Juan Lepiani's painting, which depicts the first associates of Pizarro - "The Glorious Thirteen" ("Thirteen Sung with Glory"). Legend says that in 1527, having received an order to return to Panama, Pizarro drew a line in the sand with a sword and invited the soldiers who suffered hardships and hunger on the Gallo Island to follow him: “Here is Peru with its wealth; there is Panama with its poverty. Choose, each of you, what is best for the brave Castilian."
Now is the time to tell about Francisco Pizarro, who repeated the deeds of Cortez in South America. He defeated the Inca state, the culture of which was also described in detail here on VO, and obtained a fantastic amount of gold and silver for his thugs and the beloved king. And … he did not lose it, as Cortez lost the stolen gold in "The Night of Sorrow". That is, in all respects, he proved to be a more successful conquistador. Moreover, the state of the Incas was great. It was located in the territories of modern Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia, that is, it was much larger than the Aztec empire. Although it was beneficial for the Spaniards to present the Incas as illiterate savages, the study of their history and culture showed that the Incas had their own written language and kept chronicles. Well, the number of the Incas themselves and the peoples they conquered, such as Quechua and Aymara, could reach 10 million people, of which about 200,000 men served in the Inca army. So the task before Pizarro was even more difficult than the one that faced Cortez, and … he coped with it very well!
Painting by John Everett Millais. "Pizarro takes Atahualpa prisoner." 1845 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum)
The Spaniards learned about the existence of the Inca empire in 1525, after the completion of the first Southern expedition, which was led by Francisco Pizarro together with Diego de Almagro. Interestingly, Pizarro's expedition coincided with an important event for the Incas: a civil war was going on in their country between the pretenders to the throne, in which Prince Atahualpa ultimately became the winner. The expedition left Panama on November 14, 1524, and soon reached the territory of the Inca state, but due to hostilities, it returned back in 1525. But the Spaniards did not give up hope that one way or another they would be able to find out everything about this country and organized two more expeditions there.
Portrait of Francisco Pizarro. Amable-Paul Cutan (1792-1837). (Versailles, Paris)
Returning to Panama, Pizarro reported everything to the governor, but he was either a fool or a reinsurer and refused to give him people to conquer Peru. But he could not prevent Pizarro from going to Spain. And there he received an audience with Charles V and told him in detail about his plans. The monarch turned out to be smarter, he gave the conquistador the rank of captain-general, but most importantly - money and troops. Although not much. A total of three small ships, 67 horsemen and 157 infantrymen, armed with melee weapons - pikes, spears and swords. In addition, he was given 20 crossbowmen with powerful crossbows, but only 3 (!) Kulivriner soldiers and two small cannons!
Neighborhoods of Cusco. Ollantaytambo Fortress.
On the coast of Peru, with all his people, Pizaro arrived in 1532. By this time, he had 200 foot soldiers and only 27 horsemen who had horses. But here, just as in the case of Cortez, his "army" immediately began to be replenished with Indians of the tribes who had not been satisfied with the rule of the Incas for a long time and who were only waiting for an opportunity to rebel against him. The Incas themselves were ready to fight the invaders who had come to them, but their empire was weakened by internecine war. Each of its participants hoped to use the Spaniards in their own interests, hoping that later he would cope with them without difficulty. But the most important thing is that the Spaniards brought smallpox and measles to Peru - the most reliable weapons of the Europeans in their fight against the Indians. And it was from her that most of the Inca warriors died!
Ollantaytambo Fortress. On these terraces it was possible not only to defend, but also to grow crops!
The conquistadors had already occupied several Inca cities when the Inca army came out to meet them. Atahualpa knew that the messengers told him that the aliens possessed unprecedented weapons, but he turned out to be a limited man and was not imbued with the consciousness of the impending danger posed by the Spaniards. The commander-in-chief Ruminyavi was sent by him to attack the aliens from the rear, and he himself, at the head of an eighty thousandth procession, headed to the city of Cajamarca, captured by the Spaniards. Why he took only about 7,000 people with him, and left the rest of the army outside the city, is unknown. No sources report this. Maybe he was so confident in his power that he considered the forces of the Spaniards too insignificant? Or did the gods advise him to do so? Who knows…
The battle between the Incas and the Spaniards. Chronicle of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
In any case, Pizarro, with only 182 people under his command, was not afraid of the formidable greatness of the Only Inca and took Atahualpa hostage on November 16, 1532. Moreover, the classic "Belly case" was used - Atahualpa was handed the Bible and offered to be baptized. But he did not know what it was and threw her to the ground. There was a price to pay for the sacrilege! A volley of guns and 12 arquebus was immediately fired at the Indians, after which riders on horses attacked them. Of course, the Incas tried to save their ruler, but in such an unequal battle they could not help but suffer defeat.
Jewelry of noble Inca warriors. (Larco Museum in Lima).
In fact, the "battle" was a real massacre, in which almost all seven thousand loyal warriors of Atahualpa died, and he himself was captured. And the Spaniards have not lost a single person! Well, the Incas were completely demoralized. They did not know guns, they did not know crossbows, they had never seen horses, armor and steel weapons too … The manner of fighting was unusual for them, and the wounds inflicted by steel weapons were simply terrifying.
The Golden Mask of the Mochica Indians (Larco Museum in Lima).
Well, then Pizarro demanded a ransom for the Great Inca. And Atahualpa, in response, suggested filling the room in which he was kept with gold up to the ceiling. Pizarro, hearing this, hesitated a little in surprise (which is not at all surprising, is it ?!), but Atahualpa noticed this, did not understand the reason, or rather interpreted it wrongly, and immediately promised the conquistador that he would fill the next room with silver. Then Pizarro came to his senses, realized that he had attacked a gold mine, and realizing, he noticed that the second room was much smaller than the first. And Atahualpa agreed with him and promised to fill it with silver twice!
Head of the Inca mace made of copper. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
For more than three months, the Incas had to collect gold and silver and deliver them to Cajamarca. At the same time, Atahualpa violated a very old and strict law, which required: "that no gold and silver that entered the city of Cuzco could be taken out of it on pain of death." But it was from Cuzco that the largest part of the gold and silver was taken out! It took more than 34 days only to melt gold and silver items into ingots. All this became the famous "Atahualpa Ransom", which was later legendary and which eventually amounted to a whole room of 35 m², up to the level of a raised hand filled with gold and silver. Pizarro received the ransom, but still decided to execute Atahualpa. Moreover, the court ruled to burn him, but if he adopted Christianity, it was promised to replace this type of execution with strangulation. And Atahualpa again agreed, because the Incas believed that only the safety of the body guarantees the deceased life after death. And on July 26, 1533, Atahualpa was strangled with a garrote.
Painting by Luis Montero. "The funeral of Atahualpa on August 29, 1533". 1867 (Museum of Art in Lima)
And the notary Pedro Sancho reported "where it is necessary" that Francisco Pizarro, when dividing the ransom on June 18, 1533, received: gold - 57,220 pesos, and silver - 2,350 marks. Francisco de Chavez, one of Pizarro's associates, described these events in a slightly different way. In a letter dated August 5, 1533, he claimed that they had captured Atahualpa, having drunk him and his retinue with wine with arsenic monosulfide (realgar), which made it easy to capture them, no one offered significant resistance to the Spaniards. Whether it’s true or not, you don’t know now. Only one thing is known. Atahualpa was taken prisoner, he was offered to pay a ransom, he agreed, the ransom was received, after which he was executed as a heretic. Such was the fate of this narrow-minded, albeit noble "savage".
Peru, top of a mace. Chavin culture. OK. 800-200 biennium BC. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
On March 15, 1573, the soldier of Huascara Sebastian Jacovilca also wrote that he personally “saw that after the death of Atabalipa (Atahualpa - ed.) Don Marquis Francisco Pizarro also killed and ordered to kill a large number of Indians, generals and relatives of the Inca himself and more than 20 thousand Indians who were with that Atabalipa to wage war with his brother Vaskar. And if this is true, then it turns out that the Incas at once lost a significant part of their army, and with it the will to further resist!
Peru, top of a mace. Chavin culture. OK. 800-200 biennium BC. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
After the death of Atahualpa, the Spaniards made Tupac Hualpa the supreme Inca, but he did not rule for long. He was killed by his own commander. On November 15, 1533, immediately after they managed to defeat another Inca army, the conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro, without much resistance, captured the capital of the Incas, the city of Cuzco, and brought to power another puppet ruler - Manco Inca Yupanqui (Manco-Capaca II) … It is clear that the real power was completely in the hands of the Spaniards, who not only humiliated the new emperor, but also imprisoned them after he tried to escape from them in November 1535. True, it cannot be said that all the Incas surrendered and did not show any resistance to the Spaniards. But the fact is that even when they tried to resist, there were always Indians from the conquered tribes who came to the Spaniards to help.
Atlatl handle. Stone. Mexico, Guerrero, 500 BC - 100 A. D. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
Well, then the Extremadurian, like Pizarro, Sebastian de Belalcazar went to Ecuador, where he defeated the troops of the Inca warlord Ruminyavi in the battle of Mount Chimborazo. And then he met with five hundred people of the Governor of Guatemala, Pedro de Alvarado, and it almost came to a fight, because he himself hoped to rob the Indians, and the place was already taken. However, the governor thought and decided not to drag around the jungle, not to tempt fate, but to sell his ships and ammunition to another Pizarro associate, Diego de Almagro. And he sold it for a solid sum of 100 thousand pesos in gold. After that, on December 6, 1534, Belalcazar managed to capture the important fortress of Quito, but his expectations of finding treasures there were not justified. And if so, he continued to move north, hoping to find there the "golden country" of El Dorado and the "golden city" of Manoa.
Ritual knife of the Incas, 1300-1560 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
And Diego de Almagro went south and got to the land, which he called Chile, which means "cold". And the saddest thing is that they did not treat the Indians as a whole as sadists and murderers, only this for the natives turned out to be worse than their swords and bullets. Many of them fell ill from contact with the Spaniards. The epidemic spread and the local population eventually decreased … by a factor of five! But in Spain gold and silver just flowed like a river, and previously completely unknown vegetables here - corn and tomatoes, as well as cocoa beans - came to Europe. The Spaniards also learned the "secret" of why all the Indians had such beautiful teeth. It turns out that they knew a certain plant, the root of which was cut and heated over a fire to a boil. Then this root with the juice released from it was applied to the gums. It was, of course, very painful, but very effective. The operation was performed in childhood and in adulthood, and the Incas, unlike the Spaniards, did not know any problems with their teeth … But having described this method of dental treatment, they did not bother to find out what kind of plant it was, and this mystery went away with the Incas!
It is not surprising that the Spaniards were cruel to the Indians, because in their eyes, the eyes of devout Catholics, frightened to the limit by the Holy Inquisition, even the Inca dishes looked absolutely terrible. (Larco Museum in Lima)
Or, say, this vessel. Quite innocent in the eyes of anyone - an Indian, he plunged the Spaniard into horror. After all, there is only one way … and everything else … a terrible sin! (Larco Museum in Lima)
In January 1535, Pizarro founded the city of Lima, which became the capital of Peru. And from 1543 it became the main center of Spanish domination in South America.
But for the Incas, these were completely normal artistic images. "Who doesn't do that?" - they wondered, looking at the Spaniards, dead from horror, looking at the usual dishes. (Larco Museum in Lima)
It should be noted that Manco Inca did not abandon his intention to flee from the Spaniards. Having shown patience and resourcefulness, he managed to deceive one of the Pizarro brothers - Hernando Pizarro, and fled. And having escaped, he stood at the head of the Inca uprising. A pursuit was sent for him, but it was not possible to return the fugitive. Meanwhile, Manco Inca managed to assemble an army, the number of which is said to (or rather write!) That it ranged from 100,000 to 200,000 soldiers; which were opposed by only 190 Spaniards, including only 80 horsemen, but, however, several thousand Indian allies. The Spaniards besieged the city of Cuzco on May 6, 1536 and, as a result of a massive attack, recaptured almost the entire city. The Spaniards took refuge in two large houses near the main square and decided to sell their lives dearly.
It is good that at least they did not consider the portrait vessels to be "the intrigue of the devil" and today there are a sufficient number of them. In any case, in the Larco Museum in Lima, all the storage rooms are literally crammed with them.
They also managed to attack and recapture from the Indians the Sacsayhuaman complex of buildings, which was their main base, and another Pizarro brother, Juan, was mortally wounded in the head by a sling stone. The capture of Sacsayhuaman eased the position of the Spanish garrison in Cuzco, but their position remained difficult. Therefore, in order to strike them with horror, the Spaniards at this time killed all the prisoners, and first of all - the women they had captured. As a result, it turned out that during the 10 months of the siege of Cusco, Manco Inca Yupanqui could not break the resistance of the Spaniards and decided to lift the siege. He hid in the Vilcabamba mountain range, where the Inca rule lasted for another 30 years. And then the Spaniards, led by Diego de Almagro, returned from Chile and took Cuzco on April 18, 1537.
The climax of the siege of Cusco, Inca Manco and his warriors set fire to the city's rooftops. Chronicle of Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.
The fate of Francisco Pizarro himself was sad. He died as a result of a conspiracy, which the Incas could only rejoice in. But … they still could not take advantage of this. Hiding in mountain fortresses, they fought the conquistadors for more than forty years, until in 1572 the last ruler of the Incas, Tupac Amaru, was captured by them and beheaded. Thus ended the history of the Tahuantinsuyu Empire. Their state was destroyed, the culture of the Incas died.
Tomb of Francisco Pissaro in Lima.
Well, the first major uprising of the Indians conquered by the Spaniards in Peru happened only in 1780 (that's how long they endured their domination!). And it was also headed by the Inca, who took the name Tupac Amaru II. The uprising lasted three years, but in the end the Spaniards suppressed it anyway, and Tupac Amaru and thousands of his associates, after cruel torture, were executed to intimidate everyone who remained.
Terraces of the mountain fortress Pumatallis
