The Last Days of the IncasThe epic story of the fall of the Inca Empire to Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, and the recent discovery of the lost guerrilla capital of the Incas, Vilcabamba, by three American explorers. 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—only recently rediscovered by a trio of colorful American explorers. 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. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - DinadansFriend - LibraryThingMr. MacQuarrie has written a more colourful update to John Hemming's book on the destruction of the Empire of the Four Quarters. The tone is somewhat more sensation, the information is sketchier in ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - addunn3 - LibraryThingThis is an excellent history of the Incas, Spanish conquest. Highly recommend before you visit Machu Picchu and other Inca sites in Peru. Read full review
Contents
Preface | 1 |
The Discovery | 7 |
A Few Hundred WellArmed Entrepreneurs | 15 |
Supernova of the Andes | 38 |
When Empires Collide | 55 |
A Roomful of Gold | 86 |
Requiem for a King | 118 |
The Puppet King | 138 |
In the Realm of the Antis | 279 |
Guerrilla Capital of the World | 305 |
The Last of the Pizarros | 331 |
The Incas Last Stand | 353 |
The Search for the Lost City of the Incas | 379 |
Vilcabamba Rediscovered | 412 |
Machu Picchu Vilcabamba and the Search for the Lost Cities of the Andes | 437 |
Acknowledgments | 463 |
Prelude to a Rebellion | 165 |
The Great Rebellion | 193 |
Death in the Andes | 230 |
The Return of the OneEyed Conqueror | 259 |
Notes | 465 |
491 | |
497 | |
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Common terms and phrases
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