The history of the Qolqampata Palace is dazzling, exciting and unique. Incredible building that silently testifies for more than eight centuries fabulous passages of the life and work of countless generations of leading characters in the history of Peru. It is a story in which the names and lives of Inca rulers, conquerors, Spanish kings, viceroys, liberators and elites of the Republic converge and mix whimsically or almost magically. This short review is absolutely faithful to reliable historical sources.

INCAIC STAGE (1200 -approx.- 1532)

In the thousand-year-old Inca neighborhood of Qolqampata, in Quechua the platform of warehouses or granaries, stands imposing the remains or ruins of an Inca Palace that is attributed to the first ruler of the Incas, the mythical Manco Capac (Manku Qapac). The years in which Manco Capac lived and ruled are involved in debate among historians, it is estimated that he ruled Cusco at the beginning of the 13th century. The founder, of what would become the legendary Empire of the Incas, built the Inticancha (later Qoriqancha or temple of the sun), where he probably resided. Upon his death, the Qolqampata Palace could have passed to his family or panaca (panaka), which was called “Chima Panaca”, although this panaca could only have received this Palace during the Pachakútec government. Three centuries later to the penultimate sovereignly erected already in the decline of the Empire, Huascar (Wasqar) is also credited with the ownership of the palace. Born in 1503 and died in 1532, in full conquest; He would also be the owner of another Palace, the Amarukancha (located in the Plaza de Armas, today the Church of the Company of Jesus and San Antonio Abad University of Cusco).

COLONIAL STAGE (1532-1821)

At the dawn of the colony, the Qolqampata Palace became the property of Paullu Topa Yupanqui (1518-1549), Huascar’s brother and another of the sons of the great Inca conqueror Huayna Capac (Wayna Qhapac), as a result of his designation as Inca by the Spanish authorities. Paullu carries a black legend of the puppet governor of the Spanish (Carlos V himself would send a letter of gratitude for his help in defending the conquest), in contrast to the image of another of his brothers, Manco Inca Yupanqui (Manko). Initially appointed by the conqueror Francisco Pizarro, in 1533, to succeed his brother Atahualpa.

Paullu converts to Christianity and is baptized as Cristóbal, he orders the construction of the neighboring Church of San Cristóbal, under the Palace of Qolqampata, also adopting in the neighborhood the Castilian name of San Cristóbal in replacement of the Quechua Qolqampata.

After Paullu’s death, his widow Catalina Tocto Usica and his son Carlos Inca Yupanqui remained living in the Palace. Carlos married a Spanish woman, María Amarilla de Esquivel, both procreating Carlos Melchor Inca Yupanqui (as his grandfather and father put his Inca title before his surname Yupanqui), born in 1574 in Cusco, sponsored by the Viceroy of Peru Francisco Toledo. Carlos Melchor, the first mestizo of this rancid Inca lineage, married in his first nuptials in 1599 with a woman of Spanish descent but born in Cusco (granddaughter of two distinguished conquerors), Leonor Arias Carrasco and lived in the Palace of Qolqampata until her trip to Spain. in 1599 fulfillment of orders of the King, to avoid any attempt of subversion led by an Inca.

In 1603 he presented to the Court a famous memorial of claims and in 1606 Felipe II granted him the habit of the Order of Santiago and 8,500 ducats per year. He died in Alcalá de Henares in 1610.

Carlos Melchor Yupanqui did not have legitimate adult male descendants who survived him, neither from the first marriage nor from the second also with a lady from Madrid, María de Silva, if he had them from Francisca Quispe Sisa, one of them named after his father Carlos Melchor, born in Cusco in 1592, he was ordained a knight of the Order of Santiago in 1627 and would reside in the Court of Madrid until his death.

The exile in Spain to which Viceroy Toledo condemned the descendants of Paullu and later the defeat of the rebellions of Tupac Amaru II would greatly weaken the Inca elites in the Colony and finally the Bolivarian reforms of independence would end up removing any lag of power and influence these elites.