Free WAR CRIMES AND ATROCITIES (True Crime) by Anne Williams, Vivian Head, Janice Anderson Page A

Inca.
     
    FALL OF AN EMPIRE
     
    Pizarro’s third expedition to the Andes sailed out of Panama in January 1531. He had under his command three small ships carrying 180 men, 27 horses, arms, ammunition and stores. By September 1532, Pizarro had established a garrison settlement at a place he called San Miguel on the river Chira.
    Far away in the heart of Peru, the last Inca, Atahualpa, had just concluded the victory over his brother that gave him control of the whole Inca Empire, not just the northern part of it bequeathed to him in 1527 by his father, Huayna Capac. Historians have puzzled over the question of why this Inca should have divided and thus weakened his kingdom. They have come to the conclusion that Huayna Capac, hearing about the tall, bearded strangers from across the sea who were becoming such a strong presence in the north, while mounted on strange and enormous animals the South American people had never seen, decided to put the more vulnerable part of his country in the hands of his son Atahualpa, a strong and ruthless warrior. Whatever the reason, the fact was that the great Inca Empire was not as fully united and strong as it needed to be to meet this unprecedented crisis in its history.
    At San Miguel, Pizarro heard that the Inca was not in his capital, Cuzco, but resting at Cajamarca, a town with hot springs much nearer than Cuzco. The way across the Andes to Cajamarca was difficult and dangerous, but on 24 September, 1532 Pizarro marched his small force out of San Miguel into the mountains to the heart of the Inca Empire. The march took seven terrible weeks, during which Atahualpa sent two embassies to welcome Pizarro to his kingdom and try to judge his intentions. These embassies threatened no violence and, indeed, seemed ready to treat the Spaniards with correct formality and hospitality.
    When Pizarro and his men finally emerged from the high Andes on 15 November and made the relatively easy descent to Cajamarca, they found the town deserted. Atahualpa, his attendants and his army were a couple of leagues away in a tented settlement set up by the hot springs that had brought the Inca to the town in the first place. The town, a neat and orderly place with its steets and alleys laid out in straight, intersecting lines and with a triangular courtyard at its heart, had been handed over to Pizarro as a place for him and his men to stay in comfortably. Once settled in, Pizarro, having waited long enough for word from the Inca, sent a messenger with 20 horses to ask that the Inca visit him in the town.
    Next day, Saturday, 16 November, 1532, Atahualpa told Pizarro that he would visit the Spaniard in the town. He said that he would come armed because the Spaniards had come armed to him the previous day. It was not until late in the afternoon that the Inca’s state procession appeared in front of the town. It was an impressive sight. First came a squadron of men in coloured livery, who swept the road in front of Atahualpa. Then came men in different costumes, some singing and dancing, others bearing large metal plates and crowns of gold and silver. Atahualpa’s litter was born by 80 officers, all richly dressed. The litter was lined with plumes and macaws’ feathers, and Atahualpa was seated on a gold throne covered with a feather-lined palanquin, richly clothed and adorned with gold and turquoise, as befitted the [divine] symbol of the sun god on earth.
    This procession entered Cajamarca and proceeded to the central courtyard. There was no sign of the Spanish force. A priest holding a bible and crucifix confronted the Inca and made a long speech about the Christian faith. When this man had the effrontery to thrust the bible at Atahualpa, he rejected it.
    It is possible that, as he sat on his litter high above the crowd of his people, the Inca actually saw the handkerchief dropped by Pizarro as a sign that his men should open fire. Their cannon, dragged across the Andes, began cutting swathes through the