1532 onward
Cajamarca and the Spanish conquest of the Inca realm
Cajamarca and the Andes; present-day Peru
In 1532, Francisco Pizarro’s forces attacked Atahualpa’s gathering at Cajamarca and captured the Inca ruler. Spanish accounts describe killing his attendants and accepting a promised gold ransom for his release. The Spanish later executed him in 1533. His captivity opened a struggle for colonial power that continued well beyond this encounter.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
1532 marks Cajamarca, not the completion of conquest. Spanish campaigns against Inca resistance continued through 1572; that date does not mark the end of Indigenous resistance. Spanish participant accounts and Guaman Poma’s later Indigenous account have different purposes and disagree on details. Neither represents all Andean peoples. No exact casualty or ransom total is asserted.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 1, pp. 11–12; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Francisco de Xerez, account of Cajamarca and ransom, in Markham, Reports on the Discovery of Peru (1872), pp. 53–58, 65–66, 101–102 ↗
- Felipe Guaman Poma, Nueva corónica, manuscript p. 385 onward, Cajamarca and captivity; David Frye’s early translation and transmission note ↗
- Library of Congress, Pizarro and the Incas: conquest and resistance through 1572 ↗