Battle of Ollantaytambo

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict = Battle of Ollantaytambo
partof = Spanish conquest of Peru


caption = View of the archaeological site of Ollantaytambo.
date = January 1537
place = Near Ollantaytambo, present-day Peru
territory =
result = Inca victory
status =
combatant1 = Inca Empire
combatant2 = Spanish Empire
Indian auxiliaries
combatant3 =
commander1 = Manco Inca
commander2 = Hernando Pizarro
commander3 =
strength1 = 30,000+
strength2 = 100 Spaniards
30,000 native allies
strength3 =
casualties1 = Unknown
casualties2 = Unknown
casualties3 =
notes =

The Battle of Ollantaytambo took place in January 1537 between the forces of the Inca emperor Manco Inca and a Spanish expedition led by Hernando Pizarro during the Spanish conquest of Peru. A former ally of the Spaniards, Manco Inca rebelled in May 1536 and laid siege to a Spanish garrison in the city of Cusco. To end the stand-off, the besieged mounted a raid against the emperor headquarters, located in the town of Ollantaytambo. The expedition was commanded by Hernando Pizarro and included 100 Spaniards and some 30,000 Indian auxiliaries against an Inca army of more than 30,000.

There is some controversy over the actual location of the battle, according to John Hemming it took place in the town itself while Jean-Pierre Protzen argues that the nearby plain of Mascabamba is better match for the descriptions of the encounter. In any case, the Inca army managed to hold the Spanish forces from a set of high terraces and flood their position to hinder their cavalry. Unable to advance and severely pressed, the Spaniards withdrew by night to Cusco. Despite this victory, the arrival of Spanish reinforcements to Cusco forced Manco Inca to abandon Ollantaytambo and seek refuge in the heavily forested region of Vilcabamba where an independent Inca state survived until 1572.

Prelude

In 1531, a group of Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro landed on the shores of the Inca Empire, thus starting the Spanish conquest of Peru. At that time the empire was emerging from a civil war in which Atahualpa had defeated his brother Huascar to claim the title of Sapa Inca. Atahualpa underestimated the strength of the small force of Spaniards and was captured during an ambush at Cajamarca in November 1532. Pizarro ordered the execution of the Inca in July, 1533, and occupied the Inca capital of Cusco four months later. To replace Atahualpa, Pizarro installed his brother Túpac Huallpa as a puppet ruler but he died shortly afterwards so another brother, Manco Inca, was crowned emperor. During this stage, the only native resistance was carried out by Atahualpa's generals as a sizable part of the empire's population had fought on Huascar's side during the civil war and joined Pizarro against their enemies. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", pp. 311–319.]

For a while Manco Inca and the conquistadors maintained good relations, together they defeated Atahualpa's generals and reestablished Inca rule on sizable portions of the empire. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 164–167.] However, Manco came to realize that real authority rested on Spanish hands when his house was looted with impunity by a Spaniard mob in 1535. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 171.] Following this episode, the Inca emperor was subject to constant harassment as the Spaniards demanded gold, took away his wives, and even imprisoned him so he fled Cusco to start an uprising. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 173–183.] In May 1536, an Inca army laid siege to Cusco, which was garrisoned by a group of Spaniards and native allies. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 185–187.] The conquistadors were hard pressed but they managed to resist and counterattack, storming the main Inca stronghold at Sacsayhuaman. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 192–196.] Meanwhile, Manco's generals occupied the central highlands of Peru and annihilated several expeditions sent to reinforce Cusco but failed in their attempt to take the recently founded Spanish capital of Lima. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 199–206.] As a result of these events, neither side was able to break the deadlock at Cusco for several months so the Spaniards garrison decided to make a direct attack on Manco's headquarters at the town of Ollantaytambo, some 70 kilometers northwest of the city. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 206.]

ources

Primary sources about the battle of Ollantaytambo are mostly written by Spaniards. Pedro Pizarro, a cousin of Francisco Pizarro, was part of the expedition against Manco Inca's headquarters. Years later he wrote down his recollections of these and other events in a chronicle called "Relación del descubrimiento y conquista de los reinos del Perú" dated to 1571. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 511, 532.] The anonymous "Relación del sitio del Cuzco y principio de las guerras civiles del Perú hasta la muerte de Diego de Almagro" starts with the arrival of Hernando Pizarro to Cusco in January 1536 and ends with the execution of Diego de Almagro in July 1538. This chronicle, which includes an account of Manco Inca's rebellion and the attack on Ollantaytambo, was written in 1539 probably by Diego de Silva, a Spanish soldier who was actually in Lima during the uprising. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 181, 505, 555.] An account of the battle was also included in the "Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano" written by Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas between 1610 and 1615. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 508, 559.] Herrera was the "Cronista Mayor de las Indias" (Chronicler-in-Chief of the Indies) of the Spanish Crown and while he wrote in Madrid, he had access to many documents and sources. On the side of the Incas, the only written account of the battle is part of the "Relación de la conquista del Perú y hechos del Inca Manco II" written in 1570 by Titu Cusi Yupanqui, son of Manco Inca. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 513, 559.]

Battle

The attack was led by Hernando Pizarro, the senior Spanish commander in Cusco, with a force of 100 Spaniards (30 infantry, 70 cavalry) and a large contingent of native allies, estimated at 30,000. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 207; Vega, "Incas contra españoles", p. 78.] Their main asset against the Inca armies was the Spanish cavalry as horses provided a considerable advantage in hitting power, maneuverability, speed, and stamina over Inca warriors. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 109–111.] All Spaniards wore some kind of armor, the most commonly used types were chain mail shirts and padded cloth armor which were lighter and cheaper than full armor suits; they were complemented by steel helmets and small iron or wooden shields. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 112–113.] The main Spanish offensive weapon was the steel sword, which horsemen supplemented with the lance; both weapons could easily penetrate the padded armor worn by Inca troops. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 113.] Firearms, such as arquebuses were rarely used during the Spanish conquest of Peru because they were scarce, hard to use, and despised by horsemen as an ungentlemanly weapon. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 113–114.] Native allies were an important asset for the Spaniards as they provided thousands of warriors as well as support personnel and supplies. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", p. 319.] These native troops used the same kind of weapons employed by the Inca armies and described in the following paragraph. During the Ollantaytambo campaign, the Pizarro expedition included thousands of auxiliaries, mainly Cañaris, Chachapoyas, and Wankas as well as several members of the Inca nobility opposed to Manco Inca. [Vega, "Incas contra españoles", p. 78.]

Against the Spaniards, Manco Inca had more than 30,000 troops gathered at Ollantaytambo, among them, a large number of recruits from jungle tribes of the Amazon Rainforest. [Vega, "Incas contra españoles", p. 79.] Manco Inca's forces were a militia army made up mostly of conscripted farmers with only rudimentary arms training. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 207.] This was the regular practice in the Inca empire, where military service formed part of duties of all married men between 25 and 50 years old. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", p. 217.] In combat, these soldiers were organized by ethnic group and led into battle by their own ethnic leaders, called "kurakas". [D'Altroy, "The Incas", p. 233.] Arms used comprised melee weapon such as maces, clubs and spears as well as ranged weapons such as arrows, javelins, and slings; protective gear included helmets, shields, and quilted cloth armor. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", p. 227.] With this array of weapons, Inca warriors were at a disadvantage against Spanish soldiers as their wooden clubs and maces with stone or bronze heads were rarely able to kill armored Spaniards. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 114.] Slings and other missile throwing weapons were somewhat more effective due to their accuracy and the large size of their projectiles. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 114–115, 187.] Even so, Inca soldiers were no match for the Spanish cavalry in open terrain so they resorted to fighting on rough terrain and digging pits on open fields to hinder the mobility of horses. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", p. 319.]

At Ollantaytambo, the Incas relied on fortifications to even their odds against the Spaniards. The main access route to the town runs along a narrow valley formed in the mountains by the Urubamba River, this connects the site with Machu Picchu to the west and with Pisaq and Cusco to the east. After his uprising, Manco Inca fortified the eastern approaches to fend off attacks from the former Inca capital, now occupied by the Spaniards. The first line of defense was a steep bank of terraces at Pachar, near the confluence of the Anta and Urubamba rivers. Behind it, the Incas channeled the Urubamba to make it cross the valley from right to left and back thus forming two more lines backed by the fortifications of Choqana on the left bank and 'Inkapintay on the right bank. Past them, at the plain of Mascabamba, eleven high terraces closed the valley between the mountains and a deep canyon formed by the Urubamba. The only way to continue was through the gate of T'iyupunku, a thick defensive wall with two narrow doorways. In the event of these fortifications being overrun, the Temple Hill, a religious center surrounded by high terraces overlooking Ollantaytambo, provided a last line of defense. [Protzen, "Inca architecture", pp. 22–26.]

Faced with these constraints, the Spanish expedition had to cross the river several times and fight at each ford against stiff opposition. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 207.] The bulk of the Inca army confronted the Spaniards from a set of terraces overlooking a plain by the Urubamba River. Several Spanish assaults against the terraces failed against a shower of arrows, slingshots and boulders coming down from the terraces as well as from both flanks. To hinder the efforts of the Spanish cavalry, the most powerful weapon of the Spaniards, the Incas flooded the plain using previously prepared channels; water eventually reached the horses' girths. The defenders then counterattacked; some of them used Spanish weapons captured in previous encounters, such as swords, bucklers, armor and even a horse, ridden by Manco Inca himself. Faced with a severely compromised situation, Hernando Pizarro ordered a retreat; under the cover of darkness the Spanish force fled through the Urubamba valley with the Incas in pursuit and reached Cusco by the next day. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 208–209.]

Battle site

There is some disagreement over the actual location of the battle. According to Canadian explorer John Hemming, Spanish forces occupied a plain between Ollantaytambo and the Urubamba River while the main Inca army was located on a citadel overlooking the town, protected by seventeen terraces. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 207–208.] However, Swiss architect Jean-Pierre Protzen argues that the topography of the town and its surrounding area does not match contemporary descriptions of the battle. An anonymous eyewitness account claims that the Inca army occupied a set of eleven terraces, not seventeen; while a chronicle by Pedro Pizarro describes a gate flanked by walls as the only way through the terraces. Protzen thinks that these descriptions allude to a set of eleven terraces that close the plain of Mascabamba, close to Ollantaytambo, which includes the heavily fortified gate of T'iyupunku. At that location, the Spaniards would have been surrounded by the terraces to the front, the Urubamba River to the left and a steep hill called Cerro Pinkulluna to the right, matching the three sides from which they were attacked during the battle. If Protzen's hyphotesis is correct, the river diverted to flood the battlefield was the Urubamba, and not its smaller affluent, the Patakancha, which runs along the town of Ollantaytambo. [Protzen, "Inca architecture", pp. 22–23.]

Aftermath

The success at Ollantaytambo encouraged Manco Inca to make a renewed attempt against Cusco. However, the Spaniards discovered the Inca army concentrating near the city and mounted a night attack, which inflicted heavy casualties. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 210–212.] On April 18, 1537, a Spanish army led by Diego de Almagro returned from a long expedition to Chile and occupied Cusco. Almagro imprisoned Hernando Pizarro and his brother Gonzalo because he wanted the city for himself; most Spanish troops and their auxiliaries joined his side. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 220.] He had previously tried to negotiate a settlement with Manco Inca but the efforts failed as both armies clashed at Calca, near Cusco. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 218–219.] With the Spaniards' position consolidated by Almagro's reinforcements, Manco Inca decided that his position at Ollantaytambo was no longer tenable for it was too close to Cusco so he withdrew further east to the town of Vitcos. [Hemming, "The conquest", p. 222.] Almagro sent his lieutenant Rodrigo Orgóñez in pursuit with 300 Spaniards and numerous Indian auxiliaries. Orgoñez occupied and sacked Vitcos in July 1537, capturing many prisoners but Manco managed to escape. [Hemming, "The conquest", pp. 223–225.] He took refuge at the remote location of Vilcabamba where an Inca state survived until the capture and execution of Túpac Amaru, the last Inca emperor, in 1572. [D'Altroy, "The Incas", pp. 319–320.]

ee also

* Hernando Pizarro
* Manco Inca
* Ollantaytambo
* Spanish conquest of Peru

Notes

References

* D'Altroy, Terence. "The Incas". Malden: Blackwell, 2002. ISBN 0-631-17677-2
* Hemming, John. "The conquest of the Incas". London: Macmillan, 1993. ISBN 0-333-10683-0
* Protzen, Jean-Pierre. "Inca architecture and construction at Ollantaytambo". New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-507069-0
* Vega, Juan José. "Incas contra españoles: treinta batallas". Lima: Milla Batres, 1980.