Xauxa

The Xauxa were the Quechua-speaking people of the southern Mantaro Valley in the Peruvian highlands, belonging before the Incas to the Xauxa-Wanka confederation. They submitted to Túpac Yupanqui, and the Incas built Hatun Xauxa as an administrative center on the road between Cusco and Quito.

In the Inca civil war the Xauxa sided with Huascar, whose generals used the city as headquarters until Atahualpa's general Challco Chima stormed it and took reprisals against the loyalist population. The captive Huascar was held in its fortress before being drowned in the Andamarca River.

The Xauxa welcomed the Spaniards as liberators: Francisco Pizarro made Santa Fe de Hatun Xauxa the first Spanish capital of Peru in April 1534, though Lima supplanted it the next year. Jauja later declined into dependence on Tarma; between 1742 and 1756 its mountains were swept by the indigenous rebellion of Juan Santos Atahualpa.