An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru Read online

  Manco Inca had observed these wars among the Spaniards from his remote outpost at Vilcabamba with great interest, providing occasional help to the weaker almagrista faction in the hope that the Spaniards would ultimately destroy, or at least significantly weaken, one another. After he had granted refuge, however, to some Spaniards who had been on the run for their role in Francisco Pizarro’s assassination, in 1545 he was treacherously murdered by his Spanish guests, who might have been instigated to do this in exchange for Spanish officials’ assurances of clemency in regard to their murder of Pizarro (Hemming, 276). Upon his death, Manco Inca left his oldest son, Saire Topa, as his successor. But Saire Topa was seen as a weak leader by the Inca nobles in Vilcabamba and in 1556 he moved to Cuzco to live under Spanish rule, accepting an offer of a repartimiento (an allotment of land and Native tributaries) from viceroy Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza. After Saire Topa’s departure, his half brother Titu Cusi Yupanqui, author of the text translated here, was left in charge of Vilcabamba. When news of Saire Topa’s sudden death arrived from Cuzco four years later,11 Titu Cusi was officially crowned Inca. Through shrewd politics of resistance and negotiation, Titu Cusi was able to maintain the independence of the neo-Inca state at Vilcabamba for another decade. He died under mysterious circumstances (probably from pneumonia) in 1571, leaving his younger brother, Topa Amaru, in charge of Vilcabamba. In 1572 a Spanish army sent by the new viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, succeeded in invading Vilcabamba and in capturing Topa Amaru. Topa Amaru’s subsequent execution on the main square of Cuzco marked the end of the neo-Inca state at Vilcabamba and of the paternal line of the Inca dynasty. Andean resistance against the Spanish invaders, however, continued. Even two hundred years later, major Native rebellions shook Peru, instigated by leaders who claimed descent from the Incas by the maternal line—such as Juan Santos Atahuallpa in the 1760s and José Gabriel Condorcanqui Topa Amaru II in the 1780s.12 Even to this day, the Incas’ imperial legacy is frequently appropriated by Peruvian resistance fighters who violently reject the neo-European social order of the American nation states.

  Titu Cusi’s Hybrid Account of the Conquest of Peru

  The brief summary of the main historical battles and events of the Conquest of Peru above conveys a sense of the extraordinary violence at the foundation of European empires and American nation states in the New World. It cannot do justice, however, to the whole story of Andean resistance and survival. Aware that their clubs, pikes, and slingshots were largely ineffective against the armored and mounted Spanish conquistadors, Native leaders soon learned to appropriate not only the foreigners’ use of swords, firearms, and horses but also the most powerful weapon that the invaders had brought: the written word. The text presented here tells an early chapter in the long history of Native appropriation of this European medium. It tells the story of the Conquest of Peru not from the familiar perspective of the Spanish conquerors but from the perspective of one of the main actors in the Andean resistance to the European colonial order.13 The year before his death in 1571, Titu Cusi related his story to an Augustinian missionary then at residence at Vilcabamba, fray Marcos García, so that his His Majesty, King Philip II, may be enlightened “with regard to the manner and times in which the Spaniards intruded into these lands of Peru and of the way they treated my father while he was still alive before they killed him in this land, which is now mine” (see p. 59). He related his story in the Inca language, Quechua, while the Spanish missionary “ordered” and translated it into Spanish. Marcos García’s translation was then transcribed by Titu Cusi’s mestizo secretary, Martín de Pando. The manuscript, completed on 6 February 1570, survives today in the royal library of the Monastery of the Escorial, Philip II’s monastic refuge outside Madrid. It is one of the most fascinating documents preserved from sixteenth-century Peru, telling the story of continuing Native cultural resistance, change, mixture, and survival in the Americas after the European invasion.

  Titu Cusi—whose name means “the Magnanimous and Fortunate”—was born around 1530 in Cuzco and lived there until his father’s removal to Vilcabamba. When he was about seven years old, he was captured from Vilcabamba during a Spanish raid and taken to Cuzco to be brought up in the house of Pedro de Oñate. Oñate seems to have been on overall good terms with Manco Inca, for Titu Cusi relates that “[w]hen my father found out about this, he sent a messenger to Oñate in order to thank him and officially to put me and my two sisters into his care, asking him to look after me and them and promising that he would show his gratitude” (p. 118). Titu Cusi’s reference to his patron as “a so-and-so Oñate,” however, also suggests that his stay with Oñate left little impression on him.

  It is uncertain how much Spanish Titu Cusi learned during his captivity in Cuzco. In general, it was rare for the Inca nobility of Cuzco to know Spanish during this early period of Spanish colonialism in Peru. Even Titu Cusi’s uncle Paullu—who had sided with the Spaniards at every opportunity, received a repartimiento from Pizarro, lived among Spaniards in Cuzco, worn Spanish clothes, and even participated in Spanish military expeditions in distant Chile—could not speak, read, or write Spanish, save for signing his name. Because this repeatedly made him the prey of Spanish ruffians who took advantage of his language barrier, in 1541 the authorities found it necessary to enact a royal decree giving him a Spanish tutor to look after his interests and prevent him from signing dubious contracts (see Hemming, 258–259). Although Paullu’s son Carlos (Titu Cusi’s cousin) was educated in a Spanish school and did learn to speak Spanish (as well as Latin), later even marrying a Spanish woman (Julien, 44; Hemming, 341), the acquisition of the Castilian language by Natives remained generally a controversial subject throughout the sixteenth century among the various sectors of Spanish society (see Mannheim, 61–109; Andrien, 106–119). On the one hand, the conquerors and their settler descendants had, as Bruce Mannheim points out, a “stake in ensuring that native populations continue to speak a Native Andean language rather than Spanish,” for they were able to manipulate the language barrier to their advantage in legal disputes (Mannheim, 108). Many among the clergy as well promoted Quechua, rather than Spanish, as the lingua franca, recognizing the pragmatic advantages of making use of Quechua for administrative and proselytizing purposes.14 The first three Provincial Councils of Lima (1551–1583) therefore encouraged the writing of catechisms and the formal training of missionaries in Quechua. It was in this context that the first Quechua grammar book and dictionary were produced by fray Domingo de Santo Tomás in 1560 (to which we will return later). On the other hand, Hispanization was generally the preferred policy of the Crown and some sectors of the clergy, who were concerned about the purity of Christian religious concepts once translated into Quechua. Although the balance would tip in favor of Hispanization by the end of the sixteenth century, during the time that Titu Cusi spent in Cuzco (1537–1542) it would not have been taken for granted that the offspring of the Inca nobility learn Spanish. But even if Titu Cusi had learned some Spanish during his captivity as a child, it is highly unlikely that he would have used it much during the nearly thirty years that would pass before he related his account in Quechua to García Marcos. Unlike his cousin Carlos, Titu Cusi spent virtually the entire period at Vilcabamba, where no or only little Spanish would have been spoken.

  By his own account, Titu Cusi returned to Vilcabamba after he was abducted from Cuzco by his father’s messengers. If we give credence to his statement that he rejoined his father in Vitcos around the time of the arrival of the Spanish refugees who would later murder Manco Inca, his return would have occurred around 1542 when he was about twelve years old. During the “many days” (p. 125) he then spent with his father at Vilcabamba (probably only about three years), he was able to observe Manco Inca’s style of governing the rebellious neo-Inca outpost. Once Titu Cusi was in charge of Vilcabamba after his father’s death in 1545 and his brother’s departure in 1556, he carried on his father’s resistance against Spanish authority.

  The pe
riod of his reign, however, also saw several overtures toward peaceful accommodation. In part, this was the result of a change in Spanish policy and leadership. In 1564 the Crown had sent a provisional governor general and president of the Council at Lima, Lope García de Castro, in order to take charge of the government until a new viceroy should be appointed. (The previous viceroy, Diego López de Zuñiga, Count of Nieva, had died unexpectedly earlier that year.) Meanwhile, Spanish authorities were becoming increasingly concerned about the growing support that nativist resistance movements were receiving among many of the already “pacified” indigenous population. Earlier that year, for example, a Spanish priest, Luis de Olvera, had discovered alarming news about a rapidly spreading millenarian movement, called Taqui Qnqoy, whose leaders called for an outright rejection of Christianity and all things European as well as for a return to the ancient huacas (sacred objects or spaces).15 Although the movement was eventually put down by Spanish authorities, García de Castro pursued a reconciliatory and diplomatic approach to the problem still posed by the rebels at Vilcabamba. Titu Cusi reciprocated the demonstrations of goodwill by frequently exchanging letters with Spanish authorities in Lima and Cuzco, entertaining Spanish missionaries in his refuge, and even allowing himself to be baptized and adopting a Christian name—Diego de Castro, in honor of the Spanish governor. A meeting was arranged at the bridge of Chuquichaca with the oidor (judge) of the Audiencia of Charcas, Juán de Matienzo, in order to negotiate the terms under which Titu Cusi would receive a substantial repartimiento in exchange for giving up his refuge. Moreover, it was agreed that Titu Cusi’s son, Quispe Titu, would marry Saire Topa’s daughter, christened as Beatriz, who lived in Cuzco and was heir to a substantial estate. In order to negotiate the terms of this arrangement, gifts, promises, messages, and official letters were exchanged, including the present text. Ultimately, however, nothing came of these negotiations and Titu Cusi, unlike his brother Saire Topa, remained in Vilcabamba.

  Some historians have interpreted Titu Cusi’s conversion to Christianity as more of a diplomatic ploy than an action motivated by true religious conviction while others have seen it as generally sincere (see Kubler; Hemming, 336, respectively). Although it is impossible to know with certainty what motivated Titu Cusi to convert, it is significant that despite allowing Christian missionaries to erect a large cross and to preach at Vilcabamba, repeatedly shielding them against some of the outspoken enemies of Christianity among his followers and professing his own admiration for missionaries and their apostolic message (see p. 133), he never allowed Christian monotheism to supplant the Incas’ practice of sun worship or of paying homage to their multitudinous huacas. It is also telling that his relationship with Marcos García sharply deteriorated when the Augustinian, who seems to have been somewhat rigid and inflexible, insisted on ending the ancient Inca custom of polygamy. Indeed, not long after the completion of Titu Cusi’s account, Marcos García was expelled from Vilcabamba, leaving behind his Augustinian brother Diego Ortiz. In the long run, his expulsion turned out to be lucky for Marcos García. When in 1571 Titu Cusi suddenly fell ill and died within a few days, the Vilcabamba Incas blamed Ortiz and demanded that he resuscitate their leader. He failed, however, to accomplish this feat, and so the enraged Andeans killed both Ortiz and Pando after subjecting the former to an extended and cruel martyrdom.16 The missionary’s death was subsequently used to justify the invasion of Vilcabamba and the execution of Topa Amaru (see Ocampo 215–216).

  There is also a question about the sincerity of Titu Cusi’s negotiations with Spanish authorities regarding his departure from Vilcabamba. These overtures, like his conversion, may well have been a diplomatic delay tactic intended to keep the Spaniards at bay through demonstrations of goodwill while adroitly evading all real changes to the status quo.17 Even though in his narrative Titu Cusi complained about “the hardships I suffer in these jungles as a result of His Majesty’s and His vassals’ having taken possession of this land” (p. 58), a return to Cuzco would have put him and his followers at the mercy of the Spaniards.18 Previous experiences with the Spanish intruders could hardly have inspired him with confidence in this regard. Moreover, he may well have remembered the words of his father, who, as Titu Cusi relates, had exhorted him and his followers “never to deal with people like these, so you won’t end up like me” (p. 127) and to “pretend on the outside that you agree to their demands. . . . But never forget our own ceremonies” (p. 116). Even though Titu Cusi was generally tolerant of Spanish culture, he, unlike his uncle Paullu and cousin Carlos, continued the traditional Inca ways of life. A contemporary Spaniard who had met him, Diego de Rodíguez de Figueroa, described him as wearing full ceremonial custom, including a “multicolored headdress, a diadem on his forehead and another one on his neck, a colored mask, a silver plate on his chest, garters of feathers, and carrying a golden lance, dagger, and shield” (see Hemming, 314). Unwilling to submit to the Spanish yoke but knowing that Vilcabamba was not strong enough to withstand a concerted Spanish assault, Titu Cusi walked a fine line between resistance and accommodation in his attempt to preserve his refuge. For example, he strictly forbade the admittance of any Spanish settlers (apart from the missionaries) into the valley in order to avoid conflicts that might provoke Spanish military action. The early seventeenth-century chronicler Antonio de Calancha relates that when in 1570 a sole Spanish prospector turned up at Vilcabamba to ask for permission to search for gold in the area, Titu Cusi acquiesced assuming that there was none to be found. When, contrary to Titu Cusi’s expectations, the Spaniard did find gold and brought it to Titu Cusi thinking “that the Inca would be delighted” and grant him a new license for more exploration, Titu Cusi had the man killed and thrown into a river so not to “arouse the greed and attract thousands of Spaniards” (quoted in Hemming, 337).

  These events tell us much about the reasons why Titu Cusi decided to have his story translated and transcribed for a Spanish audience and about the poetics of the surviving text. Some critics have suggested that such a decision seems to privilege European alphabetical writing over indigenous structures of knowledge—such as Andean oral traditions or the quipu (the records the Incas kept by way of colored knots)—and to betray a Eurocentric perspective that may have originated either with Titu Cusi’s own acceptance of imposed European cultural norms or with a manipulation by the Spanish translator (see Luiselli, 30, n.1). Although this is probably a reasonable inference to make with regard to fray Marcos García, it would be unwarranted with regard to Titu Cusi. Rather, I would argue that his choice of the written medium must be seen in the context of the overall rhetorical nature of this text as a pragmatic attempt at intercultural diplomacy. When addressing a European monarch and court, Titu Cusi’s history had to bridge a considerable hermeneutic gap. For this reason, Frank Salomon has called Native American chronicles, such as Titu Cusi’s account, “Chronicles of the Impossible”—diachronic narratives of the conquest era that must be fully intelligible to Spanish contemporaries and at the same time made from and faithful to Andean materials alien to European diachrony (Salomon 1982, 9). Titu Cusi made hereby calculated use of everything he had learned about Spanish culture without becoming unfaithful to his own culture. His rhetorical strategy included his choice not only of the written medium but also of the Augustinian Marcos García as his translator and mouthpiece. Indeed, Marcos García was chosen after Titu Cusi had made inquiries (as he tells us in his narrative), asking “who among the monks in Cuzco was the most outstanding personality and which religion enjoyed the widest approbation and power” and after having learned that “the mightiest, most respected, and most flourishing religion was that of the Lord St. Augustine” (p. 133).

  Titu Cusi understood the importance of alphabetical writing in dealing with the Spaniards. Thus, he relates that one of the reasons why the Andean people who first saw the Spaniards upon their arrival in Tahuantinsuyu called the strangers Viracochas (gods) was that “the Indians saw them alone talking to white clo
ths [paños blancos], as a person would speak to another, which is how the Indians perceived the reading of books and letters” (p. 60). Similarly memorable is Titu Cusi’s account of the fateful encounter between the Spaniards and Atahuallpa at Cajamarca in 1532. He relates that the Spaniards “showed my uncle a letter or a book (I’m not sure exactly which), explaining to him that this was the word of God and of the king. My uncle . . . took the letter (or whatever it was) and threw it down, saying, ‘What is this supposed to be that you gave to me here? Be gone!’” (p. 61). The subsequent Spanish attack was triggered when Atahuallpa, in a haughty gesture, flung the breviary presented to him by the priest Vicente de Valverde into the dust. The book contained the infamous requirimiento (Requirement), a text that by law had to be read aloud to the Natives and which informed them of their obligation to “acknowledge the Church as the Ruler and Superior of the whole world. . . . And the high priest called Pope, and in his name the King and the Queen” (quoted in Hanke, 33). Noncompliance was legitimate ground for the commencement of violent conquest. The power attributed to the written word in dealing with the Spaniards reverberates in many other Andean sources relating this scene and dating from the sixteenth century to the present, both written and oral.19 Thus, Juan de Betanzos—a Spaniard who was married to Atahuallpa’s sister (Francisco Pizarro’s former mistress), Doña Angelina Yupanqui, who told the story of the Conquest as remembered by her family—wrote that, after the interpreter had explained to Atahuallpa that he should “obey the captain [Pizarro] who was also the son of the Sun, and that was what . . . the painting in the book said,” Atahuallpa “asked for the book and, taking it in his hands he opened it. When he saw the lines of letters, he said, ‘This speaks and says that you are the son of the Sun? I, also, am the son of the Sun’ . . . Saying this, he hurled the book away” (Betanzos, 263). Similarly, the indigenous Andean chronicler Guaman Poma de Ayala, writing during the early seventeenth century, remembers Atahuallpa’s response to the book like this: “‘Give me the book so that it can speak to me.’ And so he [Valverde] gave it to him and he held it in his hands and began to inspect the pages of the said book. And then the Inca said, ‘Why doesn’t it speak to me?’” before angrily throwing it to the ground (Guaman Poma, 357). Once in captivity, Atahuallpa reportedly asked the Spaniards to be taught how to “listen” to these texts. Finally, the early seventeenthcentury Huarochirí Manuscript, written by an anonymous Andean probably recruited by the Spanish priest Francisco de Avila, begins by stating, “If the ancestors of the people called Indians had known writing in former times, then the lives they lived would not have faded from view until now. As the mighty past of the Spanish Vira Cochas is visible until now, So too would theirs be” (Huarochirí Manuscript, 41).