Sayri Túpac had in 1544 retreated to to the remote jungles of Vilcabamba, where he has reigned for ten years with the aid of regents after the murder of his father Manco Inca, who had waged an unsuccessful war of reconquest for more than two decades,

This has been a time of peace with the Spanish.

Viceroy Pedro de la Gasca had offered to provide Sayri Túpac with lands and houses in Cuzco if he would emerge from the isolated Vilcabamba.

Sayri Túpac had accepted, but during the preparations his relative Paullu Inca suddenly died.

This had been taken as a bad omen (or a sign of Spanish treachery), and Sayri Tupac has remained in Vilcabamba.

The Audiencia has turned over its governance to the new viceroy of Peru, Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, 3rd Marquis of Cañete, who arrives in the colony 1556.

Although the Inca in Vilcabamba is no longer ruler of an Indigenous empire, he is still ruler of an independent native state.

Like Viceroy Gasca before him, Hurtado believes it will be safer for the Spanish if Sayri Tupac can be enticed to live in the area of Spanish settlement, where the conquistadors can control him.