The Spanish Conquest of Cusco, 15 November 1533

The Spanish conquest of Cusco, the Inca capital, was completed on 15 November 1533, almost exactly a year after the Battle of Cajamarca. The city fell to Francisco Pizarro with relatively little fighting, and the Spanish took possession of the principal Inca buildings, including the Temple of the Sun at Coricancha and the citadel of Sacsayhuamán. The Spanish were deeply impressed by the city’s goldwork, the polygonal masonry of its walls, and the elaborate ceremonial and administrative buildings, and they began almost at once to strip the temples and palaces of their gold. The conquest of Cusco was, in effect, the conquest of the Inca Empire at its political center, and it marked the end of the independent political life of the Inca. The first sack of Cusco is estimated to have yielded more gold than the ransom of Atahualpa, and the architecture of the city was a model for the Spanish colonial architecture that would be built on the site.

The march from Cajamarca

The advance on the Inca capital

After the execution of Atahualpa at Cajamarca on 26 July 1533, Pizarro advanced south with his small force, leaving a garrison at Cajamarca and at other strategic points on the road. The Spanish force comprised about 200 Spanish soldiers, including infantry, cavalry, and arquebusiers, and a much larger body of indigenous auxiliaries, drawn from the Cañari of southern Ecuador, the Chachapoya of the cloud forest, and other groups that had been incorporated into the Inca empire only recently and resentfully. The march from Cajamarca to Cusco, along the spine of the Andes, took several months and covered a distance of about 1,200 kilometers. The route followed the Qhapaq Ñan, the imperial road system that had been the administrative backbone of the Inca state, and the Spanish took possession of the imperial storehouses along the road to provision their armies.

The march was marked by a series of engagements against Inca forces loyal to the now-dead Atahualpa. The most important of these was the battle on the plain of Quipaipán, near the city of Vilcashuamán, in the central highlands of Peru, in which the Spanish defeated a large Inca army under the general Quisquis. The battle, which took place in the weeks before the fall of Cusco in November 1533 (most chronicles place it on or about 16 November 1533, though some give April 1533), was a decisive engagement in the campaign. The Inca army, which was much larger than the Spanish force, was defeated by the combined effect of Spanish steel weapons, cavalry, and indigenous auxiliaries. The victory at Quipaipán opened the road to Cusco, and the Spanish army advanced rapidly on the Inca capital in the following weeks.

The political situation in Cusco

The political situation in Cusco in late 1533 was complex. The city had been the capital of the Inca Empire under the Sapa Incas from the reign of Pachacuti in the mid-fifteenth century, and it was the location of the principal Inca religious and ceremonial buildings, including the Temple of the Sun at Coricancha, the Temple of the Moon, the Temple of the Stars, and the Temple of the Thunder. The city had been sacked in 1533 by the northern army under Quisquis in the course of the civil war of succession between Huáscar and Atahualpa, and the gold and silver objects that had made the city famous had been partially removed. The Inca nobility, however, remained in the city, and the city was still the symbolic center of the Inca state.

The political authority in Cusco at the time of the Spanish arrival was contested. The general Quisquis, who had been left in charge of the city by Atahualpa, was unable to mount an effective defense, and the city fell into a state of political confusion. The Spanish were able to exploit the situation by installing a younger son of Huayna Capac, Manco Inca Yupanqui, as a puppet Sapa Inca. The installation of Manco Inca was a political move, designed to give the Spanish occupation a veneer of legitimacy and to divide the Inca nobility. Manco Inca, who was about twenty years old at the time, accepted the installation, and the royal capital of Tawantinsuyu was formally transferred to the new order.

The fall of Cusco

The entry of the Spanish

Pizarro entered the city with a small force on 15 November 1533. The Spanish accounts, which include the eyewitness Relación of Pedro Sancho, report that the Spanish entry was peaceful and that the Inca population received the Spanish with curiosity rather than with hostility. The Spanish took possession of the principal Inca buildings, including the Coricancha, the Sacsayhuamán citadel, and the palaces of the Inca nobility. The Spanish were deeply impressed by the polygonal masonry of the Inca walls, the elaborate ceremonial buildings, and the gold and silver objects that remained in the temples and palaces.

The Spanish accounts describe Cusco as a city of about 40,000 houses, with extensive suburbs, a large central plaza, and a network of streets and ceremonial avenues. The city was divided into four quarters, corresponding to the four suyus of the empire, and each quarter had its own ceremonial and administrative buildings. The Spanish were particularly impressed by the Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun, which was covered with sheets of beaten gold and which contained a large golden image of the sun, the Inti. The Spanish described the temple as the most elaborate and the most richly decorated building they had ever seen, and they reserved it for their own use as a church and a monastery.

The first sack of Cusco

The Spanish began almost at once to strip the temples and palaces of their gold. The first sack of Cusco is estimated to have yielded more gold than the ransom of Atahualpa, and the gold was melted down into ingots and divided among the participants. The most famous objects taken from the city were the golden image of the sun, which was sent to Spain and which was later lost in a shipwreck off the coast of Ecuador, and the golden image of the Sapa Inca, which was also sent to Spain. The Spanish also took possession of the silver objects in the temples, including the silver image of the moon, and the gold and silver objects that had been stored in the imperial storehouses.

The first sack of Cusco was the beginning of a process of systematic looting that would continue for several years. The Spanish, who had come to the Andes with the goal of acquiring precious metals, took whatever they could find, and the Inca, who were unable to resist, were forced to surrender the treasures of their ancestors. The sacking of Cusco was significant, in the longer history of the Andes, for the way in which it destroyed the material basis of the Inca state. The gold and silver of the Inca had been the visible expression of the wealth and the power of the state, and the removal of the gold and silver was, in effect, the removal of the symbolic basis of the Inca order.

The Spanish presence in Cusco

The installation of Manco Inca

The Spanish installed Manco Inca Yupanqui as a puppet Sapa Inca in late 1533. The installation was a political move, designed to give the Spanish occupation a veneer of legitimacy. Manco Inca, who was a younger son of Huayna Capac and a brother of the recently executed Atahualpa, was the senior surviving male of the Inca royal family, and the Spanish hoped that his installation would divide the Inca nobility and prevent a general indigenous rebellion. The installation was performed with considerable ceremony, in the Inca manner, and the Spanish accounts report that Manco Inca was crowned with the mascapaicha, the royal fringe that was the symbol of the Sapa Inca.

The relationship between Manco Inca and the Spanish deteriorated rapidly. The Spanish demanded gold and silver, took possession of the aqllawasi — the houses of the chosen women — and treated the young Inca with increasing contempt. The Spanish accounts report that Manco Inca was treated as a puppet ruler, and that the Spanish officials made decisions without consulting him. The situation came to a head in 1535, when Manco Inca escaped from Cusco and withdrew to the highland fortress of Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley northeast of the former capital. From there he organized a general rebellion against the Spanish, which by 1536 had put the Spanish garrisons in Cusco, Lima, and the central highlands under serious threat.

The Spanish civil war in Cusco

The Spanish presence in Cusco was complicated by the Spanish civil war of 1537–1542. The dispute between Pizarro and Almagro over the boundary between their respective jurisdictions came to a head in 1537, when Almagro seized control of Cusco in 1537. The Pizarro faction, under the command of Hernando Pizarro, recaptured the city in 1538, after the defeat of Almagro at the battle of Las Salinas. The Spanish civil war was fought out on Andean soil and with indigenous auxiliaries on both sides, and it had important consequences for the indigenous population of the Cusco region. The Spanish accounts report that the war was accompanied by a wave of looting and violence that further damaged the city and its population.

The Spanish civil war was followed, in 1542, by the establishment of the viceroyalty of Peru and by the arrival of the first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela. The viceroy was charged with enforcing the New Laws of 1542, which had been issued by Charles V to limit the abuses of the encomienda system. The enforcement of the New Laws set off a further rebellion, led this time by Gonzalo Pizarro, and the conflict was not resolved until 1548, when the Spanish crown defeated the encomendero rebellion at the battle of Jaquijahuana. The Spanish civil war and the encomendero rebellion are significant for the way in which they entangled the Spanish and the indigenous populations, and for the way in which the conquest of Cusco was followed by a long period of violence and disruption.

The legacy of the conquest

The colonial city

The conquest of Cusco was followed by the construction of a Spanish colonial city on the site of the Inca capital. The Spanish preserved the Inca walls, which formed the foundations of the new Spanish buildings, and they built churches, monasteries, and palaces on the Inca ceremonial buildings. The most famous example is the church of Santo Domingo, which was built on the site of the Coricancha, and which combines the Inca polygonal masonry of the original temple with the Spanish Baroque architecture of the new church. The colonial city of Cusco, with its narrow streets, its Inca walls, and its Spanish churches, is one of the most distinctive urban landscapes in South America, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The conquest of Cusco also had important consequences for the indigenous population. The city, which had been the center of the Inca state, was now the center of the Spanish colonial administration, and the indigenous population was reduced to a marginal status. The Spanish imposed the encomienda system, which granted the indigenous people to individual Spanish settlers in exchange for tribute and labor, and they established the repartimiento and the mita, which required the indigenous population to provide labor for the Spanish colonial economy. The colonial mita, in particular, would become one of the most important institutions of the colonial economy, and it would have a profound impact on the lives of the indigenous population for three centuries.

The memory of the conquest

The memory of the Spanish conquest of Cusco has been a central theme in Andean political and cultural life since the sixteenth century. The Spanish chroniclers, especially Pedro Sancho and Francisco de Xerez, presented the conquest as a triumph of Christianity over paganism. The indigenous chroniclers, especially Titu Cusi Yupanqui and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, presented the conquest as a catastrophe and the Spanish as rapacious and cruel. The post-independence states of Peru and Bolivia have at different times presented the conquest as a founding event, as a trauma to be overcome, or as a useful lesson in the dangers of foreign rule. The Inca heritage in the modern Andean world, in the form of the surviving Inca architecture, the Quechua language, and the memory of the Inca past, is most visible in Cusco, and the city is the symbolic center of the modern Andean identity.