Cuzco

Laid out in the shape of a puma, Cuzco served as the religious and political capital of the INCA Empire from its founding by Manco Capac in approximately 1200 until the conquest of the city by FRANCiSco PiZARRo in 1543.

According to oral tradition, Manco Capac, the first Incan emperor, founded the city as the capital to his empire in approximately A. D. 1200. From Cuzco, beginning with the emperor Pachacuti, the Inca expanded their empire and influence primarily to the north and south along the Andes Mountains, but they also expanded west to the Pacific Coast and to the east down into the tropical rain forest of the Amazon River basin. Cuzco’s importance lay in its strategic location along the junction of major trading routes between the north and south as well as the highlands and lowlands to the west and east. Pachacuti rebuilt Cuzco and canalized the Tullumayo and Huatanay Rivers in stone beds to prevent flooding of the city.

Throughout the existence of the Inca Empire, rulers added to the size and prestige of Cuzco. Cuzco eventually contained more than 4,000 residences, granaries, storage sheds, religious temples, and imperial structures. Before the arrival of the Spanish, activity in Cuzco centered on the Palace of the Sun, a temple to the primary Incan deity, and the palaces of the former and current Inca. The Palace of the Sun occupied the central location within Cuzco, and outside the city the fortress Sacsahuaman overlooked the city. Built of stones that weighed up to 300 tons, Sacsahuaman along with the Palace of the Sun and the residences of the Inca testified to the high level of craftsmanship developed during the reign of the Incan emperors.

Francisco Pizarro arrived in Cuzco in 1533, and by 1543 the Spanish controlled Cuzco and the surrounding territory. The Spanish then proceeded to tear down the Incan buildings and replace them with new Spanish structures often built from the same stones used in the Incan structures. The Spanish used indigenous labor to rebuild the city and develop the city’s and region’s economy along Spanish lines. The Plaza de Armas eventually became the center of the city, and over time the Spanish built cathedrals and churches on Incan holy sites in an attempt to obliterate the old religion. Despite their intentions, many Incans tended to blend Catholicism with their traditional religion in a syncretic fashion similar to that of other Natives throughout the Spanish American Empire.

Further reading: Burr Cartwright Brundage, Lords of Cuzco (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967); John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (London: Macmillan, 1970); John H. Rowe, An Introduction to the Archaeology of Cuzco (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1944); John C. Super, “Cuzco,” in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 2, Barbara A. Tenenbaum, ed. (New York: Scribner’s, 1996), 348-350.

—Dixie Ray Haggard