66 CHAPTER 3 THE CONQUEST OF AMERICA
richest towns and provinces. The crown rewarded
his services by granting him the title of marquis of
the Valley of Oaxaca and the tributes of twenty-
three thousand vassals; he lived in almost kingly
style, dining “with minstrels and trumpets.” But
royal distrust of the great conquerors soon asserted
itself. He was removed from his offi ce of governor, his
authority was vested in an audiencia (high court),
pending the appointment of a viceroy, and all his
actions came under close legal scrutiny. In 1539 he
returned to Spain and served with distinction in the
expedition against Algiers in the following year, but
he was ignored and snubbed by the king. Filled with
bitterness, he retired to live in seclusion in Seville.
He died in 1547, leaving his title and estates to his
eldest legitimate son, Martín Cortés.
The Conquest of Peru
The conquest of Mexico challenged other Spaniards
to match the exploits of Cortés and his companions.
The work of discovering a golden kingdom ru-
mored to lie beyond the “South Sea” was begun by
Balboa but was cut short by his death at the hands
of Pedrarias Dávila. In 1519, Dávila founded the
town of Panama on the western side of the isth-
mus, and this town became a base for explorations
along the Pacifi c coast. Three years later, Pascual
de Andagoya crossed the Gulf of San Miguel and
returned with more information concerning a land
of gold called Biru.
PIZARRO AND ATAHUALPA
Dávila entrusted a southward voyage to Fran-
cisco Pizarro, an illiterate, impoverished soldier, of
whom little is known. Pizarro recruited two part-
ners for the Peruvian venture: Diego de Almagro,
an adventurer of equally obscure origins, and Her-
nando de Luque, a priest who acted as fi nancial
agent for the trio. Two preliminary expeditions,
fi tted out from Panama in 1524 and 1526, yielded
enough fi nds of gold and silver to confi rm the exis-
tence of the elusive kingdom. Pizarro now left for
Spain to obtain royal sanction for the enterprise
of Peru. He returned to Panama with the titles of
captain general and adelantado (commander), ac-
companied by his four brothers and other follow-
ers. Almagro, dissatisfi ed with the allotment of
titles and other rewards in the royal contract, ac-
cused Pizarro of slighting his services to the king.
Although the quarrel was patched up, it sowed the
seeds of a deadly feud.
In December 1531, Pizarro again sailed from
Panama for the south with a force of some two hun-
dred men and landed several months later on the
Peruvian coast. On arrival, the Spaniards learned
that civil war was raging in the Inca Empire. Ata-
hualpa, son of the late emperor Huayna Capac by
a secondary wife, had risen against another claim-
ant of the throne: his half-brother, Huascar. Ata-
hualpa defeated Huascar in a war marked by great
slaughter and made him prisoner. Atahualpa was
advancing toward the imperial capital of Cuzco
when messengers brought him news of the arrival
of white strangers. After an exchange of messages
and gifts between the leaders, the two armies ad-
vanced to a meeting at the town of Cajamarca,
high in the mountains.
Perhaps in direct imitation of Cortés, Pizarro
proposed to win a quick and relatively bloodless vic-
tory by seizing the Inca Atahualpa, through whom
he may have hoped to rule the country, much as
Cortés had done with Moctezuma. In one impor-
tant respect, however, the Peruvian story differs
from that of Mexico. If Moctezuma’s undoing was
his passive acceptance of the divinity of the invad-
ers, Atahualpa’s mistake was to underestimate the
massed striking power of the small Spanish force.
He had been led to believe that the swords were no
more dangerous than women’s weaving battens,
that the fi rearms were capable of fi ring only two
shots, and that the horses were powerless at night.
This last delusion apparently led to his delayed
entry into Cajamarca at dusk, instead of noon, as
Pizarro had been told to expect.
When Atahualpa and his escort appeared
for the rendezvous in the square of Cajamarca, he
found it deserted, for Pizarro had concealed his
men in some large buildings that opened onto the
square. Then the priest Vicente de Valverde came
forward, accompanied by an interpreter, to ha-
rangue the bewildered Inca concerning his obli-
gations to the Christian God and the Spanish king
until the angry emperor threw down a Bible that
Valverde had handed him. At a signal from Pizarro,