The Last Days of the Incas
The Last Days of the Incas
‘This is a wonderful book about one of the most epic struggles of history, a conquest that transformed a continent.’
Wade Davis, Anthropologist and Explorer-in-Residence National Geographic Society, and author of
One River
‘A colourful, superbly crafted historical narrative that masterfully demonstrates that when cultures collide, unforeseen and tragic consequences follow … also a memorable adventure story, revealing the modern Indiana Jones-type characters that unearthed, and continue to discover, lost parts of the Inca Empire.
The Last Days of the Incas
is historical writing at its best.’
Broughton Coburn, author of
Everest: Mountain Without Mercy
‘In addition to writing rousing and clear-eyed battle accounts and describing the Incas’ early form of guerrilla warfare, MacQuarrie also manages to spin the oft-told story of the discovery of Machu Picchu into narrative gold.’
Entertainment Weekly
‘MacQuarrie excels in his depiction of this guerrilla war, giving the lost city the honor it deserves.’
Forbes
‘The story of the European conquest of the fascinating and fabulously rich empire of the Incas is one of history’s most engaging and tragic episodes … Thanks to
The Last Days of the Incas
, Kim MacQuarrie’s superbly written new treatment of the subject, it is now accessible to the much broader audience it deserves.’
Vincent Lee, author of
Forgotten Vilcabamba
Kim MacQuarrie is a writer, an anthropologist, and a four-time Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker who has made films in such disparate regions as Siberia, Papua New Guinea, and Peru. MacQuarrie is the author of three previous books on Peru and lived in that country for five years, exploring many of the locations and hidden regions he chronicled in “The Last Days of the Incas.” During that time, MacQuarrie lived with a recently-contacted tribe of native Amazonians, called the Yora. It was MacQuarrie’s experience filming a nearby group of indigenous people, whose ancestors still remembered their contacts with the Inca Empire, that ultimately led him to investigate and then to write “The Last Days of the Incas.” MacQuarrie currently divides his time between Peru, Thailand, and the U.S.
Visit the author at
www.kimmacquarrie.com
or you can read his blog at
www.lastdaysoftheincas.com
/wordpress
Gold of the Andes: The Llamas, Alpacas, Vicuñas
and Guanacos of South America
Peru’s Amazonian Eden: Manu National Park
and Biosphere Reserve
Where the Andes Meet the Amazon
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-1-40552-607-4
Copyright © 2007 by Kim MacQuarrie
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
To my parents, Ron and Joanne MacQuarrie
Praise for the Last Days of the Incas
2. A Few Hundred Well-Armed Entrepreneurs
11 The Return of the One … Eyed Conqueror
13 Vilcabamba: Guerrilla Capital of the World
16 The Search for the “Lost City” of the Incas
Epilogue: Machu Picchu, Vilcabamba, and the Search for the Lost Cities of the Andes
| 1492 | Columbus lands in what is now called the Bahamas; this is the first of his four voyages to the New World. |
| 1502 | Francisco Pizarro arrives on the island of Hispaniola. |
| 1502–1503 | During his last voyage, Columbus explores the coasts of what will later be called Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. |
| 1513 | Vasco Núñez de Balboa and Francisco Pizarro cross the Isthmus of Panama and discover the Pacific Ocean. |
| 1516 | The future Inca emperor Manco Inca is born. |
| 1519–1521 | Hernando Cortés conquers the Aztec Empire in Mexico. |
| 1524–1525 | Francisco Pizarro’s first voyage heads south from Panama and explores along the coast of Colombia. The trip is a financial failure. Pizarro’s colleague Diego de Almagro loses an eye in a battle with natives. |
| 1526 | Pizarro, Almagro, and Hernando de Luque form the Company of the Levant, a company dedicated to conquest. |
| 1526–1527 | Pizarro and Almagro’s second voyage. Pizarro makes his first contact with the Inca Empire at Tumbez. |
| c. 1528 | The Inca Emperor Huayna Capac dies from European-introduced smallpox. His death sets off a civil war between his sons Atahualpa and Huascar. |
| 1528–1529 | Pizarro journeys to Spain, where he is granted a license to conquer Peru by the queen. |
| 1531–1532 | Pizarro’s third voyage to Peru. Pizarro captures Atahualpa. |
| 1533 | Atahualpa is executed; Almagro arrives; Pizarro captures Cuzco and installs seventeen-year-old Manco Inca as the new Inca emperor. |
| 1535 | Pizarro founds the city of Lima; Almagro leaves for Chile. |
| 1536 | Gonzalo Pizarro steals Manco Inca’s wife, Cura Ocllo. Manco rebels and surrounds Cuzco. Juan Pizarro is killed, and the Inca general Quizo Yupanqui attacks Lima. |
| 1537 | Almagro seizes Cuzco from Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro. Rodrigo Orgóñez sacks Vitcos and captures Manco Inca’s son, Titu Cusi. Manco escapes and flees to Vilcabamba, the new Inca capital. |
| 1538 | Hernando Pizarro executes Diego de Almagro. |
| 1539 | Gonzalo Pizarro invades and sacks Vilcabamba; Manco Inca escapes but Francisco Pizarro executes Manco’s wife, Cura Ocllo. |
| 1540 | Hernando Pizarro begins a prison sentence of twenty years in Spain. |
| 1541 | Francisco Pizarro is murdered by supporters of Almagro. One of his assassins, Diego Méndez, flees to Vilcabamba. |
| 1544 | Manco Inca is murdered by Diego Méndez and six renegade Spaniards. Gonzalo Pizarro rebels against the king of Spain. |
| 1548 | Battle of Jaquijahuana; Gonzalo Pizarro is executed by representatives of the king. |
| 1557 | The Inca Emperor Sayri-Tupac leaves Vilcabamba and relocates near Cuzco. |
| 1560 | Sayri-Tupac dies. Titu Cusi becomes Inca emperor in Vilcabamba. |
| 1570 | The Augustinian friars García and Ortiz attempt to visit the capital of Vilcabamba; Titu Cusi refuses to allow them to enter. The friars burn the Inca shrine at Chuquipalta, and friar García is expelled. |
| 1571 | Titu Cusi dies; Tupac Amaru becomes emperor. |
| 1572 | The Viceroy of Peru, Francisco Toledo, declares war on Vilcabamba. Vilcabamba is sacked and Tupac Amaru—the final Inca emperor—is captured and executed in Cuzco. |
| 1572 | The Inca capital of Vilcabamba is abandoned; the Spaniards remove the inhabitants and relocate them to a new town they christen San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba. |
| 1578 | Hernando Pizarro dies in Spain at the age of 77. |
| 1911 | Hiram Bingham discovers ruins at Machu Picchu, Vitcos, and a place called Espíritu Pampa, which local Campa Indians refer to as “Vilcabamba.” Bingham locates all three of these sites within four weeks. |
| 1912 | Bingham returns to Machu Picchu, this time with the sponsorship of the National Geographic Society—its first sponsored expedition. |
| 1913 | National Geographic dedicates an entire issue to Bingham’s discovery of Machu Picchu. |
| 1914–1915 | Bingham’s third and final trip to Machu Picchu. He discovers what is now called the “Inca Trail.” |
| 1920 | Hiram Bingham publishes his book Inca Land, in which he states that Machu Picchu is actually the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba, the final refuge of the last Inca emperors. |
| 1955 | The American explorer/writer Victor von Hagen publishes High-way of the Sun, in which he argues that Machu Picchu cannot be Vilcabamba. |
| 1957 | Gene Savoy arrives in Peru. |
| 1964–1965 | Gene Savoy, Douglas Sharon, and Antonio Santander discover extensive ruins at Espíritu Pampa, which Savoy claims is the location of Vilcabamba the Old. |
| 1970 | Savoy publishes Antisuyo, an account of his explorations at Espíritu Pampa and elsewhere. Savoy leaves Peru and relocates to Reno, Nevada. |
| 1982 | Vincent Lee visits the Vilcabamba area while on a climbing trip. |
| 1984 | Vincent and Nancy Lee discover more than four hundred structures at Espíritu Pampa, confirming that it was the largest settlement in the Vilcabamba area and thus was undoubtedly the site of Manco Inca’s capital of Vilcabamba—home of the last Inca emperors. |
| 2002–2005 | Peris Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INC) conducts the first archaeological excavations at Vilcabamba. |
| 2011 | The one-hundredth anniversary of Hiram Bingham’s “discovery” of Machu Picchu. |