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Historical Outline
The city of Cusco was apparently founded between the XI and XII centuries by Manco Capac, Ancestor and Chief of the Inca who, according to some myths, emerged from Lake Titicaca and –according to others- from a cave some distance away from Cusco. After the establishment of the Incas in Cusco, it became in time the governmental center of the four administrative regions –Suyus- that the Inca Empire was divided into. This vast dominion extended over the present day territories of southern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and northern Argentina and Chile. The Inca Empire constituted a well-organized and structured society. Research and studies have shown the high degree of knowledge of architecture, hydraulic engineering, medicine and agriculture that these people possessed. The city was occupied without resistance by the Spanish Conquistadors. On March 23rd of the year 1534, the Spanish Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded –atop the preexisting Inca city- the Spanish City of Cusco -at that time named Santiago del Cusco- and divided the totality of the urban real estate and personal property of the inhabitants among his followers and himself. Soon afterwards, a major rebellion broke out in which Cusco and the occupying Spaniard usurpers were subjected to an extended siege. The Spanish eventually triumphed and, with the exception of a pocket of surviving Inca rebels in Vilcabamba, all local resistance ceased.
There ensued a period of approximately 250 years during which took place a great biological and cultural mixture and syncretism, with interesting and far reaching consequences and results in art, architecture, literature and music (among others.) In the latter XVIII century, another series of major native-based rebellions against Spanish rule took place, the most famous being that one led by Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui Tupac Amaru II, direct lineal descendant of the last Incas which, after much bloodshed and cruelty, was eventually suppressed by the Spanish authorities. When final Independence from Spain was secured in 1824 –with the collaboration of the local born society of Spanish descent, who thus assured itself a predominant role and control in the new Republican government- Cusco enjoyed a momentary period of resurgence. This lasted briefly, and from the mid XIX century until the advent of the XX century, Cusco sank into a lethargic state accompanied by a profound cultural and economic depression. This was further aggravated by periodic endemic epidemics of yellow fever and typhoid, reducing the overall population to almost 10% of its former numbers (25,000 vs. 300,000 people) and the native rural Indian population to less than that.
The arrival of the XX century brought significant changes. The Arequipa-Juliaca railroad finally reached Cusco, the rubber and wool industries gave the local economy a boost and the discovery in July of 1911 of the monumental Ruins of the lost city of Macchu Picchu by Yale Professor Hiram Bingham definitely projected Cusco back into a position of worldwide renown. At the internal level, the designation of Philadelphia-born Prof. Albert Giesecke as Dean of the University of Cusco in 1909 radically altered the medieval standards of local education and catapulted it to the forefront of educational modernism, the creation of a modern archaeological and anthropological native born professional elite, museums, cultural institutions, etc.
Today, in the dawning years of the XXI century, Cusco –considered as the oldest continuously inhabited city in the Western Hemisphere- is the main tourist center of Peru, proclaimed a Worldwide Human Cultural Patrimony by UNESCO; as well as an important economic regional center of Southeastern Peru. But beyond its rich past, thriving present and promising future, Cusco is symbolic and synonymous with all that is eternal in mankind: in its dogged preservation and maintenance of tradition, language and customs; yet without refusal or denial of the new and the future. Cusco is above all, a symbol of human endurance, survival and coexistence.