He became a soldier and in went to Hispaniola with the new Spanish governor of the New World colony. Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in and was with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in Hearing legends of the great wealth of an Indian civilization in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in and sailed down the west coast of South America from Panama.
The first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but a second reached farther, to present-day Peru. There they heard firsthand accounts of the Inca empire and obtained Inca artifacts. The Spanish christened the new land Peru, probably after the Vire River. Returning to Panama, Pizarro planned an expedition of conquest, but the Spanish governor refused to back the scheme. In , Pizarro returned to Panama. In , he sailed down to Peru, landing at Tumbes. Pizarro invited Atahuallpa to attend a feast in his honor, and the emperor accepted.
Having just won one of the largest battles in Inca history, and with an army of 30, men at his disposal, Atahuallpa thought he had nothing to fear from the bearded white stranger and his men. Pizarro, however, planned an ambush, setting up his artillery at the square of Cajamarca. On November 16, Atahuallpa arrived at the meeting place with an escort of several thousand men, all apparently unarmed. Pizarro sent out a priest to exhort the emperor to accept the sovereignty of Christianity and Emperor Charles V.
Pizarro immediately ordered an attack. Buckling under an assault by the terrifying Spanish artillery, guns, and cavalry all of which were alien to the Incas , thousands of Incas were slaughtered, and the emperor was captured. Atahuallpa offered to fill a room with treasure as ransom for his release, and Pizarro accepted. Eventually, some 24 tons of gold and silver were brought to the Spanish from throughout the Inca empire. Although Atahuallpa had provided the richest ransom in the history of the world, Pizarro treacherously put him on trial for plotting to overthrow the Spanish, for having his half-brother Huascar murdered, and for several other lesser charges.
A Spanish tribunal convicted Atahuallpa and sentenced him to die. On August 29, , the emperor was tied to a stake and offered the choice of being burned alive or strangled by garrote if he converted to Christianity. In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahuallpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died. With Spanish reinforcements that had arrived at Cajamarca earlier that year, Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, and the Inca capital fell without a struggle in November Pizarro established himself as Spanish governor of Inca territory and offered Diego Almagro the conquest of Chile as appeasement for claiming the riches of the Inca civilization for himself.
However, Atahualpa had a keen military mind and close relations with the military generals at the time, and proved to be the deadlier force. Atahualpa initially garnered favor with northern allies and built a new capital for his forces in Quito. This civil war left the population in a precarious position by the time it ended. Around the same time that Atahualpa seized the throne in , Pizarro returned to Peru with blessings from the Spanish crown. Because of the language barrier, the Inca rulers probably did not understand much of these demands, and the meeting quickly escalated to the Battle of Cajamarca.
This clash left thousands of native people dead. The Spanish also captured Atahualpa and kept him hostage, demanding ransoms of silver and gold. They also insisted that Atahualpa agree to be baptized.
Although the Inca ruler was mostly cooperative in captivity, and was finally baptized, the Spanish killed him on August 29, , essentially ending the potential for larger Inca attacks on Spanish forces.
An engraved representation of the Battle of Cajamarca. This battle began in , leaving thousands of native people dead and ending with the capture of Atahualpa. Even though the Inca Civil War made it easier for the Spanish armies to gain control initially, many other contributing factors brought about the demise of Inca rule and the crumbling of local populations.
As scholar Jared Diamond points out, the Inca Empire was already facing threats:. After a failed attempt to recapture the city from greater Spanish rule during this time, Manco retreated to Vilcabamba and built the last stronghold of the Inca. The Inca continued to revolt against totalitarian Spanish rule until the year In that year the Spanish conquered Vilcabamba and killed the last Inca emperor, Tupac Amaru, after a summary trial.
An image of the Spanish executing Tupac Amaru. It struck all levels of society. Stretching along, and inland from, the Pacific coast of South America, at its height the empire included at least parts of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. The Incas were a resourceful people. To help bind this empire and its population together, they created a vast road network totalling 40, kilometres.
These roads transformed the concept of food distribution; furthermore, the food being distributed had benefitted greatly from the adoption of some revolutionary agricultural methods. And this deep connection to agriculture was one of the tenets of their worship of Inti, the Sun God — the deity who guided much of Inca life.
Over the intervening years, the empire had expanded rather rapidly, particularly under the rule of both his father and grandfather. Cooperation and diplomacy were his main tools.
And he was rather successful in deploying them too, earning the devout respect of much of the Inca population. There had been many losses in the north of the empire, though, as the Sapa Inca tried to extend his lands still further. For 17 long years, Ecuadorian natives had fought against these incursions, stretching Inca resources and manpower to the limit. It was perhaps a sign that the empire was getting too great to handle.
The only conditions for succession were that the new leader be of royal blood and fit to rule. The previous ruler usually named his successor, or the position was filled by the most capable offspring, not necessarily the oldest. The constitutional crisis was only compounded by the fact that the empire had grown so large that finding a single figure that the whole and varied population could faithfully support wasnow difficult to the point of impossible.
Atahualpa, however, had on his side the substantial and experienced armies that he and his father had been fighting alongside in the north. That military experience would tell. After three long years of battles along the spine of the Andes, Atahualpa was gaining the upper hand. By , the younger halfbrother was seen as the undoubted successor. But he had little time to bask in the sunlight of his victory.
He had been informed about their presence, but was destined never to meet a European. He encountered the smallpox epidemic before he encountered the Spaniards. The Spanish had been in full expansion mode for several decades. Since Christopher Columbus had established a settlement for the Spanish crown on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, a legion of conquistadors began a land grab in the Americas.
In , he made his third voyage to South America, this time emboldened by the licence issued by the queen of Spain to conquer Peru in the name of his homeland. Had he landed a year later, the new regime under Atahualpa would have had time to make progress in unifying the disparate empire.
As it was, Pizarro and his men encountered a land in disarray. The effects of the bitter civil war were conspicuous. As well as being a formidable military commander, Pizarro also possessed a key political brain. He understood howa divided population could be taken advantage of. Pizarro firmly believed that history could repeat itself here in the Andes. At first, Atahualpa regarded the presence of these strangers with mild curiosity at best.
He did, though, send an envoy to investigate and observe these mysterious interlopers. This envoy, an Inca noble, spent two days among the Spaniards, examining their horses and their swords, and confirming the size of this ragged band. During lengthy discussions about it at council, some members expressed a preference to attack the invaders at once, to neutralise the threat straight away. Instead, they were permitted to head towards the town of Cajamarca, where they might be later seized.
Unbeknownst to Atahualpa — who, until then, believed himself to be the ruler of the known world — these strangers represented the vanguard of the Spanish empire. They were deeply experienced soldiers scything their way through the metaphorical undergrowth to clear a path for control and colonisation, as well as grabbing as much gold for the Spanish crown as possible. By Friday 15 November , Pizarro and his men descended into the town of Cajamarca. They made the main square their base, settling in a series of barns, or kallankas, around the perimeter.
They were also used for sheltering soldiers. Pizarro was merely upholding the tradition.
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