Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire

gigatos | March 24, 2022

Summary

The conquest of Tahuantinsuyo, also known as the conquest of Peru or the transitional period, refers to the historical process that begins with the fall of the Inca Empire, continues with the creation of the provisional governorships of Nueva Castilla and Nueva Toledo, which provokes the collapse of the Vilcabamba resistance and ends with the stabilization of the Viceroyalty of Peru as part of the Spanish Empire.

It was initiated by the company of Pizarro and Almagro, officially called “Armada del Levante”, that manages to make contact shortly after the end of the civil war for the Inca throne between the two brothers Huáscar and Atahualpa (sons of the Inca Huayna Cápac), with the actions of November 16, 1532 when the winner of the war and new Inca, Atahualpa, met in Cajamarca with the Spanish conquerors headed by Francisco Pizarro. In this meeting Atahualpa, his retinue and his army were ambushed and he was taken prisoner by the Spaniards and months later executed on July 26, 1533. Later the Spaniards, forged an alliance with the panacas or Inca lineage of Huáscar, in addition to Cañaris, Chachapoyas and other ethnic groups previously subdued by the Incas, who marched to Cuzco, the capital of the Tawantinsuyu, where they entered on November 14, 1533 and proclaimed Manco Inca as the new Inca, with the intention of turning him into a puppet king. But Manco Inca, relegated to vassal of the Spanish crown, betrayed them and in command of an army led a war to restore the Inca Empire that began on May 6, 1536 with the siege of Cuzco, where the largest Spanish force commanded by Hernando Pizarro was located. Although they caused great casualties to the Spaniards, the forces of Manco Inca did not manage to take Cuzco for the permanence of many of their brothers (as Paullu Inca) and of several towns of the Tawantinsuyu supporting to the Spanish side. Finally, Manco Inca had to disband his army and retreat to the rugged mountains of Vilcabamba, where he installed the seat of the Inca monarchy (1538), while the rest of the territory was occupied by the Spaniards, who after a period of civil war between Spaniards carried forward the process of settlement and colonization of Peru. The reign of the Incas of Vilcabamba would last until 1572, when Viceroy Francisco de Toledo executed the last Inca: Tupac Amaru I. The conquest of Vilcabamba prolonged the conquest of Tahuantinsuyo for forty years (1532-1572).

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The first encounter between Europeans and Incas

Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, a mestizo chronicler (early 17th century), states that the Inca Huayna Capac had a meeting in Cuzco with the conquistador Pedro de Candía (a Greek in the service of Spain), which would be the first direct contact between Europeans and the Inca Empire. This must have occurred no earlier than 1526. It is said that the interview was using signs, according to which the Inca interpreted that Candia ate gold, so he offered him gold powder and then allowed him to leave. Pedro de Candía took a Huancavilca Indian with him to Spain and presented him to the king, being later brought back to Tahuantinsuyo to act as interpreter. This Indian would later be known as Felipillo. Candía”s report, according to Guamán Poma, encouraged numerous Spanish adventurers to march to the New World. However, it is considered that Guamán Poma”s chronicle contains erroneous data and that this encounter between Candía and Huayna Cápac is nothing more than a legend.

A modern author, José Antonio del Busto, refers that the first encounter of the Europeans with the Inca empire would have taken place between 1524 and 1526, when the Portuguese Alejo García, together with a group of his compatriots attracted by the legend of the “White King” or Kingdom of Silver, advanced from Brazil through the current territories of Paraguay and Bolivia, until entering the soil of the Tawantinsuyu. Alejo Garcia even commanded a force of 2,000 Chiriguana and Guarayo Indians, who assaulted the Inca fortress of Cuscotuyo and annihilated its garrison. This fortress marked the eastern limit of the Inca empire, protecting the province of Charcas (in the Collasuyo) from the advances of the Chiriguana tribes. The chronicler Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, tells, indeed, that during the reign of Huayna Capac the Chiriguanas assaulted the fortress, so the Inca sent troops under the command of General Yasca, who managed to repel the invaders, but does not mention the presence of Alejo Garcia. This one then undertook the return, loaded with a rich booty and even informed Martin Alfonso de Sousa, governor of San Vicente of Brazil, today Santos, on the existence of an opulent kingdom towards the west of his government. But the Portuguese and his companions ended up being killed by their own Indian allies, on the left bank of the Paraguay River, disappearing also their booty and the evidence of the existence of the Inca empire.

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Situation of the Inca Empire

In 1527, when the Spaniards were exploring the northern coasts of the Inca empire, the Inca Huayna Capac and his heir Ninan Cuyuchi died of a rare disease, which some authors attribute to smallpox brought with the Europeans, although it has also been suggested that Huayna Capac was poisoned by a Chachapoya curaca.

After the anarchy following the death of the Inca, Huáscar assumed the government by order of the orejones (nobles) of Cuzco, who believed that his experience as vice-governor was sufficient to assume command. Huáscar, worried about the excessive power that his brother Atahualpa had in the region of Quito, where he was supported by the generals Quizquiz, Rumiñahui and Chalcuchímac, ordered Atahualpa to render him vassalage. But the latter reacted by organizing an army and declaring war. The confrontation, that would last three years, ended with the victory of Atahualpa and the capture and later death of Huáscar.

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Situation in Spain

In 1479 the unity of the most important kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula took place: Castile and Aragon, through the marriage of their kings: Isabella I and Ferdinand II, better known as the Catholic Monarchs. The nobility ceased to be lordly and became courtly, at the service of the king. The unity of Spain was complemented with the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada in 1492. That same year saw the discovery of America, which broadened the territorial horizon of the nascent state. Economically, Spain entered a period of gradual decline, due to the following factors:

In the social aspect, there were profound differences. There were nobles and commoners and within each social class a series of minor categories. In terms of mentality, the Spaniards who came to America were influenced by medieval and Renaissance ideas. Of Catholic creed, they firmly believed that God had destined them to conquer and evangelize the inhabitants of the lands discovered overseas.

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The Spaniards in Tierra Firme

After Christopher Columbus” voyages of discovery, the Spaniards settled in the islands of the Antilles and began to explore the northern coasts of Central and South America, a territory they called Tierra Firme.

In 1508 the Spanish crown divided Tierra Firme into two districts, with a view to its colonization, with the Gulf of Urabá as the axis.

Both conquistadors, Nicuesa and Ojeda, left for their provinces from the island of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), which was then the center of Spanish operations in the New World.

Nicuesa took possession of his governorship in 1511, where he founded Nombre de Dios, but had to face the ruggedness of the territory and the hostility of the Indians.

For his part, Ojeda disembarked in present-day Cartagena de Indias and after enduring a fierce battle with the Indians, he founded the fort of San Sebastián. Seriously wounded, Ojeda returned to Hispaniola, leaving an obscure soldier named Francisco Pizarro in command of the fort. From Hispaniola, Ojeda sent reinforcements under the command of the bachelor Martín Fernández de Enciso, who left in command of an armada in which Vasco Núñez de Balboa, who was soon to figure in the conquering enterprise, was traveling as a stowaway. While at sea, Enciso stumbled upon a brigantine, where Pizarro and a few survivors of Ojeda”s expedition, who had decided to abandon the fort of San Sebastian and return to Hispaniola, were traveling. Pizarro, against his will, joined Enciso”s army and together they returned to Tierra Firme.

Moving further west of the Gulf of Urabá, in territory that legally belonged to Nicuesa, Enciso founded the town of Santa María la Antigua del Darién (or simply La Antigua), the first stable settlement in the American continent (1510). Enciso, who became mayor, soon became hated for his despotism. Balboa then emerged as the leader of the discontented and proclaimed that since the new settlement was located in Nicuesa”s territory, Enciso was nothing more than a usurper. Enciso”s authority diminished even more when the colonists named Balboa and Martín de Zamudio as mayors. Enciso was sent as a prisoner to Spain, where he arrived in 1512.

For his part, Nicuesa, aware of these events, left Nombre de Dios for Antigua, but within a week of his arrival he was arrested and stripped of his command by Balboa. Against his will he was embarked in 1511, bound for Hispaniola, but was never heard from again. He must have died during the voyage at sea.

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The discovery of the South Sea

It was in this way that Balboa became the only leader of the colonists of Tierra Firme. He was also the first to receive news of a fabulous empire located further south, on the side where an immense sea opened up. The chronicles tell that on one occasion, when a group of Spaniards were quarreling over a small amount of gold, the voice of Panquiaco, the son of the cacique Comagre, was raised and he rebuked them:

“What is this, Christians, for so little you quarrel? If you are so eager for gold… I will show you a province where you can fulfill your desire; but it is necessary for this that you be more in number than you are, because you will have a quarrel with great kings, who defend their lands with great effort and rigor”.

And as he said this he pointed to the south, adding that there was a sea there.

“where other people sail with ships or boats… with sails and oars” (Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, book III, chapter XLI). (Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies, book III, chapter XLI).

Balboa took the information very seriously and organized an expedition that departed from Antigua heading west. After crossing the isthmus in the midst of a difficult voyage, on September 25, 1513, he sighted a great sea, which he called the South Sea, which was none other than the Pacific Ocean. This was a crucial moment in the history of the conquest of Peru, because from then on the Spaniards” goal was to advance further towards the southern coasts, in search of the gold-rich empire mentioned by Panquiaco.

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First attempts to reach Peru

It was thus that the Isthmus of Panama became, in fact, the center of the conquest and colonization of South America. Balboa was named Adelantado of the South Sea (1514) and planned an expedition to advance along the coasts of the South Sea. For this purpose he began to build a fleet. But this project did not come to fruition because he succumbed to the intrigues that his enemies from Spain plotted against him. In fact, the deposed bachelor Enciso, upon arriving in Spain, presented his complaint to the king, arguing that Balboa had not had the power to depose him as mayor. The Crown, echoing Enciso”s claims, appointed Pedro Arias Davila or Pedrarias as governor of the newly conquered lands. He arrived in command of an expedition of more than 2,000 men, the largest and most complete expedition that had ever left Spain for the New World.

Pedrarias, a bloodthirsty and cunning man, sought a way to eliminate Balboa; finally, he accused him of conspiracy and ordered his arrest. This order was carried out by a picket under Pizarro”s command. Balboa was taken back to La Antigua, where Pedrarias and the mayor Gaspar de Espinoza accelerated his trial, being condemned to death and beheaded in Acla (1519). Such was the sad end of the discoverer of the South Sea, who if he had survived would have become, without a doubt, the discoverer and conqueror of the Inca empire.

Pedrarias deduced the great importance that the South Sea or Pacific Ocean would have for future discoveries and conquests, and decided to transfer the seat of his government to Panama, which he founded for that purpose on August 15, 1519. From then on, this town, which obtained the royal title of city in 1521, became the key to communications with the Pacific and the gateway through which Peru would be entered. Nombre de Dios was the port destined to put it in communication with the Atlantic.

The news of the existence of an empire with enormous riches in gold and silver undoubtedly influenced the spirit of the Spanish adventurers and provided the decisive ingredient for the preparation of expeditions towards those directions. In 1522 Pascual de Andagoya was the first to attempt this enterprise, but his expedition ended in a resounding failure.

It was precisely from Andagoya that the lands located further south of the Gulf of San Miguel (southeast of Panama) were called Birú (possibly the name of a cacique who governed a small region on the current Colombian Pacific coast, a name that the Spanish soldiers, in colloquial speech, would gradually extend to the entire Levant, as that region was also known (this last term is of geographic use).

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The three partners of the Conquest

By 1523, the conquistador from Extremadura, Francisco Pizarro, was living in Panama as a more or less well-to-do neighbor, like all Spanish residents in Panama. He began to talk with his closest friend, Captain Diego de Almagro, about the possibility of organizing an expedition to the much talked about Biru. Both were rough and hardened soldiers with experience in the conquest of Tierra Firme. The partnership materialized in 1524, with the addition of a third partner, the priest Hernando de Luque, who was to contribute the necessary money for the enterprise. The responsibilities of the expedition were divided: Pizarro would command it, Almagro would be in charge of the military and food supply and Luque would be in charge of the finances and the provision of aid. It was agreed that all profits would be divided in three equal parts for each partner or his heirs, and that none would have more advantage than the other.

The historical analysis is inclined to believe that Pizarro possessed a modest fortune, because to undertake the adventure, he and Almagro had to associate with an influential priest, Hernando de Luque, who at the time was parish priest of Panama. A fourth “hidden partner” is mentioned: the lawyer Gaspar de Espinosa, who did not want to appear publicly, but who was the real financier of the expeditions, using Luque as a front man and contributing 20,000 pesos. This must have been so, since never one of the partners decided unilaterally on the shares. Only later, once the physical conquest of Peru had begun, would Pizarro make decisions about the campaign or about military and administrative actions, prerogatives of his position as governor of New Castile, granted by the Spanish crown through the Capitulación de Toledo, signed in 1529.

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Pizarro”s first voyage

Having obtained the authorization of Governor Pedrarias Dávila, on November 14, 1524 (Jerez data) Pizarro left Panama aboard a small brigantine, the Santiago, with about 80 men, some Nicaraguan Indians for service and four horses. He left Almagro in charge of recruiting more volunteers and arming another ship to follow him when he was ready.

Pizarro arrived at the Pearl Islands, bordered the coasts of Chochama or Chicamá, arriving until Puerto Piñas and Puerto del Hambre (Pacific coast of the present Colombia); he continued his trip, after a series of sufferings and lack of provisions, until Pueblo Quemado (also called Puerto de las Piedras or Río de la Espera), where he sustained a fierce combat with the natives, with the result of two dead Spaniards and twenty wounded (according to Cieza) or five dead and seventeen wounded (according to Jerez). Pizarro himself suffered seven wounds.

The hostility of the Indians and the unhealthiness of the area forced Pizarro to head back north, arriving again at the coast of Chochama. For his part, Almagro, who had already left Panama in a brigantine with 60 men, must have crossed paths with Pizarro on the high seas, although they never saw each other. Following Pizarro”s trail, Almagro disembarked in Pueblo Quemado, where he also fought a fierce battle with the Indians, losing an eye as a result of a spear or arrow shot.

Almagro decided to continue further south, reaching the San Juan River, but he did not find his partner and decided to return to the island of Perlas, where he learned of Pizarro”s activities. He then left to meet his partner in Chochama. Pizarro, interested in continuing with the enterprise, ordered Almagro to leave his soldiers there and to return alone to Panama to repair the two ships and gather more people.

In Panama, Governor Pedrarias blamed the failure of the expedition and the loss of Spanish lives on Pizarro. This motivated Almagro and Luque to intercede for Pizarro before the governor, managing to calm the tense situation for the moment. Pedrarias authorized, not without misgivings, the continuation of the enterprise. In passing, Almagro obtained the appointment of deputy captain.

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Pizarro”s second voyage

Before embarking on a second voyage, the three partners formalized their partnership before a notary in Panama, under the same conditions in which they had verbally formed it. This written agreement is known as the Panama Contract, which was signed on March 10, 1526. However, there are discrepancies as to the date, since at that time, Pizarro had not yet returned to Panama.

In December of 1525, Almagro left Panama, taking two ships, the Santiago and the San Cristobal, on board of which were 110 soldiers, among them two great acquisitions: the pilot Bartolomé Ruiz and the Greek artilleryman Pedro de Candía. Almagro went to Chochama, to meet Pizarro and his men. These had been reduced to 50; reunited with the men brought by Almagro, they reached 160.

At the beginning of 1526, Pizarro and Almagro, together with their 160 men, set sail again. They followed the previous route until they reached the San Juan River, where Almagro was sent back to Panama in search of reinforcements and provisions; on the other hand, the pilot Bartolomé Ruiz was sent south to explore those regions.

Ruiz sighted Gallo Island, San Mateo Bay, Atacames and Coaque; at the height of the latter he stumbled upon a raft of Tumbesian Indians who were going to trade, it seems, to Panama. Ruiz took some of the merchandise: gold and silver objects, cotton fabrics, fruits and provisions, and retained three Indian boys, who he took with him to prepare them as interpreters. Then he headed north, back to the San Juan River, where Pizarro was waiting for him.

Bartolomé Ruiz was the first European navigator to cross the equatorial line in the Pacific Ocean, from north to south (Magellan had also done so in 1521, but from south to north), descending one or two degrees from the equator (1527).

While Almagro was in Panama and Ruiz was navigating the ocean, Pizarro dedicated himself to exploring the San Juan River, its branches and tributaries. Many of his men died of disease and others were devoured by alligators. When Ruiz returned, Pizarro promised his men that, as soon as Almagro arrived, they would go south, to the land where the Indian boys that the pilot had brought with him were said to be coming from. When Almagro finally arrived, with 30 men and six horses, they all embarked and headed south.

They passed Gallo Island and then the mouth of the Santiago River. They then entered the bay of San Mateo. Seeing that the coast was very safe and without mangroves, they all jumped ashore, including the horses, and explored the region. They had arrived at the mouth of the Esmeraldas River, where they saw eight large canoes, manned by indigenous people.

Continuing their march, they reached the town of Atacames, where they had a combat or guazábara with the natives, where they found food and saw that the natives had some gold jewelry. There they found food and saw that the natives were carrying some gold jewelry, but this did not satisfy the Spaniards, as they were not rewarded for the suffering they endured. No less than 180 Spaniards had died up to that moment, since the beginning of Pizarro”s voyages. It was in Atacames where the so-called “Porfía de Atacames” took place, between Almagro and Pizarro. It originated when Almagro severely reprimanded the soldiers who wanted to return to Panama, calling them cowards, to which Pizarro reacted by defending his men, since he had also suffered with them. Both captains went to the major words, arriving until taking out their swords, and they would have fought a duel if it were not that Bartolomé Ruiz, Nicolás de Ribera and others managed to separate them and to agree them in conciliation.

Once tempers cooled, the expeditionaries retreated to the Santiago River, which the natives called Tempulla. Meanwhile, the hardships among the soldiers continued, resulting in illnesses and deaths. Finally, looking for a more favorable place, Pizarro and Almagro decided to move on to Gallo Island, where they arrived in May 1527. It was agreed that, once again, Almagro should return with a ship to Panama to bring new contingents.

Pizarro and Almagro used to be very careful that the letters that the soldiers sent to their relatives did not reach Panama, to avoid that their complaints were known by the authorities. In Panama, Almagro had difficulties, however, because in a ball of wool that had been sent as a gift to Catalina de Saavedra (the wife of the new governor, Pedro de los Ríos, Pedrarias” successor), a disgruntled soldier had hidden the following couplet.

take a good look at the whole thing, there goes the dustpan.

Thus informed of the sufferings of the expeditionaries, the governor prevented Almagro”s departure with new aid and, on the contrary, sent a ship under the command of Captain Juan Tafur to pick up Pizarro and his companions, who were on the island of El Gallo.

Certainly, the discontent among Pizarro”s soldiers was very great, for they had been going through calamities for a long time. It had been two and a half years of journeys to the south facing all kinds of dangers and calamities, without achieving any results. Pizarro tried to convince his men to go on, but most of them wanted to desert and return to Panama. There were a total of 80 men on the island of Gallo, all of them skinny and emaciated, 20 of whom could no longer stand on their feet.

Tafur arrived at Gallo Island in August 1527, amidst the joy of Pizarro”s men, who thus saw the end of their suffering. It was at that moment when Pizarro”s epic action took place, when he drew a line with his sword in the sands of the island exhorting his men to decide whether or not to continue with the expedition of discovery. Only thirteen men crossed the line. These “Thirteen of Fame”, or the “Thirteen of Rooster Island”, were.

Historian José Antonio del Busto tells about the scene that took place in Isla del Gallo, after Juan Tafur transmitted the order of Governor Pedro de los Ríos to Pizarro:

“The Trujillo did not let himself be won over by passion and, unsheathing his sword, advanced with it naked to his men. He stopped in front of them, looked at them all and avoiding a long harangue, he limited himself to say, while, according to later testimonies, he drew with his weapon a line on the sand: On this side you go to Panama, to be poor, on this side to Peru, to be rich; choose the one who is a good Castilian what is best for him. A deathly silence greeted the hero”s words, but after the first moments of doubt, the wet sand was felt to crunch under the sandals and espadrilles of the brave men, who, thirteen in number, crossed the line. Pizarro, when he saw them cross the line, “not a little rejoiced, thanking God for it, because he had been served to put them in heart the stay”. Their names have remained in History”.

Pizarro and the Thirteen of Fame waited five months for reinforcements, which arrived from Panama sent by Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Luque, under the command of Bartolomé Ruiz (January 1528). The ship found Pizarro and his men on Gorgona Island (located north of Gallo Island), starving and harassed by the Indians. That same day, Pizarro ordered to sail south, leaving on Gorgona three of the “Thirteen” who were sick: Cristobal de Peralta, Gonzalo Martin de Trujillo and Martin de Paz. They were left in the care of some service Indians.

Pizarro”s unbending tenacity would bear fruit. The expedition reached the beaches of Tumbes (in the extreme north of present-day Peru), the first Inca city they spotted. There, an orejón or Inca nobleman approached them on a raft and was courteously received by Pizarro. The nobleman invited Pizarro to disembark to visit Chilimasa, the tallan chieftain of the city of Tumbes, who was a tributary of the Inca Empire. Pizarro ordered Alonso de Molina to disembark with a black slave and to take as gifts for the cacique a couple of pigs and some hens, all of which caused great impression among the Indians. Then the Greek Pedro de Candía was sent, so that with his arquebus he could demonstrate to the Indians the power of the Spanish weapons. The Indians hospitably welcomed Candía, allowing him to visit the main buildings of the city: the Temple of the Sun, the Acllahuasi or house of the chosen women and the Pucara or fortress, where the Greek appreciated the rich gold and silver ornaments. Then, on a cloth Candía drew the plan of the city, and later wrote a report, now lost. Back to his companions, he related his experience, affirming that Tumbes was a great city built of stone, all of which caused astonishment and encouraged him to continue in the conquering enterprise.

Pizarro ordered to continue the exploration further south, traveling the coasts of the current Peruvian departments of Piura, Lambayeque and La Libertad, until the mouth of the Santa River (May 13, 1528). In some point of the Piura coast (possibly in Sechura), he met with the local cacica, of the tallanes ethnic group, to which the Spaniards gave the name of Capullana, by the form of her dress. During the banquet with which the Capullana entertained him, Pizarro took the opportunity to take possession of the place on behalf of the Crown of Castile. It is said that one of the Thirteen of Fame, Pedro de Halcón, fell madly in love with Capullana and wanted to stay on land, but his companions forced him onto the ship and they all set sail.

Already on his way back to Panama, Pizarro arrived again in Tumbes, where the soldier Alonso de Molina obtained permission to stay among the Indians, trusting in their hospitality. Previously, other Spaniards had also chosen to stay among the Indians: Bocanegra, who deserted somewhere on the coast of the current department of La Libertad; and Ginés, who stayed in Paita (coast of Piura). The three Spaniards, Molina, Bocanegra and Ginés, probably met in Tumbes, with the idea of reuniting with Pizarro when he returned on his third trip.

Pizarro continued his return voyage to Panama; passing by Gorgona Island, he picked up the three expedition members he had left behind recovering from their ailments, but learned that one of them, Gonzalo Martin de Trujillo, had died. He finally arrived in Panama, with the certainty of having discovered an opulent empire, whose wealth and high civilization was attested to by the indigenous nobles themselves, who were dressed in exquisite and colorful clothing, and who wore gold and silver ornaments carved with exquisite technique.

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Capitulation of Toledo

Faced with the refusal of Governor De los Ríos to grant permission for a new voyage, the partners Pizarro, Almagro and Luque agreed to negotiate this permission before the court itself. By mutual agreement, they designated Pizarro as the procurator or messenger to present the petition directly to King Charles I of Spain. This choice, among other reasons, was due to the fact that, despite being illiterate, Pizarro had poise and fluency of speech. Almagro did not want to accompany Pizarro, as he believed that his lack of manners and the fact that he was one-eyed could somehow negatively affect the success of the negotiations, a decision he would later regret, as Pizarro would achieve great advantages for himself, to the detriment of his partners, despite the fact that before leaving he promised to look after the interests of each of them.

Pizarro left Panama in September 1528, crossed the isthmus and arrived at Nombre de Dios, where he embarked for Spain, making a stopover in Santo Domingo (island of Hispaniola). He was accompanied by the Greek Pedro de Candía and the Basque Domingo de Soraluce, as well as some indigenous tallanes from Tumbes (he also carried with him South American camelids, fine wool fabrics, gold and silver objects and other things he had collected in his travels, to show them to the Spanish sovereign, as proof of the discovery of a great empire.

After a smooth crossing, Pizarro disembarked in Sanlúcar de Barrameda and arrived in Seville in March 1529. As soon as he disembarked, he was imprisoned for a lawsuit filed by the bachelor Martín Fernández de Enciso, for a matter that dated back to Pizarro”s first works in Tierra Firme. However, King Carlos I ordered his immediate release.

Pizarro, along with his companions, left for Toledo to meet with the monarch. There he met his relative, the conquistador Hernán Cortés, already prestigious for the conquest of Mexico and about to receive his title of Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca, who is said to have helped him get in touch with the Court. Pizarro was received by Carlos I in Toledo, but this monarch, who was about to leave for Italy, left the matter in the hands of the Council of the Indies.

This is how Francisco Pizarro ended up negotiating with the Council of the Indies, then presided over by the Count of Osorno, García Fernández Manrique. Both Pizarro and the Greek Candía exposed before the councilors their reasons so that the king gave the authorization for the conquest and population of the province of Peru; Candía exhibited his cloth where he had drawn the plan of the city of Tumbes.

After the long negotiation, the advisors drafted the clauses of the contract between the Crown and Pizarro, which history knows as the Capitulation of Toledo. In the absence of King Charles I, Queen consort Isabella of Portugal signed the document on July 26, 1529. These were the main agreements of this Capitulation.

As can be seen, the great beneficiary of this Capitulation was Francisco Pizarro, to the detriment of his partners Almagro and Luque. In the case of Almagro, Pizarro argued in his defense that it was the king himself who objected to the command being divided between the two partners; it was thus that Pizarro concentrated in his person the titles of Governor, Captain General, Sheriff Major and Adelantado, while Almagro was only given the governorship of Tumbes.

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Pizarro”s third voyage

Pizarro took advantage of his stay in the Iberian Peninsula to visit Trujillo, his hometown, where he met with his brothers Gonzalo, Hernando and Juan, whom he convinced to join the conquering enterprise. With them he prepared his third and definitive voyage for the conquest of Peru. He gathered four ships: three galleons and a zabra destined to captain, but it was difficult for him to gather the 150 men that one of the clauses of the capitulation demanded. However, Pizarro managed to circumvent the controls of the authorities and on January 26, 1530, the last day of the deadline, he went ahead aboard the capitana, sailing from Sanlúcar. The other ships, under the command of his brother Hernando, followed him later, convincing the factor (inspector) of the Casa Contratación in Seville that they were carrying more than 150 men. In reality they were carrying less than that number.

After a smooth trip, Pizarro arrived at Nombre de Dios, where he met his partner Almagro who, as expected, received with displeasure the news of the few prerogatives obtained for him in the capitulation, in comparison to the titles and powers granted to Pizarro. To this displeasure was added the arrogant attitude of Hernando Pizarro, the most temperamental of the Pizarro brothers. Almagro even thought of separating from the partnership, but Luque managed, once again, to reconcile the two partners.

From Nombre de Dios, the three partners and their men went to Panama City. Preparations began. During eight months, from April to December 1530, the recruited soldiers carried out their military training. Pizarro managed to gather three ships which he provided with everything necessary to make the definitive “entrance” to Peru.

On December 28, 1530, the expedition heard mass in the church of La Merced in Panama. There were 180 on foot and 37 on horseback (Jerez data). They were ready to embark, but had to wait a few more days to comply with the provisions that required the expedition to carry royal officers.

Pizarro finally left Panama on January 20, 1531, with two ships, leaving the other ship in port under the command of Captain Cristóbal de Mena, with the task of following him later on. As on previous occasions, Almagro stayed in Panama to provide everything necessary for the expedition. After 13 days of navigation (Jerez”s data), Pizarro arrived at the bay of San Mateo, where he decided to advance by land. The expedition members walked under the inclemency of the tropical climate, the rising of the rivers, hunger and tropical diseases. They found some abandoned Indian villages, and in one of them, Coaque, they stayed several months, finding gold, silver and emeralds, in some appreciable quantities. Pizarro dispatched three ships with these riches to serve as an incentive to the Spaniards: two of them bound for Panama and one for Nicaragua. The tactic took effect: the ships returned from Panama with thirty infantrymen and twenty-six horsemen, while in Nicaragua Captain Hernando de Soto, enthusiastic at the sight of the gold samples, began to recruit people to leave for Peru. The booty found in Coaque was, therefore, the beginning of the temptation to reach Peru.

In Coaque, many of Pizarro”s soldiers fell ill with a strange disease called bubas, due to the tumors that sprouted on their skin, a disease that claimed some victims.

Pizarro left Coaque in October 1531. Continuing south, he began to travel along the current coast of Ecuador, passing the cape of Pasao or Pasado, inhabited by warlike and cannibalistic Indians. He passed the cape of Pasao or Pasado, inhabited by warlike and cannibalistic Indians. He then traveled through the bay of Caráquez, where they embarked all the sick people, continuing the rest by land. To all that region the chroniclers call Puerto Viejo or Portoviejo. They then passed by Tocagua, Charapotó and Mataglan; in this last one they met with Sebastián de Belalcázar, who came from Nicaragua and who was in command of 30 well armed men, with twelve horses, all of which joined the expedition of Pizarro (November of 1531).

They then passed through Picuaza, Marchan, Manta, Punta de Santa Elena, Odon, to the entrance of the Gulf of Guayaquil. Hunger and thirst continued to punish the expeditionaries, but they were now close to the gates of the Inca empire.

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Conquest of the island of Puná

Passing through the Gulf of Guayaquil, Pizarro and his expedition sighted the large island of Puná, separated from the mainland by a thin arm of the sea, called “the pass of Huayna Cápac”. The curaca or cacique of the island, called Tumbalá, invited the Spaniards to cross the pass and visit his domain. Pizarro accepted, despite the danger of an ambush, as he planned to use the island as a bridgehead for the landing in Tumbes.

In Puná, Pizarro learned of the violent end of Alonso de Molina and other Spanish soldiers who had remained among the Indians in the course of their second voyage. It is said that the Spaniards found on the island a place that had a high cross and a house with a crucifix painted on a door and a bell hanging and then came out of that house more than thirty children of both sexes, saying in chorus “Praised be Jesus Christ, Molina, Molina”. The Indians then told that Molina had come to Puná fleeing from the Tumbesinos and that he had dedicated himself to indoctrinate the children in the Christian faith: later, the islanders made him their leader during the war against the Chonos, fighting in several battles, until, on a certain occasion, while fishing on board a raft, he was surprised and killed by the Chonos.

Tumbalá entered into agreements with Pizarro, offering his help in his projected advance toward Tumbes, because there was a continuous war between Puná and Tumbes; even on the island there were about 600 prisoners from Tumbes, enslaved by the Puneños. The Spaniards received gifts and musical instruments from Tumbalá, as a symbol of the alliance.

It arrived for then to Puná the curaca Chilimasa of Tumbes, who met secretly with Pizarro; this one made that Chilimasa and Tumbalá were friendly and made the peace. What the Spaniard did not know was that both curacas were no longer fighting each other, but were subject to the will of the Inca Atahualpa, through a Quechua nobleman who served as governor of Tumbes and Puná. Both also kept a secret plan to exterminate the Spaniards, following the directives of the Sapa Inca.

Tumbalá was preparing to carry out the extermination of the Spaniards, when Felipillo, the interpreter of the Spaniards (one of the boys picked up from the raft tumbesina by Ruiz), found out about that plan and put it to the knowledge of Pizarro, who then ordered to capture Tumbalá. In the middle of the fight between Indians and Spaniards, Captain Hernando de Soto arrived in Puná, coming from Nicaragua, possibly at the end of 1531. Soto brought with him a hundred men, among them 25 horsemen, a significant reinforcement that decided the Spanish triumph over the Indians.

Pizarro, to gain the support of the Tumbesinos, gave them some of the Puná chiefs who had been taken prisoner and freed the six hundred enslaved Tumbesinos who were on the island. As a sign of gratitude, Chilimasa agreed to lend his rafts so that the Spaniards could carry their bundles on them. But behind these signs of friendship, Chilimasa maintained his secret plan to exterminate the Spaniards, following the directives that Atahualpa had given him.

Pizarro remained in Puná until April 1532, when he began his advance towards the coast of Tumbes.

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Landing in Tumbes

The navigation of the Spaniards to Tumbes lasted three days. While still at sea, Pizarro ordered the four rafts that Chilimasa had given him to transport the luggage, in which there were Indian crew members and three Spaniards in each one of them. It was then when the Indians proceeded to carry out the stratagem destined to exterminate the Spaniards. The first raft that reached land was surrounded by the Indians and the three Spaniards on it were attacked and dragged to a grove, where they were cut to pieces and thrown into large pots of boiling water. The same fate was to befall two other Spaniards who arrived on the second raft, but the cries for help shouted in time had an effect, since Hernando Pizarro, with a group of Spaniards on horseback, attacked the Indians. Many of the Indians died at the hands of the Spaniards and others fled into the forests.

The Spaniards, who did not understand the reason for the bellicosity of the Tumbesinos, whom they had considered as allies, found the city of Tumbes completely devastated and verified that it was not a great city of stone, as the Greek Candía had informed, but of adobes, which disillusioned not few. Hernando de Soto with his troop pursued the raised Tumbesinos during the whole night and in the morning: they fell on their camps, surprising them and killing them. The following day the persecution continued. The cacique Chilimasa with the due guarantees for his life, presented himself before Hernando de Soto, who took him before Pizarro. Interrogated for the reason of his rebellion, Chilimasa limited himself to deny everything and accused his main chiefs of having plotted the conspiracy against the Spaniards. Pizarro asked him to hand over those chiefs, but Chilimasa said that this was out of his reach, since they had already fled the region. Once the incident was over, Chilimasa made friends again with the Spaniards and did not betray them again.

With the data provided by the Spanish chroniclers, it is possible to reconstruct the context in which the destruction of Tumbes occurred, as the Spaniards found it: this town had been razed by order of the Inca Atahualpa, in punishment for having supported Huascar, in the middle of the Inca civil war. It is also possible that an epidemic decimated its inhabitants, perhaps the smallpox brought by the Spaniards, the same one that killed the Inca Huayna Capac. The people of Tumbes were forced to render vassalage to Atahualpa, who ordered his priest Chilimasa to carry out a special commission, to demonstrate his loyalty: to gain the confidence of the Spaniards, and then, once in full disembarkation, to kill them all. However, it seems that the one who carried out the plan was the Inca captain left in Tumbes by Atahualpa himself, with the support of some of Chilimasa”s chiefs, while Chilimasa remained on the sidelines. In any case, the plan failed.

It was in Tumbes where Pizarro learned of the existence of the city of Cusco, through a conversation he had with an Indian from Tumbes, according to the chronicle of Pedro Pizarro:

“…when the Indian was asked what it was, he said that it was a large town where the Lord of them all resided, and that there was a lot of populated land and many jars of gold and silver, and houses covered with gold plates…”.

The existence of more fertile valleys was also reported. All these reports excited Pizarro, who was encouraged to continue with the conquest.

It is also worth mentioning that there was a rebellion attempt among the Spaniards, specifically in the person of Hernando de Soto. This one, during the run that he made to the interior pursuing the rebel Tumbesinos, was amazed to see the majestic Inca road (the Qhapaq Ñan) that went to the north, to the province of Quito. Soto, who commanded a large host, wanted to become independent of Pizarro and lead an expedition to that territory on his own, but several of his men did not want to follow him, and some went to tell Pizarro, so the mutiny must have been frustrated. Pizarro pretended not to know, but from then on he kept a close eye on Soto.

On May 16, 1532 Pizarro left Tumbes, where he left a Spanish garrison under the command of the royal officers.

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The Spaniards in Poechos and the first news about Atahualpa

Pizarro”s army, which numbered about 200 men, advanced towards Poechos, divided into two groups. The vanguard was commanded by Francisco Pizarro himself, accompanied by Hernando de Soto. The rearguard, which constituted the bulk of the troops, and which was commanded by Hernando Pizarro, left Tumbes shortly after, advancing slowly because in their ranks there were sick people.

On May 25, 1532 the Spaniards arrived at Poechos, which was a locality inhabited by Tallan Indians and governed by the curaca Maizavilca, a stubby and very astute Indian. This one received the Spaniards cordially and to gain more the will of Pizarro, he gave him his nephew, a boy that was baptized as Martinillo and that became interpreter.

Shortly after, the rearguard of conquistadors that came with Hernando Pizarro arrived at Poechos. Francisco Pizarro sent his men to explore the region: Juan Pizarro and Sebastián de Belalcázar were sent to the provinces adjacent to Poechos; and Hernando de Soto was commissioned to explore the banks of the Chira River. Soto found numerous populations, with very unruly curacas or caciques, whom he captured and took to Poechos, where they were forced to swear vassalage to the king of Spain.

It was in Poechos where the Spaniards learned of the existence of a great monarch who dominated a vast empire, the Inca Atahualpa, who was moving from Quito to Cajamarca. In addition, they had details of the war that that king held with his brother Huáscar, who, after being defeated, was held captive. Worried about the garrison left in Tumbes, Francisco commissioned Hernando Pizarro to return there and bring all his men with him.

Hernando Pizarro returned by land, but some Spaniards returned by sea. By then the curacas of the Chira and Amotape had risen, forcing the Spaniards of Hernando Pizarro, to entrench in the huaca Chira and to send a message to Francisco Pizarro in demand of help. The latter, in command of 50 horsemen, went to help his comrades in arms, managing to save them. Pizarro punished the curacas severely: after subjecting them to torment so that they confessed their conspiracy, thirteen of them were strangled and their bodies burned, according to Pedro Pizarro in his chronicle.

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The spy ear

When Maizavilca found out that Pizarro planned to found a city of Christians near his territory, he became uncomfortable and agreed with the other curacas tallanes on the way to get rid of the Spaniards. They sent messengers to the Inca Atahualpa, who was then in Huamachuco celebrating his triumph over Huáscar, to inform him of the presence in Tumbes and Piura of strange people, of white complexion and with beard, coming out of the sea, that according to them could be the gods viracochas, alluding to an old legend that predicted the arrival of divine beings with those characteristics. In this way, they wanted the Inca to be interested and to invite the Spaniards to meet them.

Indeed, Atahualpa became interested in the matter and sent a spy to Poechos. Pedro Pizarro, who had stayed with Hernando Pizarro in Poechos, describes the spy as an orejón or Inca nobleman, whom he calls Apo (which is actually a title, meaning “lord”). Cristobal de Mena calls him simply “captain of the Inca” and Juan de Betanzos affirms that his name was Ciquinchara and that he was an orejón from Jaquijahuana.

Disguised as a rustic paca seller, Ciquinchara entered the Spanish camp without arousing suspicion. But Hernando Pizarro, misunderstanding his presence, pushed him and kicked him, causing an uproar among the Indians, which Ciquinchara took advantage of to slip away and go to the Inca, to whom he gave a report. Particularly, three Spaniards caught the attention of the orejón: the horse tamer, the barber who with his art “rejuvenated the old men” and the blacksmith who forged swords. The orejón told Atahualpa that when the Spaniards were exterminated, these three should be kept, since they would be of great use to the Incas.

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The foundation of San Miguel

After appeasing Chira, Pizarro went to Tangarará or Tangarala, on the banks of the Chira River, where he proposed to found a village. He entrusted the exploration of the region to the Dominican friar Vicente de Valverde.

The town of San Miguel de Tangarará was founded on August 15, 1532 (according to the calculation made by the historian José Antonio del Busto). This place was chosen because it was very fertile and was regularly populated by Indians; it was on the right bank of the Chira River, about 6 leagues from a place called Amotape and 40 km from the sea. After the ceremony, 46 conquerors were registered as neighbors. The accountant Antonio Navarro was appointed as lieutenant governor and Gonzalo Farfán de los Godos from Asturias and the Castilian Blas de Atienza as ordinary mayors. Francisco Pizarro made the first distribution of lands and Indian servants among the Spaniards who wanted to settle in the town. This first distribution included, in addition to Piura, Tumbes, the most coveted repartimiento, which was granted to Hernando de Soto.

San Miguel de Tangarará, today”s city of Piura, was the first Spanish city founded in Peru and in the entire southern hemisphere. Some time later, in 1588, its headquarters were moved to where it is currently located, in Tacalá, in the valley of the Piura River.

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The fear of Spaniards

The Spaniards continued to receive news of the wealth and immensity of the Inca empire. Thus, they learned of the existence, further south, on the coast, of Chincha, a great commercial, maritime and terrestrial emporium; and of the fabulous city of Cuzco, which was further inland, in the highlands, capital of the empire. They also knew that the Inca Atahualpa, after defeating his brother Huáscar, was in Cajamarca, twelve or fifteen days away from San Miguel, which could be reached by crossing an immense mountain range. Fear spread among some Spaniards, who wanted to return to Panama. One day a paper was found nailed to the door of the church of San Miguel with a couplet against Pizarro written on it. Juan de la Torre, one of the thirteen of fame, was accused of being its author, who, subjected to torture, confessed his responsibility and was condemned to death. But Pizarro commuted his sentence and banished him, being embarked on a merchant ship. Some years later his innocence was proven and he returned to Peru.

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The march to Cajamarca

After issuing a series of orders and reinforcing his rearguard, Pizarro set out on the march to Cajamarca.

The chronicler Jerez says that Pizarro left San Miguel on September 24, 1532. Pizarro crossed the Chira River and after three days of march, he arrived at the fertile valley of the Piura River, where he stopped for ten days. Discounting some who returned to San Miguel (at the request of the lieutenant governor of that town), Pizarro”s host consisted of 62 horsemen and 102 infantrymen.

Pizarro departed Piura on October 8, 1532. That same day he sent an advance guard of 50 to 60 soldiers, under the command of Hernando de Soto, toward the town of Caxas or Cajas (in passing, Soto had to obtain the vassalage of the natives. Soto arrived at Caxas on October 10, finding the town destroyed and almost depopulated, learning that all this was the work of the atahualpistas, who punished the curaca of the town for being huascarista. Nevertheless, the Spaniards found deposits of food and clothes, and an acllahuasi with more than 500 acllas or virgins of the Sun, which Soto distributed among his men. It was then when Ciquinchara appeared, the Inca spy sent to Poechos, who reproached Soto for his audacity; then he presented himself as Atahualpa”s ambassador, with the mission of inviting Pizarro to meet the Sapa Inca. Ciquinchara carried some curious gifts for Pizarro: some skinned ducks and some stone fortresses.

Soto left Caxas on October 13, accompanied by Ciquinchara, and arrived at Huancabamba, a town with better buildings and a well-carved stone fortress. The Inca road or Qhapaq Ñan, that caused astonishment to the Spaniards for its greatness and its good factory, passed by there, learning that it united Quito with Cuzco for 300 leagues.

Meanwhile, Pizarro arrived at the town of Pavur, on the right bank of the Piura River. Then, passing to the opposite bank, on October 10 he arrived at the town or fortress of Zarán or Serrán, where he camped to wait for Soto, who arrived on October 16. Ciquinchara met with Pizarro to let him know that the Inca “has the will to be his friend, and to wait for him in peace in Caxamarca”. After this the ambassador returned to Atahualpa taking with him some gifts that Francisco Pizarro sent with him (a white and very fine shirt, knives, scissors, combs and mirrors from Spain) and to inform him that the Spanish chief “would hurry to arrive to Caxamarca and to be a friend of the Inca”.

After resting eight days in Serrán, Pizarro left on October 19, 1532, continuing his march to Cajamarca. He passed through the towns of Copis, Motupe, Jayanca and Túcume, in Lambayeque land. On October 30 he arrived at the town of Cinto, whose curaca informed Pizarro that Atahualpa had been in Huamachuco and that he was on his way to Cajamarca with fifty thousand men of war. From Cinto, Pizarro sent a tallan chief, named Guachapuro, as his messenger to speak with Atahualpa, with some presents (a glass cup of crystal from Venice, moccasins, shirts from Holland, glass beads and pearls). Cinto, later joined to Collique, would be the origin of the city of Chiclayo.

On November 4, Pizarro continued his march, passing through Reque, Mocupe and Saña, the latter a large town with plenty of food, at the foot of the sierra. There the Spaniards found a fork in the road. One of them led to Chincha and the other to Cajamarca. Some Spaniards thought it would be better to go to Chincha and postpone the meeting with Atahualpa. However, Pizarro decided to continue towards Cajamarca, arguing that the Sapa Inca already knew that he had left San Miguel and that he was going to meet him, having even sent him messages to that effect; changing the route would make Atahualpa believe that the Spaniards were shying away out of cowardice. Likewise, Pizarro wanted to capture the main indigenous leader, following the recommendations of Hernán Cortés: “the first thing to do is to seize the chief, they consider him as their god and they have absolute power. With that, the others don”t know what to do”. He himself had already experienced this in Coaque, La Puná and Túmbes, and he knew that by capturing a curaca and holding him hostage, much was gained. On the other hand, when the curaca was loose, he became a dangerous enemy.

On November 8, 1532, the Spaniards began to climb the mountain range. Pizarro decided to divide his army into two groups: the vanguard with him and forty on horseback and sixty on foot. The rest, under the command of Hernando Pizarro, would form the rearguard and would join Pizarro when he indicated it. After a day”s march, Pizarro sent word to his brother Hernando to join him to continue the journey together.

On November 9, 1532 Pizarro camped in the middle of the cold of the mountain range, where he received an embassy from Atahualpa, with ten llamas that the Inca had sent as a gift and warning him that he had been in Cajamarca for five days. On December 10, Pizarro continued his journey and camped in a place that could be the present population of Pallaques. Here he received another embassy of the Inca, headed again by Ciquinchara, who brought another gift of ten llamas, and ratified the reports of the previous embassy, in the sense that Atahualpa was in Cajamarca, where he waited in peace to the Spaniards. Ciquinchara accompanied Pizarro all the way to Cajamarca.

Pizarro continued the trip, arriving on November 11 to a place that is possibly the present Llapa, where he rested all day on the 12th. The road was very tiring, for being very rough, full of cliffs and abysses.

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Fight between the messenger and the ambassador

On November 13, 1532 Guachapuro returned, the messenger tallán that Pizarro sent before Atahualpa. Jerez tells that Guachapuro, seeing the ambassador of the Sapa Inca (Ciquinchara), lashed out at him and grabbed him by the ears, being separated by Pizarro, who asked him the reason for his aggression. Guachapuro gave the following explanations: that the envoy of the Sapa Inca was a liar, that Atahualpa was not in Cajamarca but in the countryside (that they had wanted to kill him, but he had been saved because he threatened that the ambassadors of Atahualpa would be executed by Pizarro; that they did not allow him to speak directly with the Inca, because he was fasting, and he was interviewed, finally, with an uncle of Atahualpa, who required him for the Christians, being this his answer:

“And I told them that they are brave men and very warlike; that they bring horses that run like the wind and those who ride on them carry long spears, and with them they kill as many as they find, because in two jumps they reach them, and the horses with their feet and mouths kill many. The Christians who walk on foot, I said, are very loose, and they bring on their arms a wooden buckler with which they defend themselves and strong doublets covered with cotton and very sharp swords that cut on both sides, with each blow, a man in half, and a sheep (and others bring crossbows that they shoot from afar, and with each shot they kill a man and gunpowder shots that shoot balls of fire, which kill many people”.

For his part, Ciquinchara, somewhat astonished to hear a tallan Indian speak so boldly, replied thus: that if Atahualpa was not in Cajamarca it was because his houses had been reserved to accommodate the Christians; that Atahualpa was in the countryside because that was his custom since he was at war with Huáscar; that when the Sapa Inca fasted they did not let him speak to anyone else but his father the Inti. Very diplomatically, Pizarro, settled the discussion, giving to understand that he had no reason to doubt the pacific intention of Atahualpa.

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Spaniards arrive in Cajamarca

The Spaniards continued on their way. On November 14, they rested in Zavana, with only one day left to reach Cajamarca. In Zavana they received another embassy of Atahualpa, with food. Being to only one league of Cajamarca, “all the people and horses were armed, and the Governor put them in concert for the entrance of the town, and he/she made three bundles of the Spaniards of foot and of horse”.

The Spaniards sighted Cajamarca from the heights of Shicuana, northeast of the valley. It was noon on Friday, November 15, 1532. They had walked 53 days from San Miguel de Tangarará.

The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Miguel de Estete assure that the Spaniards found in Cajamarca “popular people and some of the people of war” of Atahualpa. Also, that they were well received. Other chroniclers, like Jerez, assure that the Spaniards did not find people in the town. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas says that “only some women were seen at one end of the square crying for the fate that destiny reserved for the Spaniards who had provoked the anger of the Indian emperor”.

When Pizarro entered Cajamarca, Atahualpa was half a league from the city, in Pultumarca or the Baths of the Inca, where he had established his royal camp, “with forty thousand Indians of war”, as Pedro Pizarro tells us. This camp, made up of extensive rows of white tents, with thousands of Inca warriors and servants, stationed on the slopes of a mountain range, must have offered a surprising view to the conquistadors. The soldier chronicler Miguel de Estete, who witnessed the events, relates his impressions:

And there were so many tents… that it certainly frightened us very much; because we did not think that Indians could have such a proud stay, nor so many tents, nor so ready; which was never seen before in the Indies; which caused us all Spaniards great confusion and fear….

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The Spanish embassy to Atahualpa

Entered in Cajamarca, Francisco Pizarro sent Hernando de Soto with twenty horsemen and the interpreter Felipillo, as an embassy to tell Atahualpa “that he came on behalf of God and the King to preach and to have them for friends, and other things of peace and friendship, and that he came to see with him.” Soto was already halfway, when Pizarro, seeing from the top of one of the “towers” of Cajamarca the impressive camp of the Inca, feared that his men could suffer an ambush and sent his brother Hernando Pizarro with another twenty encabalgados more and the interpreter Martinillo.

After crossing the Inca camp, Soto first, and then Hernando Pizarro, arrived before the palace of the Sapa Inca, located in the middle of a meadow, guarded by about 400 Inca warriors. Through the interpreters, the Spaniards inquired about the presence of the Inca, but he delayed in coming out, to such an extent that it disturbed Hernando, who, obfuscated, ordered Martinillo: “Tell the dog to come out…!”

After Hernando Pizarro”s outburst, an orejón or Inca nobleman came out of the palace to observe the situation and then returned to the interior, informing Atahualpa that the same irascible Spaniard who had beaten him in Poechos, seat of the curacazgo of Maizavilca, was outside. In fact, the said orejón was Ciquinchara, the spy that had been sent by the Sapa Inca to observe the Spaniards, when these were still in Poechos (in the current department of Piura), occasion in which he suffered the anger of Hernando Pizarro. Atahualpa was then encouraged to leave, walking towards the door of the palace and proceeding to sit on a colored bench, always behind a curtain that only allowed to see his silhouette.

Soto immediately approached the curtain, still slouching, and presented the invitation to Atahualpa, although the latter did not even look at him. Rather, he turned to one of his ears and whispered a few things to him. Hernando Pizarro, very irascible, lost his temper again and began to shout a series of things that ended up catching the Inca”s attention, who ordered the curtain to be removed. For the first time, the Spaniards could see the lord of Tahuantinsuyo and described him as an Indian of about 35 years old, with long hair and a fierce look, dressed in a multicolored suit, on whose head shone a tassel of red incarnate, the mascapaicha.

Atahualpa looked very particularly at the daredevil who had called him “dog”, but turned to Soto, telling him to tell his chief that the next day he would go to see him in Cajamarca and that there they should pay him for everything they had taken during their stay in his lands.

Hernando Pizarro, feeling displaced, told Martinillo to communicate to the Sapa Inca that between him and Captain Soto there was no difference, because both were captains of His Spanish Majesty. But Atahualpa did not flinch, while he took two golden glasses, filled with chicha or corn liquor, that some women handed him. Soto commented to the Inca that his companion was the Governor”s brother. The Inca continued to show himself indifferent to Hernando Pizarro, but finally addressed him, telling him that his captain Maizavilca had informed him about the way he had humiliated several caciques by chaining them, and that, on the other hand, Maizavilca himself boasted of having killed three Christians and a horse; To which the impulsive Hernando replied that Maizavilca was a knave and that he and all the Indians could never kill Christians or horses because they were all chickens, and that if he wanted to prove it, that he himself should accompany him in the war against his enemies, so that he could see how the Spaniards fought.

Then, the Sapa Inca offered the Spaniards the glasses of liquor, but those, fearful that the drink was poisoned, excused themselves from drinking it, saying that they were fasting. To which the Inca replied saying that he was also fasting and that the liquor in no way broke the fast. To allay any fears, the Inca tried a sip from each of the glasses, which reassured the Spaniards, who then drank the liquor. Soto, mounted on his horse, immediately wanted to show off and began to gallop, prancing before the Sapa Inca; suddenly he advanced on the monarch as if he wanted to run him over, but stopped short. Soto was astonished to see that the Inca had remained immutable, without making the slightest gesture of fear. Some of the Inca”s servants showed fear and for this they were punished. Atahualpa then ordered more drink to be brought and they all drank. The interview ended with Atahualpa”s promise to go the next day to meet Francisco Pizarro.

The Sapa Inca, once the Spaniards left, ordered twenty thousand imperial soldiers to be stationed in the outskirts of Cajamarca, to capture the Spaniards: he was sure that when seeing so many people, the Spaniards would surrender. Atahualpa devised a plan to capture the Spaniards and put Rumiñahui in charge of executing it. However, Rumiñahui fled when Atahualpa was captured.

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Capture of Atahualpa

The Spanish host consisted of 165 men of war: 63 horsemen, 93 infantrymen, 4 artillerymen, 2 arquebusiers and 2 trumpets. Besides Pizarro, only Soto and Candía were soldiers by profession. They also had three indigenous interpreters: Felipillo, Francisquillo and Martinillo. The black and Nicaraguan slaves who came with the Spaniards were very few and had to act only as squires. They had no dogs of war, as these had remained in San Miguel.

It was inevitable that in the night of November 15, 1532, previous to the encounter with the Sapa Inca, the fear spread among the Spanish troops. Pedro Pizarro says: “Being thus the Spaniards, it was the news to Atahualpa, of Indians that he/she had spying, that the Spaniards were put in a shed, full of fear, and that none appeared for the square. And to the truth the Indian said it because I heard many Spaniards that without feeling it they urinated of pure fear”. The conquerors to the orders of Pizarro watched over weapons during the night, Francisco Pizarro on the base of the long stories that Hernán Cortés made him on the conquest of the Mexicas, had in mind to capture the Inca imitating Cortés in Mexico.

Pizarro arranged that the Greek Pedro de Candia was placed at the top of the fortress or royal tambo, in the center of the square, with two or three infantrymen and two falconetes or small cannons, attaching to them also two trumpets. The mounted troops were divided into two fractions, under the command of Hernando de Soto and Hernando Pizarro, respectively. The infantry was also divided into two fractions, one under the command of Francisco Pizarro and the other under the command of Juan Pizarro. All were to be hidden in the buildings surrounding the square, waiting for the arrival of the Inca and until they heard the signal to attack. This would be an arquebus shot by one of those who were with Pizarro, and the resounding cry of Santiago! If for some reason the shot was not heard by Candia, a white handkerchief would be waved as a signal for the Greek to fire his falconete and sound the trumpets (the trumpeters were Juan de Segovia and Pedro de Alconchel). The order was to wreak havoc among the Indians and capture the Sapa Inca.

Before entering combat, Pizarro encouraged his men in a harangue.

Have courage and courage to do what I expect of you and what all good Spaniards should do, and do not be alarmed by the multitude that they say the enemy has, nor by the reduced number of us Christians. For even if we were fewer and the opposing enemy more numerous, God”s help is greater still, and in the hour of need He helps and favors His own to disconcert and humble the pride of the infidels and attract them to the knowledge of our Holy Faith.

The chroniclers fix four o”clock in the afternoon as the hour in which Atahualpa entered the square of Cajamarca, thought that his army of 20,000 men would be enough so that the Spaniards retired without fighting, their men were not armed. Miguel de Estete says: “At the hour of four o”clock they begin to walk by their road in front, straight to where we were; and at five o”clock or a little more, he arrived at the door of the city”. The Inca began his entrance in Cajamarca, preceded by his vanguard of four hundred men, he entered to the square with all his people, in a “very rich litter, the ends of the wood covered with silver…; which eighty gentlemen brought in shoulders; all dressed in a very rich blue livery; and he dressed his person very richly with his crown in the head and to the neck a necklace of big emeralds; and seated in the litter in a very small chair with a very rich cushion”. For his part, Jerez points out: “Among these came Atahualpa in a litter lined with parrot feathers of many colors, garnished with gold and silver plates”. Behind the Sapa Inca came two other litters, where two important personages of the Empire went: one of them was the Chinchay Capac, the great lord of Chincha, and the other was probably the Chimú Capac or great lord of the Chimúes (others say that he was the lord of Cajamarca). The Inca warriors that entered the enclosure are calculated in number of 6,000 to 7,000 and they occupied half a square.

Francisco Pizarro sent before the Sapa Inca the Dominican friar, fray Vicente de Valverde, the soldier Hernando de Aldana and the interpreter Martinillo. Before the Inca, the friar Valverde made the formal request to Atahualpa to embrace the Catholic faith and to submit to the dominion of the king of Spain, at the same time that he gave him a breviary or a Gospel of the Bible. The dialogue that followed is narrated differently by witnesses. According to some chroniclers, the reaction of the Sapa Inca was one of surprise, curiosity, indignation and disdain. Atahualpa opened and reviewed the gospel thoroughly. Finding no meaning in it, he threw it to the ground, showing singular contempt. Atahualpa”s subsequent reaction was to tell Valverde that the Spaniards should return everything they had taken from his lands without his consent, claiming from them especially the clothes they had taken from his storehouses; that no one had the authority to tell the Son of the Sun what to do and that he would do his will; and finally, that the foreigners “should leave because they were knaves and thieves”; otherwise he would kill them.

Full of fear, Friar Valverde ran to Pizarro, followed by Aldana and the Indian interpreter, at the same time shouting to the Spanish chief: “What are you doing, Atabalipa is a Lucifer! Then, Valverde told him that the “dog” (idolater) had thrown the gospel to the ground, so he promised absolution to anyone who went out to fight him.

At a signal from Francisco Pizarro, the plan was set in motion. Candía fired his falconete, the trumpets sounded and the horsemen under the command of Hernando de Soto and Hernando Pizarro rode out. The horses were the ones that caused more panic to the natives, who did not manage to defend themselves and only thought about fleeing from the square; such was the desperation, that they formed human pyramids to arrive to the top of the wall that surrounded the square, dying many asphyxiated by the agglomeration. Until finally, due to the tremendous pressure, the wall collapsed, and over the crushed dead, the survivors fled through the countryside. The Spanish horsemen rushed after them, catching up and killing as many as they could.

Meanwhile, in the square of Cajamarca, Francisco Pizarro was looking for the anda of the Sapa Inca, while Juan Pizarro and his men surrounded the Lord of Chincha and killed him in his litter. The Spaniards attacked especially against the nobles and curacas, who were distinguished by their liveries (uniforms) with purple escaques. “Other captains died, that for being great number it is not made case of them, because all those that came in guard of Atahualpa were great gentlemen.” (Jerez). Among those captains of the Inca who fell that day was Ciquinchara, the same one who had officiated as ambassador before the Spaniards during the journey between Piura and Cajamarca.

The same luck would have run Atahualpa, but for the intervention of Francisco Pizarro. It happened that the Spaniards could not demolish the litter of the Sapa Inca, in spite of the fact that they killed the carriers, because when these fell, other chargers of refreshment hurried to replace them. Thus they were struggling for a long time; a Spaniard wanted to hurt the Inca with a knife, but Pizarro interposed himself in time, shouting that “nobody hurt the Indian under pain of life…. “It is said that in this struggle, Pizarro himself suffered a wound in the hand. At the end the anda fell and the Sapa Inca was captured, being taken prisoner to a building, called Amaru Huasi.

Jerez calculates in 2000 the dead in Cajamarca, all natives, who during the half hour that lasted the massacre did not defend themselves (many died crushed by their companions in the attempt to flee), reason why to this carnage it is wrong to call it “battle”.

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Distribution of the spoils

After the victory in Cajamarca, the victors shared the spoils of war in Pultumarca or the Baths of the Inca. The soldier chronicler Estete says: “… all those things of tents and clothes of wool and cotton were in such a great quantity that in my opinion many ships would be necessary to fit them”. Another chronicler says: “…the gold and silver and other things of value were all collected and taken to Cajamarca and placed in the possession of His Majesty”s Treasurer.” Jerez tells us, “the gold and silver in monstrous pieces and large and small dishes, and pitchers and pots or braziers and large goblets and other various pieces. Atahualpa said that all this was crockery for his service, and that his Indians who had fled had taken a great deal more”. They were the first trophies of importance that the Spaniards took.

The precious metals amounted to eighty thousand pesos in gold and seven thousand marks in silver; they also found fourteen emeralds. In turn, Francisco López de Gomara points out that “no soldier got so rich in such a short time and without risk” although he adds “it was never played that way, for there were many who lost their share at dice.”

The booty was so great that the Spaniards, upon returning to Cajamarca, decided to take only the gold and silver pieces, leaving everything else behind. For such an end, they began to take prisoners among the Indians, but, before their astonishment, they saw that these volunteered to make the work of loaders, taking to add up to thousands. All of them gathered in the square of Cajamarca; there, Francisco Pizarro spoke to them through an interpreter, telling them that the Sapa Inca was alive, but that he was their prisoner. Then, seeing that the Indians were peaceful, he ordered them to free them. It happened that all those Indians were huascaristas, supporters of Huáscar, and therefore, enemies of Atahualpa, and as such, they were grateful to the Spaniards, whom they saw as allies. From among them Pizarro chose the strongest to serve as porters; he also separated the youngest and most beautiful Indians, destined to be the servants of the Spaniards.

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Atahualpa offers a ransom

While Atahualpa was in prison, he received in visit to the curacas that brought him gifts, in gold and silver. The Sapa Inca realized then that those precious metals had for the Spaniards another value, different from the one that he and his people gave him. He also realized and was convinced that the only way to save himself was to offer them a great amount of gold and silver. And so he did. He proposed to Francisco Pizarro that he would give him, in exchange for his freedom, a room filled, as far as his hand could reach, with various pieces of gold: pitchers, pots, shingles, etc.; and twice the same room filled with silver objects. The room, now known as the Ransom Room, was 22 feet long and 17 feet wide (Jerez data). Atahualpa promised that he would comply in gathering all that amount of precious metals within two months. Pizarro hastened to confirm the promise in writing in an act before a notary.

Pizarro began to take a series of measures; he reinforced the security of Cajamarca, with civil works, in which “many huascaristas Indians” worked. The vigilance became permanent, by rounds of 50 horse soldiers, during the day and most of the night. During the early mornings, there were 150 horse soldiers, in addition to spies, informers and watchmen on foot; Indians and Spaniards.

The first shipment of gold offered by Atahualpa arrived from the south and was brought by a brother of the Inca, “he brought him some sisters and women of Atahualpa, and he brought many vessels of gold; pitchers and pots and other pieces and much silver, and he said that more would come along the road; that since the journey is so long, the Indians who bring it get tired and cannot arrive so quickly; that every day more gold and silver will come in from those who are farther behind”. “And so, some days twenty thousand, and other times thirty thousand, and others fifty, and others sixty thousand pesos of gold in jars and large pots of three arrobas and two, and jars and large pots of silver and many other vessels.” Pizarro was accumulating these pieces in one of the rooms where Atahualpa was, “until he fulfills his promise”.

However, the Spanish soldiers began to murmur that, at the rate the collection was going, the quarters or sheds would not be filled within the time limit. Upon noticing these comments, Atahualpa proposed to Pizarro that, in order to speed up the transportation of gold and silver, he should send his soldiers to the sanctuary of Pachacámac, which was located “ten days to the south”, as well as to the city of Cuzco, capital of the Empire, places that were full of these riches. Pizarro accepted the proposal.

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Almagro”s advance

While the events of Cajamarca were taking place, six ships arrived at the port of Manta (present-day Ecuador). On January 20, 1533, Pizarro received messengers sent from San Miguel de Tangarará, warning him of their arrival. Three of the larger ships came from Panama, under the command of Diego de Almagro, with 120 men. The other three caravels arrived from Nicaragua, with 30 more men. In total, 150 men disembarked, in addition to 84 horses, an appreciable reinforcement for the conquest enterprise. The cacique of Tumbes went into rebellion, but did not raise his people.

A new stage of the conquest began, which was more of consolidation of the triumph they had had in the square of Cajamarca and of distribution of the first spoils of war. Francisco Pizarro must have been worried not only about the pressure of his men for the distribution of the gold and silver, but also about the pressure that his partners in Panama and Nicaragua must have been receiving for the payment of the freights and other supplies, to demonstrate the success of his enterprise and thus be able to recruit more people for the enterprise, people that on the other hand he must have needed with extreme urgency, given the shortage of men that they had.

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Expedition to Pachacámac

Following the advice of Atahualpa to hasten the collection of gold and silver, Pizarro sent a group of Spaniards to Pachacámac, on the coast of the Lima valley; it was a famous sanctuary of pre-Inca origin, seat of an oracle of prestige, where the Indians went on pilgrimage. The expedition to Pachacámac was under the command of Hernando Pizarro; it was made up of 14 horsemen, 9 infantrymen and an undetermined number of indigenous cargo carriers. Among the expedition members was Miguel de Estete, who wrote an account of the trip. To serve as guides, Atahualpa gave the Spaniards the great priest of Pachacámac and other four minor priests; four orejones or Inca nobles were also in the expedition. Atahualpa did not feel any respect for the god Pachacámac, because, in one occasion, he was not correct in one of his oracles consulted with respect to his person, during the war against Huáscar.

The expedition left Cajamarca on January 5, 1533 and followed the royal road or Qhapaq Ñan. The first important stop was Huamachuco. Then they continued through the Callejón de Huaylas, Huaylas, Huaraz and Recuay, going down to the coast. They then passed through the fortress of Paramonga, Barranca and Chancay, and entering the valley of Lima, they stopped in the town of Surco, before arriving at Pachacámac, on February 2, 1533.

Arrived before the main temple of Pachacámac (called Temple of the Sun), which was a stepped pyramid, Hernando demanded to the servants of the temple that they gave him all the gold that they kept. They gave him a small amount, which did not satisfy the Spaniard, who entered the sacred precinct and climbed to the top, where he found, inside a small vault, the idol of the god Pachacámac, carved in wood. Seeing it as idolatry, Hernando took out the image and burned it, taking advantage of the occasion to indoctrinate the Indians in the Christian faith. The desecration moved the natives, who feared a catastrophe as punishment; however, nothing happened.

As he found little precious metal in Pachacámac, in the following days, Hernando sent messengers to the surrounding curacazgos, ordering them to bring as much gold as possible. Shipments arrived from different areas, such as Chincha, Yauyos and Huarochirí. The Spaniards gathered a booty valued in 90.000 pesos. According to Cieza “it is public among the Indians that the main ones and the priests of the temple more than 400 loads of gold, which has not appeared neither the Indians that today are alive know where it is”.

On February 26, 1533, Hernando Pizarro left Pachacámac and entered the highlands, heading for Jauja, because he heard that the atahualpista general Chalcuchímac was there, with warriors and more gold. Passing through the plateau of Bombón and Tarma, Hernando arrived at Jauja, on March 16. There, Chalcuchimac received him with great feasts and comedimientos. Hernando, with astuteness, convinced the general atahualpista to accompany him with his troops to Cajamarca: “it would be a dishonor that so prestigious general does not visit his Inca majesty”.

Hernando Pizarro”s expedition returned to Cajamarca on April 14, 1533, bringing “twenty-seven loads of gold and two thousand of silver”, but perhaps the most important thing: he brought as hostage the ferocious Chalcuchímac, as well as the knowledge of the vast territory in which the Tahuantinsuyo extended, which he was able to cross thanks to his marvelous road or Qhapaq Ñan.

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The mission to Cusco

Meanwhile, on January 21, 1533, another shipment of gold and silver entered Cajamarca, brought by a brother of Atahualpa. They were “three hundred loads of gold and silver in jars and big pots and other diverse pieces”.

Francisco Pizarro, from Cajamarca, commissioned an orejón or Inca nobleman (possibly a brother of Atahualpa), together with the Spaniards Pedro Martín de Moguer, Martín Bueno and Juan de Zárate (who volunteered), to travel to Cuzco. Their mission was to hasten the shipment of the gold and silver, take possession of the capital of the Empire and get information about its situation.

The commissioners left Cajamarca on February 15, 1533, accompanied by black slaves and hundreds of Indian allies. The Spaniards went in hammocks carried by many Indians and with the confidence inspired by the company of the Inca nobleman, who guaranteed the respect of the natives towards their persons.

The three Spaniards arrived in Jauja, continued on to Vilcashuamán, and finally, after two weeks of travel, they sighted the great city of Cuzco, of which they were undoubtedly impressed. They were the first Europeans to see the capital of the Incas. The Atahualpista general Quizquiz was stationed there, with troops from Quito numbering some 30,000 men. He welcomed the Spaniards in a friendly manner, as they were accompanied by the orejón or Inca nobleman, leaving them free to act. The Spaniards proceeded to loot the city as much as they could, and even sacked the gold plates of the temple of Coricancha. When they discovered the acllahuasi or house of the virgins of the sun, they raped the maidens.

The three Spaniards returned to Cajamarca carrying some 600 arrobas of gold, not being able to take the silver cargo, for being excessive, leaving it in the care of Quizquiz, who promised to keep it until the arrival of Francisco Pizarro. One of those Spaniards, Juan de Zarate, who was a scribe, informed Pizarro that “possession had been taken in the name of His Majesty in that city of Cuzco”, among other things, such as the number and description of the existing cities between Cajamarca and Cuzco, the amount of gold and silver collected. An important fact that they informed Pizarro was the presence in Cuzco of general Quízquiz with “thirty thousand men of garrison.” (March 1533).

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The death of Huáscar

Atahualpa, in his prison, was easy-going, cheerful and talkative with the Spaniards, although without ever losing his solemnity of a great monarch. His captors allowed him to have all the comforts, being attended by their servants and their wives. He demonstrated superior intelligence. The Spaniards taught him to play chess and dice.

Atahualpa was visited every night by Francisco Pizarro. Both had dinner and conversed through an interpreter. In one of these conversations, the Spaniard learned that Huáscar, Atahualpa”s brother and rival, was alive and imprisoned by the Atahualpistas, in the vicinity of Cuzco. Pizarro made Atahualpa promise not to kill his own brother and to bring him back to Cajamarca safe and sound.

In effect, Huáscar was transferred towards Cajamarca, through the roads of the mountain range, with his shoulders pierced with the ropes dragged by his custodians. At some point Huáscar, already aware of Atahualpa”s imprisonment at the hands of strange people, learned that he had offered an enormous treasure in gold and silver for his freedom. It is said that at that moment, Huascar said aloud that he was the true owner of all those metals, and that he would give them to the Spaniards to save himself and it would be Atahualpa who would be killed. Apparently, this reached the ears of Atahualpa, who then decided to eliminate Huáscar before he met the Spaniards, sending a messenger with the order. The atahualpistas fulfilled the mission: they threw Huáscar from a cliff to the river Andamarca (in the mountain range of Áncash). Also, the wife and the mother of Huáscar, who accompanied him in their captivity, were murdered. This must have happened around February 1533.

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The arrival of Almagro

On March 25, 1533, shortly before Hernando Pizarro”s return from Pachacámac, Diego de Almagro arrived in Cajamarca. He brought 120 men from Tierra Firme and 84 horses, plus 30 soldiers from Nicaragua who joined him in the bay of San Mateo. In total, 150 men. Among them were the treasurer Alonso de Riquelme, and two of the Thirteen of Fame, Nicolás de Ribera the Elder and Martín de Paz. There were also Nicolás de Heredia, Juan de Saavedra, among others.

Almagro and his men were completely disappointed to learn that they were not entitled to any of the fabulous ransom from the Sapa Inca, as they had arrived too late. However, they were somewhat reassured to learn that, from now on, all the proceeds would be divided among them all. But for this to be feasible, the Inca had to die, which is why Almagro was one of those who instigated the execution of Atahualpa, against the opinion of the brothers Francisco and Hernando Pizarro, especially the latter, who befriended the captive Inca.

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Gold and silver smelting

Meanwhile, shipments of precious metals continued to arrive in Cajamarca. On March 28, 1533, a shipment of gold and silver came in from Jauja, bringing “one hundred and seven loads of gold and seven of silver.”

Pizarro and his men, anxious to share out the ransom, did not wait for the rooms to be filled and set about the task of distribution. On May 13, 1533, they began to melt the gold and silver pieces, a task that was carried out by indigenous metallurgists, according to their method. It took them a whole month to do the work, and fifty or sixty thousand pesos were melted every day. The throne or seat that the Inca used when he walked in the square of Cajamarca, which was a piece of great value, because it was 11 carat gold and weighed 83 kilos, did not enter the foundry. This piece remained in the possession of Francisco Pizarro.

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The distribution of the treasure

On June 17, 1533, once the smelting was completed, Francisco Pizarro ordered the distribution of the booty by proclamation. The following day he presided over the distribution, and the total amount of gold was “one million, three hundred and twenty-six thousand, five hundred and thirty-nine pesos of gold” (1,326,539 pesos of gold). The total melted silver was valued at “fifty-one thousand six hundred and ten marks.” (51,610 silver marks). To give an idea of the magnitude of the value of the gold, Prescott says that “bearing in mind the greater value of the coinage in the sixteenth century, it would come to be equivalent in the present (nineteenth century) to about three and a half millions sterling or a little less than fifteen and a half millions duros… History offers no examples of such a haul, all in precious metal and reducible as it was to constant money.”

Pizarro, according to his criteria, rewarded some with more and took something away from others. Next, we review some data taken from the act of distribution of the ransom of Atahualpa raised by the notary Pedro Sanchez de la Hoz. For the bishopric of Tumbes, 2220 pesos of gold and 90 marks of silver were set aside. Pizarro, the Governor, was granted 57,220 pesos of gold and 2350 marks of silver. Hernando Pizarro was allotted 31,080 pesos and 1267 marks; Hernando de Soto, 1,740 pesos and 724 marks; Juan Pizarro, 11,100 pesos and 407.2 marks; Pedro de Candía, 9,909 pesos and 407.2 marks; Sebastián de Benalcázar, 9. 909 pesos and 407.2 marks… Those on horseback received in total 610,131 pesos of gold and 25,798.60 marks of silver, giving an individual average of 8880 pesos of gold and 362 marks of silver. The infantrymen received a total of 360,994 gold pesos and 15,061.70 silver marks, giving an individual average of 4,440 gold pesos and 181 silver marks. Some more or some less; these are only averages.

Some 15,000 pesos of gold were also given to the neighbors who remained in San Miguel. In spite of the fact that Diego de Almagro and his host did not receive any of the ransom, Pizarro wanted to be generous and gave them 20. Almagro had asked that he and his companions receive half the amount of the ransom that those of Cajamarca received. As they did not agree, this was another reason for the two partners to distance themselves further, dragging into their differences the soldiers who were under the command of each of them.

Pablo Macera gives us figures calculating the weight of gold and silver in kilograms: “The Rescue of Atahualpa consisted of 6,087 kilograms of gold and 11,793 kilograms of silver. Each mounted soldier received 40 kilograms of gold and 80 kilograms of silver. To the peons, half. To the soldiers with dogs more than to the peons. To Pizarro 7 times as much as to a horse rider, in addition to the throne of Atahualpa that weighed 83 kilograms of gold. The priests received half as much as a peon.”

Many Spaniards then decided to return to Spain, with a view to enjoying in their homeland the riches they had obtained; and so it was that some thirty of those who had participated in the capture of the Inca, laden with gold and silver, arrived in Seville at the beginning of 1535. However, they had not been able to learn that, by order of Charles I, all their goods would be confiscated as soon as they disembarked, since the emperor was raising funds to finance his conquest of North Africa. The chronicler Jerez, one of those who abandoned the conquest, says that the abundance of money was so great that it caused the value of things to increase enormously. It has been said that this was the first inflation in the history of Peru. This phenomenon also occurred in Spain, when treasures from Peru arrived in Seville.

The conquerors were able to do all this thanks to the cooperation provided by the Indians and the tranquility that reigned in the Empire. Nothing disturbed the peace of the Spaniards: none of the generals of Atahualpa, neither Rumiñahui in the north, nor Chalcuchímac in the center, nor Quizquiz in the south, mobilized their armies, possibly in compliance with the order of the Sapa Inca who waited for his freedom. We have already seen that even Chalcuchímac was brought to Cajamarca by Hernando Pizarro, where he was guarded; he was even tortured with fire so that he would reveal the place where he hid the treasure of the ransom coming from Cusco. The atahualpista general limited himself to answer that all the gold was kept by Quizquiz in that city. He suffered burns in his legs and was left under the custody of Hernando Pizarro.

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Hernando Pizarro”s trip to Spain

On June 12, 1533, Hernando Pizarro left Cajamarca for Spain, commissioned to take what until that day had been separated from the Quinto Real. Francisco Pizarro thus got rid of one of the most fervent defenders of the Inca”s life; he evidently planned to put an end to the problem of Atahualpa”s imprisonment. Hernando arrived at San Miguel de Tangarará; there he embarked for Panama. Crossing the isthmus, he embarked again, bound for Seville, Spain. The first of the four ships arrived in Seville on December 5, 1533, with the Spaniards Cristobal de Mena and Juan de Sosa (the gold and silver that was disembarked from this ship amounted to 38,946 pesos). On January 4, 1534, the ship Santa María del Campo, in which Hernando Pizarro was embarked, arrived and anchored in Seville.

He disembarked with 153,000 pesos of gold and 5,048 marks of silver. Everything brought from Peru was deposited at the Casa de Contratación in Seville; from there it was transferred to the King of Spain”s quarters. Finally, on June 3, 1534, the other two ships arrived, where Francisco de Jerez, first secretary of Governor Francisco Pizarro and Francisco Rodriguez were embarked in one and the other ship; 146,518 pesos of gold and 30,511 marks of silver were disembarked from these ships. Villanueva says that the total disembarked by the four ships “… was valued at 708,580 pesos. The peso and the castellano were equivalent currencies; but each was equal to 450 maravedíes. The molten gold alone (converted into bars and other pieces) was valued at 318,861,000 maravedíes. The molten silver was worth 180,307,680 maravedíes.”

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The Atahualpa process

One of the events of the conquest of Peru of which there is a lack of reliable documentation is the process that was followed to the Inca Atahualpa. Everything indicates that Pizarro never had the intention of letting the Sapa Inca go free. When the distribution of the ransom was finished, the situation of the Spaniards in Cajamarca became thorny for Pizarro. Especially because of the people who had arrived with Almagro, who were anxious to get into action and march south, towards the still unknown territories.

The character of the Inca and his dignified behavior, made many of Pizarro”s captains take sides with him. Among them Hernando de Soto and Hernando Pizarro, who tenaciously opposed the death of Atahualpa, stand out. In particular, the friendship that Hernando Pizarro had with the Inca is highlighted. As for Soto, it is said that he wanted Atahualpa to be taken to Spain. But others, the most, wanted the elimination of the Inca, among them Almagro and his followers (who wanted to leave Cajamarca and continue with the conquest), the priest Valverde (who was scandalized by the “sins” of the Inca), the treasurer Riquelme and others.

It is also worth mentioning the role played by the interpreter Felipillo, who set his eyes on one of Atahualpa”s young fiancées, Cuxirimay Ocllo, which attracted the wrath of the Sapa Inca. Pizarro himself had to intervene to force Felipillo to desist from his pretensions. The interpreter took revenge of the Inca transmitting alarming news to the Spaniards, pretending that he was preparing his escape in connivance with his generals and was planning the death of all the Christians.

Francisco Pizarro once again used cunning, hatching a scheme to get rid of Atahualpa. His brother Hernando was already far away, commissioned to take the Royal Fifth to Spain. Only Hernando de Soto remained as the only prominent opponent of the Inca”s death. Pizarro, taking advantage of the denunciations formulated against the Inca, in the sense that he was in secret connivances with his captains to attack the Spaniards by surprise, dispatched Hernando de Soto with a strong endowment toward Huamachuco, in order to verify and to beat if it was necessary to the Indians that were in war footing. Thus Soto being set aside, Pizarro made open a process to the Inca with the purpose of justifying the sentence of death that he had reserved him.

The tribunal that judged Atahualpa was a court martial. Francisco Pizarro himself presided over it. It was made up of a “doctor” (not identified) and a notary (possibly Pedro Sancho de la Hoz). It is also probable that the treasurer Alonso de Riquelme, the mayor Juan de Porras, the friar Vicente de Valverde and some captains like Diego de Almagro, Pedro de Candía, Juan Pizarro and Cristóbal de Mena were also part of the council. A prosecutor, a defender of the defendant and ten witnesses were also appointed. The trial was summary and was carried out in Cajamarca, beginning on July 25, 1533, and culminating at dawn the following day. It is said that the answers of the Inca, as the declarations of the witnesses must have been rigged and modified by the interpreter Felipillo, who thus finished off his revenge against the Inca.

Vargas Ugarte says that about the process, “we do not know nor has it reached our hands and therefore, about it there are only conjectures”. He adds that the famous questions of the process mentioned in the General History of Peru (Book 1, chapter 37) of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, “or they were a fudge of the Inca Historian, quite prone to weave these tangles, or, they were suggested to him, or to some of the chroniclers of then the parties of Cuzco that, in the brother of Huáscar they did not see but a bloodthirsty usurper”. However, the historian Del Busto considers that these questions may well deserve some credibility. The questions transcribed by Garcilaso were the following:

What women had Huayna Cápac had had? If Huáscar was legitimate son and Atahualpa bastard? If Huayna Cápac had had other children other than those mentioned? How had Atahualpa come to take possession of the Empire? Was Huáscar declared heir of his father or did this one depose him? When and how did the death of Huáscar take place? Did Atahualpa force his subjects to sacrifice women and children to their gods? Had the wars that Atahualpa fought been just, with many people perishing in them? Had the riches of the Empire been squandered? Did he favor his relatives in these squanderings? Did he give orders to put the Spaniards to death when he was imprisoned?

Atahualpa was found guilty of idolatry, heresy, regicide, fratricide, treason, polygamy and incest and was condemned to death by burning at the stake. The sentence was given on July 26, 1533, and the execution was scheduled for the same day. Atahualpa rejected all the accusations and asked to speak privately with Pizarro, but Pizarro refused.

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The execution of Atahualpa

At 7:00 p.m. Atahualpa was taken out of his cell and taken to the center of the square, where he was nailed to a log. There, surrounded by Spanish soldiers carrying torches and the priest Valverde, he was placed with his back to the trunk and then tied tightly, while at his feet logs were placed. A Spaniard approached with a lit fire. Seeing that he was going to be burned, Atahualpa entered into a dialogue with Valverde. Worried about the fact that his body would be consumed by the flames and not preserved as was the custom among the Incas, he accepted Valverde”s offer, that is, to be baptized as a Christian in order to change the penalty of the stake for that of the garrote (in that way his body would be buried). He was baptized there and they named him Francisco (not Juan, as some versions say). Then a rope was wrapped around his neck, tightening it to the trunk, and applying a tourniquet, he was strangled (July 26, 1533).

There has been much discussion about the date of this event. Prescott mentions August 29 as the date of the execution of the Inca, but Maria Rostworowski considers it erroneous:

“…it seems logical to suppose that the death of Atahualpa occurred after June 8 and before July 29, 1533. The Spaniards stayed still a few days in Cajamarca preparing the departure that took place towards the middle of August. On the 26th they were already in Andamarca and on September 2nd in Huaylas. It is important to clarify the date of the death of Atahualpa and to rectify that it did not take place on August 29 as it has been suggested without any foundation”.

It was the Peruvian historian Rafael Loredo who set the date on July 26, based on a document he found in the Archive of the Indies in Seville in 1954, which states the following:

“And in the said town of Caxamalca on thirty-one days of the said month of July in the presence of the said officers of S.M. manifested Francisco Pizarro one thousand one hundred and eighty-five pesos in carved pieces of Indians that he said had been given to him by the cacique Atahualpa and manifested to them after the death of the said Atahualpa five days.”

This gives us the date of July 26, 1533. The historian Del Busto supports this date.

Dead Atahualpa, finished the dynasty of the Incas, who governed the biggest Empire of the pre-Columbian America (although Atahualpa was not recognized by the royal panacas cusqueñas, the Spaniards if they considered it Sapa Inca). To keep up appearances, and to have an insurance until the taking of Cuzco, Francisco Pizarro, decided to name another Inca, title that fell on another of the sons of the Inca Huayna Capac: Túpac Hualpa, that the Spanish chroniclers name as Toparpa, a puppet ruler, who recognized vassalage to the king of Spain.

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The march to Cusco begins

In spite of having almost dominated the north of the Inca Empire, of having several curacas as hostages and having assassinated the Inca and of having the support of many huascaristas Indians and of the diverse ethnic groups or nations that hoped to be liberated of the Inca yoke, the Spaniards still had not consolidated the conquest. The Spaniards knew that the road that went to Cuzco, the capital of the Tahuantinsuyo, was threatened by the troops atahualpistas, whose leader was Quizquiz.

Pizarro decided to leave Cajamarca, heading south towards Cuzco. Previously, he sent a retinue of 10 soldiers to San Miguel with the purpose of waiting in that place for the first ship coming from Panama or Nicaragua. With what was disembarked, they were to meet him on the way.

The Spanish host left Cajamarca on Monday, August 11, 1533, very early in the morning. They were approximately 400 Spaniards and an unknown but large number of Indian warriors allied to the Spaniards, as well as native cargo carriers, mostly Cajamarca Indians, who transported the gold and silver. There was also, as prisoner, the atahualpista general Chalcuchímac, still with the sequels of the tortures he had suffered in Cajamarca, but who was still feared for his quality of military leader.

In the vanguard was Túpac Hualpa or Toparpa, the Sapa Inca crowned by the Spaniards, accompanied by a large retinue of courtiers, all happy because they were going to recover Cuzco. Behind advanced the Spanish infantrymen, then followed the Indian carriers, guarded by the black slaves and the Nicaraguan Indians; at the end were the Spanish horsemen.

In the first day of trip, after advancing some leagues, they camped near the Cajamarca river. It was there where they learned of the death of Huari Tito, brother of Túpac Hualpa, who had gone out to verify the good state of the bridges and roads. The authors of the crime were the atahualpistas.

They arrived in Cajabamba on August 14 and in Huamachuco on August 17. The latter was a city of stone, whose outline was reminiscent of Cajamarca; it was the capital of a great lordship and religious center where the god Catequil was worshipped. They still remembered the profanation committed some time before by Atahualpa, who had knocked down the idol and murdered its old priest; for them, the Huamachucos were huascaristas and received the Spaniards as liberators. After recovering his strength for two days, Pizarro continued the march to the south, sending previously an advance guard under the command of Diego de Almagro. Both met in Huaylas, on August 31, 1533, where they rested for a week.

On September 8, the Spaniards continued the march south through the so-called Callejón de Huaylas. They passed through Andamarca, Corongo, Yungay, Huaraz and Recuay.

On October 1, the Spaniards arrived at Cajatambo. There, Pizarro reinforced his vanguard and rearguard, before the fear of uprisings and attacks of the natives, worrying about the fact that the towns where they passed were always abandoned.

On October 2, the Spaniards left Cajatambo, arriving the next day at Oyón, at 4,890 meters above sea level. On October 4 they continued the march, turning towards the road that crosses the mountain range of Huayhuash. They sighted the lagoon of Chinchaycocha, bordering it for their western side and they sighted the river Mantaro. In the road, Francisco Pizarro found out, for informants, that the generals atahualpistas Yncorabaliba, Yguaparro and Mortay, came recruiting people of war in Bombón (and that they knew the movements of the Spaniards for news sent for Chalcuchímac. The chronicler Sancho de la Hoz, says that the motive of the atahualpistas was that “they wanted war with the Christians, because they saw the land won by the Spaniards and wanted to govern it themselves”.

The Spaniards continued to Bombón, town that they occupied on October 7. Pizarro redoubled the vigilance, because he feared an attack of the atahualpistas. At night he learned that five leagues from Jauja the Quiteños and other Indians of war had gathered, whose plan was to retreat to Cuzco and join Quizquiz, but not before leaving the whole town of Jauja devastated so that the Spaniards would not find anything to supply themselves with. Pizarro did not want to lose time and went ahead towards Jauja (October 9). He took Chalcuchímac in chains, perhaps with the purpose of using him as hostage.

The Spaniards arrived at Chacamarca, where they found 70,000 pesos in gold, part of Atahualpa”s ransom, which had remained there after the Inca”s death. Pizarro left the gold in the care of two horsemen and continued his march. The whole landscape was silent. No spies were to be seen. At dusk on October 10, the Spaniards arrived at Tarma, without encountering any resistance. There they spent the night, suffering hunger, thirst, rain and hail. At dawn they resumed their march to Jauja.

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Battle of Jauja or Huaripampa

Two leagues from Jauja, Pizarro divided his army. Once near, he realized that the town was intact; moreover, they received a cordial welcome from the Indians, “celebrating his coming, because they thought that with it they would get out of the slavery in which foreign people held them”. The valley of Jauja was so beautiful that the Spaniards could not suppress their admiration.

But Pizarro not only found friendly people in Jauja, but also the atahualpistas troops of the generals Yurac Huallpa and Ihua Paru, on war footing. The confrontation resulted in an atrocious slaughter of Indians; the Spaniards and the auxiliary Indians, ambushed the troops atahualpistas, making a great slaughter. The same locals, enemies of the Quiteños, helped the Spaniards to exterminate them, indicating where they were hiding. This warlike encounter is known as the battle of Jauja or Huaripampa.

These Quiteñas troops had been sent by the generals Yncorabaliba, Yguaparro and Mortay, who were with the bulk of his army 6 leagues from Jauja and in permanent contact with the army of Quizquiz, who was stationed in Cusco. When Francisco Pizarro found out, he sent a group of his soldiers to confront them, but the atahualpistas made them retreat. Pizarro, before this, pretended to attack them by surprise; but he was deceived and when he wanted to continue toward Cusco, he realized that the strategic bridges had been cut.

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Death of Tupac Hualpa

In Jauja Túpac Hualpa died mysteriously. It is said that he/she was already sick since the departure of Cajamarca and that in Jauja he/she worsened: suddenly he/she lost the knowledge and he/she fell fainted. The rumor that ran was that Chalcuchímac had poisoned him, giving him a drink of delayed lethal action in Cajamarca. But for the time being Pizarro ignored this suspicion and summoned Chalcuchímac and other Inca collaborationist nobles who traveled with him, so that they proposed a new Sapa Inca. In this meeting and in front of the common enemy, again the differences between huascaristas and atahualpistas were noticed, what was exploited skillfully by Francisco Pizarro. Chalcuchímac, proposed Aticoc, son of Atahualpa from Quito, while the Cuzco nobles proposed a brother of the dead Sapa Inca, but of Cuzco origin. As they were close to Cuzco, Pizarro, skillfully, decided for the Inca of Cuzco origin.

While the Inca nobles were looking for this Sapa Inca from Cusco, Pizarro sent expeditions to the coast, with the purpose of finding suitable places to install maritime ports, and waiting for the results, he stayed in Jauja. In the meantime, he sent another herd to Cusco, in order to replace the bridges that had been cut.

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Spanish settlement in Jauja

Pizarro realized that he had gone far away from San Miguel de Tangarará, the first city he founded in Peru, without leaving on the way cantonments to keep what he had gained. Attracted by the region in which he was now, which was abundant of maintenance and very populated of friendly natives (the huancas), he decided to make in her the second population of Spaniards. It was at that time that the phrase “country of Jauja” originated, to indicate a place prodigal in riches. It is understood that the Huancas were too helpful with the Spaniards, because they saw them as allies to fight against the Incas, their sworn enemies.

Pizarro informed his people of his project, receiving a good reception. Some eighty Spaniards asked to be admitted as neighbors and offered to guard the gold and silver of their companions, while they continued their march to Cusco. Preparations for the foundation were beginning to be made when Pizarro received alarming news from his Huanca allies: the Atahualpistas were ravaging the fields, destroying their crops and becoming more numerous. So he postponed the foundation and decided to continue the march.

Leaving a small garrison under the command of the treasurer Alonso de Riquelme, Pizarro left with the rest of his army, continuing the journey to Cusco. It was October 27, 1533; he had remained 15 days in Jauja. Captain Hernando de Soto had gone ahead of him, in command of an advance guard of horsemen.

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Battle of Vilcas or Vilcashuamán

The Spaniards, in their journey throughout the Mantaro Valley, continued to receive the support of the Huancas, an alliance that would be of vital importance for the conquest. They arrived at the town of Panarai (Paucaray) on October 30, 1533, finding it destroyed, although they were able to find some food. Continuing the trip, on October 31, 1533 they arrived at the town of Tarcos (Parcos), where they were received by a cacique who entertained them with food and drink, and informed them about the passage of Hernando de Soto, who was preparing to fight against the atahualpistas entrenched in the vicinity. Continuing the march, Pizarro arrived to a semi-destroyed town (possibly the present Tambillo de Illahuasi), where he received a letter from Hernando de Soto, who referred him the combat that he sustained in Vilcas, five leagues ahead. It was November 3.

Indeed, Hernando de Soto, who was in advance with a group of Spanish horsemen and a large army of allied Jauja and Huanca Indians, had arrived at Vilcas (today Vilcashuamán), the site of an imposing Inca citadel, guarded by Atahualpa soldiers under the command of Apo Maila, but who at that time were in the countryside, engaged in a great chaku or hunt. Only the women, who were taken captive by Soto, were in Vilcas. When Apo Maila learned of the presence of the Spaniards, he hurriedly returned to defend the fortress. A fierce battle ensued between October 27 and 28, 1533. The Spaniards and their indigenous allies were surrounded by numerous forces, but were able to resist firmly. Apo Maila fell in the fight and his troops, demoralized, retreated, pursued by the Spanish horsemen. However, the Quiteño forces rallied and counterattacked. To appease the besiegers, Soto entered into negotiations and handed over the women he had captured in the citadel. Soon after, Quizquiz ordered his troops to retreat further south, as the bulk of the Spanish troops, with Pizarro at their head, were approaching Vilcas. The Spaniards had several wounded and one horse killed.

Something that also contributed to weaken the attacks of the atahualpistas, in this section of the trip toward Cusco, was the fact that they had the Spaniards as hostage to the general Chalcuchímac, man very dear for their troops. They feared the retaliation of Pizarro and the death of the brave general atahualpista.

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Spanish march continues

Pizarro arrived at Vilcas on November 4 and ascertained that Soto had left there two days before. The following day, Pizarro continued his march. At the height of Curamba he noticed that there were gauges or large stones placed on the top of the hills, with a clear warlike purpose, which gave him a bad feeling. Fearing that Soto had been attacked again, he sent Diego de Almagro to his aid, with thirty horsemen.

On November 6, Pizarro entered Andahuaylas (Andabailla, for the Spaniards), unmolested, where he spent the night. The next day they continued to Airamba, where they found two dead horses, which worried Pizarro about the fate of Hernando de Soto and his people. But immediately he received another letter from Soto, where he informed him that he was on the road to Cusco, which was blocked, but that there were no enemy Indian troops and that the horses had died from “getting so hot and cold”. He did not mention Almagro, a sign that they had not yet met.

Leaving Andahuaylas, Pizarro continued his trip passing by Curahuasi and being near a great river (the Apurímac), he received a third letter of Soto, with the news that he was cornered in Vilcaconga by a grown number of warrior Indians. The letter was interrupted abruptly and the Indian messenger did not know how to give news of what had happened later, because he left to bring the message very late at night. This made Pizarro fear that Soto and his troop had already been exterminated.

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Battle of Vilcaconga

What had happened was that Hernando de Soto and his people wanted to get ahead in reaching Cusco, to seize its riches and not share with the rest of the Spaniards. But after fording a river, to which he had cut the bridges, he found himself with troops atahualpistas, that locked battle in the steep slope of Vilcaconga (November 8, 1533). These troops belonged to the army of Quizquiz, and they had as allies the Tarma Indians; their chief was Yurac Huallpa. The Tarmas were allied with Quizquiz because previously they had suffered a serious affront on the part of Soto: their ambassadors whom they sent to request alliance with the Spaniards were mutilated, because Soto did not trust them and feared a deceit.

The atahualpistas had realized that the Spaniards were already tired, as were their horses and dogs, so, of their own free will, sometimes without orders from Quizquiz, they attacked the Spaniards. That was what happened after the fording of the river, when going up the slope, they were attacked by the Quiteños, who pressed so hard that they killed five Spanish horsemen. “Five Christians whose horses could not climb to the top, the crowd charged so hard that it was impossible for two of them to get off and they killed them on top of their horses…”; “they opened their heads in the middle with their axes and truncheons”. The five dead Spaniards were: Hernando de Toro (the Basque Gaspar de Marquina and Miguel Ruiz.

After this attack, the atahualpistas went to a nearby hill, waiting for a frank confrontation, “almost concerted, always hoping for a friendly settlement”, a custom of Andean warfare; while Hernando de Soto resorted to deception, pretending to take refuge in a plain, pretending to flee, while a part of the imperial troop, pursued them with slingshots, until once they were far enough away from the bulk of the Quiteño troops, the cavalry overtook them and attacked them, annihilating them. When the bulk of the Atahualpista army saw this, they retreated, but the two armies were camped so close together that they could hear each other”s voices.

The unexpected arrival of Diego de Almagro, with 40 on horseback, announced by the trumpet of Pedro de Alconchel, made the Indians retreat, without presenting battle. That is the Spanish version; according to the version of Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Quizquiz ordered the retreat, because he was informed that Manco Inca, the noble Inca of the cuzqueño or huascarista side (that is to say, enemy of the atahualpistas), was marching against him to fight him, which seriously compromised his rearguard. Manco Inca also kept the purpose of allying with the Spaniards, and justly it was already going to the encounter of these.

Once the adversity was overcome, Hernando de Soto and Diego de Almagro continued their journey together towards Cuzco, when they were informed of the presence of a troop sent by Quizquiz, so they decided to entrench themselves in a town, where they waited for Francisco Pizarro.

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Death of Chalcuchímac

Aware of the attacks that his advance guard headed by Soto had suffered, Francisco Pizarro suspected that all his movements were being spied on and that Chalcuchímac was the one who was sending these reports to the atahualpista troops. Continuing the road and being already near Cuzco, Diego de Almagro appeared in Pizarro”s camp and they continued until where Hernando de Soto was. United in this way, they continued that same day to Jaquijahuana (Sacsahuana), where they camped (November 12, 1533).

On the way, a very important event occurred: the warlike Cañaris, with their leader Chilche, offered their support to the Spaniards, who gladly accepted. This ethnic group, coming from the current territory of Ecuador, had been part of Quizquiz”s army, but due to a disagreement with this chief, they surrendered en masse to the Spaniards.

Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Soto, convinced Francisco Pizarro, that the attacks of the atahualpistas in Vilcashuamán and in Vilcaconga were product of the “infidencia of Chalcuchímac”, because otherwise it was not understood that the enemy knew the movement of the Spaniards to the detail. Pizarro knew that, in fact, it had been the indiscipline of Soto the one that had caused the death of the Spaniards in Vilcacaconga, when wanting to go ahead to take Cusco, but he dissimulated, because Soto was chief of a numerous host and it was not convenient in those instants to create division among them.

The Spanish chiefs agreed to condemn Chalcuchímac to die at the stake. Through an interpreter, the priest Valverde tried to persuade the Inca captain to become a Christian, telling him that those who were baptized and believed in Jesus Christ went to the glory of paradise, and those who did not believe in him, went to hell. But Chalcuchímac refused to become a Christian, saying that he did not know what that law was and began to invoke his god Pachacámac so that, through Captain Quizquiz, he would come to his aid.

Chalcuchímac died burned alive in the square of Jaquijahuana, refusing at all times to be baptized as a Christian (November 12, 1533). A chronicler affirms that “all the people of the land were infinitely glad of his death, because he was very hated by all for knowing how cruel he was”. Pizarro promised that he would catch and do the same with Quizquiz, the other Atahualpista general who continued in rebellion. The following day, the visit of a Quechua or Cuzco prince to the Spanish camp was announced, which took Pizarro by surprise.

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Manco Inca allies with the Spaniards

On November 14, 1533, he/she appeared in Francisco Pizarro”s camp, in Jaquijahuana, Manco Inca, son of Huayna Cápac, of cuzqueña descent (that is to say, of the huascarista side). This character, also called Manco II, was one of the sons of Huayna Capac with the imperial coya, born probably in 1515, so he was still very young. He had escaped from the slaughter of Cuzco nobles that the Atahualpistas made in Cuzco, during the civil war, and since that time he had remained hidden. Now he reappeared, to offer his support to the Spaniards, in the common war that they faced against the troops atahualpistas of Quizquiz. Pizarro gladly accepted this alliance, and hastened the march to Cusco, which according to Manco, was threatened to be set on fire by the Quizquiz.

Villanueva Sotomayor thinks that the Incas had observed the customs of the Spaniards, and that fatally, they could not take advantage of the weaknesses of the same ones, for the rivalries, product of the civil war that still continued, in spite of the presence of the true invader. And he/she graphs it very well, saying that Manco Inca, knew very well that the Spaniards in day Sunday, they didn”t eat red meat and having gone to fish with some Indians the “food of the Spaniards of the day of guard”, he/she received to a chasqui that advised him/her news of Cuzco. Manco Inca returned to the camp where Francisco Pizarro to tell him: “… he/she says that Quízquiz with their people of war goes to burn Cusco and that it is already near, and I have wanted to warn it to you so that you put remedy”.

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Battle of Anta

The adhesion of Manco Inca to the Spaniards, added more cuzqueñas troops to the side of Francisco Pizarro; this unexpected support, influenced in the spirit of the conqueror to enter to Cuzco. Already near the imperial city, they ran up against the hosts of Quizquiz, to which they presented battle in Anta. The atahualpistas attacked and managed to kill 3 horses and to wound many more; many Spaniards were also wounded (they were saved more than anything because they were protected with breastplates and metal helmets), and even several groups of horsemen retreated. But finally, seeing that it was improbable to win the battle, the men of Quizquiz withdrew; neither did they want to defend Cuzco, since they saw how difficult it would be to defend the imperial city street by street. Tired of a long campaign carried so far from their land, many of them wanted only to return to Quito.

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Seizure and looting of Cusco

Unhindered, Pizarro entered Cusco, together with Manco Inca, the Spanish host and the Inca allies (Huascaristas or Cusqueños).

“In this way the Governor entered with his people into that great city of Cuzco without any other resistance or battle, on Friday at the hour of High Mass, on the fifteenth day of the month of November in the year of the Birth of Our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ MDXXXIII .”

There is no doubt that Cuzco was the main city of the whole Tahuantinsuyo. When it was taken by the Spaniards, it significantly reduced native resistance, not only because the entire organization of the empire was located there, but also because of the significance it had for the Inca armies to see their capital taken and dominated by the Spaniards.

There are in the said city many other rooms and greatness; two rivers pass on both sides that are born one league (5.5 kilometers) above and from there until they reach the city and two leagues (11 kilometers) below, all are paved so that the water runs clean and clear and although it grows does not overflow; they have their bridges by which you enter the city ….

Pizarro arrived with his people to the great square plaza and, after scrutinizing its buildings, sent some peons to visit them. As they found nothing to make them suspicious, the governor took for himself the palace of Casana, the former home of the Inca Huayna Capac. Almagro took another palace that overlooked the square, located next to that of his companion. Gonzalo Pizarro did the same with that of Cora-Cora, mansion built by the Inca Túpac Yupanqui, according to historian José Antonio del Busto, it seems that the soldiers then asked for permission to loot the city and the governor granted them the grace, so the Spaniards entered the stone buildings, some of which had been burned by the atahualpistas but most of which were in good condition. Inside they did not find as much gold as they wanted to find, but they collected, instead, a great deal of silver and precious stones, glittering chaquira, artistic topos, metallic pitchers and multicolored plumeria. Then they visited the deposits of fine clothing, followed by deposits of food, shoes, ropes of all sizes, offensive and defensive weapons, copper bars, deposits of coca and chili; they also found deposits of flayed bodies used to make war drums.

The Spaniards continued the plundering towards the priestly quarters. First they went to the Acllahuasi or House of the Virgins, with the intention of raping the virgins of the Sun, but the atahualpistas had taken them away to save them from being profaned together with the gold and silver of the enclosure. Angry and full of indignation, they continued to the Coricancha expecting to find there “more gold than in all Cuzco together”. It is said that the soldiers were running through the streets of stone walls towards the Temple of the Sun when the Víllac Umu or high priest “full of holy anger” came out of the temple and, trying to block their way, warned them that to enter the sacred precinct they had to fast for a year, besides being barefoot and with a load on their shoulders. The Spaniards stopped for a moment and someone translated his words. When they understood these ideas, they burst out laughing and rushed inside the temple.

The gold and silver collected were melted down, obtaining 580,200 pesos of “good gold”. The quinto real represented 116,460 pesos of gold; in addition, the silver represented 25,000 marks: 170,000 “were of good silver in clean and good ware and plates, and the rest was not because it was in plates and pieces mixed with other metals as it was taken from the mine.”

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Proclamation of Manco Inca

Francisco Pizarro hastened to name Manco Inca Sapa Inca, for the reasons explained by Villanueva Sotomayor:

“On November 16, a year after the taking of Cajamarca and the capture of Atahualpa, Pizarro turned Manco Inca into Sapa Inca. … and he did it so quickly so that the lords and caciques did not go to their lands, that were of diverse provinces and very far from each other, and so that the natives, they did not join with those of Quito but that they had a separate lord to which they had to revere and obey and they were not flagged, and thus he ordered to all the caciques that they obeyed it for lord and they made everything what he commanded them”.

It was Inca custom that each curaca had his lodging in Cuzco, because he had to come to the imperial city to deliver his tributes to the Sapa Inca, to the festivities (mainly, to the Inti Raymi) and to any summons that was made from the “Navel of the world”. But, in addition, the auqui of the curaca (his brother or one of his sons) was always in Cusco, enjoying the favors of the court of the Inca. His permanence was the guarantee of the link between the Cuzco State and the domains of the curaca. He was a kind of hostage. If Pizarro did not choose to give the imperial command to Manco Inca, the auquis and the curacas who were at that time in Cuzco, could break that link and act in their own way. Perhaps, they could have joined the rebel troops of Quizquiz or organized the resistance in another way.

The nobles of Cusco did not yet realize that Francisco Pizarro was manipulating the government of the Empire by appointing as Sapa Inca first to Túpac Hualpa and then to Manco Inca, keeping them as hostages, even. To better organize the Inca resistance, the curacas of Cusco could well have named the new Inca from among the royal panacas and manage the government with more independence, but the civil war had already arrived to the capital of the empire. What is certain is that neither huascaristas nor atahualpistas did it, with what the opportunity was lost to unite again to the Empire and to offer to the Spaniards a more organized and effective resistance.

The other concept that could explain the isolated resistance would be the way of fighting of both armies: while the Incas offered battle in open field in a frank way; the Spaniards appealed to chicanery to defeat them even before presenting battle.

Manco Inca was proclaimed Sapa Inca, but at the same time vassal of the Spanish crown. The Spaniards called him Manco II, because they found out that the first Inca was also called Manco (Manco Capac). Francisco Pizarro made legalize the vassalage of Manco Inca one Sunday day leaving of mass to which he had attended together with him. He made them go out to the square to the Sapa Inca, and ordered his secretary Sancho de la Hoz to read the “demanda y requerimiento.” Pizarro followed the traditional Spanish protocol for these cases; at the end Pizarro embraced Manco Inca and Manco Inca returned the gesture, offering him chicha in a golden cup.

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Capi Battle

Pizarro, meanwhile, not to be harassed when he took Cuzco, organized another army with people of Manco Inca who managed to gather “five thousand warriors”. Pizarro ordered Hernando de Soto, to support this indigenous troop with 50 of horse, leaving Cuzco to present battle to Quizquiz to 5 leagues of the city, where his camp was. In the locality of Capi, both armies faced each other, of where the combined troop of Manco Inca and the Spaniards came out victorious, but without being able to round off their triumph. After this battle, they returned to Cusco. The general Paullu Inca, who commanded the troops of Manco Inca, pursued the army of Quizquiz, being defeated in that pursuit; in Cuzco the news was received “that they had died a thousand Indians”. Meanwhile Manco Inca requested to the curacas “people of war”, and in less than ten days, he/she had in Cuzco an army of 10 thousand warriors.

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Second battle of Jauja

Arrived the summer and the copious summer rains, no campaign was organized against the troops of Quizquiz. In February of 1534, the army of Manco Inca, that at the time counted on 25 thousand soldiers and the 50 of horse of Hernando of Soto, it was put in movement, pursuing to the general atahualpista, for the route of Vilcashuamán. Arriving to Vilcashuamán, the army of Manco Inca, rested; there they were notified that the army of Quizquiz was marching on Jauja. This worried the Spanish troops greatly, because in Jauja, the garrison that Pizarro had left during his advance on Cuzco was located. Not being able to cross the Pampas River on rafts, they took 20 days to rebuild the bridge destroyed by the atahualpistas.

Meanwhile, in Jauja a bloody battle was taking place between Captain Gabriel de Rojas y Cordova and General Quizquiz. The first had 40 Spaniards in his command, 20 of them horsemen, and was supported by 3000 huancas, especially jaujinos, mortal enemies of the atahualpistas. The Spaniards also lined up the Yanacona Indians on their side, who for the first time participated as soldiers. The Indo-Spanish alliance took effect and Quizquiz”s troops had to retreat without taking Jauja.

For their part, the horsemen of Hernando de Soto plus 4,000 warriors of the army of Paullu Inca, hurried to go to the aid of the Spaniards of Jauja. Manco Inca and the rest of his army, returned to Cuzco.

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Spanish foundation of Cusco

On March 23, 1534, Francisco Pizarro carried out the Spanish foundation of the city of Cuzco with the title of “The Very Noble and Great City of Cuzco”. The act of foundation, drawn up by the notary Pedro Sancho de la Hoz, was signed by Diego de Almagro, Hernando de Soto, Juan Pizarro and Captain Gabriel de Rojas y Cordova. The following day the first Cabildo was formed: as ordinary mayors were Francisco Beltrán de Castro and Pedro de Candía; and as aldermen, Juan Pizarro, Rodrigo Orgóñez, Gonzalo Pizarro, Pedro del Barco, Juan de Valdivieso, Gonzalo de los Nidos, Francisco Mexía and Diego Bazán. As in every Spanish city, the Plaza Mayor, the site of the church, was chosen and the distribution of lots, lands and Indians was made among the 40 Spaniards who decided to settle as neighbors.

Under the pretext of “teaching and doctrinating them in the things of our holy Catholic faith”, a number of Indians were given to the Spaniards for their use in work and taxes. Pizarro favored his friends in the distribution of lots, lands and natives. This diminished the already fragile Spanish cohesion, increased the differences and deepened the resentments among them.

At that time, news arrived that Pedro de Alvarado, the conquistador who acted in Mexico and Guatemala, was planning an expedition to Peru, gathering ships and people, with the evident purpose of snatching the conquest of the Inca empire from Pizarro and his men. That was one of the reasons that prompted Pizarro to found Cuzco, so that Alvarado would not argue that the land had no owner and that he could claim rights over it. Pizarro also sent Diego de Almagro to go down to the coast and take it in possession of the King of Spain. Then, as we have already seen, he sent Hernando de Soto with a party of horsemen and allied Indians in pursuit of Quizquiz. For his part, Pizarro enlisted to return to Jauja, where he left a garrison under the command of Alonso de Riquelme; he intended to found there a city destined to be the capital of his government.

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Spanish foundation of Jauja

Worried about the situation in Jauja, Francisco Pizarro, accompanied by Manco Inca and his army, left Cuzco heading north in search of Quizquiz. On the way he found the signs of war that the atahualpistas left in their retreat: burned bridges, razed fields of cultivation, plundered tambos. In Vilcas, he learned that Quizquiz and his army were retreating northward, having been repulsed by the Spaniards of Jauja and their Huanca allies. But along with this encouraging news came another worrying one: a son of Atahualpa was coming down from Quito with a large army of cannibal Indians, ready to avenge his father”s death. Pizarro then asked Manco Inca to warn his people to send a reinforcement of 2000 Indians; then he continued to Jauja, where he entered on April 20, 1534. There Riquelme received him with joy, who informed him of the events that had taken place.

On April 25, 1534, Pizarro founded the new Spanish city of Jauja, with the purpose of turning it into the capital of his government. The distribution of plots of land and other ceremonial acts for the occasion took place. In the meantime, reinforcements arrived from Cuzco, consisting of another 2,000 Indians, who joined the Spaniards.

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Battle of Maracaylla

Hernando de Soto and Paullu Inca, at the head of 20 Spaniards on horseback and 3000 Inca warriors, went in search of Quizquiz, reaching him in Maracaylla, where the confrontation took place (possibly at the end of May 1534). Villanueva, says that the confrontation was hard, although not of “body to body”, since an army was in a bank of the Mantaro river and the other one, in the other bank; the weapons that more were used in this battle, were the crossbow, arrows and “bows as of stone”. The Spaniards, decided to cross the river, while the troops atahualpistas initiated the retreat of the place, being pursued by the troops of Paullu Inca “until making them hide in a mount”. As they did not leave it, the troops of Paullu Inca, attacked them in that mount, dying several curacas comarcanos and thousands of the troops of Quizquiz, that retired, being pursued by Paullu Inca, “three leagues”. Maracaylla meant the definitive defeat of Quizquiz.

The atahualpista army retreated to Tarma. There, the local curaca prevented him from entering the town, presenting him with a battle. Quizquiz then continued his retreat towards Quito.

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Conquest of Quito

For his part, Diego de Almagro traveled along the coast. Near the ancient Chimu city of Chan Chan, he founded the first city of Trujillo.

Continuing further north, Almagro arrived at San Miguel de Tangarará (Piura), where he learned that Captain Sebastián de Belalcázar (who had remained there at the head of the Spanish garrison), had left for Quito, at the head of 200 men, attracted by the immense riches that the region was said to possess.

Belalcázar thus undertook, on his own, the conquest of Quito, where the Atahualpista general Rumiñahui, who had raised a large and brave army of Quiteños, was on the warpath. The Cañaris, who until then were part of the Quito confederation, allied with the Spaniards, and together they marched against Rumiñahui. The bloody battle of Tiocajas or Teocaxas was fought. In it the Cañaris revealed themselves as excellent warriors, thus becoming valuable auxiliaries of the Spaniards. The Spanish-Cañari troops managed to break the encirclement of the Quiteños and maneuvering with the cavalry, attacked the enemy from the rear, defeating him. Rumiñahui was fortified in Riobamba, where the Spaniards and Cañaris attacked him; although they were rejected at first, then they counterattacked making a detour and captured the city. Another Spanish victory took place in Pancallo, near Ambato.

It is very famous an episode of this war, which tells that, while Rumiñahui was about to win the Spanish and Cañari troops, the Tungurahua volcano erupted (July 1534), which caused part of his army, fearing the divine wrath, demoralized and withdrew, thus allowing the Spanish to counterattack and win the victory.

The Quiteños retreated further north. Rumiñahui, seeing that it was impossible to defend the city of Quito, abandoned it, taking its riches and killing the acllas or virgins of the sun, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Hispanics. Belalcázar entered Quito, finding it burned.

Rumiñahui, with the last remnants of his decimated troops, still put up some resistance at Yurbo, until he entered the jungle and was not heard from for some time.

After the retreat of Rumiñahui, Almagro and Benalcázar met near Riobamba, where they founded, in the plains of Cicalpa, near the Colta lagoon, the city of Santiago de Quito (antecedent of the current Quito), on August 15, 1534. But before consolidating the conquest, the two Spanish captains agreed to face another looming danger: the presence of the adelantado Pedro de Alvarado, who intended to take away their conquests.

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Pedro de Alvarado”s expedition

In fact, an expedition of four ships, coming from Guatemala and commanded by Pedro de Alvarado, had arrived at the coasts of present-day Ecuador, disembarking in Puerto Viejo, more precisely in the Bay of Caráquez, on February 10, 1534. In total there were 500 Spanish soldiers, of which 150 were on horseback, as well as 2,000 Central American Indians and a considerable number of blacks. They set out for Quito, through a tropical region populated by swamps and undergrowth. It was one of the most unfortunate expeditions of the Spanish conquest. Hunger and cold wreaked great havoc. Eighty-five Spaniards and six Castilian women died, as well as a large number of auxiliary Indians and black slaves, although no one bothered to keep an exact count. The march through the mountain range was equally painful, in the midst of snow that blinded the eyesight and at the precise moment when the Cotopaxi volcano was erupting. But Alvarado insisted in his determination to reach Quito and did not change course.

Concerned about the presence of Pedro de Alvarado in Peru, Francisco Pizarro instructed Diego de Almagro to negotiate with him. Almagro left Sebastián de Benalcázar as governor in Quito and went to meet Pedro de Alvarado. On the way, he met with the rebel Indians, whom he defeated in the battle of Liriabamba.

The meeting between Almagro and Alvarado took place in Riobamba. At first there was fear of a military confrontation between the two, to such an extent that Almagro”s interpreter, the famous Felipillo, seeing that Alvarado”s forces were more numerous, went to Alvarado”s camp and offered his support, taking with him some curacas or Indian chiefs. But both Spanish captains opted to hold talks to solve the problem peacefully. Alvarado maintained that the city of Cuzco was not included within the limits of Pizarro”s governorship, so anyone could go and march to conquer that city and the territories further south. Alvarado was wrong, but it is said that Almagro, at first, wanted to negotiate with him an alliance to go and conquer together the regions located to the south of Cuzco. But after three days of conversations, Almagro noticed that Alvarado”s titles were not entirely clear, so he chose to defend Pizarro”s cause. Almagro also took advantage of the occasion to win over Alvarado”s soldiers, who went over to his side. Pedro de Alvarado, seeing that he had everything to lose, opted to negotiate with Almagro: he decided to return to Guatemala, leaving in Peru his troops, ships and all the park, in exchange for a large sum of money: 100,000 pesos of gold. That compensation meant double the gold that Francisco Pizarro received in the distribution of Cajamarca. For only reaching Peru, Alvarado received more gold than he obtained for all his conquests in Mesoamerica. The agreement was signed on August 26, 1534.

Later, at the beginning of 1535, Alvarado met with Pizarro in Pachacámac, and received his payment in gold, and there were celebrations for this event. There were celebrations for this event. It is said that Pizarro, not so happy with the high price agreed upon, adulterated the gold with copper. In any case, for Pizarro and Almagro, it was a great business to have acquired the troops, the ships and the supplies brought by Pedro de Alvarado, because with them they could consolidate the conquest.

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Spanish foundation of Quito

Shortly after signing the pact with Alvarado, Almagro founded the town of San Francisco de Quito on August 28, 1534. This foundation was made in the plain of Cicalpa, in the same place where shortly before he founded the city of Santiago de Quito. Gonzalo Díaz, the notary, wrote the respective act. The town council officials were appointed and Sebastián de Benalcázar was designated as lieutenant governor. However, these were only nominal dispositions, since the conquest had not yet been defined.

Benalcázar stayed in Quito, while Diego de Almagro and Pedro de Alvarado began their march south, heading south to Peru to meet Pizarro.

Benalcázar was in charge of settling the Spanish conquest of Quito, which took him some months. Finally, on December 6, 1534, he entered, for the second time, in the center of the Inca city of Quitu, founding, on the rubble left by Rumiñahui, the town of San Francisco de Quito, the current city of Quito.

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Quizquiz campaign in the north of the country

While Almagro and Alvarado advanced south, Quizquiz, who had escaped the pursuit of Hernando de Soto and Manco Inca, reorganized his forces and marched towards the region of Quito. He planned to recover this city. Acting with skill, the atahualpista general managed to separate the forces of Almagro and Alvarado, and pounced on the latter. But Alvarado, a skilled military man with experience in the conquest of Mexico, went on the offensive and captured General Socta Urco, head of the Quizquiz vanguard.

Emboldened, Alvarado continued his advance southward, without waiting for Almagro, who had fallen behind. In a fight with Quizquiz he lost 14 Spaniards. For his part, Almagro faced an Atahualpista lieutenant, Huayna Palcón (a nobleman of Inca blood), without being able to dislodge him from the positions he occupied.

On another occasion, Quizquiz attacked the Spaniards as they were coming up a slope after crossing a river, killing 53 of them and a good number of horses. It was the first battle in which a large number of Spaniards died, if compared to the total number of the Hispanic host. However, about 4,000 atahualpistas men deserted and went over to the Spanish side (possibly they were the loaders, recruited by force). From then on, Quizquiz suffered great defeats, until finally, the last remnants of his troops were destroyed by Benalcázar in the second battle of Riobamba.

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Death of Quizquiz

Quizquiz, together with Huayna Palcón, retreated into the jungle to plan the strategy to follow in the fight against the Hispanic invaders. Quizquiz wanted to develop a guerrilla fight to rebuild his forces, to which Huayna Palcón was opposed. This one, apparently, wanted an understanding with the Spaniards. In the middle of the heated discussion, Huayna Palcón took a spear and pierced Quizquiz”s chest, killing him.

Thus ended the life of Atahualpa”s indomitable general who at all times remained faithful to his lord. It is known that, like Chalcuchímac, he was from Cuzco, of plebeian origin, and that for his military exploits he deserved his promotion to the privileged nobility. His Quechua name means “locust” and it is said that he adopted it because, like the sound of locusts, he frightened his enemies. It should be noted that of the famous trio of Atahualpa”s generals -Rumiñahui, Quisquis and Chalcuchímac- only the first was from Quito; however, it should be noted that all of them led troops from Quito in support of Atahualpa, confronting the Cusquenian or Huascarist side during the Inca civil war.

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The end of Rumiñahui

Rumiñahui tried to reorganize the indigenous resistance and recover Quito, but failed in the face of the powerful alliance forged between Spaniards and Indians. Although the Spaniards numbered only a few hundred, their indigenous allies numbered thousands; the latter were undoubtedly the ones who tipped the balance in favor of the European invaders. It was not only the Cañaris who supported the Spaniards, but also the Cuzco Indians, brought by Almagro, who clamored for revenge against the Quiteños for the massacres they had committed in Cuzco during the Inca civil war. The cuzqueños thought that the Spaniards were helping them to recover the region of Quito; soon they would realize their mistake. The indomitable Rumiñahui was finally reduced and captured along with some of his captains, being executed in Quito, in June 1535. He was possibly hanged, although a very popular legend says that he was burned alive in the current Plaza Grande of Quito.

With the death of Quizquiz and Rumiñahui, a whole cycle of the Spanish conquest of the Tahuantinsuyo was closed. In summary, this stage was marked by the resistance that the atahualpistas, under the command of Quizquiz and Rumiñahui, gave to the Spaniards, while these were supported by the cusqueños or huascaristas, as well as by diverse ethnic groups of the Inca empire, like the cañaris and the huancas. In the following stage, it would be the Incas themselves, that is to say, those of the ethnic group of Cuzco, who, under the command of Manco Inca, would undertake a war of Reconquest, confronting the Spaniards and their indigenous allies.

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The foundation of the City of the Kings (Lima)

With the entry of the Spaniards into the city of Cuzco in November 1533, the military conquest of the Tahuantinsuyo by Francisco Pizarro came to an end, and the development of the Spanish settlement in the area dominated until then by the Inca Empire began. The Spanish crown appointed Pizarro governor of the lands he had conquered, and he set out to find a suitable place to establish his capital.

Their first choice was the city of Jauja, however, this location was considered inconvenient due to its altitude and remoteness from the sea as it was located in the middle of the Andes. Spanish explorers found a better place in the Rimac valley, near the Pacific Ocean, with abundant water and wood supplies, extensive cultivated fields and a good climate. It was the town of Rimac (pronounced by the Yungas as Limac), inhabited by approximately 20,000 inhabitants and located in the territory of the curaca of Rimac, Taulichusco.

In what would become the Plaza Mayor of Lima, Pizarro, as was customary among the Spanish conquistadors, founded his new capital on an existing city on January 18, 1535 with the name of “City of the Kings”, so named in honor of the Epiphany. However, as had happened with the region, initially called New Castile and later Peru, the City of the Kings soon lost its name in favor of “Lima”. Pizarro, with the collaboration of Nicolás de Ribera, Diego de Agüero and Francisco Quintero personally laid out the Plaza de Armas and the rest of the city grid, building the Viceroyal Palace (today transformed into the Government Palace of Peru, which hence retains the traditional name of “Casa de Pizarro”) and the Cathedral, the first stone of which Pizarro laid with his own hands.

In August 1536, the flourishing city was besieged by Manco Inca”s troops, but the Spaniards and their indigenous allies managed to defeat them. In the following years Lima gained prestige when it was designated capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru and seat of a Royal Audience in 1543.

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Almagro”s Expedition to Collasuyo

With Spanish rule strengthened in the north of the Tahuantinsuyo, Almagro began preparations for his expedition to the Collasuyo under good auspices. News reached him from the Incas that the region south of Cuzco was populated with gold, so he easily gathered 500 Spaniards for the expedition, many of whom had not accompanied him to Peru. Also on the expedition were about 100 black slaves and about 1500 yanaconas to transport the weapons, clothes and supplies.

The news that arrived to them from the valley of Chile were absolutely false, because the Incas were planning a rebellion against their dominators and they wanted that so numerous group of Spaniards to move away from Peru, knowing that to the south they would only find hostile natives. To convince them, Almagro asked Manco Inca to prepare the way together with three Spanish soldiers, the Inca gave them Vila Oma (Inca high priest) and his brother Paullu Inca as guides.

Almagro asked Juan de Saavedra to go ahead with a column of 100 soldiers so that, at a distance of 130 leagues, he could found a town and wait for him with the food and relief Indians that he could gather in those regions.

Finished the preparations, the Spanish conqueror left Cuzco on July 3, 1535 with 50 men and stopped in Moina (5 leagues west of Cuzco) until the 20th of that month, stopped by the unexpected arrest of Manco Inca by Juan Pizarro, action that gave him problems. In Cuzco Almagro left Rodrigo Orgóñez recruiting soldiers to join the expedition, fulfilling Juan de Rada the same commission in the City of the Kings.

Leaving Moina behind, Almagro set out along the Qhapaq Ñan along the western area of Lake Titicaca. He crossed the Desaguadero River and met Saavedra in Paria (Bolivia) at the beginning of August, who had gathered 50 more Spaniards to his forces, who belonged to the group of Captain Gabriel de Rojas, and who decided to abandon their chief and head for Chile.

In Tupiza, Paullu Inca and Vila Oma had collected gold from the tributes of the region. The three Spaniards who accompanied them, while waiting for Almagro, had dedicated themselves to pillaging and continued their journey without waiting for him. A caravan that supposedly came from Chile with 90,000 pesos of fine gold from the tributes to the Inca was delivered to Almagro. In that city, the conquistador was informed of the two possible ways to reach Chile, discarding the inhospitable Atacama Desert.

Before Almagro reached Tupiza, Vila Oma escaped from the expedition with all the porters and returned north with plans to take advantage of the division of the Spanish forces. But Almagro and his men pressed on, as they still had Paullu Inca as an ally.

In the southern autumn of 1536 they arrived at the foot of the Andes, Almagro began the transmontada with approximately 2,500 men, including Spaniards, Yanaconas and black slaves. In their advance through the mountain range, the expedition suffered many hardships, since they walked exhausted by the cold and the freezing of their hands and feet, and in addition the hardships increased when going into that frozen, inhospitable and silent landscape, even stopping the advance due to lack of courage.

After crossing the mountain range they reached the Copiapó valley and continued south. In the Aconcagua valley the Indians were friendly, thanks to the influence that Gonzalo Calvo de Barrientos had over the cacique. Calvo was a Spaniard who had settled among the Indians after having his ears cut off in Peru as a punishment for robbery. They set up their base camp there and in the winter of 1536, Gómez de Alvarado, with about 90 men, advanced through the central valley to the Itata River, where they confronted the Mapuches for the first time in the battle that later became known as Reinohuelén.

The absence of gold and indigenous cities, but mainly the news that the representatives of the capitulation to resolve the jurisdiction over Cuzco had arrived from Spain, decided Almagro to return to Copiapó. There, two of his captains who had left Cuzco later, informed him that the Spaniards were besieged in that city by an uprising on the part of Manco Inca. Such a situation reaffirmed his intention to return to Cuzco, help the Spaniards, and then claim the city of Cuzco for his governorship. Once in Peru, the conflict between Almagro and Pizarro escalated into a bloody civil war.

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Manco Inca revolts against the Spanish regime

Once the war against those who ended his panaca was over, it would be expected that there would be harmony between Manco Inca and the Spaniards, however the reality was different. Soon the new monarch realized the crass error of trusting the peninsulars for the following reasons:

For these and other reasons he planned to shake off Spanish influence. However, his plans were discovered and he was taken prisoner in mid-1535.

While Manco Inca was still a prisoner, the conquistador Hernando Pizarro, incipient lieutenant governor general of Cuzco, arrived in the imperial capital and promptly set him free in February 1536, although he was unable to leave the city of Cuzco.

The monarch hid his anger and showed resignation before the Spaniard, to whom as a sign of gratitude he gave him a crockery, statues, beams of the Coricancha and aríbalos, all made entirely of gold. Noting Hernando”s growing ambition, he offered to bring him the statue of the Inca Huayna Capac “all in gold, even the guts”. The Spanish commander took the bait and let the Inca and Vila Oma (who had escaped from Almagro”s expedition) leave the city on April 18, 1536, making them promise to return. However, Manco”s real intention was to gather his generals and captains in Calca to rebel against the Spaniards.

Hernando Pizarro, after realizing his mistake, led an expedition against the Inca army, which had gathered in the nearby valley of Yucay. This attack was a failure because the Spaniards seriously underestimated the size of Manco Inca”s army. The latter, however, did not attack Cusco directly but waited until he had assembled his entire army of between 100,000 and 200,000 soldiers with which on May 3, 1536, according to the chronology established by historian José Antonio del Busto, he began the siege of Cusco against the Spanish troops composed of 190 Spaniards (80 of them on horseback) and a few thousand Indian auxiliaries.

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Siege of Cuzco

Manco Inca divided his army into four corps: the troops of the Chinchaysuyo were led by generals Coyllas, Osca, Curi Atao and Taype; those of the Collasuyo, the most numerous, were led by general Lliclli; those of the Contisuyo, by generals Sarandaman, Huaman Quilcana and Curi Huallpa; and those of the Antisuyo, mostly flecheros and cerbataneros, by generals Rampa Yupanqui and Anta Allca.

The Inca army launched a large-scale attack against the main square of the city, conquering a large part of it. The 190 conquistadors commanded by Hernando, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro, together with black slaves, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Chachapoyas, Cañaris, Huascaristas and thousands of auxiliary Indians at their service, made forts in two large buildings near the central square, from where they managed to repel the Inca attacks and launched frequent counterattacks.

The initial strategy of the Spaniards was to resist the attack perpetrated on the buildings. This generated mockery on the part of the army of Manco Inca, who from their positions advanced on the city, managing to set fire to the roofs of the houses. The Spaniards, in panic, thought they saw the Apostle Santiago el Mayor fighting against the Incas and the Virgin Mary putting out the fires.

Again the situation of the conquerors was worsened, when the troops of Manco Inca took Sacsayhuaman, strategic place to dominate Cuzco. Once the siege was broken, the Spanish attack to the fortress was impetuously directed, crashing several times with the enormous walls of the complex.

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Battle of Sacsayhuamán

After several days of fighting, the Inca troops conquered the fortress of Sacsayhuamán from which the city was dominated, putting the Spanish defenders in serious difficulties.

In response, fifty mounted soldiers under the command of Juan Pizarro, accompanied by Indian auxiliaries, feigned a retreat and left Cusco, surrounded the city and attacked Sacsayhuaman from outside the city. During the attack, Juan Pizarro was hit by a stone in the head and died several days later due to his wounds. Many Spaniards fell in the same way and had to be withdrawn from the fight in the direction of the city.

The following day, the Spanish forces and their indigenous allies repulsed several Inca counterattacks and attempted a new night assault with ladders. In this attack they gained control of the walls of Sacsayhuaman and the Inca army had to take refuge in two towers of the complex. The Inca commander Paúcar Huaman decided to abandon the towers with part of his soldiers to head towards Calca (where Manco Inca”s barracks were located) and return with reinforcements. With the number of defenders diminished, the Spaniards managed to conquer the rest of the fortress, and when Paúcar Huaman returned with reinforcements, he found it under firm Spanish control.

The fight had been so intense that the number of arrows and stones raining down from the fortress began to diminish. The water, likewise, began to be scarce and the spirit of the Cusquenians began to decay. The high priest Vila Oma ordered to abandon the fight, but many of his captains decided to remain in place.

Given this, the Spaniards noticed that a large number of enemy soldiers were retreating, so they pressed with greater continuity until they gained the terraces and reached the fortress towers.

In the defense of one of the towers of Sacsayhuaman a “chief orejón” (of the Inca royalty), called Cahuide by the Spaniards, who, with a copper-tipped mace and armed with Spanish armor and shields, caused havoc among the Spaniards who climbed the fortress. Finally, the Spaniards attacked with greater numbers, annihilating the little resistance that remained. Hernando Pizarro, admiring the courage of the Inca captain, ordered him to be captured alive. But Cahuide when it was evident that the Spaniards were going to conquer the tower threw himself to the emptiness wrapping himself in his mantle, “he threw himself to the emptiness where he was made many pieces”.

Also read, biographies – Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

Quizu Yupanqui”s campaigns in the central sierra

When the Inca rebellion began, Quizu Yupanqui was named captain general (apuquispay) of the army of the central highlands, by Manco Inca and Vila Oma (Inca high priest). He left Tambo to attack Lima and finish with the recently founded Spanish city, simultaneously with the siege of Cusco.

In his advance towards Lima, he defeated four expeditions of Spaniards, who left Lima to help the besieged garrison in Cusco.

All the Spanish expeditionaries, including their Indian auxiliaries, were exterminated by Quizu Yupanqui. Only two Spanish soldiers were saved, who in their flight to the coast stumbled upon the captain and mayor of Lima, Francisco de Godoy, who was on his way up to the highlands at the head of a fifth expedition. On learning of the facts, Godoy ordered the total withdrawal of his troops to Lima (120 Spaniards and thousands of indigenous allies). In total, during these frustrated expeditions, the Spaniards lost almost 200 men and four experienced captains. Pizarro came to believe that the Indians had wiped out all the Spaniards in Cusco, including his brothers Hernando, Gonzalo and Juan.

After his triumphs, and counting on the collaboration of captains like Illa Túpac, Páucar Huamán, Puyo Vilca, Allin Sonco Inca, among others, Quizu Yupanqui continued his march toward Lima, although he lost much time recruiting people in the valley of Jauja. This allowed reinforcements to arrive from the north to Francisco Pizarro.

Also read, biographies – John Everett Millais

Lima fence

With a force of approximately 40,000 men, Quizu Yupanqui began the march to Lima. He was accompanied by the captains Illa Túpac and Puyo Vilca. Some chronicles also mention the names of other captains, such as Páucar Huamán, Yanqui Yupanqui, Hualpa Roca, Apu Siloalla and Allín Songo Inca.

Quizu Yupanqui descended on the mountain range of Huarochirí, for the town of Mama and camped in the skirts of the present hill San Cristóbal, previously captured before entering Lima and destroyed the cross that was there. In Lima the Spanish neighbors took refuge in the port waiting for the ships to pick them up for Panama while Francisco Pizarro defended them and about a thousand Spanish soldiers, who were prepared for the fight, they also had the valuable support of thousands of allied Indians.

An outpost of the Inca army engaged in combat with a Spanish-Indian contingent under the command of Pedro de Lerma, in the dry bed of the Rímac River. The cuzqueños managed to kill a horse and a Spaniard, and to wound several Spaniards; however, the fiercest fight was between the rival indigenous forces. After the fight, both forces retreated to their positions.

According to a Relación Anónima of 1539, Quizu Yupanqui, on the sixth day of siege, gathered his captains and told them:

“I want to enter the town today and kill all the Spaniards who are in it, and we will take their wives whom we will marry and make a strong generation for the war, those who go with me must go on this condition, that if I die they all die and if I flee they all flee”.

After these words, the Inca army, wearing their banners and their colorful polychrome clothing, and to the beat of their pututos and drums, began the assault on the city of Lima, to the cry of “To the sea, beards!

Quizu Yupanqui, who was ahead, loaded in andas, along with a select number of his captains, crossed the Rímac River, but when he was already beginning to enter the streets of the city, in the area where later the Santa Ana neighborhood would rise, he was ambushed by the Spanish cavalry. According to Spanish sources, Quizu, who was fighting from his litter, received a spear in the chest, which deprived him of his life; the authorship of that feat is attributed to Pedro Martin de Sicilia. The other Inca chiefs that accompanied Quizu suffered the same fate. In other versions it is assured that Quizu Yupanqui received a shot of harquebus that destroyed a leg, wound that caused his death, when he was already retired in the plateau of Bombón, near the lake Chinchaycocha, in the central mountain range of Peru.

In spite of it, the fight continued for some more time, although with unfavorable results to the Incas, because not only they had to face the cavalry, firearms and Spanish crossbows but also to the thousands of Indian allies of these (among them the Huaylas, that according to a modern theory, were called by Contarhuacho, curaca of Huaylas and mother of Inés Huaylas, the concubine of Pizarro) and a last indigenous-Spanish contingent that went to Lima to support the Spaniards.

Before the unfavorable results of the assault to the city, the captains Páucar Huamán and Illa Túpac, convinced of the uselessness of their efforts, decided to raise the siege and to withdraw for the valley of the Chillón, forcing Puyo Vilca to do it for that of Lurín.

According to an interpretation of the historian José Antonio del Busto, it influenced a lot in the retreat of the Inca troops the fact that Manco Inca did not send them relief captains (the Inca soldiers, accustomed to the military discipline, followed the custom of imposing the retreat when losing most of their chiefs). But for Juan José Vega, the failure of the siege of Lima was due, fundamentally, to the desertion of the huancas and other ethnic groups, which should penetrate for the south in support of Quizu Yupanqui. The Huancas, especially, became the most enthusiastic allies of the Spaniards. The Spaniards themselves recognized that, had Quizu”s complete plan been put into practice, no Spaniards would have survived in Lima.

Also read, biographies – Josip Broz Tito

Battle of Ollantaytambo

With the Spanish conquest of Sacsayhuaman, the pressure on the Cusco garrison eased, and the fighting became a sequence of daily skirmishes, interrupted only by the Inca religious tradition of suspending fighting during the New Moon.

Encouraged by the success, Hernando Pizarro led an attack against Manco Inca”s headquarters, which was at that time in Ollantaytambo, further away from Cusco. The Spaniards sent a contingent of 100 Spanish soldiers and some 30,000 indigenous allies to attack Manco Inca.

Against the Spanish, Manco Inca had more than 30,000 soldiers assembled at Ollantaytambo, among them a large number of recruits from Amazonian jungle tribes. Manco Inca”s army was a militia composed mostly of conscript farmers with only good military training as a major advantage in the conflict. This was standard practice in the Inca Empire, where military service was part of the duty of all married men between the ages of 25 and 50. In combat, these soldiers were organized by ethnic group and led into battle by their own ethnic leaders, called curacas.

Upon arriving at the fortress, Hernando Pizarro decides to send a flanking expedition under the command of a captain. Then, moments later, he goes to the foot of the fortress, with the intention of capturing the Inca monarch, encountering a completely unexpected situation…..

“When Hernando arrived at dawn over Tambo, he found things very different from what he expected because there were many sentries posted in the camp and along the walls, and many guards were playing their weapons with great shouting as the Indians usually do….. it was a remarkable thing to see some coming out fiercely with Castilian swords, bucklers and morriones, and such an Indian there was who armed in this way dared to charge with a horse… the Inca appeared on horseback among his people with his spear in his hand, having the army gathered and drawn close to the place that was very well fortified with a wall and a river, with good trenches and strong embankments, in sections and in good order.”

Opportunely informed Manco Inca discovered Hernando”s plan and ordered the river to be taken out of its bed, in order to flood the land in such a way that the Spaniards could not use their cavalry well. The combat is unleashed with a coordinated frontal charge between Spanish cavalry and indigenous infantry in waves towards the platforms of the place, being repelled by an enormous amount of stones and arrows with a deadly aim.

The battle became bloodier and the fight was heroic on both sides. Although it is true that the Spaniards could resist better the attacks of the rivals, the indigenous allies were in equality of armament with the Cusquenian soldiers for what the amount of casualties among them was enormous, in addition the weapons and horses captured to the Spaniards dead in the previous confrontations were now skillfully used by the Inca warriors, even more these subtracted Hispanic practices of combat like the dogs and they applied them to their way being presented in that phase of the combat a squadron of trained pumas that caused great mortality among the attackers and their allies.

As the fighting got tougher, Hernando Pizarro received news that the troop he had sent to flank was defeated by the Inca soldiers. To make matters worse, a group of soldiers had gone unnoticed and attacked them from a flank. Hernando had gone to trap the Inca in his own base, but now the roles had changed. It was Manco who wanted to capture the Spanish captain alive. The Cuzco victory was beginning to take shape and the Spanish command ordered an early retreat before nightfall.

Hernando”s plan was to get his army out in order, but the measures taken by the Cuzco command made the Spaniards fall into despair, so the retreat turned into a flight, the Spaniards fled precipitously from the battlefield, forgetting their indigenous allies on the way, who were being eliminated by the Cuzco soldiers who pursued them.

The persecution was fierce, another relative of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, his cousin Pedro Pizarro, lost his mount and was almost victimized by the Inca warriors…

“…so many Indians came upon Pizarro and his horse that he was released, and they surrounded him, defending himself valiantly with his sword and his adarga, two on horseback came to his aid, taking him in the middle although they struggled to get him out of the fury and because to get out from among them it was necessary to run, Pedro Pizarro being very tired was drowning and begged his companions to wait for him because he wanted to die fighting rather than drowning …. .”

The victory had been so resounding that, the following day, a group of Cuzqueños who had gone in pursuit of the fleeing rivals found the Spanish camp completely abandoned. The chronicle of Titu Cusi Yupanqui says that the cuzqueños laughed loudly because the Spaniards had fled in fear.

Also read, history – Falklands War

Inca installation in Vilcabamba and subsequent actions

With the arrival of Almagro”s troops from Chile, Manco Inca withdrew to Ollantaytambo to go from there to Vilcabamba. From there, and invited by the antis, he marched toward Chachapoyas, defeating in Ongoy a Spanish army that tried to surprise him, obtaining a crushing victory in which only two Christians were saved. However, he had to distract his victorious forces in sustaining a new front, that of the Huancas.

The Sapa Inca ordered to subdue and punish them for having allied with the Spaniards, for which he sent punitive expeditions that ended up defeated by the Huanca-Hispanic coalition. Enraged the Inca, marched the same leaving Sapallanga killing all those that he/she found in fierce combats in the road. He arrived at Jauja, the Great one, where a great combat took place in which Spanish troops participated on the side of the Huancas. After two days of combat, the Inca defeated the enemy army, killing 50 Spaniards and thousands of Huanca allies. After these actions of punishment in the valley of the Mantaro, Manco Inca returns to the south where he/she orders to take out the idol huanca, called Varihuillca, and to throw it to the river Mantaro, fulfilling this way their revenge.

After finishing the huanca campaign, the Inca goes to Pillcosuni, where in Yeñupay he defeats and puts in flight a Spanish expedition. After the battle of the Salinas on April 6, 1538, Manco Inca returns to Vilcabamba and Victos, from where he/she puts spies and watchtowers in the roads that take to that region, learning that a great expedition went in their search to the command of Gonzalo Pizarro and with the company of their treacherous brothers, Paullo, Inguill and Huaspar. Manco went out to defend the pass and for better fulfillment he was encastilló in a stone fortress next to a river.

The fight was as tenacious as arduous, prolonging for 10 days. In the scuffle Inguill and Huaspar fell prisoners of the monarch, and in spite of the pleas of the coya Curi Ocllo, he decapitated them saying: “it is fairer that I cut their heads than that they do not take mine”.

The fight resumes with fury and the Spaniards manage to capture the fortress. Harassed by their enemies, Manco Inca had to throw himself to the river and to cross it to swim, gaining the other bank to shout to their mocked adversaries from her: “I am Manco Inca, I am Manco Inca”, to disconcert them and that they stopped looking for it, but he/she could not prevent that they capture their wife the Coya and the general Cusi Rimanchi.

The victors left immediately to Cusco and, while resting in Pampacona, some wanted to rape the Coya but she defended herself by covering herself with “stinking and contemptuous things”, so the abuse was not consummated. Thus they arrived at the town of Tambo, where, to take revenge on her husband, they thought it more profitable to kill the Coya, which the crossbowmen did by killing her. Also it served the occasion to light several bonfires and to kill in them the brave Vila Oma and the generals Tisoc, Taipi, Tangui, Huallpa, Urca Huaranga and Atoc Supi; days later being already in Yucay, the Spaniards burned Ozcoc and Curi Atao, also leaders of the Inca rebellion, in May of 1539.

Also read, history – Treaty of Zaragoza

The last acts of Manco Inca

When the Inca returned to Vilcabamba, he made steal from Cusco his son Titu Cusi Yupanqui and his mother, leaving to receive them to Victos in 1541. Being in Victos seven surviving almagristas of the Salt mines arrived, begging to serve the Inca in perpetuity if this one protected their lives. Manco Inca agreed to take them as vassals to learn better the uses of war among the Spaniards, so soon it was known that no Indian should touch them being established as servants and friends of the Inca. Soon the Spaniards achieved a friendship with the monarch, teaching him and his court to perfect their knowledge of horses and also introducing him to the games of bowling and blacksmithing. Manco Inca used the slaves to go to war to fight with others.

Also read, biographies – Juice Wrld

Creation of the Viceroyalty of Peru

At the same time that the fall of Tahuantisuyo took place, a conflict between the conquerors was unleashed. To conclude it, on November 20, 1542, King Charles I of Spain signed in Barcelona by Royal Decree the so-called New Laws, a set of laws for the Indies, which included the creation of the Viceroyalty of Peru to replace the former governorships of New Castile and New Toledo, while the seat of the Royal Court of Panama was moved to the City of the Kings or Lima, capital of the new viceroyalty.

and we order and command you that in the provinces or kingdoms of Peru there shall reside a viceroy and a royal audience of four learned auditors, and the said viceroy shall preside in the said audience, which shall reside in the city of the kings because it is in the most convenient place, since from now on there shall be no audience in panama.

The brand new viceroyalty comprised at the beginning and for almost three hundred years a large part of South America and the Isthmus of Panama, under various forms of control or supervigilance of its authorities. It covered an immense area that corresponded to the current territories that form part of the republics of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and the entire western, southeastern and southern region of Brazil. The exceptions were Venezuela, under the jurisdiction of the Viceroyalty of New Spain through the Royal Court of Santo Domingo, and Brazil, which was part of the Portuguese Empire.

Its first viceroy was Blasco Núñez Vela, appointed by royal decree on March 1, 1543. However, he could not exercise the royal authority due to the confrontations between the supporters of Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro for the dominion of Peru, and he was assassinated by Gonzalo Pizarro. The assassination of the first authority of the king produced much consternation in Spain; the Crown decided to severely punish the person who had attempted against the viceroy, the king”s representative in conquered territories. To this end, Charles I sent Pedro de la Gasca with the title of Peacemaker to resolve the situation. Already in Peru, La Gasca, sure of having instilled the seed of treason among Gonzalo Pizarro”s supporters, confronted the conquistador near Cuzco, in 1548. Gonzalo Pizarro saw his captains go over to the Gasca”s side and the defeat for him was crushing. Taken to the city of Cuzco, he was executed for the crime of high treason to the king.

Also read, biographies – James Rosenquist

Assassination and death of Manco Inca

Alonso de Toro, general lieutenant governor of Cuzco, offered in 1545 (some maintain that it was in 1544) an opportunity to the almagristas that had betrayed to Spain. He told them that if they killed Manco Inca they would be pardoned, and they accepted; so one day in the first months of 1545, in Vilcabamba, the seven almagristas assassinated Manco Inca in front of his son, Titu Cusi Yupanqui, who was later a chronicler and narrated the death of his father:

One day they were very happy to be playing the “herrón” (note: an ancient game with an iron shuffleboard, which had a hole in the middle, and which they tried to drive into a nail driven into the ground) alone, my father and I, who was then a boy, without my father thinking anything of it or giving any credit to an Indian woman belonging to one of them, named Bauba, who had told him many days before that the Spaniards wanted to kill him. Without any suspicion of this or of anything else, he played with them as before; and in this game, as I have said, when my father went to pick up the iron bar to play, they all attacked him with daggers and knives and some swords; and my father, feeling himself wounded, with great rage at the death, tried to defend himself on one side and on the other; but as he was alone and they were seven, and my father had no weapon, they finally threw him to the ground with many wounds and left him for dead. And some Andeans, who arrived at that time, and Captain Rimachi Yupangui, stopped them in such a way that before they could flee a long way, they took some of them by force to sacrifice them, knocking them off their horses. To all of whom they gave very crude deaths.

The Spaniards left by the door celebrating the death of the one that was their protector and friend, but the captain Rimachi Yupanqui discovered them, who with some antis cut them the retreat knocking them down of their mounts and dragging them to the town, where they found out what happened, they gave cruel death to those, burning the most guilty ones. The heads of the seven Spaniards who murdered Manco Inca were exhibited in the squares and streets of Vitcos and Vilcabamba.

Manco Inca survived a few days in agony and among the last conversations he had with his son is this message:

Don”t be fooled by their honeyed words, they are all lies, if you believe them they will deceive you as they did me.

He was succeeded by his second son, Sayri Túpac, who resigned and left the throne to his older brother (older son of Manco Inca) called Titu Cusi Yupanqui and when he died he left the throne to his brother called Túpac Amaru. The four Incas of Vilcabamba were of the family of Manco Inca, descendants of the panaca of Huayna Capac.

Also read, biographies – Pope Alexander VI

Vilcabamba Incas

After the death of Manco Inca in 1544, his sons continued at the head of the Inca resistance stronghold, but their actions no longer had the radicalization or the strength of the movement led by their father. From the first years in which Sayri Túpac was in charge of the government, he tried to establish relations with the Spanish governor Pedro de la Gasca. However, the peacemaker only offered him a few plots of land to appease his needs. The Sapa Inca preferred to stay in his redoubt until a better agreement could be reached. He also had contact with Viceroy Andres Hurtado de Mendoza in 1550 and 1556. Sayri Túpac achieved a beneficial agreement in 1558 and he left Vilcabamba with a distribution in the valley of Yucay. The monarch understood that he had to adapt to the new rules established by the Spaniards. The Inca nobility was recognized in some way and therefore received advantageous benefits.

Sayri Túpac died in 1561 and his brother Titu Cusi Yupanqui took control of the government. This new Sapa Inca declared himself an enemy of the Spanish interests, organizing in a first moment expeditions of hostilization to the populations near Vilcabamba. At the same time he contacted the governor Lope García de Castro, trying to reach some beneficial agreement for the rebels. He signed the Treaty of Acobamba in 1566 and in this capitulation the hostilities ended and the acts committed by the rebels were pardoned. One of the measures of the capitulation was the baptism of Titu Cusi Yupanqui and his family in 1568, fact that was not well seen by the most radical curacas.

The Inca died suddenly of a strange illness. The Augustinian missionaries who managed to enter after the treaty, were seen as responsible for the death, since in their eagerness to help, they gave him concoctions that the Andeans thought were poison. The missionary Diego Ortiz was found guilty and was later tortured and executed. The Spaniards and mestizos who were in Vilcabamba were also executed. The elite looked for a successor and it was thus that his brother Túpac Amaru wielded the scepter and girded the mascapaycha at the beginning of 1570.

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Restoration of the rebellion against the Spaniards

The youngest of Titu Cusi”s brothers then took command: Túpac Amaru -that is to say: Snake of Fire-, (known as Túpac Amaru I to differentiate him from José Gabriel Condorcanqui who also bore the same name although in the XVIII century, and who also confronted the Spaniards). The new Sapa Inca formed an army and put it under the orders of the generals Huallpa Yupanqui, Cori Páucar Yauyo and Colla Túpac. He denounced the Treaty of Acobamba, expelled the Spaniards from Vilcabamba, closed his borders and proclaimed that he was fighting for the restoration of the Tahuantinsuyo.

The viceroy of Peru, Francisco Álvarez de Toledo, fifth ruler of Hispanic Peru (1569-1581), who had already received from Spain the “cúmplase” that included the bull that authorized the marriage of Quispe Titu, on July 20, 1571, sent the Dominican Gabriel de Oviedo and the lawyer García de los Ríos to Vilcabamba, so that they could deliver the documents to Túpac Amaru and solve the problem in a peaceful way. This commission was not received by the monarch and had to return to Cusco. Being the viceroy in Cusco, he sent Tilano de Anaya with a threatening letter to the Inca. When crossing the bridge of Chuquichaca, he was killed by those loyal to Tupac Amaru. Knowing the fact, the viceroy Toledo decided to finish the conversations and the concordat with Vilcabamba, sending a military expedition to the command of Martín García Óñez de Loyola, Martín Hurtado de Arbieto and Juan Álvarez Maldonado, to occupy Vilcabamba “to blood and fire”. He offered the ñusta Beatriz, heiress of the riches of her father Sayri Túpac, as trophy in marriage for the one who captures the rebel Inca.

Also read, battles – Pope Martin V

The first campaigns

For the defense of Vilcabamba, the Inca Túpac Amaru counted on approximately 2000 soldiers, of which 600 or 700 were anti warriors (called chunchos by the Incas of Cuzco), of whom the deceased Titu Cusi used to say to the Spanish emissaries, pretended or really, that they still practiced cannibalism. Among their generals were Hualpa Yupanqui, Parinango, Curi Paucar and Coya Topa.

To attack the Inca stronghold, Hurtado de Arbieto divided his army into two groups, the first one under his direct command would attack through Chuquichaca while the second column, under the command of Arias de Sotelo, would attack through Curahuasi. A great number of skirmishes were fought, but the only great battle of the campaign took place at Choquelluca, on the banks of the Vilcabamba River. The Incas attacked first with much spirit in spite of being only lightly armed, but the Spaniards and their indigenous allies managed to resist them; according to Martín García Óñez de Loyola, the Spaniards were at a critical moment on the verge of being overwhelmed by the Inca warriors, but suddenly they abandoned the combat after their generals Maras Inga and Parinango were shot and killed. A peak moment of the combat was reached with the personal and bare-knuckle fight between the Inca captain Huallpa and the Spanish García de Loyola, when the Spanish commander was in a desperate situation for having received several direct blows and being in risk of being overrun, one of his loyalists shot traitorously on the back of the Inca, killing him and provoking a climate of indignation that rekindled the combat.

After this battle the Spaniards captured the city and the palace of Vitcos. When approaching the expedition to the citadel of Tumichaca, they were received by their commander Puma Inga, who surrendered his forces and manifested that the death of the Spanish commissioner Anaya had been responsibility of Curi Paucar and other rebel captains to their Inca desirous of the peace. On June 23 fell before the Spanish artillery the last focus of Inca resistance, the fort of Huayna Pucará, that the natives had built recently and it was defended by 500 chunchos flecheros. The remains of the Inca army, now retreating, opted to abandon Vilcabamba, their last city, and head for the jungle to regroup.

On June 24, the Spaniards took possession of the city and Sarmiento complied with the solemnities of the case, who after hoisting the royal standard in the town square proclaimed:

“I, Captain Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, general ensign of this camp, by mandate of the illustrious lord Martín Hurtado de Arbieto, general of it, take possession of this town of Vilcabamba and its comarcas, provinces and jurisdictions.”

He then raised the banner three times and with loud voices said:

“Vilcabamba, by Don Felipe, King of Castile and Leon.”

He nailed the banner to the ground and fired the ordinance salvos.

Accompanied by his people, Tupac Amaru had left the previous day heading west into the lowland forests. The group, which included his generals and family members, had split into small parties in an attempt to evade pursuit.

Groups of Spanish soldiers and their Indian auxiliaries were sent to hunt them down and engaged in bloody skirmishes with the Inca”s escort. One captured Wayna Cusi”s wife and son. The second returned. The third one also returned; he/she made it with two brothers of Túpac Amaru, other relatives and their generals. The Inca and his commander remained at large.

Also read, biographies – Peter Kropotkin

Capture of Tupac Amaru I

Next, a group of forty personally chosen Spanish soldiers set out in pursuit of the Inca. They followed the Masahuay River for 170 miles, where they found an Inca storehouse with quantities of Inca gold and crockery. The Spaniards captured a group of Chunchos and forced them to inform them of Inca movements, and whether they had seen the Inca monarch. They reported that he had gone downriver by boat, so the Spaniards built 20 rafts and continued the chase.

Downriver they discovered that Túpac Amaru had escaped by land. They continued with the help of the aparis, who advised which route the Incas had followed and reported that Túpac was slowed down because his wife was about to give birth. After a 50-mile march they saw a campfire around nine o”clock at night. They found the Inca Túpac Amaru and his wife warming each other. They were assured that no harm would come to them and they would secure their surrender. Tupac Amaru was taken prisoner.

The captives were brought back to the ruins of Urcos and, from there, arrived in Cuzco through the arch of Carmenca on November 30. The victors also brought the mummified remains of Manco Capac and Titu Cusi Yupanqui, and a golden statue of Punchao, the most precious relic of the Inca lineage that contained the mortal remains of the hearts of the deceased Incas. These sacred objects were later destroyed.

Tupac Amaru was taken by his captor, Garcia de Loyola, to the viceroy Francisco de Toledo, who ordered his imprisonment in the fortress of Sacsayhuamán under the custody of his uncle, Luis de Toledo. Guamán Poma says that it weighed heavily on Toledo”s spirit that having sent for him, Amaru answered him.

The Spaniards made several attempts to convert Túpac Amaru to Christianity but it is believed that these efforts were rejected by a very strong man, who was convinced of his faith. The five captured Inca generals received a summary trial in which nothing was said in their defense and they were sentenced to the gallows, although several could not be executed because the plague – the call chapetonada – attacked all in prison making them impossible to walk, they had to take them out agonizing and in blankets of the cell, dying three in the journey and only two, Cusi Paúcar and Ayarca, arrived to the scaffold.

The trial of the Inca began a couple of days later. Tupac Amaru was condemned for the murder of the priests in Urcos, of which he was probably innocent. He was sentenced to be beheaded. Numerous clergymen, convinced of Tupac Amaru”s innocence, pleaded on their knees to the viceroy that the Inca leader be sent to Spain for trial instead of being executed.

Also read, battles – Owain Glyndŵr

Execution of Tupac Amaru I and the end of the Spanish Conquest

An eyewitness on the day of the execution, September 24, 1572, remembered him riding a mule with his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck. Other witnesses said that there were large crowds of people and that the Inca Uari left Sacsayhuamán surrounded by between 500 cañaris, enemies of the Incas, armed with spears and the retinue descended into the city. In front of the cathedral, in the central square of Cuzco, a gallows had been erected. There were more than 300,000 people present in the two squares, streets, windows and rooftops, and Tupac Amaru climbed the scaffold accompanied by the bishop of Cuzco. While he was doing so, it is said in the sources that

a multitude of Indians, who completely filled the square, saw the lamentable spectacle that their lord and Inca was going to die, deafened the heavens, making them reverberate with their cries and lamentations.

Garcilazo says that the Inca raised his right arm with his right hand open and placed it on his ear, and from there he lowered it little by little until he placed it on his right thigh. With this, those present ceased their shouting and chanting, leaving them in such silence that “there seemed to be no soul born in the whole city”.

As recounted by Baltasar de Ocampo and Fray Gabriel de Oviedo, prior of the Dominicans in Cuzco, both eyewitnesses, the Inca raised his hand to silence the crowds, and his last words were.

Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta(”Illustrious Pachacamac, witness how my enemies spill my blood”)

The Spaniards and the Viceroy among them, who from a window watched the execution of the sentence, were greatly admired by this scene. Noting with horror the obedience that the Indians had to their prince, the Viceroy sent his servant, Juan de Soto, who rode out on horseback with a stick in his hand to make his way to the scaffold, saying there that they should proceed to execute the Inca. The executioner, who was a cañari, prepared the cutlass and Tupac Amaru put his head on the scaffold “with Andean stoicism”. At the moment of the execution, all the bells of Cuzco, including those of the Cathedral, were tolled.

The head was nailed to a pillory, but the body was taken to the house of Maria Cusi Huarcay, aunt of the decapitated monarch, buried the next day in the main chapel of the cathedral, attended by the Spanish neighbors who did not believe they were compromising with it before the Viceroy, and all the indigenous Nobles, descendants of the Incas.The viceroy Toledo communicated to King Philip II the execution of Tupac Amaru, in a letter of September 24, 1572, telling him

what Your Majesty commands about the Inca has been done.

Some historians indicate that when Viceroy Toledo left his post to return to Spain, he was received by King Philip II with the following words alluding to the execution of Tupac Amaru.

You may go home, for I sent you to serve kings, not to kill them.

With his death, the conquest of Tahuantinsuyo officially ended.

Sources

1. Conquista del Tahuantinsuyo
2. Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire