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Authors: KIM MACQUARRIE

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The Last Days of the Incas

BOOK: The Last Days of the Incas
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Praise for
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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

ALSO BY KIM MACQUARRIE

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

Copyright

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

www.hachette.co.uk

To my parents, Ron and Joanne MacQuarrie

Contents

Praise for the Last Days of the Incas

About the Author

Also By Kim Macquarrie

Copyright

Dedication

Chronology of Events

Preface

1. The Discovery

2. A Few Hundred Well-Armed Entrepreneurs

3 Supernova of the Andes

4 When Empires Collide

5 A Roomful of Gold

6 Requiem for a King

7 The Puppet King

8 Prelude to a Rebellion

9 The Great Rebellion

10 Death in the Andes

11 The Return of the One … Eyed Conqueror

12 In The Realm of the Antis

13 Vilcabamba: Guerrilla Capital of the World

14 The Last of the Pizarros

15 The Incas’ Last Stand

16 The Search for the “Lost City” of the Incas

17 Vilcabamba Rediscovered

Epilogue: Machu Picchu, Vilcabamba, and the Search for the Lost Cities of the Andes

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

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.
BOOK: The Last Days of the Incas
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