Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [174]
Huayna Cápac, the 11th inca, was the last to rule over a united kingdom, an empire so big that it seemed to have little left to conquer. Nevertheless, Huayna Cápac doggedly expanded the northernmost limits of his empire to the present-day Ecuador–Colombia border, and fought a long series of campaigns during which he sired a son, Atahualpa, whose mother may have been a quiteña (inhabitant of Quito, Ecuador).
Then something totally unexpected happened: Europeans discovered the New World, bringing with them various Old World diseases. Epidemics such as smallpox swept down from Central America and the Caribbean. Shortly before dying in 1525 – probably from one of these epidemics – Huayna Cápac divided his empire, giving the northern part to Atahualpa and the southern Cuzco area to another son, Huascar.
Both sons were suited to ruling an empire – so well suited, in fact, that neither wished to share power, and an Inca civil war ensued. As a pure-blooded native cuzqueño (inhabitant of Cuzco), Huascar had the people’s support, but Atahualpa had the backing of the northern army and early in 1532 his battle-hardened troops won a key battle, capturing Huascar outside Cuzco.
Meanwhile, Francisco Pizarro landed in northern Peru and marched southward. Atahualpa himself had been too busy fighting the civil war to worry about a small band of foreigners, but by 1532 a fateful meeting had been arranged with the Spaniard in Cajamarca. It was a meeting that would radically change the course of South American history: Atahualpa was ambushed by a few dozen armed conquistadors, who succeeded in capturing him, killing thousands of indigenous tribespeople and routing tens of thousands more.
In an attempt to regain his freedom, the inca offered a ransom of a roomful of gold and two rooms of silver, including gold stripped from the temple walls of Qorikancha. But after holding Atahualpa prisoner for a number of months, Pizarro murdered him anyway, and soon marched on to Cuzco. Mounted on horseback, protected by armor and swinging steel swords, the Spanish cavalry was virtually unstoppable.
Pizarro entered Cuzco on November 8, 1533, by which time he had appointed Manco, a half-brother of Huascar and Atahualpa, as the new puppet leader. After a few years of keeping to heel, however, the docile puppet rebelled. In 1536, Manco Inca set out to drive the Spaniards from his empire, laying siege to Cuzco with an army estimated at well over a hundred thousand people. Indeed, it was only a desperate last-ditch breakout and violent battle at Sacsaywamán that saved the Spanish from complete annihilation.
Manco Inca was forced to retreat to Ollantaytambo and then into the jungle at Vilcabamba. After Cuzco was safely recaptured, looted and settled, the seafaring Spaniards turned their attentions to the newly founded colonial capital, Lima. Cuzco’s importance quickly waned, and it became just another colonial backwater. All the gold and silver was gone, and many Inca buildings were pulled down to accommodate churches and colonial houses.
Few events of historical significance have rocked Cuzco like the Spanish conquest – except for earthquakes in 1650 and 1950, and an infamous Inca uprising led by Túpac Amaru II in 1780. His was the only indigenous revolt that ever came close to succeeding, but eventually he too was defeated by the Spaniards. Two centuries later, in 1984, a Peruvian Marxist guerrilla group named itself after him.
The country’s battles for independence in the 1820s wouldn’t change daily life for the average person in Cuzco. Perhaps the most momentous event in the city’s recent history is the ‘rediscovery’ of Machu Picchu in 1911, which turned the city from a quiet, provincial town into Peru’s foremost tourist hub.
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ORIENTATION
The center of the city is the Plaza de Armas, while traffic-choked Av El Sol nearby is the main business thoroughfare. Walking just