History of Cusco
The history of Cusco, the historical capital of the Incas.
Foundation and Inca period
According to the legend collected by the "Inca" Garcilaso de la Vega, Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo migrated from Lake Titicaca on the advice of their father, the god Sun. They threw a golden javelin; where it was nailed they founded a new town. The place chosen was called Cusco:The famous legend, written by Garcilaso, lacks archaeological evidence.
Due to archaeological and anthropological data, the true process of the occupation of Cusco has been studied. The consensus suggests that, due to the collapse of the kingdom of Tiwanaku, the migration of its people took place. This group of about 500 men would have gradually established themselves in the Huatanay River Valley, a process that would culminate in the foundation of the Cusco on the banks of the Saphy River. The approximate date is unknown, but thanks to vestiges it is agreed that the site where the city is located was already inhabited 3000 years ago.
Ancient chronicles like those of the chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa affirm the existence of ethnic groups in the valley of Cusco before the appearance of the Inca Empire. This author mentions the Guallas, the Sahuasiray and the Antasayas as the oldest settlers; while the Alcavistas, Copalimaytas and Culunchimas are considered more recent inhabitants. It is also known that the Ayarmacas inhabited the region, being the only ones that were not crushed by the Incas, becoming their main rivals in the domain of the region.
Cusco was the capital and seat of government of the Kingdom of the Incas and continued to be at the beginning of the imperial era, becoming the most important city in the Andes and South America. This centralism gave it rise and became the main cultural focus and axis of religious worship.
File:Tahuantinsuyu.JPG|thumb|Representation of the four divisions of the Inca Empire, which started from Cusco, the capital city shaped like a cougar.
The Pachacuti ruler is credited with making Cusco a spiritual and political center. Pachacuti came to power in 1438, and he and his son Túpac Yupanqui dedicated five decades to the organization and conciliation of the different tribal groups under his domain, including the Lupacas and the Collas. During the period of Pachacuti and Túpac Yupanqui, the Cusco domain reached Quito, to the north, and to the Maule River, to the south, culturally integrating the inhabitants of 4500 km of mountain ranges.
It is also believed that the original design of the city is the work of Pachacuti. The map of ancient Cusco is shaped like a cougar, with the central Haucaypata square in the position that would occupy the animal's chest. The head of the feline would be located on the hill where the fortress of Sacsayhuamán is.
File:Consejo Inca.jpg|thumb|upright|"Royal council of these kingdoms, the Inka lords who govern Tawantinsuyu", painted in 1615 by the Inca Guamán Poma. Royal Danish Library.
The city of Cusco was designed as the seat of power and its internal organization corresponded to a traditional Inca urban division, it was located in a strategic central point of the empire, whose centrality converges the four roads that linked the suyos.
Viceroyalty era
Conquest of Cusco
The Spanish conquistadors knew from their arrival in what is now Peruvian territory, that their goal was to take the city of Cusco, capital of the Inca empire.Three weeks after the death of the Inca Atahualpa, they began their march towards Cusco. On August 11, 1533, Francisco Pizarro began his trip from Cajamarca to Cusco accompanied by Túpac Huallpa and, although Garcilaso points out that it is another character, the warrior Chalcuchimac. the Spaniards agreed in Xaquixaguana, near the city of Cuzco, to make Manco Cápac as indigenous sovereign, son of Huayna Capac, 20 years old, from Charcas. The young prince was eager to collaborate with the expulsion of Cusco from the troops of the Inca general Quizquiz, Atahualpa's trusted man and defender of a rival panaka. To this end, he supplied the Spaniards and gathered a strong contingent of Cusco citizens, Cañaris and Chankas willing to besiege the capital of the empire. In November of 1533, the troops of Quizquiz, fearing to be sieged, left the city and were persecuted until Anta, where they presented battle, but were defeated, fleeing their leader to Paruro.
File:Royal Danish Library.Atahualpa executed 1615.jpg|thumb|upright|"The execution of Atahualpa Inka in Cajamarca, they behead him", painted in 1615 by the Inca Guamán Poma. Royal Danish Library. Actually he was sentenced to be garroted.
According to Cristóbal de Molina, Francisco Pizarro took possession of Cusco on November 15, 1533, among acclamations of the Cusco citizens for having defeated Atahualpa, the usurper of the throne. However, soon the excitement turned into discontent, when the conquistadores broken into the monuments and sacred places of the Incas, obtaining a city's treasure that according to the scribe of Pizarro, Francisco Xerez, had a total of "580 thousand pesos in gold and 215 thousand marks in silver". They stripped of jewels and rich ornaments from the royal mummies that rested in the Coricancha temple. In a cave near the city they found a large number of vessels of pure gold with figures of snakes, locusts and other animals, also sacked gold life-size staues of women and llamas.
At Christmas, believing to be the object of a compliment of the Spaniards, Túpac Manco, already invested with the mascapaicha with the name of Manco Inca, naively accepted the "requirement" protocol demanded by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, recognizing him as supreme sovereign of their domains. He also arranged for his army, some 10,000 soldiers, to leave the city accompanying Hernando Pizarro's expeditions to Huamanga.
Siege of Cusco
While Cusco was under the authority of Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro, Francisco's brothers, Manco Inca created a plan to escape and gather a new army. The first flight was frustrated, but the second, on April 18, 1536, allowed him to take refuge in Yucay. There he managed to gather, according to the chroniclers, about 100,000 men, with whom on May 3, 1536, he sieged Cusco, sending a similar army to Lima, in command from his brother Quizu Yupanqui.Within the city, 200 conquerors commanded by Hernando, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro with Nicaraguans and no more than 1,000 Cañaris and Chachas at their service, were reduced to a desperate situation within the framework of the Aucaypata square and which ended with the miracle of Suturhuasi. On May 14, there was a desperate battle for the capture of the fortress of Sacsayhuamán, famous because the Inca captain Cullash, also known as Cahuide, jumped from the top of one of its towers. Manco Inca conducted four offensives to capture Cusco. The last one in August 1536, forced him to withdraw from the project because the time of sowing in the surrounding fields had arrived and it was necessary to avoid the hunger that could occur if the lands were abandoned.
File:Almagro en el Cuzco.jpg|thumb|left|Diego de Almagro entering in Cusco. Engraving of the Historia general de las Indias by Francisco López de Gómara.
In September, preparing a second siege of Cusco, Tiso Yupanqui, main general of Manco Inca, successfully led several clashes against the Spaniards. The main one happened in front of Ollantaytambo in January 1537. According to an anonymous chronicler from 1539, in that battle Tiso Yupanqui captured "several dozen" of Spaniards and "made them slaves", while also adorning the fortress with "200 heads of Christians and 150 horse leathers".
Failed the expedition to Chile, Diego de Almagro returned to Cusco on May 8, 1537 and imposed his authority over the brothers of Francisco Pizarro, whom he imprisoned them for a few weeks. Then he undertook the campaign against Manco Inca, giving him a severe defeat in Vitcos, a mysterious place that some researchers, such as Juan José Vega, suspect Machu Picchu has been. Then, the rebel Inca fled to Vilcabamba, where he would be killed in 1542 by some Spanish fugitives to whom he gave asylum.
Civil wars (1538-1554)
, willing to forcefully defend the territories he considered his own, left Cusco to face the troops led from Lima by Hernando Pizarro, but was defeated in Battle of Las Salinas on April 6, 1538. He returned chained and imprisoned to the old imperial capital, being surprisingly sentenced to the death penalty by to be garroted in his own cell. Produced the execution on July 8, 1538, his beheaded body and his head were exhibited in the main square of Cusco. Only then the royal decree of January 8, 1537 was implemented, which had established Cusco as the seat of the first bishopric, starting with Bishop Vincente de Valverde on September 8, 1538. On June 19, 1540, a royal decree granted Cusco the status of city, coat of arms and the title of "cabeza de los reynos del Perú" and "muy noble, leal y fidelísima gran ciudad del Cuzco". The banner of the conquest, granted by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Toledo, in 1529, was preserved in the convent of Santo Domingo, in Cusco.There were still some important battle facts that shook the region. In 1554, Francisco Hernández Girón took up arms; in 1542, Diego de Almagro II was captured and executed in Cusco, a fugitive after the defeat of the Battle of Chupas; in 1548, there was the rebellion of the encomenderos led by Gonzalo Pizarro, also executed in the city; In 1572, the last of the Inca rebels, Túpac Amaru, whose death would give rise to the myth of Inkarrí, was executed in the Plaza Mayor of Cusco.
File:Batalla de Iñaquito.jpg|thumb|The death of viceroy Blasco Núñez Vela by the army commanded by Gonzalo Pizarro in the Battle of Iñaquito during the Rebellion of the encomenderos. Engraving of the Historia general de las Indias by Francisco López de Gómara.
The first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, who ruled Peru during the reign of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was the bearer of laws that cut the power and the sistem of the encomenderos and these were not accepted by them. In Cusco, Gonzalo Pizarro rebelled against the Viceroy, obtaining the support of the Real Audiencia of Lima and the cabildos, for which he exercised power as sovereign of the viceroyalty between 1544 and 1548. Backing him from Panama, Hernando de Contreras proclaimed himself as the "King of Peru". The king of Spain's envoy as peacemaker, Pedro de la Gasca defeated the encomenderos in the Battle of Jaquijahuana on April 9, 1548.
Achieved pacification, Cusco acquired great economic importance throughout the Andean area. It was the knot of the most important roads, such as the one that arrived in Buenos Aires from Lima, after climbing the Andes through the Huancavelica, Huamanga, Andahuaylas, Cusco, Puno, La Paz, Potosí, Salta, Tucumán and
Córdoba. The mining boomed in the Andes thanks to the Cusco-born with the surname Hualca discovered the Potosí mines in Upper Peru. That same year, Huancavelica's mercury mines were discovered, an event as important as the previous one, since then silver was obtained by amalgam of its minerals with mercury. Thus, Potosí or Huancavelica were two reciprocal riches and Cusco was a compulsory bridge between the two, although the Huancavelica-Chincha-Pisco-Arica-Potosí route was also used, where the Pisco-Arica section was made by sea navigation and the remaining ones on horse/mule back. To supply the population dedicated to mining; textile works, agriculture for food and transportation of goods were booming throughout the Cusco region.