The Incas vs Spaniards

There are many circumstances of why the incas lost their empire against so few spaniards, in this page I will explain you all the circumstances that worked against the inca empire and how the indians themselves, were creating the conditions for the dissolution of the empire.

The truth is that the inca empire was about to dissolve by itself, because the corruption of the last inca ruler, his name was Huayna Capac and he was the responsible of the conditions that after his death complicated the entire incas kingdom.

He was the first responsible of the decadence of the empire; The spirit of the inca people was the community work, where everybody works as a community for the benefit of everyone, but Huayna Capac broken this rules, by creating small land lords, so among the regular people start a feeling pro revolution.

The elite force of inca warriors call Los Orejones, that were the symbol of war power, virility and honor, had became lazy and weak, so the rest of the army follow their bad example; This fact, damage the health of the kingdom, resulting in revolutions, in provinces on the borders of the empire.

Huayna Capac has two sons that were competing for the power, the first son was Huascar, he born in Cuzco and he was weak and coward, the second son was Atahualpa, he was merciless and tyrant, this two brothers will perform one of the most dramatic moments of the incas history.

The situation was unstable when the king Huayna Capac was on the power and after he dies, a civil war begun; The reason of the conflict was because, the incas do not have a ruler succession system like in Europe, where the first son will inherit the kingdom; The incas succession system was based on the strongest candidate, with the biggest power among the society, the competitors will fight among them for the throne and the final winner will be proclaimed inca king.

Atahualpa win the war and kill Huascar, but that was not enough for him, he decide to kill all Huascar family, even women and children were executed in horrible ways, all the executions were on public, in the main plaza on the center of Cuzco city, creating the image of Atahualpa the tyrant.

When all this was happening, a small group of foreigners were attacking the kingdom from the north, they were the spaniards, so the new inca king Atahualpa send a messenger to find out who were this people; The information that the messenger brought back to the king Atahualpa and the decision that he took, was the most crucial moment of the inca history, when the destiny of the Inca empire will change.

Atahualpa got the message, that the foreigners had magic animals, white faces, white bears and one of them looks like the knowledge master Wiracocha, from the inca mythology, so Atahualpa's curiosity about the knowledge master was the reason why, he send a messenger to set up a peace full meeting with the spaniards.

The spaniards were terrify about this invitation, they believe that the incas wants to kill them all, so the spaniards prepare and ambush for Atahualpa, this ambush was successful and more than 5000 inca warriors were kill during the fight, at the end Atahualpa was taken hostage.

The inca weapons were no match, against the weapon superiority of the spaniards, but it was balance by the quantity of the inca warriors; At the beginning the incas were afraid of the horses, but very soon they learn how to stop them, by making holes on the battle fields, to make the horses fall down and holding the horses from the tales, while other inca warrior attach the rider.

By this time, the spaniards have been in contact with many incas, and this contact is another circumstance that provoke the destruction of the empire; The explanation is simple, the spaniards brought with them sicknesses like smallpox and influenza, this sicknesses spread out in all the inca empire killing people for hundreds of thousands.

The population before the spaniards arrive was of 9,000,000 people and after 100 years of the spaniard invasion, the incas population drop down to 600,000; More than 8 million people die, by the direct or indirect hands of the spaniards; It was a tragedy and probably the biggest, and most unknown genocide of the human history.

After the spaniards kill the last king Atahualpa, the rest was easy, because the inca empire was actually happy to be free from this merciless ruler, besides during the invasion, several local tribes help the spaniards army against the troops of the inca empire, very soon they will realize their big mistake.

The spaniards had the experience of conquering the Aztecs in Mexico, so they apply the same strategy, using the ingenuity of the local tribes; By the way, after the spaniards kill the the last inca king Atahualpa, they manipulate the election of the next Inca king, he was a simple puppet under spaniard control.

So you could say that, the wonderful inca culture, was destroy from inside to the out side, adding the sicknesses and general dissolution of the inca government, the spaniards could not have a better time to strike the incas kingdom.

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