Manco Cápac II.

Manco Cápac II. (Manco Inca)

Manco Cápac II. , According to the Peruvian Quechua spelling Manku Qhapaq II. Or Manqu Qhapaq II. (* Around 1500 in Cusco ; † 1544 in Vitcos ) was Inca ruler from 1533 to 1544 after the conquest of the Inca Empire . It was used by the Spanish conquerors , but soon had no power of its own. He organized a major uprising against the Spaniards and, after its failure, continued the resistance in guerrilla warfare.

origin

Manco Cápac II, who was also called Manku Inka , was a son of the Inca Huayna Cápac and half-brother of Atahualpa and Huáscar . However, his mother did not come from the elite of Cusco, which meant that he did not enjoy any particular support from the nobility (i.e. the Panacas ). He stayed out of the controversy between the two half-siblings and approved of Huáscar. When Atahualpa's general Quisquis and his troops from the north of the empire took the capital Cusco and killed the Inca nobility, Manco was able to flee.

Cooperation with the Spaniards

On his way to the defeated south, Atahualpa met the small troop of Francisco Pizarro , who took him prisoner in a surprise blow. After Atahualpa's assassination, Túpac Huallpa was first appointed by the Spaniards as the highest Inca , but he died when he moved to Cusco with Pizarro. On the way to Cusco, Pizarro met Manco Cápac, who offered him his loyalty. After the capture of Cusco on November 15, 1533, Francisco Pizarro had him enthroned according to the Inca ritual.

Manco Cápac initially stood on Pizarro's side and supported him in the successful fight against Quisquis. But it became more and more a powerless tool of the Spaniards; Pizarro did little to counter the undermining of his authority. Manco got on better with his partner Diego de Almagro ; At Manco's request, Almagro even had his rival Atoc Sopa eliminated. When Almagro left for the Conquista in Chile on July 3, 1535, Manco supported him with several thousand men under the direction of his half-brother Paullu .

Shortly thereafter, Francisco traveled to the coast to the newly founded city of Ciudad de los Reyes ( Lima ) and left Cusco under the governorship of his brothers Gonzalo and Juan . Manco was humiliated and mistreated by them, he even had to leave Gonzalo Pizarro to his sister-wife Cura Ocllo . A first attempt at escape failed in autumn 1535 and Manco was chained for two months. Hernando Pizarro , having returned from Spain, stopped the abuse and tried to regain Manco's loyalty - too late, as it should show.

Revolt against the Spaniards

→ Main article : Siege of Cuzco

After a successful escape in the spring of 1536, Manco Cápac rebelled against the Spaniards, organized Inca troops in the Urubamba valley , briefly took the fortress of Sacsayhuamán and besieged Cusco from May 1536 to April 1537. An attack by the Inca under Quizo Yupanqui on Lima failed in August 1536, and Manco Cápac's efforts to find Indian allies were mostly unsuccessful in view of their bad experiences with the Inca empire. Spanish-Indian relief troops from Lima and counter-attacks to relieve Cusco could be intercepted or defeated. When Almagro returned from his expedition to Chile and approached Cusco, he tried to get him to his side. This attempt failed, however, and Manco had to withdraw from the area around Cusco. His army dispersed, which was not entirely innocent of his harsh dealings with his followers.

Guerrilla actions from Vilcabamba

Manco Cápac fled with about 2,000-3,000 followers from Ollantaytambo on to Vilcabamba , where he founded a new Inca state and was thereby able to interrupt the direct connection between Lima and Cusco. As a countermeasure, Francisco Pizarro founded the city of San Juan de la Frontera de Huamanga in 1539, halfway between Jauja and Cusco. From Vilcabamba Manco led guerrilla fights against the Spaniards and their Indian allies. He no longer accepted Spanish offers of submission.

Internal struggles of the Spaniards for control of Cusco gave Manco a respite until the Pizarro brothers defeated Diego de Almagro in 1538 at the Battle of Las Salinas . In a large-scale attack by Gonzalo Pizarro in April to July 1539, he was able to escape, but his sister-wife Cura Ocllo was captured by the Spaniards and tortured to death a little later. Manco continued his fight. He learned to ride and had his men instructed in European fighting techniques.

In June 1541, a group of Almagros supporters murdered Francisco Pizarro. The conspirators proclaimed Almagro's son of the same name, Diego "el Mozo", as captain general of Peru. Manco provided logistical support for Almagro's rebellion against the Spanish crown, but the alliance ended the following year when Almagro was defeated and executed at the Battle of Chupas . In mid-1544 Manco Cápac II was murdered by seven supporters of Almagro who had been involved in the murder of Francisco Pizarro and whom he had given refuge. The murderers were caught and killed by the Indians.

The sons of Manco Cápacs, Sayri Túpac , Titu Cusi Yupanqui and finally Túpac Amaru succeeded him on the throne. With Túpac Amaru the rule of the Inca came to an end.

Lore

Pedro Pizarro narrates an instructive conversation between Manco II and Rui Díaz, a follower of Almagro, who visited the Inca king on behalf of his master.

“Diego de Almagro had sent Rui Díaz to the Inca Manco. The Inca said:

›Rui Díaz, assuming I gave my great treasure to the king, would he withdraw all Christians from this land?‹

Rui Díaz replied:

›How much would you give then?‹

Manco had a bushel of corn that he had brought to the ground, and from this heap he took a grain and said:

›You Christians have so far found as much as this grain in gold and silver. By comparison, what you didn't find is like that bushel of corn.

Rui Díaz said to Manco Cápac:

'Even if you give the king all these mountains of gold and silver, he will not take the Spaniards out of the country here.'

Manco:

›Go, Rui Díaz, and tell Almagro to go where he wants, because I and all my people must die until the Christians are defeated. And go quickly and tell Almagro not to come.

- Pedro Pizarro, Relación del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los Reinos del Perú (1571)

This dialogue repeatedly gave rise to speculation about the existence of a fabulous Inca treasure.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Thomas Alan Abercrombie: Pathways of memory and power, p. 139
2. ^ ^{A b} John Hemming: The conquest of the Incas. Macmillan, 1993, ISBN 0-333-10683-0 , pp. 173-183
3. ^ Karen Vieira Powers: Women in the crucible of conquest, p. 77; Barbara A. Somervill: Empire of the Inca; P. 53 f .; Bernabé Cobo: History of the Inca Empire, p. 172 f .; Gordon Francis McEwan: The Incas: new perspectives, p. 80
4. ^ Hanns J. Prem : Geschichte Altamerikas, p. 90; The Inca had initially retaken large parts of the city until they stopped the counterattack on Sacsayhuamán. See Pam Barrett: Peru, p. 51 f.
5. ↑ David Patrick Cahill, Blanca Tovías: New world, first nations, p. 58 f.
6. ↑ David Patrick Cahill, Blanca Tovías: New world, first nations, p. 59 f.
7. ↑ Diego de Castro Yupangui (Ed .: Catherine J. Julien): History of how the Spaniards arrived in Peru, p 135; David Marley: Wars of the Americas Vol. 1, p. 56; Kim MacQuarrie: The last days of the Incas, p. 328 f.
8. ↑ Gottfried Kirchner: Terra X - Eldorado, search for the gold treasure . Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-02494-4 , p. 47. Manco's son Titu Kusi Yupanki reports on the incident as an eyewitness in his report submitted in 1570 ( The fight against the Spaniards: An Inka King reports. Transl. And ed by Martin Lienhard. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2003, ISBN 978-3491691032 , pp. 132f. and time table of the publisher, p. 175).
9. ↑ Spanish text after Luis Calvo: Se perdieron u ocultaron inmensos tesoros áureos del Perú. In: ABC of November 26, 1963, pp. 26-28. Source: Pedro Pizarro : Relación del descubrimiento y conquista de los reinos del Perú. In: Martín Fernández de Navarrete u. a. (Ed.): Documentos inéditos para la Historia de España , Volume V, printed in Madrid 1844, p. 314 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search). Gottfried Kirchner offers a German version: Terra X - Eldorado, Search for the Gold Treasure . Munich 1988, p. 45.

predecessor	Office	successor
Túpac Huallpa Tupaq Wallpa	Inca of Cuzco and Vilcabamba 1533–1544	Sayri Túpac Sayri Tupaq