The Last Days Of The Incas
Kim MacQuarrie
eBook
(Piatkus, Dec. 6, 2012)
In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistadorFrancisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers,to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers ofPeru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpahad defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed withAtahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca.Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards prevailed -- due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords, and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa.Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Incacapital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and theconquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Butthe Incas did not submit willingly. A young Inca emperor, the brother of Atahualpa, soon led a massive rebellion against the Spaniards,inflicting heavy casualties and nearly wiping out the conquerors.Eventually, however, Pizarro and his men forced the emperor to abandonthe Andes and flee to the Amazon. There, he established a hiddencapital, called Vilcabamba. Although the Incas fought a deadly,thirty-six-year-long guerrilla war, the Spanish ultimately captured thelast Inca emperor and vanquished the native resistance. Kim MacQuarrie lived in Peru for five years and became fascinated by the Incas and the history of the Spanish conquest. Drawing on both nativeand Spanish chronicles, he vividly describes the dramatic story of theconquest, with all its savagery and suspense. MacQuarrie also relatesthe story of the modern search for Vilcabamba, of how Machu Picchu wasdiscovered, and of how a trio of colorful American explorers onlyrecently discovered the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba, hidden forcenturies in the Amazon. This authoritative, excitinghistory is among the most powerful and important accounts of the culture of the South American Indians and the Spanish Conquest.