THE CONQUEST OF PERU 67
his soldiers, supported by cavalry and artillery,
rushed forward to kill hundreds and take the Inca
prisoner. “It was a very wonderful thing,” wrote a
Spanish observer, “to see so great a lord, who came
in such power, taken prisoner in so short a time.”
Atahualpa vainly begged for his freedom by
offering to fi ll his spacious cell higher than a man
could reach with gold objects as the price of his
ransom. Pizarro accepted the offer, and hundreds
of llama-loads of gold arrived from all parts of the
empire until the room had been fi lled to the stipu-
lated height. But Pizarro had no intention of letting
the emperor go; he remained in “protective cus-
tody,” a puppet ruler who was to ensure popular
acceptance of the new order. Soon, however, the
Spaniards began to suspect that Atahualpa was be-
coming the focal point of a widespread conspiracy
against them and decided that he must die. He was
charged with treason and condemned to death by
burning, a sentence commuted to strangling on his
acceptance of baptism.
After the death of the Inca, the Spaniards
marched on the Inca capital of Cuzco, which they
captured and pillaged in November 1533. A major
factor in the success of this and later Spanish cam-
paigns was the military and other assistance given
by the late Huascar’s branch of the Inca royal fam-
ily and by curacas who, seeing an opportunity to
regain their lost independence and power, rallied
to the Spanish side after the capture of Atahualpa.
The gold and silver looted from Cuzco, together
with Atahualpa’s enormous ransom of gold, was
melted down and divided among the soldiers. Her-
nando Pizarro, Francisco’s brother, was sent to
Spain with Emperor Charles’s share of the plunder.
Hernando’s arrival with his load of gold and silver
caused feverish excitement, and a new wave of
Spanish fortune hunters sailed for the New World.
Meanwhile, Francisco Pizarro had begun construc-
tion of an entirely new Spanish capital, Lima, the
City of the Kings, conveniently near the coast for
communication with Panama.POST-CONQUEST TROUBLES
After Atahualpa’s death, Pizarro, posing as the de-
fender of the legitimate Inca line, proclaimed Huas-
car’s brother Manco as the new Inca. But Manco
was not content to play the role of a Spanish pup-
pet. A formidable insurrection, organized and led
by Manco himself, broke out in many parts of the
empire. A large army laid siege to Cuzco for ten
months but failed by a narrow margin to take the
city. Defeated by superior Spanish weapons and
tactics and by food shortages in his army, Manco
retreated to a remote stronghold in the Andean
mountains, where he and his successors main-
tained a kind of Inca government-in-exile until
1572, when a Spanish military expedition entered
the mountains, broke up the imperial court, and
captured the last Inca, Tupac Amaru, who was be-
headed in a solemn ceremony at Cuzco.
The Inca siege of Cuzco had barely been bro-
ken when fi ghting began between a group of the
conquerors headed by the Pizarro brothers and
a group led by Diego de Almagro over possession
of the city of Cuzco. Defeated in battle, Almagro
suffered death by strangling but left behind a son
and a large group of supporters to brood over theirAtahualpa, last of the independent Incan emperors,
grandly displayed his regal power with golden
objects, including vestments, earrings, and head-
band. [Atahualpa, Peru, mid-18th century. Oil on canvas.
233 / 4 × 21^5 / 8. Brooklyn Museum of Art, Museum Purchase
#1995.20.14]