Hello, and welcome to Western Sieve Episode two hundred and forty eight Atahualpa.
Last time we introduced Francisco Pizzaro, the man who will get the credit for
conquering the Inca. We'll see shortly how our narrative is a bit more complicated
than that. This time, I want to walk through the last several decades
of Incan history leading up to Pisado's arrival in fifteen thirty two. As I
mentioned two episodes ago, Incan history is actually a relatively short category. The
empire itself exists for perhaps a century before Cortez's conquest. We talked about the
early history of the Inca before, but this time we're going to slow down
and zoom in. When Francisco Pizzaro returned to the Inca Empire in April of
fifteen thirty two, he found a world turned upside down. Pizzaro would sail
back into the same income port of Tumbez that spring, but what had been
a thriving port city had been reduced to a skeleton of its former self.
The walls had been pulled down, many of the homes lay in ruins.
Almost ninety percent of the population had disappeared. What could have happened Pizarro had
been gone less than half a decade. What could have so utterly destroyed the
Inca in such a short period of time. Bizzaro wandered through the ruins.
He met a few people whom he began to piece together the story of what
happened. From when Bizarro first arrived in Tumbez in fifteen twenty eight, the
Inca Empire was ruled by a powerful emperor named Huaia Kapak. At this particular
moment in their history, the Incas had been carrying out a military campaign in
the area that is now Ecuador. The Incas themselves were a relatively small ethnic
group that hailed from a region far to the south in the Valley of Cusco.
For a two hundred year period, roughly from CE twelve hundred fourteen hundred,
the Inca gradually consolidated their power in the Cusco Basin. As we learned
about previously, they launched a series of campaigns in the area and also intermarried
with their neighbors, slowly developing a small state. Then, beginning in the
early fourteen hundreds, the Incas suddenly launched a series of protracted military campaigns,
conquering tribes across the Andes and along the coast. Their marshal and organizational abilities
were exceptional. For within the space of some sixty years, the Inca had
transformed their tiny kingdom originally measuring I don't know, maybe a hundred miles in
diameter, into an immense empire stretching for thousands of miles. The empires,
stitched together by the Incas, who as an ethnic group numbered no more I
would say than one hundred thousand individuals, was just the latest in a long
series of kingdoms and empires that had arisen and fallen then in the Andes for
more than a thousand years. According to legend, the man who had began
the rapid process of Incan expansion, which as I said, started around fourteen
hundred CE and then end abruptly around fifteen twenty six, started with Emperor Kusi
Yupunki. He is to the Inco what I suppose Robulus is to the Romans,
or I suppose he's a bit more like Alexander the Great. Given that
Kusi Yupunki actually did exist under his rule. At early in the fifteenth century,
the Incas spread their power over the relatively small area of the Valley of
Cusco. From there, the story of Inca domination is driven by conflict.
According to the Inca oral history, in the early fifteenth century, the kingdom
of the Chunkas, which lay in the central Andes region to the west of
Cusco, decided that they wanted the fertile valleys controlled by the tiny kingdom of
the Incas. Marshaling an army, the Chunkas began and marching east, determined
to annex the Inca's kingdom and thus expand their own. Victory seemed imiment because
the Incas just didn't have the same number of people and their resources were far
inferior. The Inca king at the throne at the time was verywall Kaca Inca,
and he was pretty old. Rather than fight, he chose to flee
the capital, holling up in a fortress and basically abandoning his kingdom. When
one of his sons, however, and this is where we get to him,
Kusi Upunky, seized the initiative. He made alliances with nearby ethnic groups,
he raised the army. He marched out to definantly meet the Chunkas in
the fierce battle that ensued, the Incas decisively defeated the Chunkas, an event
that had once loomed as an imminent disaster was transformed into an overwhelming victory.
After deposing his father, Kusi Upanki decided to adopt a new name, Pasha
Kuti or literally earth shaker Pasha Kuti, which is how the sources referred to
him, and so how I will going forward. He began a major restructuring
of the Inca kingdom, laying out new thoroughfares in the capital city of Kusco
for the pounds of tribute he expected to flow in Patcha Kuti. Next,
quote turned his attention to the people, seeing that they were not sufficient lands
for sewing. So as to sustain them, he went round the city at
a distance of four leagues from it. Considering the valley's situation and villages,
he depopulated all that were within two leagues of the city. The lands of
depopulated villages were given to the city and its inhabitants, and the deprived people
were settled in other parts. The citizens of Couscoe were well satisfied with the
arrangement, for they were given what cost little, and thus he made friends
by presents taken from others end quote. Patchakuti was the first income king to
begin seizing large swaths of land from his neighbors and adding it to the growing
income kingdom. He understood something that no one else seems to have. He
who controls the land and the labor the means of production. I guess if
you're a Marxist, then he is the one with the power. Rating was
fine, but it wasn't permanent. To build something lasting, you had to
control the land and the peasantry that lived on it. This is precisely what
Patchakuti set out to do. Turning toward the south, Patcha Kuti led his
armies six hundred miles beyond the present Incan boundaries, marching past Lake Titicaca and
then down through today what is Bolivia and northern Chile. Patcha Kuti's conquests,
plus those of his son Tupacinca, eventually culminated in the destruction of the old
Chimu Empire. Within a single lifetime, Patchakuti and his son would dominate an
empire stretching more than fourteen hundred miles north to south, the longest continuous north
south empire in the history of the world. Pachacuti called his empire Tawa Tinsiu,
or the four Parts United as an asside. While many histories use the
name Tawa Tinsiu to refer to the Incan Empire, I will not. I'm
simply not good enough at pronunciation to hit that one consistently, so I'm not
going to try it. This episode is going to be challenging enough as it
is, so I'll use Inca Empire or occasionally Peru to refer to the geographic
region in question. Moving on, Patchakuti divided his empire into four quadrants,
with Cusco at the exact center. He called these quadrants sou use, which
we can imagine the sort of large provinces. Pachacuti's son Tupac Inca also succeeded
in extending the Inca Empire farther east to the edges of the Amazon Jungle.
He then went south, just like his father, marching another seven hundred miles
deeper into Chile past modern day Santiago. By the time his son Juanna Kappac
took the throne, the empire had reached its zenith. By now an elite
ethnic corps of perhaps one hundred thousand Inca ruled over a heterogynous population of over
ten million souls. Hence, the Inca's revolutionary rise to power occurred in just
two generations. It would be as if the Roman Empire had been built between
say ADBC and one CE in combination by Julius and then Augustus Caesar. That
is the kind of rapid expansion we're talking about here. Soon after subjugating most
of what we now know as Ecuador, however, Juanna Kapec began to hear
strange reports of a new danger confronting his empire, one that was far deadlier
than any rebellion. These native runners or choskis arrived breathlessly at court one day
to report that a sickness had appeared in the north, a terrible one,
a devasting one. The afflicted people first developed frightful skin eruptions all over their
bodies, then sickened and died even worse, the messengers reported it appeared that
the sickness was now spreading towards Quito, where Juanna Kapec and his royal rits
Knew were residing. The descriptions were gruesome enough to cause the emperor to immediately
seclude himself and begin to fast, hoping to avoid contact with the mysterious plague.
It was already too late. According to one chronicler, Juanna Kopeck soon
quote fell ill, and the illness took his reason and understanding and gave him
a skin irritation like leprosy that greatly weakened him. When the nobles saw him
so far gone, they came to him. It seemed to them that he
had come a little to his senses, and they asked him to name a
lord, since he was at the end of his days. The stricken emperor
told his nobles that his son, Nina Kyush should inherit the empire. Ironically,
as Juanna Kopac lay dying from this strange infection that the Inca could not
comprehend, some other news reached him. A large sailing ship had been sighted
off the coast of Tambez. Though delirious, yuan A Kopeck listened intently as
his nobles told him about the men with pale skin and beards who had landed
there. They also told them about their strange tools, one that seemed to
produce both smoke and thunder. They were talking about harquebuses, and this was
Pizarro's second expedition of fifteen twenty six to fifteen twenty eight. Not that it
mattered, Quanna Kopeck had smallpox and people knew nothing about it or how to
treat it. A plague of smallpox tends to follow the cunquistadors as they go.
One followed in the wake of Cortes's expedition to Mexico. Consider the following
account from a sixteenth century Spanish historian quote. It was a dreadful illness,
and many people died of it. No one could walk, They could only
lie stretched on their beds. No one could move, not even able to
turn their heads. One could not lie face down, or lie on the
back, nor turn from one side to another. When they did move,
they screamed in pain. End quote from Mexico. The devastating plague moved southward.
Interestingly, as the plague gained momentum, it was transmitted from the indigenous
communities to indigenous communities by indigenous peoples, not from Europeans. The Europeans were
the ones who made the initial contact. They were the proverbial patient zero in
this case. But once they started the disease, it spread and moved out
in all directions like falling dominoes. Sadly, often infected people were fleeing from
the Spaniards and infected new communities before they died. If you are on the
indigenous side of the equation, then this just looks like the worst timing ever.
Civilizations that might have stood a chance against the Spaniards were decimated before they
even got a chance. If you're on the Spanish side of the ledger,
well, but I guess it's just convenient. The plague does most of your
work for you. Sometime around fifteen twenty seven, small pox reached the edge
of the Inca Empire. Roughly two years later, as Pizarro traveled back to
Spain to get permission for a conquest. Little could he have known that the
conquest of Peru was already underway. Small Pox would kill more Inca than he
ever would plus in the end, it would set off a succession crisis that
would leave the Incan Empire ripe for the plucking by the time Pisaro got back.
So as Pizaro sailed for Spain, he had no idea that the advanced
guard of his conquest was already making quick work of the Inca and their political
organization. Like virtually every kingdom in Europe at the time, the Incan Empire
was a hereditary monarchy in which power passed ideally from father to son. In
the strictest terms, there wasn't much different between the political organizations of Peru and
England in fifteen hundred. The main difference was that Inca kings had many wives
and did not recognize primogeniture, the idea that the eldest inherits the throne.
To an extent, this made them a lot more like the Ottomans, perhaps
the pre eminent power in Europe at the time. A good Incan king groomed
his successors like all good kings and queens throughout history. Juanna Kappak, however,
did not get such a luxury. There was only one thing worse in
the ink and succession system than leaving no heir at all, and that was
to hastily name one at the last moment. This is precisely what hu Wanna
Coppack did, though I don't think we can blame him, as infectious diseases
had not been a thing until about ten years before his death, at least
not in the world. He knew Juanna Copack had two sons that could logically
be argued, we're in line for the throne. Of course, he had
others, but none that could be reasonably inferred as potential successors. He named
one first son, as we indicated. Unfortunately, he died of the plague
before you want a compack, so Huana Copack had to turn around and go
to Plan B. This brought him down to two potential successors, Huascar and
Otahualpa. Both young men were in their mid twenties. They were half brothers,
meaning in this case that they had different mothers. Juanna Kapak decided to
name Huscar his successor. Huascar was named emperor in Cusco, while his other
brother, Atahualpa remained close to where the emperor was in Quito. Note today
Quito is the capital of Ecuador. Now, of the two, Atahualpa was
clearly more qualified. He had always taken a keen interest in military affairs,
was sober, and seemed to consider different angles of each problem that presented itself.
Uscar, on the other hand, had little to no interest in military
affairs, drank to excess, commonly slept with married women and then killed their
husbands. If they complained. If you're asking me, well, why did
huan Kapak pick Uscar, then sadly we have no idea. Though Atahualpa and
Uscars shared the same father, they belonged to completely different royal descent groups,
or Panaqua's as they were called. Atahualpa, through his mother, belonged to
the descent group known as hattun Ayoula, while Huescar belonged through his mother to
the group known as quapak Ayoula. Both of these descent groups were competitive with
one another, having struggled for supremacy and power now for over several generations,
and as royal successions often provided a spark that unleashed open political warfare. From
the moment that at Hualpa did not show up in Cusco for his father's massive
funeral and for his brother's subsequent coronation, Uscar became suspicious. Uscar's paranoia,
derived probably from Inca history, which was rich with tales of brutal palace coup,
became so acute that he has even said to have murdered some of his
relatives who had accompanied his father's corpse to Cusco, having suspected them of plotting
an insurrection. Us Gar's suspicions finally got the better of him, suspicions that
were often accentuated by the inefficiency of the many messages and counter messages that had
to be carried on between the two brothers over thousands of miles each way by
relay runners. It was just too hard to convince your brother that you weren't
trying to steal the throne when you had to wait weeks to get the message
back. The newly crowned emperor finally decided he would wage a military campaign in
order to settle the question of succession once and for all. His decision to
launch a war, though wasn't well fought out, it immediately put us Gar
at a disadvantage. This is because us Gar's father, hu Wana Coback had
been carrying out extensive military campaigns in the north, so Atahualpa, who is
now in Quito and in the north, had the advantage of being able to
take command of the empire's most seasoned and battle hardened troops. The troops were
led by the emperor's three finest generals, who immediately pledged their support to Atahualpa.
Huscar By contrast, was forced to assemble an army of native conscripts who
had little if any military experience, where Usgar in the south led a largely
untested army. Attahuelpa commanded the imperial army. It was seasoned and it was
good. Nevertheless, Uscar decided to go on the offensive, sending an army
north into what is now Ecuador. The two armies met on the plants of
Moshaka, to the south of Quito. There, the northern army, supervised
by Atahualpa, scored the first victory in what was now a full fledged civil
war. Even in victory, however, Attahuapa's severity with those who dared challenge
him was evident. When the opposing general was captured, he was first tortured
and eventually executed with darts and arrows. Atahualpa then ordered his skull to be
fashioned into a gilded drinking cup, which the Spaniards would note that Atahualpa was
still using four years later. With momentum now on Atahuapa's side, his generals
began a long military advance down the Andes, gradually pushing Huascar's forces further and
further south. After a long series of victories on the part of Atahualpa's forces
and defeats on the part of hus Cars. A final climactic engagement was fought
outside Cusco, during which the emperor himself was captured. As described by the
sixteenth century chronicler Quote, us Gar was badly wounded and his clothing was ripped
to shreds. Since the wounds were not life threatening, Atahualpa's general did not
allow him to be treated. When daylight came and it was found that none
of us Gar's men had escaped, these troops enjoyed us Gar's loot. The
tunic Uscar war was removed, and he was dressed in another from one of
his Indians who was dead on the field. Us Gar's tunic, his golden
axe and helmet also gold with the shield and gold trappings, his feathers,
and war insignias he had were sent all to Atahualpa. This was done in
us Gar's presence, as the generals wanted Atahualpa to have the honor as their
lord of treading upon the things and signs of enemies who had been subjective end
Quote. Atahuapa's northern army now marched triumphant into Cusco. The aftermath of the
Incas Civil War was as predictable as it was. Within a very short time,
inc And soldiers rounded up us Cars, various wives and children. Officials
quote ordered that each and every one of them learned the charges against him or
her. Each and everyone was told why they were to die end quote,
and then Attahuelpa's general's executed us Car's entire familial line. He's still alive,
by the way, at this point, He'll be kicking around for the next
few episodes. This act would be a horrifying end in and of itself,
But I think in this case what makes it even worse is in hindsight,
how unbelievably pointless it was. While all this bloodshed was going on, Attahuelpa
himself wasn't in Cusco. In fact, he was in Kajamarca in the far
northern reaches of Peru on the border with Ecuador. News of us Gar's defeat
and capture made its way to the new undisputed emperor through more than three hundred
royal choskis. These are the relay runners, and it took over five days.
When the news reached Atahualpa, he was overjoyed all was right with the
universe. He had fought for and won his birthright. He planned to march
straight to Cusco for a triumphal parade. However, he had one little issue
to deal with. First. Chatsky runners had brought the emperor another piece of
news. There was a small band of unusual foreigners that was at that very
moment making its way toward Atahualpa through the andes. Some of these strangers rode
large animals. The income messengers had no word for the royal Knots carried by
the messengers indicated that there were only one hundred and sixty eight of these strangers
Atahualpa. In a decision he would later regret, and that's quite the understatement,
decided he would go and see these one hundred and sixty eight men who
rode these strange beasts. Next week on te Hualpa meets Pizzato and Worlds Collide.
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