New World Amerian Cultures

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Arrival of the Spaniards and Fall of the Inacan Empire

Topic Information
When the Incans first met the Europeans
Before the meeting of both the Incans and the Europeans, the Incas predicted by looking at the moon that some important event was to occur. That event was the arrival of Pizzaro and his men. They felt that he was a God and gave he and his men shelter, food, and gold. Their shelter was in a barracks building in the middle of a square. Pizzaro felt that this would be a great place for an ambush so he asked the Incan King to honor in his presence and bring the followers he had that day (that day was a day of celebration where 5000 Incans had gathered together for tradition). When the 5000 Incans arrived in the square, Pizzaro waited for the signal of rifle shots to announce his attack. First he had a priest offer that he convert all the Incans to Christianity; the Incan leader simply through down the bible and thats when teh signal came. When the signal did come the Spaniards rushed out to meet the 5000 unarmed Incans. In one hour and 30 minutes nearly all but 200 of the Incans in that square were killed; the remainder who lived were lucky enough to escape.
Pizzaro then ransomed the Incan leader for gold, once he did recieve the god he planned to execute the Incan. However, he allowed the the King be converted to Christianity, and then killed him anyways. Pizzaro continued along the Incan kingdom wiping out all Incan resistance, then met with the Incan enimies and did the same to them as he did with the Incans.

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE Many reasons can be offered for the fall of the Incas, but the sudden conquest of a mighty empire by only a handful of Spaniards is still hard to comprehend. The Indian empires of Central Mexico had already succumbed to the Spaniards, who under Hernán Cortes had invaded Mexico in 1519. However, the Incas were unaware of such events, inasmuch as there was no direct contact of Aztec and Maya with Inca. The white man's presence became known only in 1523 or 1525, when a Spaniard named Alejo Garcia led an attack with Chiriguano Indians on an Inca outpost in the Gran Chaco, a dry lowland to the southeast of the Inca realm. In 1527 Francisco Pizarro appeared briefly at Tumbes on the northwest Peruvian coast and then sailed away, leaving behind two of his men. Shortly afterward, Ecuador was devastated by a pestilence (possibly smallpox) brought by one of them.
Huayna Capac died in 1527. He is said to have felt that the empire was too large to be governed only from Cusco. Succession to the Incaship was immediately disputed between Huascar, residing in Cusco, and Atahualpa, the favorite of Huayna Capac's 500 sons, living in Ecuador. A five- year-long civil war which devastated the empire ensued between the two half-brothers. Atahualpa's final victory occurred only two weeks before the second arrival of Pizarro. The victorious chief was resting at the provincial capital of Cajamarca in what is today northwestern Peru, surrounded by 40,000 veterans and planning to march to Cusco, there to be formally acknowledged Inca.
Pizarro arrived at Tumbes on May 13, 1532; he began his march toward Cajamarca with 177 men, of whom 67 were cavalry. Atahualpa knew all this; his intelligence reports were precise, but the interpretation placed on these reports was fatuous. He was told that the horses were no good at night; a man and animal were one, and when the horse or rider fell they were useless; guns were only thunderbolts and could be fired only twice; and the long steel Spanish swords were as ineffectual as a woman's weaving battens. In any of the hundred narrow defiles of the Andes through which the small Spanish detachment climbed, it could have been annihilated.
When the Spaniards occupied Cajamarca they sent out an invitation for Atahualpa to visit them in the city, which was walled on three sides. No one has yet been able to explain satisfactorily why Atahualpa allowed himself to walk into an ambush. He was well aware of Pizarro' s strength, and ambush was a much-used Inca military tactic. Perhaps other factors, not sensed by the Spaniards, guided the Inca in his movements. At vespers on Nov. 16, 1532, Atahualpa marched into the square of Cajamarca, displaying all the panoply of power. Although he was surrounded by thousands of his followers, the Inca and his men came, as Pizarro wished, unarmed. There was an unintelligible parley between a Christian priest and the Inca demigod; then the Spaniards set upon the Indians. The whole action took thirty minutes; the only Spanish casualty was Pizarro, wounded in the arm while defending Atahualpa, whom he wished to take alive and unhurt.
After that, except for fierce local skirmishes at several places, there was no serious resistance until 1536. Atahualpa, imprisoned, bargained for his life by agreeing to fill twice with silver and once with gold the large room in which he was kept, but it was not enough. On the pretense that Atahualpa planned to launch an attack once they were loaded down with their loot, the Spaniards kept Atahualpa in custody and eventually charged him with "crimes against the Spanish state." They formally tried and executed him by garroting, a form of strangulation, on Aug. 29, 1533.
The shock of all these events reduced the Inca people to a state of fear, and the Spaniards easily advanced southward over the great Inca highway to Cusco, which they captured on Nov. 15, 1533. From there, by organizing their new realm, they soon turned Spanish conquest into a Spanish domination.

How the Spanish changed the Incans
When they met with the spanish, the Incans found their guns and cannons fascinating. However, the Spanish didn't really give them any of their equipment, the Incans weren't too much impressed by anything else the Spanish had to offer; especially Christianity. The Incans weren't too fond about the fact that their supposed "god" pizzaro was trying to change their religion, which helped change their feelings about the newcomers. So, the Incans kept their own traditions to themselves and didn't accept the majority of what the Spaniards offered them. So in the end, the Spanish didn't change the Incans way of life, but simply, they destroyed the once powerful Incan Empire; leaving just a few hundred or so survivors to remember the story of their once great civilization.

Topic	Information
When the Incans first met the Europeans
Before the meeting of both the Incans and the Europeans, the Incas predicted by looking at the moon that some important event was to occur. That event was the arrival of Pizzaro and his men. They felt that he was a God and gave he and his men shelter, food, and gold. Their shelter was in a barracks building in the middle of a square. Pizzaro felt that this would be a great place for an ambush so he asked the Incan King to honor in his presence and bring the followers he had that day (that day was a day of celebration where 5000 Incans had gathered together for tradition). When the 5000 Incans arrived in the square, Pizzaro waited for the signal of rifle shots to announce his attack. First he had a priest offer that he convert all the Incans to Christianity; the Incan leader simply through down the bible and thats when teh signal came. When the signal did come the Spaniards rushed out to meet the 5000 unarmed Incans. In one hour and 30 minutes nearly all but 200 of the Incans in that square were killed; the remainder who lived were lucky enough to escape. Pizzaro then ransomed the Incan leader for gold, once he did recieve the god he planned to execute the Incan. However, he allowed the the King be converted to Christianity, and then killed him anyways. Pizzaro continued along the Incan kingdom wiping out all Incan resistance, then met with the Incan enimies and did the same to them as he did with the Incans.
THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE	Many reasons can be offered for the fall of the Incas, but the sudden conquest of a mighty empire by only a handful of Spaniards is still hard to comprehend. The Indian empires of Central Mexico had already succumbed to the Spaniards, who under Hernán Cortes had invaded Mexico in 1519. However, the Incas were unaware of such events, inasmuch as there was no direct contact of Aztec and Maya with Inca. The white man's presence became known only in 1523 or 1525, when a Spaniard named Alejo Garcia led an attack with Chiriguano Indians on an Inca outpost in the Gran Chaco, a dry lowland to the southeast of the Inca realm. In 1527 Francisco Pizarro appeared briefly at Tumbes on the northwest Peruvian coast and then sailed away, leaving behind two of his men. Shortly afterward, Ecuador was devastated by a pestilence (possibly smallpox) brought by one of them. Huayna Capac died in 1527. He is said to have felt that the empire was too large to be governed only from Cusco. Succession to the Incaship was immediately disputed between Huascar, residing in Cusco, and Atahualpa, the favorite of Huayna Capac's 500 sons, living in Ecuador. A five- year-long civil war which devastated the empire ensued between the two half-brothers. Atahualpa's final victory occurred only two weeks before the second arrival of Pizarro. The victorious chief was resting at the provincial capital of Cajamarca in what is today northwestern Peru, surrounded by 40,000 veterans and planning to march to Cusco, there to be formally acknowledged Inca. Pizarro arrived at Tumbes on May 13, 1532; he began his march toward Cajamarca with 177 men, of whom 67 were cavalry. Atahualpa knew all this; his intelligence reports were precise, but the interpretation placed on these reports was fatuous. He was told that the horses were no good at night; a man and animal were one, and when the horse or rider fell they were useless; guns were only thunderbolts and could be fired only twice; and the long steel Spanish swords were as ineffectual as a woman's weaving battens. In any of the hundred narrow defiles of the Andes through which the small Spanish detachment climbed, it could have been annihilated. When the Spaniards occupied Cajamarca they sent out an invitation for Atahualpa to visit them in the city, which was walled on three sides. No one has yet been able to explain satisfactorily why Atahualpa allowed himself to walk into an ambush. He was well aware of Pizarro' s strength, and ambush was a much-used Inca military tactic. Perhaps other factors, not sensed by the Spaniards, guided the Inca in his movements. At vespers on Nov. 16, 1532, Atahualpa marched into the square of Cajamarca, displaying all the panoply of power. Although he was surrounded by thousands of his followers, the Inca and his men came, as Pizarro wished, unarmed. There was an unintelligible parley between a Christian priest and the Inca demigod; then the Spaniards set upon the Indians. The whole action took thirty minutes; the only Spanish casualty was Pizarro, wounded in the arm while defending Atahualpa, whom he wished to take alive and unhurt. After that, except for fierce local skirmishes at several places, there was no serious resistance until 1536. Atahualpa, imprisoned, bargained for his life by agreeing to fill twice with silver and once with gold the large room in which he was kept, but it was not enough. On the pretense that Atahualpa planned to launch an attack once they were loaded down with their loot, the Spaniards kept Atahualpa in custody and eventually charged him with "crimes against the Spanish state." They formally tried and executed him by garroting, a form of strangulation, on Aug. 29, 1533. The shock of all these events reduced the Inca people to a state of fear, and the Spaniards easily advanced southward over the great Inca highway to Cusco, which they captured on Nov. 15, 1533. From there, by organizing their new realm, they soon turned Spanish conquest into a Spanish domination.
How the Spanish changed the Incans
When they met with the spanish, the Incans found their guns and cannons fascinating. However, the Spanish didn't really give them any of their equipment, the Incans weren't too much impressed by anything else the Spanish had to offer; especially Christianity. The Incans weren't too fond about the fact that their supposed "god" pizzaro was trying to change their religion, which helped change their feelings about the newcomers. So, the Incans kept their own traditions to themselves and didn't accept the majority of what the Spaniards offered them. So in the end, the Spanish didn't change the Incans way of life, but simply, they destroyed the once powerful Incan Empire; leaving just a few hundred or so survivors to remember the story of their once great civilization.