The Spanish Subjugation of the Incas
Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro managed to repeat against the Incas in South America what Hernan Cortes had visited upon the Aztecs of Mexico. Indeed, Pizarro’s dealings with the Incan emperor Atahualpa were even more dramatic and venal than those of Cortes with Montezuma a decade earlier. Pizarro’s efforts also led to genocide, the destruction of a native empire, and its replacement by a new Spanish domain.
Atahualpa had inherited the northern half of the Incan Empire from his father in 1525, while the southern half went to his brother Huascar. Five years later, Atahualpa attacked Huascar, and by 1532, he had defeated his brother and reunited the empire. However, his reign over the united Incan Empire, would prove brief, as Pizarro showed up soon thereafter.
Pizarro landed in Peru in 1532, and after establishing a small colony, he set off to conquer with a small force of about 200 men. En route, he was met by an envoy from Atahualpa. The Inca ruler invited the Spaniard to visit him at his camp, where he was resting with his army of about 100,000 men after his victory over Huascar and the reunification of the Incan Empire.
A meeting was arranged for November 16th, 1532, in a plaza in the town of Cajamarca. Pizarro set off to meet Atahualpa with 110 infantry and 67 cavalry, armed and armored with steel, plus three arquebuses and two small cannon. On the eve of the meeting, Pizarro outlined for his men an audacious plan to seize Atahualpa, inspired by Cortes’ seizure of Montezuma.
Atahualpa failed to take precautions for his own security. On the appointed day, he left his army camped outside Cajamarca, and arrived at the town’s plaza on a fine litter carried by 80 high ranking courtiers. He was trailed by about 5000 Inca nobles and other courtiers, richly dressed in ceremonial garments, and unarmed except for small ceremonial stone axes.
The Spaniards were concealed in buildings surrounding the plaza, with cavalry hidden in alleys leading to the open square. They fell upon Atahualpa and his party at a signal from Pizarro, and a massacre ensued. The unarmored natives proved no match for the Spaniards’ steel swords, pikes, bullets, or crossbow bolts, while the Incans’ ceremonial stone axes proved useless against Spanish plate armor. Thousands of natives were killed, with the remainder fleeing in panic, while not a single Spaniard lost his life.
Atahualpa was captured, and he sought to buy his life by offering to fill a room measuring 22 by 17 feet, up to a height of eight feet with gold, and twice with silver. Over the next eight months, the Incas gathered gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables to placate the Spaniards, who proved insatiable and kept upping their demands. After the payments were made, Pizarro reneged on the deal, and put Atahualpa through a staged trial. The Inca ruler was convicted of rebellion, idolatry, and murdering his brother, Huascar. Atahualpa was sentenced to death by burning, but was spared that fate by agreeing to get baptized as a Catholic, and was executed by strangulation instead.
The Inca were left leaderless, but put up what resistance they could, mostly in the form of guerrilla warfare. In the ensuing decades, massacre, murder, rape, and torture became commonplace as the Spaniards systematically overcame native opposition, reducing the Inca and conquering their cities. Between Spanish depredations and Old World epidemics such as smallpox and measles, an estimated 50-90% of the Inca population perished within a few decades of Pizarro’s arrival.