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1536 - The Great Rebellion The rebellion begins In January 1536, Hernando Pizarro returned to Cuzco from two years absence in Spain. He immediately set out to befriend Manco and began to treat him more favourably than his brothers Gonzalo and Juan. Hernando was partly responding to orders from Charles V to give due respect to the hereditary monarchs in Peru. Manco was released from his captivity and relations seemed to improve for a number of months.  In April, Manco requested permission from Hernando to leave Cuzco in order to perform some religious ceremonies in the hills. He also offered to bring back a life-sized golden statue and Hernando gave permission for Manco and Villac Umu to leave. This caused immediate concern and apprehension in Cuzco but Hernando insisted on his complete confidence in the Inca.The truth was that Manco had spent the preceding months secretly and successfully planning a great rebellion throughout the whole of the Inca Empire. This was a major achievement, given the destruction of communication lines and the dubious loyalties of many of the Indian chiefs. Manco had also secretly arranged for the manufacture of arms and the sowing of crops to support his armies for many months. Over the next few weeks, a force of 150,000 native warriors arrived from all corners of the empire and took up positions in the hills surrounding Cuzco. The Indians were by now only too aware of the dreadful slaughter that the Spanish calvary could cause on a level plain and thus kept to the higher ground. Despite advice from Villac Umu and his chief generals to the contrary, Manco determined to wait for his entire force to assemble before launching an attack. Cuzco was defended by a mere 190 men and 80 horses, the remaining conquistadors being situated in Lima and Jauja. They watched apprehensively as the natives continued to arrive and surround the town: "by day they looked like a black carpet covering everything for half a league around the city of Cuzco, and by night there were so many fires that it resembled nothing less than a very clear sky filled with stars". The attack on Cuzco  Finally, at the beginning of May, the natives attacked
Cuzco ferociously. "The Indians were supporting one another
most effectively... they charged through the streets with the
greatest determination and fought hand-to-hand with the Spaniards".
Natives used stones fired from slings with devastating effect,
hurling a "huge stone with enough force to kill a horse". They also succeeded in setting fire to the many straw roofs of the town and the fires spread rapidly."The Indians were shouting loudly and there was such a dense cloud of smoke that the men could neither hear nor see one another..." "They set fire to the whole of Cuzco simultaneously and it all burned in one day... the smoke was so dense that the Spaniards almost suffocated... they would never have survived had not one side of the [main] square contained no houses and no roofs". The Spaniards were forced to retreat into two buildings on the main square, where they were kept pinned down by a continuous barrage of stones from the Indian slings. The natives erected small wicker barricades in the surrounding streets, preventing the horses from making effective sorties but allowing the Indians to nimbly move about. They also diverted the streams and dug channels to cause the horses to slip and stumble. A new weapon of the Indians was demonstrated during the siege: bolas. These consisted of three stones tied to the ends of lengths of llama tendons. The twirling projectiles entangled themselves around the legs of the horses and the Spaniards with remarkable effect. The natives managed to bring down "most of the horses with this device, leaving almost no one to fight. They also entangled the riders with these cords". Spanish infantrymen had to help the horses and their riders to safety. The Spaniards were now in dire straits: cut-off by hundreds of miles from their compatriots in Lima, hemmed into two buildings on the main square and surrounded by thousands of native warriors. |
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