[edit]
Pre-Columbian era[edit]
Map of Huaraz from 1782, indicating the location of the Pumacayan shrine
Human presence in the area dates back to around 10,000 B.C., when the inhabitants were hunters and gatherers. Evidence of this is found in the Guitarreros cave across from the town of Mancos. Over time, the area underwent significant changes with the development of agriculture in the zone of Vicuas and Villaqui.
During the Early Horizon epoch, the Chavín culture influenced the region and it has been proposed by that the ceremonial center located at Pumacayan hill had its beginnings during this period. During the Early Intermediate period, the Recuay culture emerged in the area. Following this, in the Middle Horizon, the area of Huaraz was conquered by the Wari culture, this empire built the archaeological rests of Wilcahuain and Waullac.
During the Late Intermediate Period, Huaraz was an important town in the kingdom of Huaylas or Wayllas prior to Inca occupation in the Late Horizon. During the reign of the ninth Inca ruler Pachacuti, the military leaders Capac Yupanqui and Tupac Inca Yupanqui waged a conquest war against the Huaylas and their allied neighbors as part of the Inca expansion efforts in the Chinchaysuyo. After the war, the kingdom was reconstituted a Inca hunu, divided into the two traditional moieties of hanan and hurin, with hurin being subordinate to hanan. Huaraz was the seat of the Hurin or Lower Huaylas moiety.
Following its incorporation into the Inca Empire, the Incas soon made architectural interventions at Pumacayan, which held the principal wak'a of the Huaylas people. This might explain why Pedro Cieza de León records two local versions about the origin of Pumacayan: one tracing it as a monument or fortress of the Inca to commemorate winning a “certain battle” and the other stating that it dates to far ancient times. Cieza refers to Pumacayan as a "large fortress" because it featured imposing walls that enclosed the buildings and considered it to be one of the most impressive complexes in Peru. However, almost all the constructions within Pumacayan were eventually dismantled for building materials in later centuries. Excavations conducted in 2003 suggest the administrative nature of Pumacayan during the time of the Incas.
As part of the integration efforts of the Tawantinsuyo, the Incas implemented a policy of marriages between Inca and Huaylas nobles. The daughters of the two kings of the Huaylas diarchy were given as secondary wives to the heir of the Emperor Tupac Inca Yupanqui, Huayna Capac. The ruler of Hurin Huaylas, Huacachillar Apo, gave his daughter, Añas Colque, who was taken to be educated as an Inca noble in Cusco. In her old age, Añas Colque ruled the Hurin Huaylas. From the marriage between the Emperor Huayna Capac and Añas Colque was born the influential aristocrat Paullo Inca, Paullo later collaborated with the Spanish and served as Sapa Inca during the early years following the Spanish conquest.
In 1533, while stationed in Cajamarca, Francisco Pizarro sent his brother, Hernando Pizarro, along with a small expeditionary party, to Pachacamac and back to collect part of Atahualpa's ransom, sponsored by the captive Inca himself. During the journey, Hernando provided the first description of the precolonial city of Huaraz, and he also noted the fertile green soil of the Callejón de Huaylas, along with its significant livestock in the highlands and the prosperous towns and villages."The next day, the captain [Hernando Pizarro] departed from that town; and through the valley, he went to dine in a large town called Guarax [Warash], with the Lord of Pumacapllai, where he and his Indians were well provided with food and people to carry the loads. This town is situated on a plain, with a river running alongside it."
Colonial era[edit]
Francisco Pizarro, known as the Spanish conquistador of Peru, in 1538 granted the right to collect taxes in the area within what is now the province of Huaraz to his subordinate Sebastián de Torres. Alonso de Santoyo founded on 20 January 1574 a Hispanic Indigenous reduction (Reducción Hispano Indígena) with the name of Pampa Huarás de San Sebastián, with 14 quarters. Later its political creation, dated on 12 February 1821, while General José de San Martín was staying in Huaura (city north from Lima) founded 4 Departments, including Huaylas as one of them, with its capital, the city of Caraz. Finally on 1857, it was split in two, giving birth to the new young province of Huaraz with its capital, the nowadays, City of Huaraz.
From the beginning the Spaniards began exploiting the mineral wealth of the region. Several deposits of metal ores were discovered: silver, lead, and tin, among others. Availability of these metals for mining and smelting locally was the primary attraction of the Callejón area to Spain. Hundreds of the native Quechua-speakers by the 1570s were laboring in the mines.
As in other areas of Spanish settlement in the Andean countries most agricultural works such as native irrigation canals and terraces were appropriated or destroyed by the colonial administrators. The Spaniards did not call their tactics slavery, though in fact the effects were the same. Disappearances and unexplained deaths were common for resistors. The entire population of some villages was forcibly marched long distances and resettled. To identify those who tried to return to their prior homes, the native peoples were required to wear distinctive clothing identifiable by areas or provinces. The Spanish patron or hacendado often chose for those people under his control a costume copied from his home region in Spain. These costumes are now a source of regional and national pride among many Andeans who identify with their native ancestry.
Contemporary times[edit]
Modern neighbourhoods were built after 1970s earthquake
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Much of the north side and a large part of the center of the city was destroyed in 1941 by floodwaters and avalanche debris because of a burst reservoir[citation needed] from Lake Palcacocha that was the city's municipal water supply. The reservoir dam was about 6 km (3.7 mi) east of the town and more than 200 meters elevation above it. The dam failed because of sudden overflow pressure from an avalanche of glacier ice probably caused by a localized tremor (earthquake). Within a few minutes the stream bed was filled with an avalanche of water, mud, boulders, and associated debris whose crest by the time it reached the city may have exceeded 15 meters height above the stream bed. In as few as four minutes after the dam burst the avalanche obliterated and covered the city's most modern suburb and destroyed most of the north half of the city. 4,000 died.
After the 1941 disaster the old reservoir dam was repaired but not replaced[citation needed]. Doubts about the safety of the dam were largely responsible for abandonment of that area for redevelopment. The creek valley upstream from the city in the mid-1960s exhibited scarred inner banks several meters higher than the normal water level. The scarring caused by the avalanche was increasingly higher above the stream bed on the creek valley walls nearer the reservoir. The scoured appearance of the creek valley indicated the mass and power of the avalanche gaining momentum as it crashed down the narrow valley, accumulating debris as it descended.
By 1965 fewer than a half dozen buildings had been rebuilt in the creek valley adjacent north of the city. The valley was still filled by as many as three meters of soil and debris deposited by the 1941 avalanche. Giant boulders lay about, some protruding as many as four meters above the 1965 creek bed level. Many boulders from the 1941 avalanche were strewn down to the confluence of the creek with the Santa River. Huaraz area residents who remembered the disaster of 1941 said in 1965 that the river itself was diverted by avalanche debris for some days until eroded away and carried downstream (northward), and there were boulders on the west bank that had come with the avalanche.
On 31 May 1970 the same reservoir dam burst [dubious – discuss] during the Ancash earthquake, which had a moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Down the creek valley, again came an avalanche, eerily similar to that of 1941. In the prior four years or so, the suburb had begun to again be redeveloped: numerous residences were built atop the 1941 avalanche deposit within the at-risk creek valley. Within its duration of 45 seconds, virtually every structure of consequence in the city's center was destroyed. A few minutes later, the north half of the city, particularly in the creek valley, was obliterated by an avalanche of icy mud carrying boulders and other debris.
As many as 20,000 people were killed within the city; there were reported only 91 survivors within the city itself[citation needed]. The historic structures along the narrow streets, particularly the big adobe casonas (large houses) roofed with ceramic tiles, were reduced to rubble. The main square was evident by the dearth of rubble; the city was rebuilt around it. Where once stood the old casonas and their high-walled compounds now there are smaller buildings. The narrow streets had been deathtraps during the quake; the post-1970 city design has wider, more modern streets.
