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Peru Consolidation of Control
With Atahualpa dead, the Spaniards proceeded to march
on
Cusco. On the way, they dealt another decisive blow, aided
by
native American allies from the pro-Huáscar faction, to
the still
formidable remnants of Atahualpa's army. Then on November
15,
1533, exactly a year after arriving at Cajamarca, Pizarro,
reinforced with an army of 5,000 native American
auxiliaries,
captured the imperial city and placed Manco Cápac II, kin
of
Huáscar and his faction, on the Inca throne as a Spanish
puppet.
Further consolidation of Spanish power in Peru,
however, was
slowed during the next few years by both indigenous
resistance
and internal divisions among the victorious Spaniards. The
native
population, even those who had allied initially with the
invaders
against the Incas, had second thoughts about the arrival
of the
newcomers. They originally believed that the Spaniards
simply
represented one more in a long line of Andean
power-contenders
with whom to ally or accommodate. The continuing violent
and
rapacious behavior of many Spaniards, however, as well as
the
harsh overall effects of the new colonial order, caused
many to
alter this assessment. This change led Manco Cápac II to
balk at
his subservient role as a Spanish puppet and to rise in
rebellion
in 1536. Ultimately unable to defeat the Spaniards, Manco
retreated to Vilcabamba in the remote Andean interior
where he
established an independent Inca kingdom, replete with a
miniature
royal court, that held out until 1572.
Native American resistance took another form during the
1560s
with the millenarian religious revival in Huamanga known
as Taki
Onqoy (literally "dancing sickness"), which preached the
total
rejection of Spanish religion and customs. Converts to the
sect
expressed their conversion and spiritual rebirth by a
sudden
seizure in which they would shake and dance
uncontrollably, often
falling and writhing on the ground. The leaders of Taki
Onqoy
claimed that they were messengers from the native gods and
preached that a pan-Andean alliance of native gods would
destroy
the Christians by unleashing disease and other calamities
against
them. An adherent to the sect declared at an official
inquiry in
1564 that "the world has turned about, and this time God
and the
Spaniards [will be] defeated and all the Spaniards killed
and
their cities drowned; and the sea will rise and overwhelm
them,
so that there will remain no memory of them."
To further complicate matters for the conquerors, a
fierce
dispute broke out among the followers of Pizarro and those
of
Diego de Almagro. Having fallen out over the original
division of
spoils at Cajamarca, Almagro and his followers challenged
Pizarro's control of Cusco after returning from an
abortive
conquest expedition to Chile in 1537. Captured by
Pizarro's
forces at the Battle of Salinas in 1538, Almagro was
executed,
but his supporters, who continued to plot under his son,
Diego,
gained a measure of revenge by assassinating Pizarro in
1541.
As the civil turmoil continued, the Spanish crown
intervened
to try to bring the dispute to an end, but in the process
touched
off a dangerous revolt among the colonists by decreeing
the end of the
encomienda system (see Glossary)
in 1542.
The
encomienda was a much abused prerogative to extract
labor
and tribute from the indigenous peoples in return for the
responsibility to protect and Christianize them. It had
originally been granted as a reward to the conquistadors
and
their families during the conquest and ensuing
colonization, and
was regarded as sacrosanct by the grantees, or
encomenderos, who numbered about 500 out of a total
Spanish population of 2,000 in 1536. However, to the crown
it
raised the specter of a potentially privileged, neofeudal
elite
emerging in the Andes to challenge crown authority.
The crown's efforts to enforce the New Laws (Nuevos
Leyes) of
1542 alienated the colonists, who rallied around the
figure of
Gonzalo Pizarro, the late Francisco's brother. Gonzalo
managed to
kill the intemperate Viceroy Don Blasco Núñez de la Vela,
who, on
his arrival, had foolishly tried to enforce the New Laws.
In 1544
Pizarro assumed de facto authority over Peru. His
arbitrary and
brutal rule, however, caused opposition among the
colonists, so
that when another royal representative, Pedro de la Gasca,
arrived in Peru to restore crown authority, he succeeded
in
organizing a pro-royalist force that defeated and executed
Pizarro in 1548. With Gonzalo's death, the crown finally
succeeded, despite subsequent intermittent revolts, in
ending the
civil war and exerting crown control over Spanish Peru.
It would take another two decades, however, to finally
quell
native American resistance. Sensing the danger of the Taki
Onqoy
heresy, the Spanish authorities moved quickly and
energetically,
through a church-sponsored anti-idolatry campaign, to
suppress it
before it had a chance to spread. Its leaders were seized,
beaten, fined, or expelled from their communities. At the
same
time, a new campaign was mounted against the last Inca
holdout at
Vilcabamba, which was finally captured in 1572. With it,
the last
reigning Inca, Túpac Amaru, was tried and beheaded by the
Spaniards in a public ceremony in Cusco, thereby putting
an end
to the events of the conquest that had begun so
dramatically four
decades earlier at Cajamarca.
Data as of September 1992
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