Inca Apocalypse by R. Alan Covey;

Author:R. Alan Covey;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OUP Premium
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 7.4. Image of Santiago aiding the Spaniards during Manco Inca’s siege of Cuzco, from a 1728 edition of the chronicle of Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas (1615). Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University.

If we read the primary sources closely, it is obvious that the Spaniards who fought for their survival in Cuzco and Lima did not stand alone. In relating the small number of Spaniards—among them many wounded and several Spanish women—some writers acknowledge that there were thousands of indigenous fighters who remained with them. Among the “friendly Indians” were large numbers of Cañaris and Chachapoyas who had joined the Spanish camp after Atahuallpa’s capture in 1532.61 Inca accounts of Manco Inca’s campaign state that at least 2,000 Cañari and Chachapoya allies and yanacona servants fought with the Spaniards in Cuzco, and they describe the presence of enslaved people of African heritage as well.62 The Cañaris were led by Chilche, the lord of the servant population serving on Huayna Capac’s Yucay Valley estate. Like Manco Inca, Chilche sought Pizarro out as the Spaniards approached Cuzco in 1533. Chilche made Pizarro a promise that he kept during Manco’s siege: “I come to serve and will not deny the Christians till the day I die.”63 During the Inca siege of Cuzco, Chilche served the Spanish cause eagerly, killing Inca warriors in pitched fighting that he would remember well in his old age.

Many of the men and women of noble Inca houses maintained their support of the Spaniards as well.64 Contarguacho, a secondary wife of Huayna Capac’s, raised an army in her native land of Huaylas and marched it to Lima to aid Francisco Pizarro, who was the father of two of her grandchildren.65 Contarguacho’s daughter, doña Inés Huayllas Yupanqui, warned Pizarro about the threat of Inca forces coming to attack his capital. In Cuzco, another of Manco’s sisters, later known as doña Beatriz, gave the first warning of the imminent attack. When the hostilities broke out, four powerful Inca lords—Cayo Topa, don Felipe Cari Topa, Inca Pascac, and Hualpa Roca—declared their support for the Spaniards; they brought with them large numbers of fighters and the resources of nearby farming communities, which provided critical support.66 These noblemen, some of them half-brothers and cousins of Manco, provided much-needed legitimacy to the Spanish occupation of Cuzco, withdrawing their networks of kin and allies from an Inca who was destroying their ancient city. In addition to providing military support, those lords performed a vital service for the allied forces that held Cuzco. As food stores ran low, Inca noblemen led risky raids on storage centers in the surrounding countryside, ransacking the storehouses and returning with much-needed supplies. A few years after the siege, a group of Inca record keepers declared that the food stores of the Spaniards would not have held out without divine aid, and noted that God was served when the four powerful lords brought their support to the Christian cause.67

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