Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
- Date
- 1532 to 1533
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Andes; Peru (Viceroyalty of Peru)
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 16 November 1532 a band of fewer than two hundred Spaniards under Francisco Pizarro ambushed and captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca, slaughtering thousands of his unarmed retinue.
The Inca emperor was held for an enormous ransom of gold and silver, then executed by garrotte on 29 August 1533. The conquistadors exploited a fresh civil war between Atahualpa and his brother Huascar, alliances with disaffected subject peoples, and the demoralising spread of Old World epidemics that had already killed a previous emperor. The seizure of the Andean empire, the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas, gave Spain control of immense mineral wealth and established the Viceroyalty of Peru. As in Mexico, conquest brought colonial rule, forced labour, evangelisation and demographic catastrophe, while the silver of the Andes would soon flow across the Atlantic and the Pacific to reshape the global economy.
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Empires active in 1532 to 1533
- Songhai Empire1464 CE to 1591 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE to 1644 CE
- Inca Empire1438 CE to 1533 CE
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE to 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE to 1974 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE to 1857 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming-Qing transition1644
- First Ottoman Siege of Vienna27 September to 15 October 1529
- Battle of Mohács and the Ottoman conquest of Hungary29 August 1526
- First Battle of Panipat and the founding of the Mughal Empire21 April 1526
- Fall of Tenochtitlan and conquest of the Aztec Empire13 August 1521
Essential reading
- Cocoliztli Epidemic of 1545 to 15481545 to 1548
- Shah Ismail I proclaims Twelver Shi'ism the state religion of Iran1501
- Bayinnaung forges the largest empire in Southeast Asian history1565
- Kingdom of Kongo converts to Christianity under Nzinga a Nkuwu (João I)3 May 1491
Further reading
The wider story
The Last Days of the Incas
Narrative history of the Inca and the Spanish conquest.
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