Why go
This account gives the Plaza de Armas a deeper historical weight and explains why Vilcabamba matters beyond its remoteness. Manco Inca established a surviving center there; his successors faced negotiations and conflict with Spanish authorities. Túpac Amaru's execution in Cusco in 1572 marked the end of that independent Inca leadership, though not the end of Andean culture.
The full story
Spanish control of Cusco in the 1530s did not immediately end Inca political resistance. Manco Inca, who had first dealt with the newcomers, withdrew to Vilcabamba and established a smaller independent state in difficult terrain beyond the city. After his death, leadership passed through his sons. Sayri Túpac eventually accepted Spanish authority and left Vilcabamba; Titu Cusi remained there and negotiated with the colonial government. Túpac Amaru succeeded Titu Cusi. In 1572, a Spanish campaign entered Vilcabamba, and Túpac Amaru fled before being captured. He was taken to Cusco and executed in the Plaza de Armas. The square that now anchors a visitor's walk was therefore also the setting for a decisive public act of colonial power. The name Túpac Amaru later took on new meaning. José Gabriel Condorcanqui, leader of an eighteenth-century rebellion, called himself Túpac Amaru II. That later use should not blur the lives of the two men. The first Túpac Amaru belongs to the final chapter of the Vilcabamba state; the second invoked his name in a very different colonial struggle.