In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador
Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers,
to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of
Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa
had defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with
Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca.
Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards
prevailed -- due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords,
and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa.
Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards
executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Inca
capital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire
the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and the
conquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.
But
the Incas did not submit willingly. A young Inca emperor, the brother of
Atahualpa, soon led a massive rebellion against the Spaniards,
inflicting heavy casualties and nearly wiping out the conquerors.
Eventually, however, Pizarro and his men forced the emperor to abandon
the Andes and flee to the Amazon. There, he established a hidden
capital, called Vilcabamba. Although the Incas fought a deadly,
thirty-six-year-long guerrilla war, the Spanish ultimately captured the
last Inca emperor and vanquished the native resistance.


Kim MacQuarrie lived in Peru for five years and became fascinated by the
Incas and the history of the Spanish conquest. Drawing on both native
and Spanish chronicles, he vividly describes the dramatic story of the
conquest, with all its savagery and suspense. MacQuarrie also relates
the story of the modern search for Vilcabamba, of how Machu Picchu was
discovered, and of how a trio of colorful American explorers only
recently discovered the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba, hidden for
centuries in the Amazon.

This authoritative, exciting
history is among the most powerful and important accounts of the culture
of the South American Indians and the Spanish Conquest.

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• Publication Date: December 6, 2012
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 522 Pages
• File Size: 45 KB