many people, where they used to run horses and rejoice in merriments” (Múrua
2001 [1590–1598]).
A long avenue crossing small streams led into the center of Vilcabamba. There,
a 5-meter-high (16.5-foot-high) granite boulder flanks a large plaza, surrounded
by a callanca, a possible ushnu, and what may have been an acllahuasi, which
housed the so-called chosen women. In this setting, the Incas had “nearly the
luxuries, greatness and splendor of Cuzco in that distant, or rather, exiled land—
and they enjoyed life there” (Múrua 2001 [1590–1598]).
For thirty-five years Vilcabamba served as a bastion of resistance to Spanish
rule. Manco and his descendants, Sayri Túpac, Titu Cusi, and Túpac Amaru,
harassed the Spaniards, raiding caravans on the road between Lima and Cuzco.
The arrival of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1569 clinched the fate of the
Vilcabamba Incas. In 1572, the Viceroy, determined to quash the neo-Inca ruler
and his city, dispatched 250 Spanish soldiers and 1,500 Native auxiliaries to
Vilcabamba. They captured Túpac Amaru, marched him to Cuzco in chains, and
had him beheaded in the city’s main plaza. The execution of Túpac Amaru and
the fall of Vilcabamba signaled the end of Inca resistance to Spanish rule and the
fall of Tahuantinsuyu.
The jungle covered the ruins and Vilcabamba’s name faded from memory. The
American explorer Hiram Bingham, who stumbled upon Machu Picchu in
1911, at first thought Machu Picchu was Vilcabamba. Although that same year
Bingham ventured as far as Vilcabamba “La Vieja” (called Espíritu Pampa,
“plain of the spirits,” by his local guides), he dismissed it as the site of the lost
city because of its lowland jungle setting and the lack of fancy stonework.
Moreover, jungle overgrowth made it impossible at that time to discern the site’s
original size, “half a league wide . . . and a huge distance in length” (Múrua 2001
[1590–1598]). If Bingham had available a key passage in the chronicle of Martín
de Murúa (unpublished at the time), which described how some of the buildings
had been roofed with Spanish-style tiles, he might have realized that he had
indeed discovered the legendary, lost neo-Inca capital.
Further Reading
Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970.
Lee, Vincent. Forgotten Vilcabamba: Final Stronghold of the Incas. Wilson, WY: Sixpac Manco
Publications, 2000.
Murúa, Martín de. Historia General del Perú. Madrid: Dastín, 2001 [1590–1598].
Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Diego de Castro. History of How the Spaniards Arrived in Peru. Translated by
Catherine Julien. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006 [1570].