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1-013 The Collapse of the Incan Empire I
Vol. 1- No. 13
1995
Lead: Francisco Pizarro had been nibbling around the edges of the west coast of South America for years. Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Rumors of vast stocks of gold and silver owned by native tribes living in the mountain passes of the Andes, in what is now Peru, pulled Pizzaro and a small band of adventurers on a series of ever-southward voyages from 1524 until the fall of 1532. Pizarro's task of conquest was simplified by a deadly division in the ranks of the dominant tribe of the region, the Incas. Huascar and his half-brother Atahualpa had been circling around each other in a tense truce since the death of their father in 1525. The old emperor's idea of dividing the kingdom between the pair proved a prescription for disaster and at the end of the War of Two Brothers in 1530, Huascar lay in prison and Atahualpa was master of a decimated and bitterly divided empire. At that point the Spaniards arrived. Pizarro landed with 62 horsemen, 106 foot soldiers and a few cannons, and set out to scale the Peruvian Sierras to get at the emperor and his fortune. Perhaps Atahualpa did not correctly perceive the ruthless nature of his opponent and was lulled into overconfidence by the small size of the Spanish contingent. Whatever the reason, he did little to impede the invasion. By mid-November, Pizarro and his band had reached the royal retreat of Cajamarca in a green valley high in the Andes. The first contact was made by a group led by Hernando De Soto. Seated on a golden throne and surrounded by perhaps 5000 troops, wives and other supporters, Atahualpa told De Soto that he had received word that the Spaniards had stolen many items in their march from the sea and he wanted them back. Without warning De Soto charged directly into the royal party, stopping just short of the emperor in a hail of flying gravel. Though Atahualpa himself did not flinch, his followers fled. The Spaniards retired, having tested the Incas and finding them hesitant and confused. Next time: Collapse of the Incan Empire The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Brundage, Burr C. Empire of the Incas. Norman, Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma Press, 1963. Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970. Herring, Hubert. A History of Latin America from the Beginnings to the Present. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1968. MacCormack, Sabine. "The Fall of the Incas: A Historiographical Dilemma," History of European Ideas, 6 (4, 1985), 421-445. Patterson, Thomas C. The Inca Empire: The Formation and Disintegration of a Pre-Capitalist State. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Copyright 1995 by Educational Broadcast, Inc.
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