Francisco Chilche

Chilche (c. 1497–1586) was a kuraka of the Cañari tribe. He was a courtier of Inca emperor Huayna Capac, surviving the civil war between his successor Huáscar and Atahualpa before allying with Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. He converted to Christianity under the name of Francisco Zaraunanta Chilche and became Pizarro's leading native supporter, eventually becoming governor of the Sacred Valley of Yucay. Although obscure in modern historiography, he has been deemed one of the most powerful kuraka of Peruvian history.

Early life According to Mestizo chronicler Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, who treated him personally, Chilche became a page for Huayna Capac thanks to his rank as a prince of the Cañari. Although he kept his royal status during the reign of Emperor Atahualpa, he seems to have secretly opposed him, as he quickly pledged himself to Francisco Pizarro in 1533 after Atahualpa's capture in Cajamarca. Chilche was the leader of a faction of Cañari and Chachapoya noblemen within the Cusco nobility, and offered their services to the conquistador. The ties between Pizarro and fellow Cañari chieftain Vilchumlay helped their alliance.

Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire Chilche acted as a general of Indian auxiliaries in Pizarro's composite army. He faced personally the Atahualpist general Chalcuchima, whom Chilche defeated and forced to retreat in Jauja.

Governor of Yucay Corpus Christi in Cuzco, with the Cañari parade at the left. In 1548, Chilche was sued by García Quispi Capi, a descendant of the deposed Huallpa Túpac. The Cañari was forced to hand over lordship over the local ayllu while retaining the mitma and the job of governor, but he later gathered an army and attacked García, recovering by force everything he had given away. This attracted complaints from other native landowners and from the very Spanish administration, which went largely unaddressed due to his influence. Chilche was at the peak of a practically feudal network of influence, attracting many native noblemen as clients and receiving women from their families as concubines in order to secure their deals. Only the progressive regularization of the Spanish rule would make his power gradually decline, although he retained a lot of it thanks to his relationship with the Pizarro family.

During the native parade of Corpus Christi in June 1555, Chilche featured a notorious incident evidencing the political tensions between Inca and Cañari factions. He arrived in a litter decorated with scenes of the Spanish conquest, after which he stripped down to his loincloth in warlike fashion and showed the crowd the shrunken head of the Inca killed in 1537. The gesture was clearly meant to glorify his role in the conquest and to offend the present Inca, causing that four of them attacked him and a fracas erupted. When the brawl was broken up, the teniente de corregidor Juan Luis de Monjaraz reprimanded Chilche for the scandal and confiscated the head.

In 1558, Sayri Túpac was installed as new kuraka of Yucay as a consequence of political changes in the Spanish crown, but he died suddenly, after which Chilche was accused of poisoning him to recover his domains. He spent one year in prison between trials, but was freed as no evidence of the crime was found, although Garcilaso and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala believed he was guilty. Chilche then forced the late Sayri's favorite concubine, Inés Coya, to marry him. This chapter of his life was followed by a last military tenure against the rebel Túpac Amaru as captain general of the Indian auxiliaries. Chilche died in 1586, after which his son Hernando Guatanaula, the first of eight siblings, inherited Yucay.