soldier. Naturally he expected to continue to live in the great sanctuary surrounded by devoted followers and safe from any intruders. However, part of the time must be spent at Vitcos with his captains and his little army. His councillors had reason to fear the Spanish conquerors.

Unfortunately for the Incas, the Viceroy, Don Francisco de Toledo, an indefatigable soldier and very able administrator, was savagely bigoted, cruel, and pitiless. His master, Philip II, with the approval of the Council of the Indies, had decided that every effort must be made to secure the submission of the Indians who lived in the province of Vilcapampa, where Spaniards were not welcome and where, as Father Marcos could have assured him, missionaries were in danger of their lives. Accordingly, not knowing that Titu Cusi was dead or Father Diego a martyr, the Viceroy determined to induce the Inca to come and live where he would be accessible to Spanish authority. He dispatched a highly trusted ambassador to carry out this mission.

News of what was taking place in Cuzco travelled very fast to Vilcapampa even though the bad news of what had happened in Vitcos was slow in reaching the Viceroy. The captains and councillors of the young Inca learned what was on foot, undoubtedly from their relatives in the Spanish city. They had seen the great Inca Empire reduced to a mere province in rugged mountains where their ancestors had sought refuge in centuries past and where they hoped to be able to outwit the conquistadors. They
believed that their Inca Sayri Tupac had been poisoned while he was the guest of the Spaniards at Yucay. They remembered that Manco had been murdered by the Spanish refugees he was befriending. They knew that Titu Cusi had died while being treated by a Spanish monk. So, when they heard that the Viceroy was sending an ambassador to Vitcos with the express purpose of persuading the young and inexperienced Tupac Amaru to leave the security of the Cordillera Vilcapampa and go to Cuzco they determined to take no chances of his being weak enough to accept a sinister invitation.

They sent seven warriors to waylay the ambassador on the road and kill him. Whether Tupac Amaru knew of their plan is not certain. A wiser and more experienced young ruler would have realized that such an act was merely to court disaster. His people probably knew it would cause trouble and so sent the young ruler down into the warm valley of the Pampaconas where his brother Titu Cusi had built a country house near the savage Antis, who were very faithful to him. At least the Spanish soldiers could not reach him there.

The Viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, learned of the murder of his ambassador at the same time he heard of the martyrdom of the Augustinian Father Diego. A blow had been struck at the very heart of Spanish rule. If a faithful representative of the Vice-regent of Heaven and the messenger of the Viceroy of Philip II were not inviolable, then who was safe? Accordingly the energetic Toledo determined to make war on the unfortunate young Tupac Amaru and to give a reward to the soldier who would effect his capture. Furthermore, it was hoped that if he were imprisoned all the lost Inca treasure might be found, treasure which was supposed to include a chain of gold which the great Inca Huyana had commanded to be made for himself to wear on great occasions, and which actually did include the gold image of the Sun from Cuzco. Furthermore, the Council naturally claimed that the chain of gold and the remaining treasure ‘belonged’ to Philip II ‘by right of conquest’. Anyhow, the Inca royal family must now be exterminated.

The expeditionary force was divided into two parts, one to
capture the Inca in case he should attempt to cross the Apurimac by one of the routes which had been used by his father in his marauding expeditions on the Spanish caravans; the other to go via Ollantaytambo, the route followed by Rodriguez. This company went down the Urubamba Valley as far as the great precipices of the granite canyon which had blocked the way for centuries and climbed out of the canyon through the Pass of Panticalla, where they found no Inca defenders at all. Accordingly, they were able to reach the key bridge of Chuquichaca over the lower Urubamba without mishap. Thirty-five years before, a similar company, it will be remembered, had been met and destroyed by the sling stones of the well-trained soldiers of the active Inca Manco II.

The narrow suspension bridge, built in accordance with Inca engineering practice of native fibres, sagged deeply in the middle and swayed so threateningly over the gorge of the Urubamba that only one man could use it at a time. The rapid river was too deep to be forded and there were no canoes. It would have been a difficult matter to construct rafts, as most of the trees in this vicinity are of very hard wood that will not float. When the expedition reached the bridge they found to their surprise that it had not been destroyed. Young Tupac Amaru had had no experience in warfare and his chieftains apparently relied on their ability to take care of one Spanish soldier at a time and so prevent the invading force from crossing the narrow, swaying structure. They little knew what was in store for them, for the Spaniards had brought one or two light mountain guns, with which the raw troops of the Inca were not acquainted. The sides of the valley near the Chuquichaca bridge rise very steeply from the river and the reverberations caused by gunfire would be terrifying to those who had never heard anything like it before. A few volleys from the harquebuses and a few salvos from the guns and the Inca’s soldiers fled pell mell, leaving the bridge undefended.

The Spanish soldiers were commanded by a Captain Garcia, who had married a niece of Tupac Amaru and who presumably spoke the Quichua language. His men now found the road a
mere footpath, with a jungle on one side and a deep ravine on the other. It was barely wide enough for two men to pass. Garcia, with the customary bravery of the conquistadors, marched at the head of the company. Suddenly out of the jungle an Inca chieftain named Hualpa, endeavouring to protect the flight of his master, jumped on Garcia and tried to hurl him over the cliff. The Captain’s life, however, was saved by a faithful Indian servant who was following immediately behind him carrying his sword. Quickly drawing it from the scabbard the servant killed Hualpa.

So they marched up the valley of the Vilcabamba, swept through Puquiura, where Friar Marcos had had his church, and stormed several Inca forts. ‘Then’, wrote Captain Garcia, ‘having arrived at the principal fortress, Guaynapucara, which the Incas had fortified, we found it defended by the Prince Philip Quispetutio, a son of the Inca Titu Cusi, with his captains and soldiers. It is on a high eminence surrounded with rugged crags and jungles, very dangerous to ascend and almost impregnable. Nevertheless, with my aforesaid company of soldiers I went up and gained the young fortress, but only with the greatest possible labour and danger.’ ‘The young fortress’ seems to have been another name for Vitcos. Perhaps the Inca’s ‘palace’ was known as Vitcos, while the fortifications which surrounded it were called Guaynapucara.

Captain Garcia hoped to catch the young Inca Tupac Amaru here but was disappointed to find that he and his immediate guards and captains had left, taking with them the golden image of the Sun which had been brought from Cuzco by his father Manco. The Spanish soldiers followed them through Huarancalla and down into the Pampaconas valley. Garcia’s expedition was well provided with arms and ammunition. They had a remorseless and determined master back in Cuzco who would tolerate no failure and who was willing to reward success. And they were led by a very brave officer.

Nothing daunted by the dangers of the jungles, the rapids of the river or the hostility of the people, Garcia finally succeeded in penetrating deep into the forest. At length they captured
Tupac Amaru, who chose to trust the Spaniards rather than perish in the Amazon jungles, either at the hands of the savages or because of the great hardships of the region. Probably he thought that he would be treated with some respect, but in this he was doomed to disappointment. With his wife and children he was carried in triumph to Cuzco where the Viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, went to enjoy the spectacle of a mock trial and cruel punishment. The captured Inca chiefs were tortured to death with fiendish brutality. Tupac Amaru’s wife was mangled before his eyes. His own head was cut off and placed on a pole in the great plaza at Cuzco. His little boys did not long survive. So, in 1572, perished the last of the Incas, descendants of some of the wisest rulers America has ever seen.