Origins of Vilcabamba

Vilcabamba was the remote mountain capital of the Neo-Inca State, the last stronghold of the Inca after the Spanish conquest. Manco Inca withdrew there after his failed siege of Cusco, and from the forests northwest of the old capital his successors, Sayri Túpac, Titu Cusi and Túpac Amaru, ruled and kept up resistance for decades. The exiled court was visited by Spanish envoys and missionaries, and the rulers at times negotiated with the viceroy. In the early 1570s a Spanish expedition invaded the region, captured Túpac Amaru and executed him in Cusco. The exact site of Vilcabamba was long uncertain, and the explorer Hiram Bingham had at first mistaken Machu Picchu for it, before the ruins at Espíritu Pampa were later identified.

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