When Pizarro first arrived in Tumbes in 1528, the empire was in the throes of a civil war. Pizarro, who had come with only a small force, decided to head northward again, leaving the brothers, Huascar and Atahuallpa, to their dispute. In 1531, Pizarro returned to Tumbes. This time he had more soldiers, more horses, and more weapons. This larger force numbered fewer than 160 men, but Pizarro believed this was sufficient for his purposes.
The Last SapaInca
This European portrait of Atahuallpa shows him with a traditional Inca battleaxe.
While Pizarro had bided his time, Huascar and Atahuallpa destroyed each other’s armies. In 1532, Pizarro approached the city of Cajamarca in the northern part of the empire. Atahuallpa had usurped the throne and was camped on a nearby hill. This was Pizarro’s opportunity to meet the sapa inca. He awaited Atahuallpa’s arrival all day, but, as the sun set, Atahuallpa had not budged from his hilltop encampment. Some historians claim that Atahuallpa believed that the magic of the strangers-the arquebuses (guns)-would not work at night, so he waited until then for the meeting.
Atahuallpa arrived in full splendor, carried on a gold and silver litter set with jewels. A dozen or so servants went before him, sweeping the road to ensure that no pebble should jar their lord. Troops ranged around the sapa inca, filling the plaza with songs that honored their leader.
The Spaniards waited until one of Atahuallpa’s captains signaled for them to advance. Pizarro did so, along with a Spanish priest, Fra Vincente
De Valverde. The priest carried a Bible in one hand and a crucifix in the other as he approached the sapa inca. According to Francisco de Xeres, Pizarro’s secretary, in his book The Conquest of Peru, the priest said, “I am a priest of God, and I teach Christians the things of God, and in like manner I come to teach you. What I teach is that which God says to us in this book.”
Atahuallpa looked at the book, but the contents meant nothing to him; the sapa inca had no knowledge of any written language. Atahuallpa threw the Bible away from him, telling the priest that he knew about the Spaniards and how they had taken food and cloth from Inca warehouses and treated Inca chiefs with disdain. Atahuallpa ordered the Spanish to return all that they had taken and refused to leave the plaza until restitution had been made.
Pizarro, making a split-second decision to attack Atahuallpa, donned his armor and took up his sword and dagger. Despite Atahuallpa’s contingent of more than a thousand standing by, Pizarro and four valiant soldiers advanced to Atahuallpa’s litter on horseback. Horses (animals that are not native to the Americas) were strange and wondrous beasts to the Incas, and the Inca guard fell back as the Spaniards charged. The honor guard surrounding Atahuallpa was slaughtered and the sapa inca taken captive. Atahuallpa’s army, with no one at the top to give orders, was paralyzed. Pizarro and his men were able to secure the city unopposed.
Thus began a bout of bravado that rivals any other in history. Pizarro told Atahuallpa not to be humiliated by losing to a troop of only five men, as he, Pizarro, had conquered greater kingdoms than the Inca Empire with the same number of men. He explained that the Christian God that he followed supported Pizarro in his quest to convert the Inca to Christianity. According to Xeres, Pizarro said, “Our Lord permitted that your pride should be brought low, and that no Indian should be able to offend a Christian.”
Pizarro then demanded a ransom of enough gold to fill a storeroom in the building where Atahuallpa was being held. Atahuallpa, insulted that the ransom should be so minimal, claimed that he would give even more gold to his captives if it would purchase his freedom. After all, what was gold to the Incas? They valued cloth far more than any metal.
While Pizarro held Atahuallpa captive, Atahuallpa’s men continued to hold Huascar. Atahuallpa learned through his jailers that Huascar promised the Spaniards even more gold, silver, and gemstones to restore him to the throne than Atahuallpa had offered, and the young sapa inca sent word to his men to execute Huascar.
According to historians, the imprisoned Huascar realized his brother’s captains had orders to execute him. Just before he died in 1532, Huascar said, “I was lord and master of this land for only a very short time, but my traitorous brother, upon whose orders I shall soon die, despite the fact that I am his legitimate lord, will wield the power he usurped for an even shorter time than I did,” (as quoted in The Incas: The Royal Commentaries of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega). Huascar’s last words were prophetic; Atahuallpa, indeed, enjoyed only a very short reign.
A Loss Far Greater Than Gold
Atahuallpa's ransom weighed in at 13,420 pounds of gold and 26,000 pounds of silver, all of it in finely wrought items. Unfortunately, Pizarro saw only the precious metal and not the valuable emblems of Inca heritage. He ordered his men to melt down every plate, goblet, and decoration into ingots, which could be transported more easily than ornaments. The value of Atahuallpa's ransom, based on average prices of gold ($340 an ounce) and silver ($4.50 an ounce), would be about $75 million today. Recent art gallery offerings priced a pair of Pre-Columbian gold Inca earrings, three inches in diameter, at $17.5 million. Intact as artifacts, Pizarro's booty today would be worth billions.
With Huascar out of the way, Atahuallpa expected to pay his ransom, regain his throne, and exterminate the Spaniards. Said Juan de Be-tanzos in Narrative of the Incas, “Atahuallpa gathered or caused the amassing of all the gold and silver that he had promised and as he gathered it Atahuallpa pleaded with the marquis not to allow any of his men to damage or destroy any piece of gold or silver that he placed there or caused to be gathered. Atahuallpa’s intention must have been to unleash such a war when he was freed that he would once again see his gold and silver items.” However, once the treasure was safely in the Pizarro’s hands, the Spaniard did not release his captive.
Francisco Pizarro finally amassed enough precious metal to make him a rich man. However, after Pizarro and his men had suffered near starvation, a plague of insects, disease, and discomfort, his former partner Al-magro arrived in time to collect his portion of the wealth. In 1533, the treasure was divvied up, and King Charles V’s (1500-1558) share sent back to Spain with Hernando Pizarro, half-brother of Francisco.
Thus, the situation with Atahuallpa was all that remained between Francisco Pizarro and complete conquest of the Inca Empire. Atahuallpa himself had aided the Spaniards by slaughtering any other claimants to the throne and having his brother executed.
Almagro and Pizarro contrived a trial at which Atahuallpa stood accused of usurping his brother’s throne, causing the death of the legitimate Inca ruler, making unjust and invalid wars against others, causing the deaths of many Inca subjects, having multiple wives, and misappropriating riches that belonged to the Inca Empire. Atahuallpa was found guilty of all charges and condemned to death by burning at the stake.
Carmen Bernand in The Incas: People of the Sun, describes the shock of the sentence and Atahuallpa’s reaction: “One cannot imagine a more cruel sentence: The Incas had an absolute terror of cremation because it caused the body to disappear. So Atahuallpa agreed to convert to Catholicism on the condition that he have his head cut off instead.”
Atahuallpa converted to Roman Catholicism and was renamed Juan de Atahuallpa. As he stood there with his new Christian name, Atahuallpa was strangled to death. With the last sapa inca executed, a Spanish contingent that never numbered more than 200 men took over an empire with thousands of subjects.
World History
