ABSTRACT
There are few if any events that have drawn such extravagant, worldwide celebrations as the quincentenary of Columbus' landing in the Americas. What media coverage of the Columbus controversy obscures through its celebratory tone is that contesting European colonization of the Americas dates to the very beginning of it. This chapter deals with one of the most important counter-accounts of Spanish colonization by the second to last Inca leader Titu Cusi Yupanqui. Titu Cusi Yupanqui's short reign represented a time of intensive Indigenous populist resistance in the context of a political landscape redefined by Spanish colonial gains in lands, wealth, and power. Titu Cusi Yupanqui became head of what remained of the Inca Empire when he ascended to the throne in 1561. His grandfather Huayna Capac was among the greatest of Inca leaders, preceding over an unprecedented empire called the Tawantinsuyo that extended from contemporary Ecuador to southern Chile.
