¿Inca o español? Las identidades de Paullu Topa Inca

Abstract

Inca or Spanish? The Identities of Paullu Topa Inca

Paullu Topa Inca tends to be described, in modern historiography, as a traitor to his own people. This judgement misrepresents the circumstances of his life as perceived during the sixteenth century. During his own life time, he was indeed respected by many Spaniards, but Incas and andean people also regarded him as a man of very great authority and worth. After his death, the complex events of the invasion and conquest in which Paullu Topa Inca participated were streamlined into a smooth narrative that fitted in with the perspective of the winning side in the civil wars of the conquest period, and that became canonical once the viceregal state was established. The old men who at century’s end remembered Paullu Topa Inca did so as part of their own memories of their childhood and youth.