Francisco Pizarro was nearly 60 years old when he led a small force of about 200 men through South America to the great cities of the Incas.
From the beginning, Montezuma had recognized the power of the conquistadors and understood the threat these invaders brought to his kingdom. Even with knowledge of the danger, however, Montezuma was helpless to stop it. Another ruler, named Atahualpa, failed to comprehend the threat at all. Such ignorance would cost Atahualpa and his people dearly.
The Inca empire was huge, stretching for 3,000 miles along the western coast of South America. The Incas fished in the Pacific Ocean, farmed in the shadows of the Andes Mountains, and built villages in the Amazon rainforest. They were a diverse and organized people. The Incas traveled on paved roads, used government programs to help the poor, and developed an early type of mail service. Just as the Aztecs used pictures for record keeping, the Incas used colorful, knotted strings called quipus.
The Incas were already in a state of upheaval when the Spaniards arrived. The smallpox epidemic that had weakened the Aztecs had traveled south. In 1527, it reached the Incas and killed over 10 million of them, including their ruler. Civil war arose from the chaos, as the ruler’s two surviving sons fought for control of the empire. The son who eventually won was Atahualpa.
As Atahualpa was destroying what remained of his brother’s army, he received reports of the arrival of 200 white men. Such a small group seemed insignificant to Atahualpa, even if they rode horses and had strange weapons. Nevertheless, he sent an aide to observe the white men. The aide watched the Spaniards for two or three days, then returned and informed Atahualpa that they were lazy and unruly, like barbarians. Unlike many Indian cultures, the Incas were unimpressed when white men first appeared.
Francisco Pizarro, a courageous but ruthless conquistador, led the Spaniards. In 1532, they marched to a city in the mountains called Cajamarca, where Atahualpa was resting with his army. The Inca leader was not pleased with the white men’s presence, but he allowed them to stay the night and agreed to meet with them the next day. However, Pizarro and his men did not sleep that night. Instead, they set up an ambush in the city square.
As dawn broke the next morning, the Spaniards waited for the arrival of Atahualpa. The Incas noticed that none of the white men had come outside the city square; they mistakenly assumed it was because the whites were afraid of them. Late in the afternoon, Atahualpa and over 10,000 Inca officials, lords, and servants boldly marched into the square. They were so confident, that they had not brought any weapons with them.
The meeting did not last long. A friar read the Requirement to Atahualpa, and shortly afterward the Spaniards opened fire. Atahualpa’s nephew later described what happened:
“The Spaniards charged out with great fury into the middle of the square, where there was a high throne of the Inca, resembling a fort, which we call an usnu. They occupied this and would not let my uncle ascend it. Before he reached the foot, they pulled him from his litter by force, and turned it upside down; they seized his insignia and headband, which among us is the crown, and they took him prisoner….
WHY DID EUROPEAN DISEASES DO SO MUCH HARM?
Native Americans were completely isolated from the multitude of germs that roamed through Europe. The vast Atlantic Ocean protected Indians from ailments like smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, and influenza. This total isolation prevented the Indians from building any resistance. In other words, the Indians’ immune systems had no idea what was coming when Europeans arrived. Diseases that had run their course in Europe would find new life in America, becoming raging epidemics that eventually killed millions.
Indians undoubtedly suffered the brunt of this biological exchange, but Europeans also encountered New World germs that would prove deadly to them. Conquistadors frequently died of malaria, and settlers suffered outbreaks of yellow fever as well as other illnesses. Regardless, the number of Europeans in America continued to grow rapidly, while at the same time Native American populations withered. In 1492, there were between 5 million and 10 million Indians living in the present-day United States. By 1890, there were only 250,000.
“That square was enclosed by walls, and all the Indians were inside like llamas. There were a great many of them and they could not get out, nor did they have any weapons—they had not brought them because of the low opinion they held of the Spaniards; all they had were slings and tumis [ceremonial knives]…. The Spaniards killed them all—with horses, with swords, with guns—just as one might slaughter llamas, for nobody could defend himself. From more than 10,000 men there did not escape 200.
Francisco Pizarro was nearly 60 years old when he led a small force of about 200 men through South America to the great cities of the Incas.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE REQUIREMENT
Religion played a major role in the European colonization of America. Friars and other religious men traveled to the New World in large numbers. Their goal was to convert the “savages” they encountered to Christianity. Most Indian cultures already had a religion of their own, however, and were unwilling to abandon it. Often, Indians would blend certain elements of Christianity with their own religion. If the friars disapproved, as they often did, the Indians would simply worship in private.
Another contribution of the Catholic Church was a document called the Requirement, signed by Pope Alexander VI in 1493. In this document, the Pope decreed that Spain was entitled to all newly discovered land. Conquistadors often read the Requirement to Indians as official notice that their land now belonged to Spain. However, the Requirement meant little to the Indians, since it was rarely translated into their language. On those occasions when it was translated, the Indians did not take it seriously. When the Requirement was read to the Inca emperor Atahualpa, he responded, “As for the Pope of whom you speak, he must be crazy to talk of giving away countries which do not belong to him.”
“And when all were dead they took my uncle Atahualpa to a cell, where they kept him bound all night, with a chain around his neck.”
Incas did not place any monetary value on gold—to them gold and silver were merely decorative. However, Atahualpa soon recognized that the Spaniards placed tremendous value on these metals. Atahualpa made Pizarro an offer: a roomful of gold and two rooms of silver in exchange for his freedom. Pizarro accepted the offer, and vast sums of the precious metals were brought to Cajamarca from all over the Inca empire. Although Atahualpa had kept his side of the bargain, Pizarro did not keep his and eventually had Atahualpa executed.
The slaughter in Cajamarca was not the end of the Inca empire, but it was the beginning of the end. Drawn by tales of unlimited gold and silver, Spaniards poured into South America by the boatloads. An Inca uprising several years later was somewhat successful, driving back the invaders and resulting in 1,000 Spanish deaths, but it was a short-lived victory. Just like the Aztecs, the Incas could not overcome a deadly combination of European diseases and superior technology. §
