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Updated: June 18, 2025
Glaciers Between Cuzco and Uiticos The Spaniards who attempted to follow Manco found his position practically impregnable. The citadel of Uilcapampa, a gigantic natural fortress defended by Nature in one of her profoundest moods, was only to be reached by fording dangerous torrents, or crossing the mountains by narrow defiles which themselves are higher than the most lofty peaks of Europe.
Furthermore, Philip II and his Council of the Indies had decided that it would be worth while to make every effort to get the Inca out of Uiticos. For thirty-five years the Spanish conquerors had occupied Cuzco and the major portion of Peru without having been able to secure the submission of the Indians who lived in the province of Uilcapampa.
The events described in the preceding chapter happened, for the most part, in Uiticos and Uilcapampa, northwest of Ollantaytambo, about one hundred miles away from the Cuzco palace of the Spanish viceroy, in what Prescott calls "the remote fastnesses of the Andes." One looks in vain for Uiticos on modern maps of Peru, although several of the older maps give it.
Starting out from Pucyura they marched to "the Temple of the Sun, in the village of Chuquipalpa, close to Uiticos." Arrived at the sacred palisade, the monks raised the standard of the cross, recited their orisons, surrounded the spring, the white rock and the Temple of the Sun, and piled high the firewood.
Besides Indians fleeing from harsh masters, there came to Uilcapampa, in 1542, Gomez Perez, Diego Mendez, and half a dozen other Spanish fugitives, adherents of Almagro, "rascals," says Calancha, "worthy of Manco's favor." Obliged by the civil wars of the conquistadores to flee from the Pizarros, they were glad enough to find a welcome in Uiticos.
The viceroy wisely undertook to accomplish this difficult matter through the Princess Beatrix Coya, an aunt of the Inca, who was living in Cuzco. She took kindly to the suggestion and dispatched to Uiticos a messenger, of the blood royal, attended by Indian servants. The journey was a dangerous one; bridges were down and the treacherous trails were well-nigh impassable.
Father Calancha says it was a very large area, "covering fourteen degrees of longitude," about seven hundred miles wide. It included many savage tribes "of the far interior" who acknowledged the supremacy of the Incas and brought tribute to Manco and his sons. "The Mañaries and the Pilcosones came a hundred and two hundred leagues" to visit the Inca in Uiticos.
Plan of the Ruins of the Temple of the Sun at Ñusta Isppana Formerly Yurak Rumi in Chuquipalpa Near Uiticos It was during Titu Cusi's reign that Friars Marcos and Diego marched over here with their converts from Puquiura, each carrying a stick of firewood. Calancha says the Indians worshiped the water as a divine thing, that the Devil had at times shown himself in the water.
Ciezo de Leon says he was much disappointed not to be able to talk with Manco himself and his sons, but they had "retired into the provinces of Uiticos, which are in the most retired part of those regions, beyond the great Cordillera of the Andes." The Spanish refugees who died as the result of the murder of Manco may not have known how to write.
The third son of Manco, Tupac Amaru, brought up as a playfellow of the Virgins of the Sun in the Temple near Uiticos, and now happily married, was selected to rule the little kingdom. His brows were decked with the Scarlet Fringe of Sovereignty, but, thanks to the jealous fear of his powerful illegitimate brother, his training had not been that of a soldier.
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