Pizarro and the Conquest of the Incas

Reconnaissance, 1528

Spanish ships had been pushing south down the Pacific coast of South America from Panama since the early 1520s. The expedition that mattered was the third one. In 1528 Francisco Pizarro — an illegitimate, illiterate veteran from Trujillo in Spain who had been with Balboa when the Pacific was first reached — landed briefly on the Inca coast at Tumbes. He saw a wealthy, organised society he had not expected. He saw enough cloth, gold and well-built towns to know there was a major civilisation to the south. He returned to Spain in 1529 and, in the Capitulation of Toledo (signed by Queen Isabella of Portugal as regent in July 1529), secured the legal and royal authority to lead a full conquest expedition.

The Death of Huayna Capac

While Pizarro was lobbying in Spain, the Inca empire was destroying itself. Around 1527, the Inca emperor Huayna Capac died suddenly in the northern city of Quito, alongside his named heir. Spanish chroniclers and modern epidemiologists agree the most likely cause was smallpox — the disease that had reached Tenochtitlan in 1520 had moved south through Indigenous trade routes faster than the Spaniards themselves, and arrived in the Andes years before the conquistadors did. The empire suddenly had no recognised emperor. Two of Huayna Capac’s sons claimed the throne instead: Huascar, the legitimate heir based in the southern capital Cuzco, and Atahualpa, his half-brother in the north, who had the loyalty of the empire’s veteran armies.

The Inca Civil War, 1529–32

Atahualpa’s veteran northern army marched south against Cuzco. The campaign culminated in spring 1532 with Atahualpa’s general Quizquiz capturing Huascar at the battle of Quipaipan. Indigenous chronicles describe massacres of Huascar’s family and supporters — the empire was, in effect, two warring states. Atahualpa was on his way south to be crowned in Cuzco when news reached him that strange bearded men had landed on the coast.

Pizarro’s 1530–32 Expedition

Pizarro sailed from Panama in December 1530 with about 180 men, 27 horses and a handful of cannon. By the time he reached Cajamarca two years later his force numbered 168 men, 62 of them mounted. He brought his half-brothers Hernando, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro, his partner Diego de Almagro, the Dominican friar Vicente de Valverde and the Indigenous interpreter Felipillo. They landed at the Bay of San Mateo and marched down the coast through the early months of 1532, founding the first Spanish town in Peru, San Miguel de Piura. In September 1532 they began the climb up into the Andes towards the highland city of Cajamarca, where Atahualpa was resting his army at the hot springs.

The Battle of Cajamarca, 16 November 1532

The Battle of Cajamarca on 16 November 1532 may be the most disproportionate military encounter in recorded history. Atahualpa, surrounded by thousands of unarmed retainers in ceremonial dress, came out to meet Pizarro in the central plaza of the town. Friar Valverde read out the Requerimiento — the formal Spanish demand that the emperor accept the Catholic faith and Spanish authority — through the interpreter Felipillo. When Atahualpa picked up the Bible Valverde handed him, did not understand what to do with it, and dropped it, Pizarro’s men gave the prepared signal. Hidden cavalry, foot soldiers with steel swords, and small cannon attacked the unarmed retinue. Thousands of Inca died in the plaza. Atahualpa was seized.

Atahualpa offered an enormous ransom: a room about 22 feet by 17 feet filled once with gold and twice with silver. Indigenous porters carried the metal in for months. The treasure was eventually melted down and distributed among the Spaniards (worth tens of millions of pounds in modern terms). Pizarro had Atahualpa garrotted in the plaza of Cajamarca on 26 July 1533 anyway — condemned on charges of plotting against the Spanish, idolatry and the murder of Huascar. The execution had no clear justification under Spanish law and Charles V later expressed displeasure.

Cuzco and Lima

After Atahualpa’s execution, the Spaniards marched on Cuzco, the imperial capital, and entered the city in November 1533. They installed Manco Inca — another son of Huayna Capac — as a puppet emperor and looted the temple of Coricancha, melting down gold panels that had once lined its walls. In January 1535 Pizarro founded a new Spanish capital, Lima, on the Pacific coast — chosen so that Spanish ships could resupply quickly without climbing the Andes. The Inca empire’s political centre had shifted from a highland Indigenous city to a coastal Spanish one.

The Inca Revolt and Siege of Cuzco, 1536–37

The puppet, however, did not stay quiet. In 1536 Manco Inca slipped out of Cuzco and raised an army of perhaps 100,000 Indigenous warriors. From May 1536 to early 1537 he besieged Cuzco, which was held by a Spanish garrison under Hernando and Juan Pizarro. The siege of Cuzco was the closest the Inca came to driving the Spanish out: the city burned, Juan Pizarro was killed, and the small Spanish force was reduced to fighting from inside the cathedral and the fortified hills above the city. The siege was finally broken when reinforcements arrived from Almagro returning out of Chile and when Manco Inca’s Indigenous enemies switched sides. Manco himself retreated into the eastern jungle and founded a rump Vilcabamba state that lasted until 1572.

Impact

The conquest of Peru gave Spain a second continental empire to match New Spain. The Andean economy was reorganised around silver mining (Potosi was discovered in 1545, three years after the New Laws). Encomiendas were granted to conquistadors. The Quechua-speaking world entered a long, painful adjustment to Spanish rule. But the conquest also planted the seed of its own crisis: Pizarro and Almagro had been partners but were now rivals, and the conquistadors’ thirst for encomiendas would soon collide with the Crown’s attempt to centralise authority. The 1546 conquistador rebellion against the New Laws — led by Pizarro’s younger brother Gonzalo — was already in formation.