Quispe Sisa

Quispe Sisa (outdated: Quispe Çiça ; * around 1518 ; † around 1570 in Ciudad de los Reyes, today Lima ) was baptized by the Spaniards as Inés Huaylas Yupanqui (outdated: Ynés ) and was a daughter of the last undisputed Inca king Huayna Cápac . She was given to Francisco Pizarro by Atahualpa , her half-brother, when he was in captivity of the Spaniards, to appease the conquistadors. Doña Inés Yupanqui , as she was called from then on, had two children from Pizarro. Because Pizarro did not marry her, she was married to Francisco de Ampuero, one of his pages. With this she lived in early colonial Lima. Her origins and descent, as well as her proximity to the Spanish upper class, made her perhaps the most important woman of the early colonial empire in Peru .

father and mother

Quispe Sisa's father was Huayna Cápac. As usual, the king had several wives, traditionally a chief wife who was his sister. The other women were mostly relatives or representatives of the high nobility from the provinces, who were chosen for political reasons. This also applied to Contarguacho, the daughter and heiress of the local ruler of Huaylas Province and mother of Quispe Sisa. With all these women, Huayna Cápac had around 30 children.

When Huayna Cápac died and the war of succession broke out between his sons Atahualpa and Huáscar , Contarguacho withdrew to their home province of Huaylas. There she raised her daughter and succeeded her father as ruler of the province, which had a population of around 60,000. She was largely spared further unrest in the context of the War of Succession, but also due to the Spanish colonization efforts, as she sided with the newcomers from the very beginning for clever tactical reasons.

The relationship with Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro came from Trujillo in the province of Extremadura in Spain. He was the illegitimate child of a maid. His father belonged to the lower nobility, so he was a hidalgo . During his first years on the new continent, he gradually worked his way up the hierarchy of conquerors and became an innovative and ambitious conquistador. He discovered the Inca Empire on two exploratory trips. The Crown gave him the right to govern this land as governor.

At the Battle of Cajamarca in November 1532, Pizarro succeeded in capturing Atahualpa, the victor of the Inca War of Internal Succession. In order to get free, Atahualpa promised the Spanish on the one hand the legendary room full of gold, on the other hand he tried to bind them to the local elite by u. a. Pizarro offered his sister Quispe Sisa as a wife. At the time of handover, Quispe Sisa was believed to be 14 or 15 years old while Pizarro was 55 years old. But nothing more is known about this event. For a woman with the status of Quispe Sisa, it was stipulated from the start that she would be married to a close relative or at least for political reasons to a local ruler. Therefore, the act of her brother was not a major turning point in her self-image.

As Pizarro's lover

Quispe Sisa became Pizarro's lover and was given the name “Doña Inés Yupanqui”. As an Inca noblewoman, she was able to keep her title of nobility. She had two children from Pizarro, Francisca (* December 1534), who later married her uncle Hernando Pizarro , and Gonzalo (* 1535), who died as a child. Francisco Pizarro was overjoyed with the birth of his daughter. She was solemnly baptized in Jauja , and Pizarro achieved that his illegitimate daughter was legitimized by a royal decree.

Pizarro had distributed the land to his fellow conquistadors as encomiendas . For himself he also chose a personal encomienda, namely the province of Huaylas, in which Ines' mother Contarguacho ruled, who was loyal to the Spaniards. When the uprising of the Inca king Manco Cápac , appointed by Pizarro, began in 1536 and Pizarro was besieged in Lima, he received support from Contarguacho.

From Pizarro's will we know a little about his ownership structure. It is also evident that he must have lived in a huge household, because his entourage included not only the servants but also men who took care of Pizarro's business. Inés, who lived in the same household, also had her own servants and maintained her own contacts, especially with her mother in the Huaylas province.

The relationship with Francisco de Ampuero

Marriage to Ampuero

Francisco de Ampuero came from the class of the Hidalgos and went to America a. a. it is because most of the family inheritance went to his brother. He was about the same age as Inés and initially became a page in the house of Francisco Pizarro, which was a normal step in the life of a young nobleman.

Pizarro, who was now in a relationship with Angelina Cuxirimay Ocllo, another Inca princess, married Inés to Ampuero. This had to mean a significant social decline for Inés, while it was an enormous gain in prestige for de Ampuero. Inés received a dowry from Pizarro, which she could freely dispose of without her new husband being able to deny her anything. Inés was initially separated from her children through the marriage, although she probably did not lose contact with her daughter Francisca Pizarro.

The household and the rise of de Ampuero

Inés still had her own staff, while Francisco de Ampuero tried to amass wealth by managing his encomienda near Lima, which consisted of around 40 villages with around 8,000 people and which, among other things, provided labor for the construction of the town house would have. De Ampuero was also otherwise very ambitious and enterprising, he was also involved in the city council for 35 years and was undisputedly part of the colonial leadership. Perhaps this rise is also because he lagged far behind his wife in terms of reputation and tried to make up for it.

Battle for Huaylas Province

In general, court records and witness interviews are the most extensive sources for the early colonial period. Inés herself was often asked about the affiliation and merits of noble Inca members. A particularly long court case was the dispute over the Encomienda Huaylas, which Francisco Pizarro bequeathed to his daughter Francisca, who was Contarguacho's granddaughter, in his will. De Ampuero fought for Huaylas to be transferred to his wife Inés instead of Francisca. He also called for replacements and a share of Huayna Cápac's legacy. None of this was awarded to him or his wife.

Marital dispute

The court files also show that there were not inconsiderable disputes between the partners in the de Ampuero house. Inés had therefore turned to a magician and asked her that her husband should stop treating her badly and stop arguing. Whether violence was involved is not explicitly mentioned, but is considered likely. She said he had given her a bad life and did not want her to go anywhere. Then she tried to poison her husband using the magician. A sign of displeasure on both sides is the fact that de Ampuero declares Inés in his will to be incapable of raising her children, which could have something to do with her idea of ​​freedom, but this is pure speculation. On a trip to Spain, de Ampuero accompanied Inés' daughter Francisca, who then stayed in Spain and never saw her mother again.

Dispute over the dowry

Another high point of the dispute is the illegal sale of Inés' dowry. With the help of her sons, Inés successfully defended herself against this in court, because she had the sole right of disposal over this property. Nonetheless, Francisco resold her goods, ignoring the law and the courts, arguing that he used the proceeds to finance the household. In the dispute, Inés received increasing support from her son and relatives in law. At that time, around 1564, she was in her mid-forties. After that, nothing more is known about her, except that her husband, who survived her a little, was buried next to her.

Inés in the melting pot cultures

Contact with relatives

Apparently, at the time of the Incas, noble women were able to move around relatively freely and maintain their own social contacts, for example with family members. Despite the polygamy, there were no harem-like conditions. The formal events were held by men and women together, but also separately. Such statements are to be treated with caution, however, since only guesses can be made about the Inca period itself. From various testimonies it can be deduced that Inés Yupanqui was in close contact with relatives and acquaintances from the Inca aristocracy and housed them in her house, for example when they came from Cusco and had something to do in Lima. The third from last independent Inca ruler, Sayri Tupac , was probably staying with her when he came to Lima for peace negotiations. According to the Spanish ideal, elegant women went to masses, but otherwise always stayed within their own four walls.

Rumor about a competitor

Doña Inés was the highest ranking woman in Lima, which went hand in hand with a considerable reputation. There is an episode recorded in several sources that says that one day, when Inés' sister came to Lima, who allegedly was Huayna Cápac's daughter with his main wife, she was now higher in rank than Inés. She lived in Pizarro's house and was apparently murdered. Contemporaries gossiped about such events and there were voices attributing the murder of Inés Yupanqui.

Conjectures about Doña Inés' way of life

Kerstin Nowack tries to understand the mixed Spanish-Indian culture. Presumably Doña Inés spoke Quechua to her servants and possibly also to her children, who were all mestizos. Nowack also suspects that it was cooked separately with local ingredients, while the Spanish soon launched their usual European menu. The clothes of the noble women of Indian descent were also based on the Inca cut, but the pleasant fabrics of velvet and silk soon prevailed.

literature

• Kerstin Nowack: Lifestyles in transition. Ynés Yupangui between Inca Empire and Spanish colonial rule in Peru . Shaker, Aachen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8322-5805-4 , ( Bonner American Studies 43).

Individual evidence

1. ^ John Hemming: The Conquest of the Incas . Mariner Books, 2003, ISBN 0-15-602826-3 .