Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire (1532-1572): Pizarro

The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire was the process by which a small band of Spanish adventurers led by Francisco Pizarro overthrew Tawantinsuyu, the largest state in the Americas, between 1532 and 1572. It began with the capture of the ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca and ended with the fall of the last Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba. The conquest created Spanish Peru, sent vast amounts of silver to Europe and transformed Andean society.

Background: the Inca Empire and the Spanish in Panama

At its height in the early 16th century the Inca Empire stretched about 4,000 km along the Andes, from southern Colombia to central Chile. It was held together by a road network of some 40,000 km, by state storehouses and by a system of labour service called mit’a. Population estimates vary widely, most often between about 6 and 14 million people.

Spanish settlers in Panama heard rumours of a rich kingdom to the south. Francisco Pizarro, an illegitimate son of a minor noble from Trujillo in Extremadura, formed a partnership with the soldier Diego de Almagro and the priest Hernando de Luque. Their first two voyages, in 1524-1525 and 1526-1528, were hard and nearly failed; on the second, Pizarro’s ships reached the Inca coastal city of Tumbes and saw proof of the empire’s wealth.

Pizarro went to Spain and on 26 July 1529 obtained a royal licence, the Capitulación de Toledo, naming him governor of the lands he would conquer. He recruited his brothers Hernando, Juan and Gonzalo, and in late December 1530 sailed south from Panama with about 180 men and a few dozen horses.

A divided empire

Pizarro arrived at a moment of crisis. The emperor Huayna Capac had died around 1527-1528, probably in an epidemic, and his sons Huáscar and Atahualpa had fought the Inca Civil War for the throne. By late 1532 Atahualpa’s generals had defeated and captured Huáscar, but the empire was exhausted and bitterly split.

After founding the settlement of San Miguel de Piura in 1532, Pizarro marched inland with 168 men. Atahualpa, camped at the hot springs near Cajamarca with a large army, allowed them to approach, apparently confident that so small a group posed no threat.

The Spanish force was tiny but not ordinary. Many of its men were veterans of fighting in the Caribbean and Central America, they had steel swords, lances and armour, and they possessed horses, animals unknown in the Andes that gave them speed and shock in open country. Pizarro also knew how Hernán Cortés had used the capture of Moctezuma in Mexico a decade earlier.

Cajamarca and the ransom

On 16 November 1532 Atahualpa entered the main square of Cajamarca with thousands of attendants. After a brief exchange with the friar Vicente de Valverde, the Spaniards opened fire from hiding and charged with cavalry. Thousands of Atahualpa’s mostly unarmed retinue were killed and the ruler was taken prisoner, an event described in the article on the Battle of Cajamarca.

To win his freedom, Atahualpa offered to fill a large room once with gold and twice with silver. Over the following months treasure poured in from across the empire. When melted down, it yielded roughly 6,000 kg of gold and about 12,000 kg of silver, according to the figures given by John Hemming. Atahualpa was not freed. Accused of plotting against the Spanish and of ordering the death of Huáscar, he was executed by garrotting on 26 July 1533.

The ransom transformed the conquest. Each Spanish horseman at Cajamarca received a fortune, and the royal fifth sent to Spain with Hernando Pizarro caused a sensation in Seville. Hundreds of new adventurers sailed for Peru, among them Diego de Almagro, who arrived with reinforcements in 1533 and expected a full share of the spoils.

The march to Cusco

With the emperor dead, Pizarro crowned a puppet ruler, Túpac Huallpa, who died within months. The Spanish then marched south, fighting several battles against Atahualpa’s general Quizquiz and making use of the hostility of Huáscar’s supporters towards Atahualpa’s faction.

On 15 November 1533 Pizarro entered Cusco, the Inca capital. The Spaniards stripped its temples, including the gold-covered Coricancha. Pizarro installed a young son of Huayna Capac, Manco Inca, as a new emperor under Spanish control. In the north, Sebastián de Belalcázar took Quito in 1534 after hard fighting against the general Rumiñahui.

Pizarro preferred a coastal capital linked to the sea, and on 18 January 1535 he founded Lima, the “City of Kings”.

The Spanish also depended heavily on Andean allies. Peoples such as the Cañari of southern Ecuador and the Chachapoya of the northern forests had suffered under Inca rule and in the civil war, and many joined the newcomers. Members of Huáscar’s faction in Cusco welcomed the defeat of Atahualpa’s generals. To many Andeans in 1533, the conflict still looked like a struggle between Inca factions in which the strangers were one more participant, not a foreign conquest of the whole land.

Rebellion and Spanish civil wars

Manco Inca soon realised he was a figurehead and was treated with contempt by Pizarro’s brothers. In 1536 he escaped and raised a great army that laid siege to Cusco for months, while another force attacked Lima. The Siege of Cusco came close to destroying the Spanish garrison, but the Inca could not take the city. In 1537 Manco withdrew to the remote forested region of Vilcabamba, where he founded an independent Inca state.

The conquerors then fought each other. Diego de Almagro, who believed Cusco belonged to his share, seized the city in 1537. He was defeated at the Battle of Las Salinas in April 1538 and executed. In 1541 Almagro’s supporters killed Francisco Pizarro in his palace in Lima. Later, Gonzalo Pizarro led a revolt against the New Laws of 1542, which sought to limit settlers’ power over indigenous labour; he was defeated and executed in 1548.

These civil wars mattered to Andean people too. Rival Spanish leaders recruited indigenous auxiliaries, seized supplies and drafted porters, adding to the burden on communities already hit by epidemics. Royal authority was firmly established only after the arrival of the president Pedro de la Gasca, who defeated Gonzalo Pizarro at Jaquijahuana in April 1548.

The fall of Vilcabamba

From Vilcabamba, Manco Inca raided Spanish routes until he was murdered in 1544 (some sources say 1545) by Spanish fugitives he had sheltered. His sons Sayri Túpac, Titu Cusi Yupanqui and Túpac Amaru ruled the small state in turn, sometimes negotiating with the Spanish.

The viceroy Francisco de Toledo, determined to end Inca independence, sent an army in 1572. Vilcabamba fell on 24 June 1572. Túpac Amaru was captured and beheaded in the main square of Cusco on 24 September 1572, ending the line of independent Inca rulers.

Why the Spanish won

Historians stress several reasons, none of which alone explains the outcome:

• Disease: epidemics killed much of the population, including the emperor, before and during the conquest.
• Civil war and allies: the empire was divided, and many Andean peoples, such as the Cañari and Chachapoya, resented Inca rule and fought alongside the Spanish.
• Capture of the ruler: seizing Atahualpa paralysed a highly centralised state.
• Military technology: steel swords, armour and horses gave small Spanish units a great advantage in open terrain.
• Reinforcements: news of the Cajamarca treasure drew a steady flow of new Spanish soldiers.

Consequences and legacy

The conquest created the Viceroyalty of Peru, one of the two great pillars of Spain’s American empire. The discovery of silver at Potosí in 1545 made it enormously valuable, and Andean silver flowed to Europe and Asia for centuries.

For the Andean peoples, the results were devastating. Epidemics, war and forced labour, including a colonial version of the mit’a in the mines, contributed to a population collapse often estimated at well over half within a century. Yet Andean culture endured: Quechua and Aymara are still widely spoken, and Inca memory inspired later movements, including the great rebellion of Túpac Amaru II in 1780.

The conquest also produced some of the most important written sources on the Americas. Spanish chroniclers such as Pedro de Cieza de León recorded the empire they had seen, while Andean and mestizo writers, including Titu Cusi Yupanqui, Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala and Garcilaso de la Vega, gave Inca and Andean perspectives on the conquest and its aftermath. Historians still rely on these often conflicting accounts.

Timeline

• 1524-1528: Pizarro’s first two voyages explore the Pacific coast and reach Tumbes.
• 1529, 26 July: The Capitulación de Toledo authorises Pizarro’s conquest.
• 1532, 16 November: Atahualpa is captured at Cajamarca.
• 1533, 26 July: Atahualpa is executed.
• 1533, 15 November: The Spanish enter Cusco.
• 1535, 18 January: Pizarro founds Lima.
• 1536-1537: Manco Inca’s rebellion and the Siege of Cusco.
• 1541, 26 June: Francisco Pizarro is assassinated in Lima.
• 1572, 24 June: Spanish forces take Vilcabamba.
• 1572, 24 September: Túpac Amaru is executed in Cusco.

Why it matters

The conquest of the Inca Empire is one of the most dramatic and consequential episodes of the early modern world. It shows how disease, internal division and a few decisive moments allowed a small invading force to topple a vast state. Its effects, from global silver flows to the survival of Andean cultures under colonial rule, still shape South America today.