Spanish Inca Conquest

In 1521, Hernan Cortes conquered the Aztecs . This conquest inspired another Spanish conquistador , Francisco Pizarro . According to the report of Juan de Samano, secretary of Charles V , the first reliable information about Peru became known in 1525 in connection with the completion of the first Southern expedition of Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro ^[1] .

When Francisco Pizarro appeared in South America, there was a strife in the Inca country, in which Prince Atahualpa defeated. The Indians greeted the white people with great hospitality and hospitality. The expedition left Panama on November 14, 1524 , but was forced to return in 1525. After that, two more trips were carried out.

When Pizarro returned to Panama , the governor was not interested in the adventurer's proposals to send an army to conquer Peru. However, he sailed to Spain and got an audience with Charles V. The monarch declared the conquistador captain-general and gave him a small army. Pizarro received 3 light sailboats , 67 cavalrymen armed with lances and swords, 157 infantrymen - spearmen and swordsmen, 20 long-range crossbowmen , only 3 soldiers with firearms and 2 artillery pieces.

In 1532, Pizarro arrived on the coast of modern Peru with 200 foot soldiers and only 27 horses. However, on the road, his army is replenished with discontented Inca rule. The Incas were ready to fight zealously with the conquerors, but their empire was weakened by internal turmoil and internecine war ^[2] ; in addition, a large number of Inca warriors died from smallpox and measles brought in by the Spaniards.

Conquistadors occupied several cities, but the Inca army paved the way for them. However, Atahualpa, although the messengers told him about the alien’s amazing weapons ( muskets , guns, armor and horses ), underestimated the danger posed by the Spaniards. He sent his commander-in-chief, Ruminavi, to cut off the retreat of the Spaniards, and he, at the head of an almost eighty- thousand - strong procession, went to Kahamarca . It is not known for certain why he took about 7,000 people from his inner circle to the city itself, leaving weapons and the rest of the army outside the city. Perhaps Atahualpa decided to demonstrate that he arrived in peace. It is also believed that he probably assumed that the Spaniards were afraid of him, since only the priest came out to meet him, and the rest of the detachment was in houses.

However, Pizarro, with his detachment of 182 people, used the situation and took Atahualpa hostage when on November 16, 1532, he received the Spaniards in Cajamarca . To justify their actions, they sent a priest to invite Atahualpa and his people to accept Christianity, realizing that he would refuse. Atahualpa, unfamiliar with books and letters, threw the Bible held out to him on the ground, after which, on the orders of Pizarro, a volley of four artillery pieces and 12 arquebuses available to the Spaniards was fired at the Indians. Knights chained in armor jumped out of an ambush on horses, literally cutting their way to the Inca ruler. Then the rest of the Spaniard joined the attack. The Incas tried to save their ruler, but, unfamiliar with the cold weapons and firearms of the Spaniards, were defeated.

In the battle of Cajamarca , Pizarro's squad defeated Atahualpa's army, which was significantly superior in number, without losing any of his soldiers killed. However, the “battle” itself was essentially a massacre of almost all 7,000 loyal soldiers of Atahualpa, many of whom were not armed. Atualpa was captured. After the capture of the ruler, the Incas were virtually completely disorganized, the survivors after this brutal reprisal fled. The attacks of the Spaniards had a stunning effect on the Incas, who did not know the ambush tactics and could not oppose anything. Against steel weapons, their clothes made of leather and thickened cotton did not represent almost any protection.

As a result of the battle of Cajamarca, the Spaniards were extremely cunning. The Inca ruler Atahualpa (in fact, a usurper who came to power as a result of an armed struggle for power with his brother Huascar after the death of Father Wine Capac ), summoned to negotiations by the captain of the conquistadors Hernando de Soto , was captured by Pizarro, who demanded a ransom for the Great Inc. In the hope of being released, Atahualpa invited Pizarro to fill the room in which he was held in chains, to the ceiling with gold . When Pizarro hesitated in surprise, Atahualpa promised that he would also fill the next room with silver . When Pizarro finally came to his senses, he objected that the second room was smaller than the first, but Atahualpa promised to fill the second twice.

For more than three months, the Incas collected gold and silver and brought it to Cajamarca. It is noteworthy that Atahualpa violated the old, but strict law, which said: “ so that no gold and silver entering the city of Cuzco can be removed from it under pain of death ” ^[3] , ordering the removal of gold and silver from Cuzco. It took more than 34 days to melt all the gold and silver products. All these treasures made up the famous Atahualpa Redemption , which comprised a whole room of 35 m², filled to the mark at the height of a raised hand with gold and silver (then melted into bullion). The order was executed, but Pizarro still decided to execute the leader. The court sentenced Atahualp to death by burning . However, Atahualpe was promised to change the form of execution to strangulation if he converted to Catholicism before his death. Atahualpa agreed, because in the understanding of the Incas, maintaining the body was necessary for life after death. On July 26, 1533, the 36-year-old Atahualpa was strangled with a garrot .

According to the notary’s report, Pedro Sancho, Governor Francisco Pizarro, with his staff and translators, received the following amount in the foreclosure section on June 18, 1533: gold - 57,220 pesos , silver - 2,350 marks . Conquistador Francisco de Chavez, in a letter dated August 5, 1533, claimed that Francisco Pizarro captured Ataualpa by first drinking him and his generals with wine poisoned with arsenic monosulfide ( realgar ) ^[4] , which simplified the task of capturing the ruler, but not the Spaniards themselves significant resistance was provided.

As the soldier of Huáscar, Sebastian Jacobilca, testified on March 15, 1573, he “ saw that after the death of Atabalipa, the Don Marquis Francisco Pizarro also killed and ordered the killing of a large number of Indians, generals and relatives of the Inca himself and more than 20 thousand Indians who were at that time with Atabalipa to wage war with his brother Vaskar ” ^[5] .

After the assassination of Atahualpa, the Tupac Walpa was appointed High Inca by the Spaniards, but he was soon killed by one of the Inca commanders. On November 15, 1533, after the victory over the Inca army led by Kiskis, the conquistadors Francisco Pizarro took Cuzco without significant resistance and placed the new puppet ruler Manco Inca Yupanqui (Manco-Capac II) , crowned Pizarro. The real power was wholly owned by the Spaniards, who subjected the new emperor to numerous humiliations and placed him in custody after an attempted escape in November 1535 . After the seizure of Cuzco by the resistance, the Quechua was led by Ruminavi , then other military leaders, but it gradually weakened, since the Inca-conquered peoples in different parts of the former empire supported the actions of the Spanish in the hope of gaining independence.

Deputy Pizarro and also extremaduran Sebastian de Belalcasar went to conquer the northern possessions of the Incas in the territory of modern Ecuador. Having defeated the troops of Ruminavi near Mount Chimborazo , Belalkasar met with five hundred people of the Guatemalan governor Pedro de Alvarado . The matter almost got to a fight, but at the last moment Alvarado changed his mind and sold his ships and ammunition to another comrade-in-arms of Pizarro Diego de Almagro for 100 thousand pesos in gold. On December 6, 1534, Belalkasar took possession of the Quito Indian stronghold, but the fabulous treasures he was counting on were not there, and he continued northward in search of Eldorado .

Another group of conquerors led by Diego de Almagro reached the south in the south to the land called Chile (“cold”). The consequences of this robber expedition were tragic for the indigenous peoples: over half a century, the population of Peru and Chile decreased by 5 times. This was caused not only and not so much by the extermination of the population by the Spaniards as by the diseases brought in by the conquerors. The colonialists, on the contrary, greatly benefited from their conquests: gold and silver flowed to Spain, unknown vegetables were brought to Europe - corn and tomato , cocoa beans .

In January 1535, Pizarro and his associates founded Lima , which became the new capital of Peru. On the basis of the regions of New Castile and New Toledo, at the end of 1542 a new Viceroyalty of Peru was established as part of the Spanish Empire . In 1543, Lima became the center of Spanish rule in South America .

After his liberation in January 1536, Manco Inca was able to leave Cuzco on April 18 , deceiving Hernando Pizarro , one of the Francisco brothers, to actually prepare for the already planned Inca rebellion. Realizing his mistake, Hernando Pizarro led an expedition against the troops of Manco Inca, who gathered in the Yukai Valley close to the city, but his attack failed. Manco Inca, however, gathered an army, the number of which varied from 100,000 to 200,000 soldiers (also called the figure from 40,000); they were opposed by 190 Spaniards, among them 80 horsemen, and several thousand Indians ^[6] . The siege of the Spanish garrison of Cuzco began on May 6, 1536 with a full-scale attack by the Inca army in the direction of the main square of the city; they managed to occupy most of Cuzco, while the Spaniards took refuge in two large buildings near the main square.

To improve their position, the Spaniards decided to attack the Sacsayhuaman complex, which served as the main base for the preparation of the Inca military operations. 50 riders, led by Juan Pizarro , along with the Indian allies were able to overcome the less secure borders and Inca barricades, making a wide roundabout maneuver outside of Cuzco; while Juan Pizarro was mortally wounded by a stone in the head. The Spaniards managed to capture the walls of the fortress, forcing the Incas to take refuge in three large towers and a group of other buildings of the fortress. Inca warlords Paukar Uaman and high priest Villak Umu decided to leave the towers, breaking through the besieging Spaniards to the Manco Inca camp in Kalka to beg for reinforcements. The capture of Sacsayhuaman relieved pressure on the Spanish garrison in Cuzco, the hostilities now boiled down to daily skirmishes interrupted only by the Incas during their religious holidays during the new moon . During this period, the Spaniards acted brutally to demoralize the Indians, in particular Hernando Pizarro ordered the killing of all captured women ^[7] . Encouraged by his successes, Hernando Pizarro led the attack on the Manco Inca camp, now located in Ollantaytambo , distant from Cuzco, but the Incas were able to defeat the Spaniards at the Battle of Ollantaytambo thanks to the fortifications and difficult terrain. At the same time, Manco Inca was unable to capitalize on the victory and take Cuzco with a swoop.

After 10 months of fierce struggle in Cuzco, where the morale of the parties played an important role, Inka Manco Inka Yupanki decided to lift the siege of Cuzco and with a small number of adherents move to the mountain region of Vilcabamba , where the Inca’s domination continues for another 30 years. It is generally accepted that the possible capture of Cuzco was the last chance for the Incas to defend their empire; but at the same time, this decision could be a reaction to the Spaniards coming from Chile, led by Diego de Almagro . The one who was at enmity with the Pizarro brothers managed to take Cuzco on April 18, 1537 .

During the struggle for the division of property and production, Francisco Pizarro and his entourage were killed. Members of the ruling Inca dynasty hid in the mountains, where for forty years they fought stubbornly against the Spaniards. In 1572, the last Inca ruler - Tupac Amaru - was beheaded. This marked the end of the Tauantinsuyu empire. The state was sacked, the Inca culture was destroyed.

The Indians were brutally exploited, but despite this the first major uprising took place only in 1780 under the leadership of the Inca, who took the name Tupac Amaru II . The uprising lasted until 1783 and was crushed by the Spaniards, and Tupac Amaru and thousands of his associates were brutally tortured and soon executed

• Spanish colonization of America
• The conquest of mexico
• The conquest of Peru, called New Castile
• Innocent exile Blas Valera to his people Tauantinsuyu
• Foreclosure Room
• Paititi

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