Pod Insights The Rest Is History 648. The Fall of the Incas: Battle for the Sacred City (Part 5) About this episode Three years into the conquest of the Incas, how did the Spaniards respond to the Incan uprising, lead by their puppet emperor Manco? How did the despicable behaviour of Pizarro and his men spark the rebellion? And, how would the terrifying assault of Manco and his Incan warriors, on a stranded contingent of Spaniards, play out…?
Join Dominic and Tom, as they reach the thrilling climax of this tragic, dramatic tale of death, conquest and betrayal…
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Transcript 12,685 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Tom Holland? This episode is brought to you by AutoTrader. Now, if car shopping feels like a massive faff, buying your car online at AutoTrader makes it way easier, really.
0:16 Dominic Sandbrook? So you can shop loads and loads of cars online, you can compare prices, you can check the financing and trade-in options, and of course, you can do it from wherever you are. You start online, go to the dealer for your test drive and finish wherever works for you. Your information, your data stays with you, so there is no starting over. Plus, you are working with local dealers and there are real people there to help.
0:42 Tom Holland? So buy your car online on AutoTrader, really.
0:49 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by the Gates Foundation. We have touched on the fall of the Roman Empire a few times on this show, haven't we? But what our listeners may not know is that among the causes that historians talk about, it's not just barbarian invasions, there's also talk of a disease which people call Roman fever, which I believe we know now as malaria.
1:10 Tom Holland? For thousands of years, humanity was defenseless against it. But thankfully, we live in a time of incredible ingenuity and American scientists and partners around the world are fighting back with support from the Gates Foundation.
1:26 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, so they're creating a new generation of bed nets that kill up to 90% of mosquitoes. That leads to a 50% drop in malaria, saving lives and protecting vulnerable communities. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search gatesfoundation.org/mosquito to learn more.
1:50 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by TikTok. We obviously love history here. It's always a treat to make a new discovery, especially in unexpected ways.
2:00 Tom Holland? Which is exactly what happens on TikTok. Like, you know coffee, you make it, add milk, drink it, nothing more.
2:10 Tom Holland? Except.
2:11 Dominic Sandbrook? Except when you hop on TikTok, you don't just learn how to make an authentic cappuccino. You can also discover videos about how in the seventeen hundreds, people would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it.
2:26 Tom Holland? And suddenly you're imagining how people lived, drank, socialised. Makes you wonder what will baffle historians about us. And that's the joy of TikTok. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different.
2:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok.
2:45 Tom Holland? Visit tiktok.com forward slash discover more.
3:01 Tom Holland? The Incas, my ancestors, ruled from Chile to Quito, treating their vassals as their own children. They did not steal and killed only when it served justice. They kept order and reason in the provinces. But now the bearded ones have entered our land. They preach one thing and do another. They have no fear of God and no shame. They treat us like dogs. Their greed is such that there is no temple they have not plundered. In fact, if all the snow turned to gold and silver, it would not satisfy them. They keep our sisters as their concubines behaving like animals.
3:43 Tom Holland? They want to divide up all the provinces, giving one to each so that they can loot them. Their goal is to see us so downtrodden, so enslaved, that we will be fit only to find them precious metals and to give them our women. Which Spaniard have we injured? That they should make such cruel war on us with these horses and weapons of iron. I believe it would not be just or honourable for us to consent to this. So let us strive with all our might to kill these cruel enemies or die in the attempt.
4:22 Tom Holland? So that was Manco, Emperor of the Incas, addressing a secret gathering of his kinsmen and supporters in Cusco in the autumn of 1535, offering a perspective there on Spanish rule that you have to say, I mean, is not unjustified, perhaps slightly whitewashing the amiability of the Incan regime, but, you know, needs must. And we are three years now into the conquest of the Incas. And now, Dominic, you have written, the story is approaching its thrilling climax. I mean, it's probably not that thrilling for the Incas, is it?
4:55 Dominic Sandbrook? No, it's not that thrilling. Big spoiler alert. Lots of people are going to die in the next two episodes. I mean, that's the nature of history, but they die in exciting ways in these episodes. So that makes it particularly thrilling.
5:06 Tom Holland? Along with some beard shaving and guava fruit throwing, which is an unexpected angle.
5:12 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, definitely look forward to the throwing of guava fruit. And also, if you're a fan of garroting, this is not quite at the Lope de Guerre level of garroting, but it's up there.
5:22 Tom Holland? And Dominic, fair to say that guava fruit chucking actually isn't going to be the worst of it. So, you know, if you like torture, listen on. If you don't, or you've got children with you, just perhaps, you know, rein it in a bit.
5:37 Dominic Sandbrook? So let's set the scene. Francisco Pizarro and his fellow conquistadors had sailed down the Pacific coast from Panama. They'd marched inland, they'd captured and killed the Emperor Atahualpa. They'd pocketed the biggest ransom in history. Last week, we heard how they marched on the capital Cusco. They installed a puppet emperor in this chap, Manco, then very young, and they crushed opposition in the northern part of the empire in what's now Ecuador. But in today's episode, they will be facing their biggest challenge yet. So an uprising led by Manco and a street by street, Stalingrad style battle for control of the capital Cusco. So it's a very dramatic story. And let's start with the man who you ventriloquized so admirably, Tom, Manco.
6:21 Tom Holland? A noble man. I feel I conveyed the nobility.
6:24 Dominic Sandbrook? You totally did. You totally did. I think the Spanish themselves, the Spanish chroniclers and memoirists who wrote about Manco in the middle of the 16th century, absolutely saw him as a noble character, even as a heroic character, actually.
6:36 Tom Holland? A worthy adversary.
6:38 Dominic Sandbrook? A worthy adversary. So we know very little about him before Pizarro met him outside Cuzco and basically adopted him as his puppet. So he was a brother of Huascar, the defeated claimant in the Inca civil war. He's been on the run from Atahualpa's men. He's probably in his late teens when he meets Pizarro. When they arrived in Cuzco in November 1533, he was greeted as a liberator. He was clearly popular with the crowds. There's no hint of a rising against him or resentment. And actually, at first, all went very well. Six months later, June 1534, Pizarro's secretary, Pedro Sancho, wrote that his coronation has proved highly successful. All the chiefs come
7:19 Dominic Sandbrook? to serve him and pay homage to the emperor, by which he means Charles V of Spain, because of him. And actually, the Spanish sends several reports that summer to Spain, saying, we're very pleased with him. He's doing very well. All is good. However, Manco obviously is facing some pretty formidable challenges. So, as we've said so many times, the fact that there has been a civil war has left the Inca Empire, Tahuantinsoyo, in ruins. There are parts of the empire where local ethnic groups have tried to throw off Inca rule.
7:53 Tom Holland? I mean, that's contradicting the whole, we treated them like children.
7:57 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. Because the Incas, as we've described in our very first episode, are pretty terrifying overlords. I mean, they will destroy your village and move you, you know, hundreds of miles across the empire and force you to speak Quechua, their language, you know, if they want to. So local kind of warlords have taken control in some areas. People have thrown off the Inca sun cult and gone back to their old gods and things. And as John Hemming, in his brilliant book about the conquest of Peru, says, Manco had to try to restore the sort of cult of the Inca, to take over control of the administration, to assert his primacy as supreme ruler. He had to revive the prestige of Cuzco. He
8:39 Dominic Sandbrook? had to revive the prestige of the official religion, all of this kind of thing. Now, the Spanish, up to a point, are useful allies in this. He presumably sees them as, as so many people do in these sort of stories, as merely a new factor in the existing kind of political landscape of Peru, and one that he can harness and use.
9:02 Tom Holland? So Dominic, at this point, Manco assumes that...
9:07 Tom Holland? Everything can carry on pretty much as it always has done. He doesn't think that the Spanish essentially have changed everything.
9:14 Dominic Sandbrook? No, because we're talking about very small numbers of people. I mean, at the end of this decade, the Spanish did a census of their own population in New Castile, as they called it, and we were talking about 4,000 people. So at this stage, we're probably talking about half that, something like that. I mean, a tiny number, right? In an empire of 12 million people, 2,000 maximum, probably hundreds at this stage. So why would he think differently? These are elite mercenaries to whom he owes his throne, but they're not going to be a factor forever, and there's probably not that many more of them. And of course, in this, he is completely, utterly wrong. Anyway, at first, the signs are all good. He builds himself a new palace in Cusco.
9:56 Dominic Sandbrook? And interestingly, quite a difference, I think, with Mexico. The Spanish don't seem terribly keen on pushing the programme of Christianisation. So, you know, Manco is completely free to continue with the religious rituals that enshrine his primacy as the Sapa Inca. There's a lovely description by a young priest called Cristobal de Melina of a plowing festival in April 1535. It's one of the best descriptions we have, actually, of an Inca religious festival. "They bring all the effigies out from the temples at daybreak. The lords of Cusco wore rich silver cloaks and tunics with shining circlets of fine gold on their heads. They formed up in a procession and waited in deep silence for the sun to rise. And as the sun began to rise, they began to chant in splendid harmony.
10:42 Dominic Sandbrook? And as it continued to rise, they chanted higher. And all day they chant, Manco is kind of leading them. And then, we're told, as the sun began to sink, the Indians showed great sadness at its departure and allowed their voices to die away. And as it completely disappears, they make this act of reverence, worshipping it in the deepest humility. And then they all went back to their homes and the effigies and relics were returned to their shrines and temples." So if you're part of that ceremony, which clearly Cristobal de Melina, you know, the way he writes about it.
11:13 Tom Holland? It's respectful, isn't it?
11:14 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, it's respectful and he finds it clearly quite moving. There's this illusion of harmony and unity, that the world is back on its axis, that everything has been restored after the chaos of the civil war. But there are three fracture lines that are widening all the time. So the first is between the Spanish and the Incas. The second is among the Incas themselves, and the third is among the Spaniards themselves. And that's arguably the most dangerous of the three. So if we start with the Spanish and the Incas. When we ended last time, we were talking about how the Spanish were starting to behave very badly. They're starting to loot gold and silver. They're treating the priests with contempt. And, you know, a really big thing, Pizarro is starting to distribute estates, landed estates,
11:58 Dominic Sandbrook? to his fellow conquistadors. These are the encomiendas that become such a feature of kind of the settler colonial world of Spanish Peru.
12:08 Tom Holland? And he's got a big problem, hasn't he? That as more and more people come, so from Spain, so they want encomiendas as well. And that is an increasing source of pressure on his ability to maintain peace with the Incas.
12:22 Dominic Sandbrook? Dead right. It's not just they want encomiendas, it's that they arrive and they think they're going to get loads of gold. And they arrive and there's no gold because it's been given out. And so they say, well, if I can't have any gold, you'd better give me some land and somebody to work on the land. And so Pizarro is basically giving away more and more and ignoring requests from the court in Spain, from royal officials, please, will you stop distributing land that you don't own?
12:45 Tom Holland? And his other ways is to send them off into the jungle or into kind of remote deserts to go looking for lost cities with gold.
12:51 Dominic Sandbrook? A big feature.
12:52 Tom Holland? A big feature that will carry on.
12:54 Dominic Sandbrook? So you start to get reports that from local towns and villages that people no longer see the Spanish as the liberators who've entered the chaos of the civil war. They see them as occupiers in their own right. And as so often with occupations, military occupations, a really key fault line is how the occupiers treat the local women. So as in Mexico, we had Pedro de Alvarado on the show last week, didn't we? An old associate of The Rest is History. And you mentioned that he had got this wife, I think she was called Donna Luisa, wasn't she?
13:27 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:28 Dominic Sandbrook? In Mexico, who is buried with him in the cathedral in Guatemala.
13:32 Tom Holland? And he became the governor of Guatemala.
13:34 Dominic Sandbrook? This is a very standard thing, not becoming the governor, but for the Spanish to take local wives, as they call them, actually kind of mistresses or concumines. So Atahualpa had already given Pizarro a half sister of his called Quispecusi, who was 18 years old. The Spanish called her Inés. Pizarro nicknamed her Pispita, which is a water thrush from his native Extremadura. It's a sweet name. And he actually treated her pretty well. He called her his wife. She would dine with him in his captain's. She had two children by him. Eventually, he got bored of her and he married her off to another conquistador called Francisco de Amparo. And actually, their descendants, the Amparos, ended up being one of Peru's most powerful political families.
14:16 Tom Holland? Because in Incan society, women do play kind of a key role as power brokers, as people who influence the policy of their husbands and their families. And, you know, with Alvarado or with Pizarro or whoever, there is a sense that when the marriage works, it's to the benefit of both sides. And throughout this story, I mean, we'll see, there are Incan women, or indeed, women from other peoples, who stick by the Spaniards.
14:46 Dominic Sandbrook? So that is true, but I don't think we should downgrade the element of coercion that is often there.
14:52 Tom Holland? Of course not. You know, as we will see, there is incredible violence as well. But for the Spaniards, it is an option that many of these women are very shrewd political players.
15:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, that's absolutely true. That's absolutely fair. But to give another example, Diego de Almagro, who is Pizarro's business partner, his very disputatious and resentful business partner, Almagro married another daughter of Huayna Capac, so the old emperor. So this is Manco's sister, Marca Chimbo. She's very rich. She's clearly very impressive. She's one of these people you're talking about, Tom. The Spanish sources say, "She would have inherited the Inca Empire if she had been a man." But Almagro treats her very badly. "She was repeatedly dishonored, for she was very pretty and of a gentle nature, and she caught the pox." So, I mean, who knows what's going on there, but it's nothing good, I would say. The Rankin File 2 insists on taking local women as mistresses. Now,
15:44 Dominic Sandbrook? some sources say this was consensual. "An Indian woman who proved most attractive to the Spaniards prided herself on the fact." But at the same time, a different source, "No woman who was good-looking was safe. It was a miracle if she escaped the Spaniards." And you can see how both those things could possibly be true at once. The Spaniards might seem prestigious and high status, and so people might be attracted by them, but at the same time, the Spanish are behaving increasingly badly.
16:11 Tom Holland? Well, also, I mean, you hope that if you can find one who will protect you, a Spaniard, then... You need that.
16:17 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, you do need protection because the Spanish, I mean, to give an example of the coercive element, they supposedly had a test, and this is from a Spanish source, I think, they have a test to see if a girl is old enough for them to sleep with her. They would hit her unexpectedly from behind with a rolled cape. If she remained upright, she was considered sufficiently old. So this is obviously a problem for Manco. Yeah, Manco is regarded as the Spaniards' man, as their puppet to some extent. He entered the city with Pizarro's troops. He stood there nodding and smiling when Pizarro read out the requirement. So some of the Inca elites start by early 1535 to say, you know, is he the right man? Is he standing up to these people or is he just their tool? And what makes this so dangerous
17:01 Dominic Sandbrook? is that the Spaniards themselves have started to fall out with each other. So all through this series, the feud between Pizarro and Almagro, the two business partners, has been getting worse and worse. Remember that Pizarro went to Spain, he came back with a great title for himself and basically nothing for Almagro. Then Almagro turned up late, as agreed, and Pizarro wouldn't give him a share of the ransom, or his a fair share of the ransom. By early 1535, Pizarro has moved to the coast to found the city of Lima. Basically, he wants a base nearer the coast and he's got this new city. And he says to Almagro, you can be the lieutenant governor of Cusco. But Almagro's men, who are mostly newcomers, start feuding with the old guard, who have been there for a year and a half now, and
17:46 Dominic Sandbrook? these are led by Pizarro's younger brothers, Juan and Gonzalo. To cut a very long story short, they start brawling in the central square, the Almagristas, as they're called, Almagro's faction, and Juan and Gonzalo's faction. And there's all sorts of goings on, kind of royal officials have to separate them. And basically, Manco has to choose. Is he going to go with Juan and Gonzalo, or is he going to go with Almagro? Now, you might expect that because he owes his throne to the Pizarro brothers, he will pick the Pizarros. But no.
18:19 Dominic Sandbrook? Unfortunately, Juan and Gonzalo, who I described in the first episode as variously affable, noble, magnanimous, virtuous.
18:30 Tom Holland? Yeah, how's that working out?
18:32 Dominic Sandbrook? They've let the Pizarro family, the town of Trujillo, the province of Extremadura and Spain down very badly. They've really behaved poorly because basically with their older brother Francisco away on the coast, they've cast off all restraints and they're disgracing themselves. They both want local women. Juan kidnaps Manco's younger sister, who's called Inquilcoya, even though, and I quote, "She was very young and an unmarried maiden. He kept her locked in his house where he made her sleep with him." But Gonzalo is just as bad. He sets his sights on her older sister, Cura Ocllo, who is already Manco's wife. So it's Manco's wife and his sister. This is very Ptolemaic behaviour, but this
19:17 Dominic Sandbrook? is standard for the Incas. The high priest, who was also Manco's brother, so her half-brother as well, tried to stop him and said, you know, "You shouldn't be trying to sleep with this woman." And Gonzalo said to him, "Don't you know what sort of men we Spaniards are? By the king's life, if you don't shut up, I'll slit you open and cut you into little pieces."
19:37 Tom Holland? So what is going on here? It seems really odd that these men would deliberately humiliate and insult the man who is so important to their maintenance of ruling Cusco and the empire more generally.
19:52 Dominic Sandbrook? See, I don't think it is that odd. I think it's human nature. They see him as their puppet. They're bullies. They have a little bit of contempt for him. They have weapons and he doesn't really. He's dependent on them. They don't speak his language. They look down on him and his customs. And over time, I think these guys who remember, they're not educated men, they're tough, hard men from basically the Wild West.
20:14 Tom Holland? But they know the stakes. I mean, they're not, they're not naive. They understand that they need to maintain. You know, a degree of Incan support for their very precarious regime in Cusco. It just seems very odd and it may, I mean, maybe you're right that it is a deliberate attempt to humiliate Manco.
20:33 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, we'll see them. They really do humiliate him later on, don't they?
20:35 Tom Holland? Or is it the fact that they are princesses, the key thing, that if they can marry the princess, then perhaps they can, you know, hopes of founding a royal dynasty? It does seem unwise, I guess.
20:46 Dominic Sandbrook? It is unwise. They're unwise people. They will behave in the next two episodes. All of these people will behave incredibly unwisely. I mean, you can't deny that because I know you've read the notes. They will behave really, really mad, recklessly, poorly, hot-headedly.
21:04 Tom Holland? But I still think they're not fools. It seems peculiar. There's a sense of something not quite being explained here. I don't think that it can just be a matter of, oh, that I fancy them, because they both fancy princesses.
21:16 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
21:16 Tom Holland? Who are the sisters of the Inca and you feel that that can't be coincidence?
21:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Hmm. I don't know about that. I think all of the Spanish go for high-born women generally.
21:25 Tom Holland? Yeah, but these are the highest-born, aren't they? So.
21:27 Dominic Sandbrook? They are, but that's not necessarily different from how the Spanish behaved in Mexico.
21:31 Tom Holland? It's a bit like Cleopatra only sleeping with very powerful men.
21:34 Dominic Sandbrook? Maybe. I mean, anyway, Manco actually offers Gonzalo money. To get back to the story, Manco offers Gonzalo loads of silver and Gonzalo said to him, all this silver is fine, but it's the woman I really want. And Manco did a mad thing where he got her sister's companion, her friend, he forced her to dress up as his sister to try and fool Gonzalo. Gonzalo was not fooled and eventually he got his hands on Kura Ocklo, who actually worse is going to happen to her in the next episode, I'm afraid. So Manco's very bitter about all this and he decides to side with Almagro in the feuding. And this then creates yet another split because some of Manco's relatives say, well, Asmagi should be siding with the Pizarros. So the factionalism now sort of seeps like a poison into Manco's
22:19 Dominic Sandbrook? court. One evening, Manco becomes absolutely terrified that these other Incas are going to murder him and he ends up fleeing to Almagro's house and hiding under his bed, which seems a weird thing to do. And while he's doing that, loads of other Spaniards find out and they rush to Manco's house and start looting it. So when he comes back the next day, he says, can I have my stuff back? And they say, no, you know, you went and hid under the bed. We've got your stuff. You snooze, you lose, basically. Anyway, this is all obviously very chaotic and very bad for the Spanish regime. So Francisco Pizarro rushes back from Lima and tries to sort this out. And he says, okay, I'm going to try and sort this out. And what I'm going to do is, Almagro, I think you should go to Chile.
23:00 Dominic Sandbrook? And basically, there's clearly going to be another empire there or rich lands or something. Go down there. I will give you funding, actually. You know, you're my business partner. I'll put more money into your enterprise. You can go off to Chile and carve out your own empire there, which will end up being called New Toledo.
23:17 Tom Holland? Do you think he knows that there's nothing there? I mean, he's been down in Lima.
23:20 Dominic Sandbrook? No, I don't, because it's a long old way. They don't really know what's there, I think. And actually, Almagro ends up marching past the great mine at Potacy, which becomes the most lucrative mine in the world. He doesn't realise it's there. So there was money there if he had found it, but he didn't.
23:36 Tom Holland? But he's going to end up marching across the driest desert in the world, isn't he?
23:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Yes, exactly.
23:42 Tom Holland? Kind of think Pizarro has some sense of the geography.
23:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Maybe. So anyway, Almagro sets off for Chile. He's got 600 Spaniards. And actually, Manco gives him an army of 12,000 men, commanded by the high priest Vilac Umu and Manco's brother Paulu. So off they go to the south, and it's a complete and utter nightmare. They have totally unprepared for climbing up onto the high Andean plateau, the Alte Plano, which is basically Bolivia in northern Chile. They run out of water. They absolutely disgraced themselves, this expedition. There's a priest called Cristobal de Molina, who is with them. And he said, "Any natives who would not accompany the Spaniards voluntarily were taken along, bound in ropes and chains. The Spaniards imprison them in very rough prisons every night and led them by day, heavily loaded and dying of hunger."
24:29 Dominic Sandbrook? So they've got these huge chain gangs. When somebody dies in the chain gang, which they do all the time because they're exhausted, they're hungry, thirsty, whatever, the Spaniards are just, they're very horrible. They cut the heads off these people who have died, but they leave the bodies still attached to the chain. So as you're trudging along, you're having to kind of...
24:49 Tom Holland? Drag this corpse.
24:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Drag this corpse, which could be in front of you, behind you, in the chain, both. I mean, it's pretty horrible. They get to southern Bolivia and at this point, the high priest Vilac Umu, who's gone with them, deserts and he goes back to Cusco, rushes back to Cusco. He gets to Cusco and he meets up with Manco and he says, "These people are absolute scum. They're behaving terribly badly. You know, we can't live like this. We cannot spend our entire lives in misery and subjection. Let us die for our liberty and for the wives and children whom they continually take from us and abuse." I will say one thing about all these tremendous quotations. Some of these are by people who I think had had classical educations. So if it strikes you as the Incas are speaking very much like people spoke in our Carthage series,
25:36 Dominic Sandbrook? this is probably the explanation. Anyway, Manco summons this great meeting, November 1535. And actually, you know, that speech that you began with, Tom, is very, very, you know, Carthaginian resistance or something, isn't it? However, it was reported to us by a chronicler called Thea de Leon and he said he had an eyewitness account from a servant called Alimachi. Oh, well then. So it must be true. And he had a recording device. Exactly. It's basically a transcript. Manco said, "You know, I've sent for you my kinsmen to tell you what I think about these foreigners before it's too late, before more foreigners join them." They're waking up to that then. They are, that more foreigners are coming because that's what Francisco Pizarro is doing on the coast at Lima.
26:20 Dominic Sandbrook? He's basically preparing a base for people to arrive as they sail down the Pacific. So Manco runs through all the bullet points that you did at the beginning of the episode. Spaniards lust for gold, treatments of women, poor behaviour. And then the stirring final line, "We'll strive with all our might to kill them or we will die in the attempt." And I suppose what you would say if you were being hostile to Manco is, if only he'd realised this a year earlier, he could have teamed up with Atalap's old generals. So he could have had Ruminyawi with his drum, his human drum on his side. But alas, he tried to use the Spaniards against them and so he's going to be doing this on his own. So that night after this meeting, Manco and his entourage slip out of Cusco
27:05 Dominic Sandbrook? under cover of darkness to launch the resistance. But they are betrayed because one of their servants was a spy for the Pizarro brothers. As soon as Manco is gone, this servant rushes off to Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro. And he says, yeah, Manco's gone. So they ride off in pursuit and they find on the road south out of Cusco loads of Incas. And they say, were you with Manco? Where did Manco go? And the Incas don't answer. So they seized one of them and according to the Spanish chroniclers tortured him astutely until he gave a great shout, saying the Inca was not going that way. How do you torture someone astutely? Well, Tom, I mean, if you know, you know. You know.
27:50 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. So they tortured him astutely with this rope. And the guy finally shouts out, he's not going that way. Well, actually, Manco has gone that way. They find him hiding in some reeds at the end of the valley. Now they drag Manco back. Remember, Manco is the Sapa Inca, the son of the sun. And this shows the extent to which the Spanish respect has completely degenerated into total contempt. Because they drag him back, they throw him into prison with a chain round his neck and shackles on his feet. And then they treat him very badly. So these are from Spanish sources, right? This is Diego del Magro's son. They urinated and spat in his face. They struck and beat him. They called him a dog. They kept him with a chain round his neck in a public
28:34 Dominic Sandbrook? place where people passed. This is that priest, Cristobal de Molina. They stole everything he had, leaving him nothing. They kept him in prison for many days, guarded day and night. They treated him very, very disgracefully, urinating on him and sleeping with his wives. And he was deeply distressed. The whole urinating on him thing, I mean, that seems clearly did happen because the way they keep harping on about it. Precisely. And it's not a detail that you often see in a 16th century accounts. They also do a terrible thing where they burn his eyelashes with a candle, shouting at him, dog, give us gold, if not, you will be burned. So basically, they're just torturing him. I mean, they're tormenting and torturing him. Astutely. The word obviously spreads because there are now uprisings across the countryside.
29:19 Dominic Sandbrook? There were reports coming in that when Spaniards go out to their estates to collect their tribute, the locals are rising up and attacking them. About thirty Spaniards in total are killed. Gonzalo and Juan Pizarro ride out to the city to act really horrendous reprisals. There's lots of burning people alive, there's lots of cutting people's arms and legs off, all of this kind of thing. And then in January fifteen thirty six, there's a little bit of a change because their older brother, Hernando, returns from Spain. Now, you may remember that Pizarro had sent Hernando to Spain to take the gold to the court to show Charles the Fifth. And Hernando had done this and it was very successful and it had been very good for the Pizarro faction.
30:04 Dominic Sandbrook? Hernando has now returned. He had previously, if you remember, been quite pally with Atahualpa. And he does seem to have been a little bit more sympathetic to the locals than his boorishly behaved brothers. So he arrives in Cusco and he says, what's all this? You know, we need to change the record a bit. So he goes to see Manco, who's recently been released. He treats him with great courtesy. He says, you know, I've been speaking to Charles the Fifth. Charles the Fifth really respects you. Things have got a little bit out of hand and, you know, I'm sorry about that. We can start again. Unfortunately, if you have any self-respect as a person, I feel like if you've been urinated on, if somebody has slept with your wives. There's no coming back from that, really, is there? You can't start again. You can't let, you can't, you know, let bygones be bygones.
30:49 Dominic Sandbrook? So Manco, in the early months of fifteen thirty six, starts plotting with his brother, the high priest Vilac Umu. And they make their plans. By the end of the rainy season, which is late March, the word has gone out. We'll make weapons in secret, get people to stock our food and supplies. And then in April, they send messages out across the empire with their lovely knotted strings, the kibus. They say, this is on. We're going to do this. We can have a massive uprising. The muster point will be a place called Lares in the Yucay Valley, the Sacred Valley, fifteen miles north of Cusco.
31:26 Dominic Sandbrook? And the question is, how is Manco? Remember when he tried to get out the city last time, there was action with astute use of ropes. Yeah. How is he going to get out this time? He has a very clever wees. He uses the Spaniards' greed against them. He goes to Enando and he says, "My brother, the high priest Vilacumu, and I would like to go to a religious festival in the Sacred Valley. And actually, if you let us go, they've got a giant golden statue of my father, Huena Capac, and I'd love you to have it." And Enando says, "Oh, well, in that case, why haven't you left already? My goodness, of course you can go." So, on the Wednesday before Easter, after Mass, Manco and Vilacumu go out the city. Now, on the way, they meet another conquistador who's very suspicious.
32:10 Dominic Sandbrook? "Where are you going off to?" And Manco says, "Oh, well, we've found there's some hidden gold in those hills. We're going to go and get it." Oh, well then. Good luck. So they get to Lares, and all the big Inca chiefs are there. And there are loads more of these rousing speeches. They all swear an oath. "We'll drive the Spaniards out of our country or die in the attempt." And actually, Manco is delighted to discover that his local chiefs and commanders and bigwigs have done him a great job. They have gathered about 100,000 people, and they have somehow armed them and fed them. These people have come from the land. So they're peasants and farmers and stuff, but they've been given clubs and whatnot. And slings, right?
32:54 Dominic Sandbrook? And slings, exactly. And they are outside the capital. And as John Hemings says in his brilliant book, "This is the last great tribute to the Incas' genius for organisation." It was a very top-down, very collectivist kind of empire, and this is their last great effort at mobilising the people. So, by Easter Saturday, they are moving on to the slopes around Cusco, these giant, giant numbers of people. And the Spaniards look out. One of them says, "There were so many troops, they covered all the fields. By day, they looked like a black carpet covering everything for half a league around the city. And by night, there were so many campfires that the land looked like a clear sky filled with
33:34 Dominic Sandbrook? stars." On Easter Saturday, Enando gets word. He can't believe this. You know, what idiots his brothers were to let him down and provoke this uprising. And he calls the Spaniards of Cusco to a meeting. And he says, well, we're just going to have to resist, you know, we're not going to give in to this. But there's only about 200 Spaniards, maximum, in the city. And they've got 500 native auxiliaries. So these are ethnic groups who don't like the Incas, the Canyari and the Chachapoya. But they're against maybe 100,000 people. I mean, these are not good odds. Hernando orders, he says, well, the Incas are always frightened of our cavalry. We'll send out our horses.
34:15 Dominic Sandbrook? But for the first time, the Incas are there in such numbers that the horses can't manoeuvre in the crush. So they're basically pushed back into the city and the Incas advance and advance and advance. Till they're camped right outside the walls. And then we're told, they taunted the Spaniards, and I quote, raising their bare legs at them to show how much they despised them. So what's going on there? Well, if you've ever met a Peruvian and he's bared his legs at you, you know. Oh, that's what they were doing. Yeah, exactly. You can't pretend that's never happened to you. And so at dawn on the 6th of May, Manco orders the assault. And it is a tremendous scene, very Hollywood. The sun rises and as it does so, the Incas charge down the hillsides.
35:00 Dominic Sandbrook? They smash through the Spanish defences. They fight their way into the narrow alleys that lead into the city. They break through the Spanish barricades and palisades. They drive back the garrison and they fight their way into the central square. And all the time, the Incas have this new weapon, a secret weapon. They'd always, you mentioned their slings, they'd always relied very heavily on the slingshots. But now they've been heating the stones in their campfires. They've been wrapping them in kind of cotton wool. And then they send them flying onto the thatch roofs of Cusco. And a Spanish Chronicle says, there was a strong wind that day. And as the roofs of the houses were thatch, it seemed at one moment as if the city were one great sheet of flame. So there's huge black clouds of smoke starting rising above the city.
35:45 Dominic Sandbrook? The Spanish were in total chaos, they can't breathe through the smoke. They can't hear their men's orders because of the din from the attackers, the roar of the fires. And they're being driven further and further and further back. And as Manco's son Titucuzi wrote, "They feared that these were to be the last moments of their lives. They could see no hope of relief, and they did not know what to do."
36:08 Tom Holland? My goodness. So is this the end of Spanish rule in Peru? Is this the restoration of the Incan Empire? Only one way to find out, and that is to join us again after a break.
36:23 Tom Holland? This episode is brought to you by Vanguard. Now, Dominic, history is full of examples of people who promised the world and then got very badly let down. Can you think of a particular example?
36:36 Dominic Sandbrook? I can. I can think of a couple of examples, Tom. So we've just been recording a series about the fall of the Incas and Francisco Pizarro, who was the Spanish conquistator in charge. First of all, he betrayed his business partner, Diego de Amagro. And then, shockingly, he betrayed the Inca emperor Atahualpa.
36:53 Tom Holland? Well, Dominic, can I ask you a question? Had Atahualpa been in the hands of Vanguard, do you think that Vanguard would have let him down?
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37:48 Dominic Sandbrook? Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.
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39:21 Tom Holland? Hello everyone and welcome back to The Rest Is History. It is May 1536 and the troops of Manco, the Incan emperor, have launched their assault on Cusco, where a very small number of Spaniards, fewer than 200, are trapped. The city is burning. Dominic, is this the end for Hernando Pizarro and his men?
39:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, it's definitely the end for a particular version of Cusco. So Cusco, a beautiful city, but now, as John Heming says, stripped for Ataralpa's ransom, ransacked by Spanish looters, and it's now being burned by its own people. And the Spanish have been pushed right back into the central square. As you say, they are trapped and this really is their darkest hour. One side of the square, though, is not burning because it's relatively open. There aren't many buildings there. So this is their kind of escape from the smoke and the flames. And they take refuge in two great buildings at the eastern end of the square. Amazingly, the Incas don't manage, these are two buildings that the Incas don't manage to set fire to.
40:28 Dominic Sandbrook? Now, later on, some Spanish writers said this was because of divine intervention.
40:32 Tom Holland? It's the Virgin.
40:33 Dominic Sandbrook? The Virgin Mary in a blue cloak intervened to put out the fires. She had a load of white blankets. So she appeared and threw these white blankets over the flames. And this saved the Spaniards. I'm sorry to say, I don't want to disappoint our Catholic listeners, but I believe this is a later invention, at least 100 years later.
40:52 Tom Holland? Didn't Manco Inca's son say that the Spaniards had placed African slaves on the roofs with buckets of water?
41:00 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, so that's perfectly plausible.
41:02 Tom Holland? Slightly less dramatic, but probably, as you say, more plausible.
41:05 Dominic Sandbrook? It's a good point that you make there, because actually, throughout this story, there are almost certainly some African slaves on hand. We know that the Spanish had started to import people, they're coming down from Central America. And that you don't really get many glimpses of them in the sources, but I think you have to imagine that they're always there. So there's luck, there's brutal hand-to-hand fighting, and basically by nightfall, the pattern is set. The Spaniards are hemmed into this small corner of Cusco city centre, the Incas are encamped around them. It feels very like the siege of Tenochtitlan, for people who remember our series about the fall of the Aztecs. And for the next six days or so, the Spanish fight, days, as one writer puts it, strenuous
41:46 Dominic Sandbrook? toil and danger, slowly sort of pushing out from their little redoubt.
41:52 Tom Holland? There are Incas still who are siding with them, aren't there? Even in Cusco. So it's not like they are completely isolated.
41:58 Dominic Sandbrook? No.
41:59 Tom Holland? There is an element of an Incan civil war going on at the same time.
42:01 Dominic Sandbrook? There definitely is. Again, very hard to glimpse in the sources, but we are told that, for example, some of Manco's own brothers side with the Spaniards. So throughout this whole story, I mean, you're dead right to point this out, throughout this whole story, it's not a simple matter of Spaniards versus Incas. It is Spaniards and Incas and other, you know, indigenous peoples fighting Incas and other indigenous groups.
42:31 Tom Holland? It's just a massive punch-up.
42:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Basically, yes.
42:34 Tom Holland? Everyone's fighting each other.
42:35 Dominic Sandbrook? They are all fighting each other. Some of the Spaniards say to Hernando, you know, the odds are massively against us. We should break out of the city and make for the coast. Hernando has the excellent line. He says, no, we should fight back. Better to die fighting than to perish here like hogs. Like hogs. Yeah, I think that's an American translator, isn't it? So Hernando says, listen, we're kind of sitting ducks here because the Incas have taken up a position in the citadel of Sacsejoa Man, which is on this kind of rock spur that overlooks the city centre, right? And this fortress, this citadel, had been built by Pachacuti, the legendary sort of great Inca imperialist.
43:18 Dominic Sandbrook? It's a fortress, it's also a temple, it's a huge storehouse, it's this key strategic location. And Spanish accounts of the citadel of Sacsejoa Man said that it had massive stone walls, it had these huge towers, it had a labyrinth of tunnels. The Spanish writer Garcilaso de la Vega said, it's one of the wonders of the world. There was nothing like it in Spain and Europe. It was so vast, the devil himself must have helped to build it. Actually, it was built by forced labour. And Hernando says, right, we have to capture this back. They can rain down missiles on us from this citadel. So the plan is that his brother Juan will lead the attack with 50 horsemen. They'll burst through the enemy lines, they'll charge up the hill and capture the citadel.
44:03 Dominic Sandbrook? It's a very kind of helms-deep plan, and there's a very helms-deep scene to kick it all off. So a later Inca source says, the Spaniards spent the whole of that night on their knees with their hands clasped in prayer. Even those on guard in the square did the same, as did many Indians who were on their side. On the following morning at dawn, they emerged from the church and mounted their horses. Suddenly, they put spur to their horses and at full gallop, broke through the enemy and charged up the hillside at breakneck speed. So very exciting. Stones and missiles are kind of raining down on them, but they zigzag up the hill, they reach the terraces, they turn right at a village on the top of the hill, and they finally end up in the parade ground in front of the citadel.
44:46 Dominic Sandbrook? And here, Incas have put up barricades, but Juan Pizarro and his brother Gonzalo lead the horsemen in charge after charge. Some of the horses are wounded, some of the Spaniards are thrown from the horses, but they manage to break through the barricades and get all the way to the fortress gate. Now, it's now late afternoon and they're knackered. The Incas are raiding down these kind of javelins and sling stones and stuff. Juan's page boy is killed by this huge stone. Juan Pizarro himself had been hit the day before by a slingshot missile, and his face was so swollen that he couldn't wear his helmet. Oh dear, unwise. But he says to the Spaniards, "One more attack before nightfall. That's what
45:29 Dominic Sandbrook? it takes." And they spur their horses. They race for the gate. The missiles are raining down again. And then, a massive stone smacks into Juan Pizarro's head. Oh my god, so like an egg, a boiled egg being smashed. Exactly. He totters, he falls off his horse, he's clearly hideously wounded. The Spanish break off their charge. They rush to his side and they carry him down the hill to Cuzco. So he clings to life overnight, and he dictates a will, and he says, "I leave all my plunder to my brother Gonzalo." He leaves some money to religious bequests, he leaves some money to the poor, but now he really lets himself down. You may remember he had locked up this young girl who he was sleeping with, who was a princess, and he
46:13 Dominic Sandbrook? said, "I leave nothing to her." I mean, he actually said this. I mean, what a bastard to say this as he's dying. "I leave nothing to her." He called her "an Indian woman who has given birth to a girl whom I do not recognise as my daughter." As you say, an absolute bastard to the end. Yeah, and then he died. I mean, so unnecessary. Yeah. But he's a bad advert for Spain, I think. So the next day, Juan's devastated brother Gonzalo leads another assault.
46:42 Dominic Sandbrook? Great drama. Everyone was shouting and they were all entangled together, fighting for the hilltop. It looked as though the whole world was up there grappling in close combat. And as night's falling, Hernando joins the assault. He's spent the day making scaling ladders. Again, the kind of technology that the Incas don't really have, but the Spanish, of course, are used to from their fighting in the Old World. And under this hail of stones, the Spanish start to scale the outer walls. Again, it is very Helms Deep. And then there's this ferocious hand-to-hand fighting as they drive the Incas back to the inner citadel. The fighting goes on for the next two days. The commander of the citadel was a man called Titucuzi Gualpa, and he had sworn to fight to the death.
47:26 Dominic Sandbrook? He's hit twice by Spanish arrows, but it doesn't deter him. He strides around, we're told, like a lion from side to side of the tower. He repulsed any Spaniards who tried to mount with scaling ladders. He killed any Indians who tried to surrender. He smashed their heads with the battle axe he was carrying and hurled them from the top of the tower. So basically like one of Stalin's commissars or something in the Second World War. Basically, if you falter, he'll smash you over the head with an axe. I was thinking more like Gimli. Gimli doesn't hit people on the head from his own side, though, and throw them off the tower. Anyway, Gimli doesn't do this. The Spanish start to throw in their own native auxiliaries. This goes back to your point, Tom, about them having native support. Some of them are led by Manco's own brothers, which seems mad.
48:11 Dominic Sandbrook? And at last, this guy Titucuzi Gualpa realises that the fortress is lost. He throws his weapons down onto the Spanish and then we're told, I mean, a strange choice, actually, in the last moments. "He grabbed handfuls of earth, stuffed them into his mouth, and scoured his face in anguish. Then he covered his head with his cloak and he leaped to his death from the top of the fortress in fulfilment of his pledge to the Inca." So, the fortress is lost. Hernando's men rampage through. They round up 1,500 people and they put them all to the sword.
48:46 Dominic Sandbrook? So now we're at the end of May and the siege has been going, what, for a month or two? And there's a definite sense that the initial momentum has been lost. We're told that with the fall of the citadel, Inca morale begins to ebb. Manco says to his generals, "You've let me down. You know, there were so many of you and so few of them, and yet again, they have eluded your grasp." There are a couple of reasons, I think, why this is. John Heming says, "The Spanish always have this technological advantage. The only real department in which the Incas have parity," as he puts it, "is in projectiles." But projectiles didn't usually kill an armoured Spaniard. And this is a kind of hand-to-hand, bloody fight to the death.
49:29 Dominic Sandbrook? And if you've got a steel sword, that can make all the difference. And the other thing is what the point you made, the native allies. They're always there. We barely glimpse them in the Spanish sources, but they're always there, you know, between the lines almost. Auxiliaries, servants, armed troops, all of this.
49:47 Tom Holland? But also, people of high birth as well, aren't there? There are kind of noblemen who come over.
49:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh yeah, Manco's brothers.
49:53 Tom Holland? In part, I assume, because Manco is destroying their city. I mean, the use of burning slingshot is annihilating a place that is their own. And perhaps they think the Spaniards are the best hope to save it.
50:08 Dominic Sandbrook? If you decide the Spaniards are going to win and can't be beaten, then a lot of people will say, "Well, it's literally pointless to fight on against them. The best thing for our people is to come to an accommodation. You know, we'll save lives, we'll save the city, save our civilisation." But this is not the end. The siege drags on for another three months, and it is incredibly fierce. So I'll just give one quote from a Spanish writer, Alonso Enrique de Guzmán. "I can bear witness that this was the most dreadful and cruel war in the world. Between Christians and Moors..." So he's talking about the fighting in Spain in the 1490s against the Muslims in the south of Spain. "...between Christians and Moors, there is some fellow feeling, and it is in the interests
50:52 Dominic Sandbrook? of both sides to spare those they take alive because of their ransoms. But in this Indian war, there is no such feeling. They give each other the cruelest deaths imaginable." So a sense of it being an existential struggle. We know, not governed by the rules that govern fighting in Europe or the Mediterranean, but something... You know, unbelievably savage in which kind of all restraints are off. And week by week, faced with this, Manko's army is losing momentum. Most of Manko's men are not professional soldiers. They're peasants, they're farmers, they've taken their families with them. And by August or so, they're drifting away to go back to their fields. And it's about this point that you get some dramatic news from the coast.
51:34 Dominic Sandbrook? So remember that on the coast, at this new city of Lima, Francisco Pizarro has been there all the time. He has sent out a series of relief columns to try and save his brothers. But these had been annihilated as they tried to go over the Andes by one of Manko's best commanders, a guy called Quiso Yopanqui, who had basically hidden waiting for them in gorges and ravines, then hurled down rocks and boulders at them. Really simple, but it worked beautifully.
52:04 Tom Holland? Yeah, so they finally rumbled how to destroy Spanish expeditions.
52:08 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. Basically, three of these columns were annihilated, 200 horsemen are killed, and their severed heads are sent as gifts to Manko.
52:15 Tom Holland? Do they capture the horses?
52:16 Dominic Sandbrook? They don't capture them and ride them, I don't think. I think they kill some of them and the rest of the horses just run away, I think, escape. So Pizarro, back in Lima, is in a bit of a panic now. He hasn't got any news from Cusco, he doesn't know what's happened to his brothers. He's sending out desperate letters all across the empire, including, actually, to Pedro de Alvarado. "The Inca has the city of Cusco besieged, and for five months I've heard nothing. The country is ravaged, and the native chiefs have won many victories against us. It causes me such great sorrow that it's consuming my entire life."
52:48 Tom Holland? But there is someone who answers this appeal, isn't there? Who is a kind of interesting illustration of the relationships that can develop between Spaniards and native women. Because this is this woman, Conto Hacho, who had been the queen of a native people, taken by Juana Capac, and she is Pizarro's mother-in-law. And she's one of history's great mother-in-laws. And she raises an army of her countrymen and marched to Lima to help him. So. It can work for both sides.
53:21 Dominic Sandbrook? It can. Interestingly, actually, I mean, although he gets such, he does get some support. He gets some support from Panama. He gets some native allies, as you rightly say. But actually, across the Spanish Empire, the general senses, the Pizarros have brought this on themselves. The governors have exploited the Inca. Hernando Pizarro caused this rebellion, for it is said that he tortured the local chief for his gold and silver. So even at this point, people are saying, the Pizarros are kind of bad men. They've treated Manco and Co. very roughly.
53:49 Tom Holland? I mean, they're not wrong, are they?
53:51 Dominic Sandbrook? Exactly. They're not wrong. I mean, the idea that the Spanish, the Black Legend, which is that the Spanish are all uniquely cruel and corrupt, is just not true, even from this stage. Lots of Spaniards are saying, the Pizarros are terrible people. And, you know, I've actually feel really sorry for the Incas. Anyway. Things are going to get really tricky for Pizarro now, because this guy, Quiso Yopanqui, who's crushed his relief columns with boulders. He now descends from the Andes onto the coastal plain and he starts marching on Lima. And in Lima, people become absolutely terrified, because very soon Lima is virtually surrounded with Inca troops on the hillsides, just as in Cuzco. And for five days, they're waiting. And then on the sixth day comes the decisive moment. This guy, Quiso, addresses his men. He says,
54:35 Dominic Sandbrook? you know, classic kind of Inca rhetoric, this is the moment to capture the city or to perish in the attempt. I intend to enter the town today and to kill all the Spaniards. And any who accompany me must go on the understanding that if I die, all will die. So the Incas advance. People said it was an amazing scene. They had these sort of, it's very kingdom of heaven. They've got these kind of banners, kind of waving in the sunshine, an amazing scene, thousands of Incas against just two squadrons of Spanish cavalry. Quiso is leading them with a spear on foot. But then, as John Heming says, for all its splendor and reckless bravery, this attack was to prove as futile as that of the French at Agincourt, the British at Balaclava, or the Confederates at Gettysburg.
55:20 Dominic Sandbrook? Because basically, Quiso leads his men and they're on foot. And as soon as they're within range, the Spanish charge. They rush out on their horses. And it's flat ground. Basically, they rout Quiso and his men instantly.
55:35 Dominic Sandbrook? And in the first attack, they kill him and they kill forty of his commanders and chiefs. And Quizeo had said, if I die, all will die. Actually, that's not true. Everybody else just runs away. He's dead, Lima is saved, and now the Spanish can venture out of Lima and vent their fury with some truly hideous reprisals. So one of Pizarro's soldiers writes to a friend of his in Seville. "We captured alive a hundred natives and killed thirty. We cut the arms off some of the prisoners and the noses from others and the breasts from the women. Then we sent them back to the enemy to show them that they too would submit to the knife." Oh dear. Yeah, so it's only going to get darker, by the way, just to warn you.
56:21 Dominic Sandbrook? So Pizarro doesn't know what's been happening to his brothers in Cusco. What's been going on there in the meantime? The answer is that they've stabilized the situation. They're still encircled, but they're facing fewer attacks from Manco's men, so much so they've been able to slacken their own guard duty and get some sleep, which is a nice change for them after months of heavy fighting. They occasionally launch raids out of the city, they capture prisoners, they bring them back in, they cut off their hands, then they let them go again as a warning to the others. Yeah, of course they do. They launch raids to get food, so they capture a supply column, one of Manco's supply columns, that's brought loads of llamas. So they're dining on roasted llama. And by the end of 1536, the whole thing has become a stalemate.
57:06 Dominic Sandbrook? The Spaniards can't get out, the Incas can't get in. But on balance, this is probably good for the Spaniards because all the time more ships are coming down the Pacific coast, bringing reinforcements from other Spanish colonies, even from Spain, where the court has sent fifty arcabusias, so gunmen, and fifty crossbowmen. So they're bringing more new technology and they're coming all the time, just as they had in Mexico. So the weeks continue, the siege goes on. And then in April 1537 comes the real game-changing moment. Remember that all this time, Pizarro's business partner, Diego de Almagro, has been off in Chile disgracing himself with his chain gangs.
57:52 Dominic Sandbrook? He is now coming home. He's very dejected. They've found no gold and silver. They're very miserable. They've basically killed loads of people, but that hasn't made them happy. I mean, madly, they marched right past the gigantic silver mine at Potosi, which at its height, I'll talk about this a little bit, maybe in the next episode, produced eighty percent of the world's silver. You know, one of the, the Cerro Rico, the hill of gold, the hill of silver. They didn't even realise it was there. Anyway, they crossed the Atacama Desert, as you said. What is that, the world's highest desert?
58:26 Tom Holland? No, it's the driest desert.
58:27 Dominic Sandbrook? Driest desert.
58:28 Tom Holland? There are places there where there's been no precipitation for centuries.
58:31 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah. Very Alexander the Great, isn't it? Well, we'll probably just cross that.
58:36 Tom Holland? What's the worst that could happen?
58:38 Dominic Sandbrook? They cross this desert. Amazingly, they don't all die. And they discover that, that they hear, Almagro hears, well, this massive war has broken out and Manco is besieging the city of Cuzco. And now Almagro thinks, well, this is a brilliant opportunity for me. Because basically, if I can get Manco on side, if I can end the war, save New Castile, Charles V will see me as the hero. He, you know, the Pizarros are rubbish. He'll see me as the hero of the hour. So he sends Manco this absolutely gushing letter. My well beloved son and brother, I'm so sorry for the abuse the Christians have done to your person, the robbery of your property and house, and the seizure of your beloved wives. I'm on my way to help you. I won't do anything without your approval. I will never refuse
59:23 Dominic Sandbrook? you the friendship I've always felt for you. So in April 1537, Almagro's army arrives around Cuzco. You now have, I mean, this is so George R R Martin, isn't it? You now have three forces in a standoff. Anando Pizarro in the city and two different armies outside the city, that of Manco and that of Almagro. What's really unclear is how this constellation of forces will play out. So Manco surely knows now that with two Spanish armies, he's not going to drive them all out of Peru. He can't beat two of them. He also knows the Pizarros will not forgive him for this war. Hernando in the city, he would love to, the siege to end. On the other hand, he hates
1:00:06 Dominic Sandbrook? Almagro and he's got no intention of giving him Cusco.
1:00:09 Tom Holland? So who do you think he hates more, Manco or Almagro?
1:00:12 Dominic Sandbrook? Oh, Almagro.
1:00:13 Tom Holland? I would have thought so.
1:00:14 Dominic Sandbrook? The Spanish hate each other far more than they hate the Incas. Yeah, because there's no sense. I mean, Manco's, you know, he's the opposition. He's doing what he should be doing.
1:00:24 Tom Holland? Because that would be a punchy reversal, wouldn't it? For him suddenly to team up with Manco and wipe out.
1:00:28 Dominic Sandbrook? That would be the real, see, that's the real what if of history. If Hernando Pizarro had teamed up with Manco at that point to attack Almagro. But actually, Almagro moves first and then we promise guava fruit action and that's coming. Almagro moves first. He sends this messenger called Rui Diaz. You'll realise in a second why I've gone to the bother of naming the messenger. To Manco's huge fortress at Alonte Tambo. And he says, you know, Manco, you're my great friend. If you stand down your forces, I'll make sure the king gives you a royal pardon. It'll all be forgiven and I'll make sure the Pizarros are punished. And Manco is really tempted by this, but then another messenger arrives from Hernando Pizarro, who Manco's been fighting all this time.
1:01:08 Dominic Sandbrook? And Hernando says to Manco, you're mad if you trust Almagro. He's an absolute snake and a liar. And anyway, he's basically my brother's Francisco's subordinate. He can't deliver on any of his promises. Don't listen to him. He's a liar. All of this. So Manco now, he's got these two messages and he can't decide which one to go for. And he decides he will test Diego de Almagro. He's captured four of Hernando's scouts and Manco says, well, if you are really on my side, prove your good faith by executing these four Spanish scouts. And this is a real dilemma for Almagro. If Almagro executed these four Spanish scouts, his own countrymen, I mean, the king of Spain would be furious.
1:01:50 Tom Holland? You see, I think in that situation, Pizarro would execute them.
1:01:54 Dominic Sandbrook? And make an excuse, but Almagro is a bit naive, isn't he? These people have been defending Cusco. Can he do it? He can't do it. He doesn't do it. And when Manco hears that he hasn't done it, he says, gosh, Hernando Pizarro is right. Almagro will never deliver. He is a snake. These Spaniards and the fine analysis will always stick together. So Manco turns on Almagro. He orders an attack on his army, which is fought off. But then this is the exciting fruit action.
1:02:19 Tom Holland? Yeah, because what happens to Rui Diaz?
1:02:21 Dominic Sandbrook? So Rui Diaz is stripped naked. He's the messenger who brought a message saying, I'd like to be your friend. And this is his reward. A mad passage, actually. So Rui Diaz is stripped naked. And then, and I quote, "They anointed him with their mixtures." I mean, who knows what those mixtures are? "And were amused to see his contorted features."
1:02:42 Tom Holland? I mean, nothing, nothing good in those mixtures, evidently.
1:02:47 Dominic Sandbrook? Contorted features.
1:02:47 Tom Holland? Tabasco.
1:02:48 Dominic Sandbrook? "They made him drink a great quantity of chicha," that's their kind of beer, "and tying him to a post..."
1:02:57 Dominic Sandbrook? "They used their slings to fire guava fruit."
1:03:03 Tom Holland? I mean, it's the darkest moment in the entire history of the Spanish conquest.
1:03:06 Dominic Sandbrook? Well, I was about to say, by the standards of the tortures in this series, this is quite, you've got to really lightly.
1:03:14 Tom Holland? You'd opt for that, given a choice, wouldn't you?
1:03:17 Dominic Sandbrook? Given all the options, I'd go for the guava fruit every time.
1:03:22 Tom Holland? But this is weird, isn't it? Because also they make him shave his beard and cut his hair. And also, again, I would, I wouldn't object too strongly, I think.
1:03:30 Dominic Sandbrook? No, no, no. What always we laugh most is the line, "They used their slings to fire guava fruit at him, distressing him greatly." And then they, yeah, they made him shave his beard and his hair. "They wished to change him into an Indian with bare limbs." I mean, yeah, mad torture.
1:03:48 Tom Holland? So what's going on there?
1:03:49 Dominic Sandbrook? I don't know. I'm not an inker. I can't, there was, there were some points where you just have to throw up your hands and admit that.
1:03:56 Tom Holland? It's the imponderable nature of history.
1:03:58 Dominic Sandbrook? Your powers of imagination let you down. I think Rui Diaz, I totally agree with you. I think he's got off unbelievably lightly. He's had a shave. I mean, people pay for that. You'd pay to go into a sort of posh barber and him to give you a shave.
1:04:12 Dominic Sandbrook? Not to fire fruit at you.
1:04:13 Tom Holland? And I guess the guava fruit perhaps has moistened his skin, ready for the shave. You could imagine that being quite fashionable hipsters.
1:04:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
1:04:23 Tom Holland? Pelt a hipster with guava fruit, then give him a shave.
1:04:26 Dominic Sandbrook? People would pay very good money for this kind of, this sort of treatment. Anyway, so where were we with, um, with Manco? I feel like Manco's options now are very narrow. He can't capture Cusco. I mean, he couldn't capture it before. He can't capture it now. And I think the guava fruit debacle has torpedoed any possibility.
1:04:46 Tom Holland? That's a deal breaker.
1:04:49 Dominic Sandbrook? With Almagro. So he decides his only option is to withdraw to safety and to bide his time. And to hope that maybe the Spaniards turn on each other, which of course, you know, he knows them by now. Every chance of that happening. So basically he's going to go back to his old life as an outlaw. And so a few days later, he withdraws from his great fortress at Alonte Tambo. He's going to abandon the Andean highlands with Spanish. He's going to head deeper into the sacred valley. So that's basically in the shadow of Machu Picchu. He's going to go across the mountains and deep into the jungle. And he, he addresses his supporters. He said, well, people from the jungle have been asking me to visit them for years anyway. So this is the, this is the perfect opportunity. I should give them this satisfaction for a few days, he says.
1:05:34 Dominic Sandbrook? And then there are a whole load of prayers led by the high priest. They pack up all their idols and their kind of relics. And they know, you know, realistically, they're probably never coming back. So Manco vanishes and we'll come back to him. And on the 18th of April, Almagro rides into Cusco with drums and pipes, not as a liberator though. He rides in as a conqueror. He burns the houses of the Pizarro brothers. He takes Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro prisoner.
1:06:06 Dominic Sandbrook? And he locks them up in the city towers. And then when Francisco Pizarro finally does send a relief column, Almagro rides out to confront them and he persuades them to change sides. So now the balance of power really has shifted. Francisco Pizarro is still on the coast at Lima, but Almagro is ruling unchallenged in Cuzco, and he now promotes his own Inca puppet. So this is a guy who's been with him on the expedition to Chile, who is Manco's slightly younger half-brother who's called Paulu. We don't know much about Paulu, although he'll be coming back in the next episode. Paulu is clearly an opportunist. He's much more drawn to collaboration than Manco.
1:06:48 Dominic Sandbrook? He'd much rather collaborate with the Spanish than basically join his half-brother as an outlaw. Paulu gets his supporters to help Almagro. And so in July 1537, a few months later, Almagro organizes another grand coronation ceremony in the square in Cuzco. He strips Manco of his title as Sapa Inca. I mean, Almagro has no authority to do that and there's no precedent for it really in Inca history. But he basically says, Manco's run away, he's forfeited his title. It's like James the Second in 1688. And the red ceremonial kind of string fringe is with its tassel is given to Paulu, who is now supposedly the emperor. But Manco, of course, has not vanished.
1:07:32 Dominic Sandbrook? Manco has crossed the mountains. He's come down into the jungle into a place called Vilcabamba. And here at a town called Vitcos, he has established his new headquarters, just out of reach of the Spanish. So this is rainforest territory, very wet, wreathed in mist and kind of mystery. And here, Manco is going to establish an Inca state in exile. And so all is set now for the end game. You have Francisco Pizarro in Lima on the coast. You have Almagro, his old business partner turned hated rival in the highlands in Cuzco. And you have Manco in his jungle there at Vilcabamba.
1:08:17 Dominic Sandbrook? There's only going to be one winner. And for at least two of these men, this story will end in unspeakable bloodshed. So one of them will be the last man standing, or will they? And we'll find out which one in the final spine-tealing episode, Tom, of the fall of the Incas.
1:08:36 Tom Holland? And so the end approaches and members of the Restless History Club can of course hear that episode right away. If you're not a member of the Restless History Club and you want to join them, you know what you've got to do. You've got to head to therestishistory.com and sign up. Goodbye.
1:08:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Goodbye.
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