The five captured Inca generals received a summary trial and were sentenced to death by hanging. Several had already died of torture or disease.
The trial of the
Sapa Inca himself began a couple of days later. Túpac Amaru was convicted of the murder of the priests in Vilcabamba. Túpac Amaru was sentenced to be beheaded. It was reported in various sources that numerous Catholic clerics, convinced of Túpac Amaru's innocence, pleaded to no avail, on their knees, that the Inca be sent to Spain for a trial instead of being executed.
Many have argued that
Viceroy Toledo, in executing a head of state recognized by the Spanish as an independent king, exceeded his authority and committed a crime within the political ideas of his own time. Other claims have been made to the contrary — that Túpac Amaru was in rebellion (his predecessors having allegedly accepted Spanish authority), that Toledo had tried peaceful means to settle differences, that three of his ambassadors to the Inca were murdered, and that Túpac Amaru subsequently raised an army to resist the colonial army. The King of Spain,
Philip II, disapproved of the execution.
An eyewitness report from the day recalls him riding a
mule with hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck. Other witnesses reported there were great crowds and the
Sapa Inca was surrounded by hundreds of guards with lances. In front of the
Cathedral of Santo Domingo in the central square of Cuzco a black-draped scaffold had been erected. Reportedly 10,000 to 15,000 witnesses were present.[
citation needed]
Túpac Amaru mounted the scaffold accompanied by the Bishop of Cuzco. As he did, it was reported by the same witnesses that a "multitude of Indians, who completely filled the square, saw that lamentable spectacle [and knew] that their lord and Inca was to die, they deafened the skies, making them reverberate with their cries and wailing."
[2]
As reported by Baltasar de Ocampa and Friar Gabriel de Oviedo, Prior of the Dominicans at Cuzco, both eyewitnesses, the
Sapa Inca raised his hand to silence the crowds, and his last words were;
"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
"
Mother Earth, witness how my enemies shed my blood."
