 |
 |
 |
          |
 |
1536 - The rebellion spreads Relief forces sent out from Lima  News had swiftly reached Pizarro in Lima concerning Manco's rebellion and the siege of Cuzco. He immediately sent a relief force of 70 horsemen under the command of his relative Gonzalo de Tapia. Whilst crossing the Andes, the Spaniards unwittingly ran into an army of natives under Manco's general Quizo Yupanqui. The result was devastating."[The natives'] strategy was to allow the Spaniards to enter a deep, narrow gorge, seize the entrance and exit with a great mass of Indians, and then hurl down such a quantity of rocks and boulders from the hillsides that they killed them all, almost without coming to grips with them..." The entire relief force perished. Quizo and his army marched northwards towards Jauja and met another relief force of 60 horsemen under Diego Pizarro. The natives employed the same strategy as before, trapping and destroying the entire force of Spaniards. Quizo then continued on to Jauja and "came upon the Spaniards so suddenly that the first they knew was that they were surrounded on all sides... the fighting lasted from the morning when the Indians arrived until the hour of vespers... and the Indians killed them all, and their horses and Negro servants..." A further contingent of 30 Spanish horsemen was at large in the Andes and were soon being pursued by Quizo's army. The Spaniards attempted to retreat towards Lima but were ambushed and virtually all were killed Quizo had succeeded in eliminating four separate forces of Spanish cavalry, over 200 men and their horses. The defenders at Cuzco were even more isolated than before and the forces at Lima were looking increasingly exposed. The nearest potential relief forces were north of Cajamarca and were probably unaware of the full scale of the Indian successes. Delighted by the news of Quizo victories, Manco ordered him to descend on Lima "and destroy it, leaving no single house upright, and killing any Spaniards he found". The attack on Lima Quizo was reluctant to attack the Spaniards on the open plains outside Cuzco, fearing a destructive cavalry attack. He succeeded in recruiting yet greater numbers of natives from local tribes and began to advance cautiously on Lima. Sharp skirmishes occurred against the Spaniards, with the Indians successfully killing a number of horsemen and then retreating to the safety of the hills each night. After several days of standoff, Quizo determined to make a final, decisive attack to utterly destroy the Spaniards. "I intend to enter the town today and kill all the Spaniards in it... any who accompany me must go on the understanding that if I die all will die, and if I flee all will flee".  Quizo
planned a simultaneous attack on Lima from three sides. "When
the Governor [Pizarro] saw this multitude of enemy he had no
doubt whatsoever that our side was completely finished". Quizo was commanding the largest native contingent and, in traditional Indian style, had placed himself and his leading generals at the front of the attack.This was a dreadful mistake. "The cavalry charged out and attacked with great determination. Since the ground was flat they routed them instantly. The general [Quizo] was left there, dead, and so were forty commanders and other chiefs alongside him... They were killed because they were marching at the head of their men and therefore withstood the first shock of the attack". "The Spaniards continued to kill and wound Indians as far as the foot of the hill of San Cristóbal". Manco had lost his most successful general, Quizo Yupanqui, and the fighting spirit now went out of the Indians surrounding Lima. The native forces melted away overnight, leaving the coastal plains to the Spanish cavalry and returning to their natural territory and climate of the high Andes. |
 |
||||
 |
 |
||||||
 |
 |
