Francisca Coya

Doña Francisca Coya, also known in the texts as 'María de Sandoval', or 'La Coya', is "a nurturing mother for Ecuador and Colombia", in the words of the Ecuadorian genealogist historian Fernando Jurado Noboa.[1]

Daughter of the Inca Emperor Huayna Capac with his cousin Mama Runtu Coya,[2] she was born in Cuzco, Peru in 1515 and died in Popayán, Colombia in 1543–44.[3]

Inca Imperial Origin

Huayna Capac, according to a consensus of chroniclers, "left a very numerous descendants", obviously of more natural than legitimate children. Of the children, especially if they managed to have figures as Huáscar and Atahualpa, it is less difficult to specify maternal origin. Of women it is more complex. It has been possible to establish that Francisca Coya was one of the Inca's daughters, but regarding the mother, opinions vary: for some, Francisca is legitimate as the daughter of the Coya-wife, while for others, she was the daughter of a concubine. In any case, "the children of the Inca were not sought lawsuits of maternal origin: they were children of 'the Inca', and that's enough".[3]

Biography

After the death of Atahualpa at the hands of the Spanish, Sebastián de Benalcazár and Diego de Sandoval y la Mota marched to the region of San Miguel de Piura. It was then that in 1535 in Chaparra, in the Cañaris region, in the western foothills of the Andes, the Spanish found a group of indigenous people who were hiding and protecting Atahualpa's sisters: Toctochembo, Marcachembom, Ascarpe and Francisca (her autochthonous name is unknown), also daughters of Huayna Cápac. She and her people were running away from Cuzco, at the entrance of the Spanish. This effort was in vain because Francisca was captured (along with her other sisters) and taken to Sebastian de Benalcázar, who "gave her to Captain Diego de Sandoval". The Incan noble became pregnant and marched with Sandoval first to Quito where she gave birth to their first and only child. Later she accompanied him to Popayán, where she lived close to one of her sisters (one whose Benalcázar had taken for himself).[3]

Francisca, who was called 'La Coya' by the first "vecinos" (meaning "neighbours", a name given to the first citizens with rights) of Quito, was born in Cuzco around 1515. She was the legitimate daughter of Huayna Cápac: "her mother was carried on, for being an older and principal woman in Cuzco, according to the testimony of Indian Pedro Inga, in Bogotá in 1575", "the Indian Catalina, who saw her birth and was her maid, declared in Tunja in 1575, when she was 70 years old: 'Guaynacaba her father, put her in another house, where she lived and kept the rest of his daughters and maidens'".[3]

"It was said that when La Coya went to mass, all the chiefs and women of the provinces of Quito accompanied her. That when she left the city they carried her on and that she was accompanied by two thousand to three thousand Indians". According to witnesses of that time, they said that the Chiefs of Quito extended blankets, feathers and flowers on the way to go, so that her feet did not touch the ground.[3] This description coincides with the interpretation John Hemming gave: "the natives of Quito venerated her with pathetic passion",[4] for the rituals and the customs of the time meant for the women of the Inca elite. The women of the Inca elite were refined ladies educated for their societal roles and they were treated accordingly by the people who had great respect for them.[5]

Offspring

In Quito in 1536, Francisca Coya gave birth to Eugenia de Sandoval Inca, who later lived in Popayán with her parents and later in Anserma, together with her father shortly after her mother's death in 1544. It is Eugenia who would receive in 1545 the Royal Certificate of Legitimization of Charles V Holy Roman Emperor at the request of "proof" ('probanza') of her father, Diego de Sandoval. Eugenia became married in 1550, at the age of 14, to Captain Gil de Rengifo Pantoja, born in Ávila, Spain, leaving numerous descendants in Ecuador and Colombia. Eugenia died before 1575.

Genealogical trajectory

Starting from the Inca Emperor Huayna Cápac. Francisca Coya (daughter of the Inca Emperor), slave-wife of the Spanish conqueror Diego de Sandoval, gives birth to Eugenia de Sandoval Inca (the Inca's granddaughter) in Quito in 1536. Eugenia de Sandoval Inca got legitimized by the Spanish King and became wife of the colonizer Gil de Rengifo; they only had one daughter, María Rengifo y Sandoval (great-granddaughter of the Inca), who was born in Anserma and became the wife of the Spanish Vicente Henao Tamayo. Of them, Melchor Henao Rengifo (great-great-grandson of the Inca), was born, in Anserma, around 1572. He married in Cali, around 1609, with María Vivas. Gregorio Henao Vivas (fourth grandson of the Inca), is born in Cali around 1610. He moved to the city of Antioquia where he married Jacoba Vásquez Guadramiros.[6] and so on.

From Gregorio Henao Vivas, it is easy to follow the descendants of the Coya Francisca in Colombia, in the book entitled: "Genealogies of Antioquia and Caldas", by Gabriel Arango Mejía. Characters such as ex president Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez, archbishops Arturo Duque Villegas, Aníbal Muñoz Duque. Braulio Henao, Anselmo Pineda, Abraham Moreno, José Tomás Henao and Braulio Henao Mejía, Tomás Carrasquilla; Luis López de Mesa; León de Greiff, and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.[6] But also the historian Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita

The historical projection of cultural values inherited to her descendants in Ecuador, such as the ex presidents Luis Cordero, Juan León Mera, Antonio Borrero Cortázar, is the most important feature of Doña Francisca Coya. Among other Ecuadorian historical figures that descend from her are: Luis A. Martinez, Miguel Angel León Pontón, Octavio Cordero Palacios, Alberto Maria Ordonez Crespo, Carlos Concha Torres, Luis Quirola Saá, Emiliano Crespo Astudillo, Jose Maria Borrero Baca, Alfonso Borrero Moscoso, Manuel Borrero González, Vicente Salazar y Cabal, José Gabriel Pino Roca, Pedro Cocha Torres, etc.[3]

The genealogical works demonstrate how the Incan blood line of Francisca enriched the elite (high and middle-high classes) of colonial and republican Ecuadorian and Colombian societies.[3]

References
  1. Costales, Piedad Peñaherrera de; Costales Samaniego, Alfredo; Jurado Noboa, Fernando (September 27, 1982). Los señores naturales de la tierra. Xerox. OCLC 10851071 – via Open WorldCat.
  2. Zapata, J. Descendientes del Emperador Inca Pachacútec. pg. 2 https://www.academia.edu/10355786/Descendientes_del_Emperador_Inca_Pachac%C3%BAtec
  3. Jurado N,F. (1982) Las Coyas y Pallas del Tahuantinsuyo. pg: 217,305,306,319
  4. Hemming, John (1970). The conquest of the Incas. A Harvest Book. Harcourt, Inc. p. 340. ISBN 0-15-602826-3.
  5. Herrero S, P. (2017) Las Mujeres en el Virreinato del Perú. p.7 IX Congreso Virtual sobre Historia de las Mujeres.
  6. "La princesa inca". 2011-11-04. Archived from the original on 2011-11-04. Retrieved 2020-09-27.

Further reading

Piedad Peñaherrera, Alfredo Costales & Fernando Jurado Noboa. (1982) "Los Señores Naturales de la Tierra: Las Coyas y Pallas del Tahuantinsuyo". (Compilation of two investigations in one book)





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