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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