Atahualpa

King of the Inca Empire (r. 1525-1533)

• Born: c. 1502
• Birthplace: Cuzco, Inca Empire (now in Peru)
• Died: August 29, 1533
• Place of death: Cajamarca, Inca Empire (now in Peru)

Atahualpa won a civil war against his half brother Huáscar and took control of the Inca Empire, but Atahualpa also fatally weakened the empire, which ultimately fell to the Spanish conquistadores.

Early Life

Atahualpa (ah-tah-WAHL-pah) was the favorite son of Huayna Capac , the Inca (ruler) of the Inca Empire. His name is said to mean “virile-sweet,” apparently reflecting a desire that he show a balance between manly and gentle characteristics. He is described as an illegitimate son. Because his mother, Palloca, has been identified as a descendant of Pachacuti, an earlier Inca, it is more likely that she was simply a concubine rather than the legal queen, or qoya. Inca nobles were expected to have numerous concubines, but because of frequent succession struggles, the inheritance of the Inca throne had become restricted to the sons of the legal queen.

Little is known of Atahualpa’s childhood, but it may be safely assumed that he received the typical upbringing and education of an Inca noble. He would have learned the arts of war and of administration in a tradition-bound empire in which every aspect of each subject’s life was prescribed and managed. At the appointed age, he would have had his ears ceremonially pierced and stretched with large ear ornaments, a visible sign of the upper classes of Inca society. He appears to have served in his father’s army during campaigns in Quito, although not always to his father’s credit.

Life’s Work

Although Atahualpa was barred by Inca law from succeeding to the throne, Huayna Capac wanted his beloved son to be assured a position of honor and authority. As a result, Huayna Capac gave Atahualpa the governorship of Quito, making it a sort of northern capital, but subordinate to Cuzco, the traditional capital of the empire.

Huayna Capac originally named one of his sons by his qoya, Ninan Cuyochi, to be his heir. He agreed to name a second son, Huáscar, as heir, however, if the omens were not favorable for Ninan Cuyochi. The high priest of the sun slaughtered two llamas and studied the entrails to determine that the sun god favored Huáscar as heir. Ninan Cuyochi died shortly afterward of smallpox, a disease introduced to the Americas by the Spaniards and brought to the high Andes along the extensive messenger system maintained by the Incas to control their empire.

Shortly after Huayna Capac’s death in 1525, Huáscar began to suspect certain members of his retinue of supporting Atahualpa, since they were from the same faction as the latter. Huáscar ordered them executed as traitors. Because Atahualpa had made no formal claim to his father’s throne, he sent conciliatory messages to Huáscar, assuring him of his loyalty and asking only to be confirmed in the governorship of Quito. Huáscar had the majority of the messengers killed and their skins made into drumheads, but he sent a few back to Atahualpa with insulting messages and gifts of women’s clothing, implying that Atahualpa was effeminate.

The accounts of subsequent events are muddled, but all agree that Huáscar attacked first, taking Atahualpa’s palace at Tumebamba and imprisoning Atahualpa. Nevertheless, Atahualpa was subsequently able to escape, supposedly by means of a silver bar given to him by a noble lady. Atahualpa then assembled a large force that defeated Huáscar’s foremost commander at Ambato, south of Quito, inflicting massive casualties on Huáscar’s army. Atahualpa then marched on Cuzco and met Huáscar in battle. After a brief setback at Cotampampa, Atahualpa captured Huáscar.

The civil war was marked by atrocities on both sides. Huáscar is said to have preferred drunkenness and debauchery to sober command, and to have taken delight in torturing his half brother’s emissaries even when peace might still have been possible. He also treated the descendants of previous Incas badly, seizing the lands that were supposed to support them while they tended the cults of their royal ancestors’ memories. On the other hand, Atahualpa tortured and murdered many of Huáscar’s supporters and exterminated the entire clan of Tupac Inca, even burning Tupac’s mummy, an act of sacrilege horrifying to a society in which religion and law were one and the same. On capturing Huáscar, Atahualpa ordered that his deposed half brother be fed offal (animal by-products) and excrement, and he forced Huáscar to witness such abominations as the execution of eighty of his children and the pillage of shrines throughout Cuzco.

Even as Atahualpa was celebrating his victory, messengers brought him news of the arrival of a strange force of white men bearing arms and armor of alien design. These were Spanish conquistadores led by Francisco Pizarro, a fortune hunter of impoverished noble background who wished to follow the example of earlier Spanish victories in Mexico and Central America. After two abortive expeditions in Ecuador, Pizarro had determined to find the wealthy empire in the highlands, of which he had heard rumors among the coastal tribes.

Atahualpa sent envoys to invite Pizarro and his men to visit him at Cajamarca. Pizarro gladly accepted the invitation, sending two Venetian goblets and a fine shirt from Holland as gifts to the Inca. Atahualpa turned Pizarro’s arrival into a grand ceremonial pageant intended to impress the visitors with his might and majesty, but the display of wealth only inflamed Pizarro’s greed. By a ruse, he captured Atahualpa, and the subsequent battle left several thousand Inca warriors dead on the plains beyond Cajamarca’s walls.

Not understanding the people with whom he was dealing, Atahualpa tried to negotiate his own ransom in exchange for a room full of gold and silver. Pizarro made a mark on the wall of the room, and the Incas filled the room to that height. The Spaniards then took the priceless work of countless Inca goldsmiths and melted it down into bars for shipping back to Spain.

Pizarro, however, had no intention of keeping his side of the bargain. He soon found a pretext in Atahualpa’s orders to kill his half brother, the deposed Huáscar, as a potential rival around whom his enemies might rally. In a parody of justice, Pizarro tried Atahualpa for murder and sentenced him to death by burning, the fate of infidels. He agreed, though, to spare Atahualpa’s life under the condition that Atahualpa embrace Christianity. Atahualpa solemnly renounced his people’s traditional religious practices and submitted to baptism, only to have Pizarro renege on his sworn word once again. Atahualpa was garotted (strangled) with a silken cord, although his body was given Christian burial. By executing Atahualpa, Pizarro won the support of the faction that had followed Huáscar.

Subsequent to Atahualpa’s judicial murder, many of his followers continued to resist, particularly in the area of Quito. Pizarro fought four fierce battles against Atahualpa’s foremost surviving general, Quizquiz. After the final decisive victory in the mountains above Cuzco, the Quitan faction’s resolve was broken and the army deserted. Pizarro then installed Huáscar’s younger brother, Tupac Huallpa, as a puppet Inca, but he survived only a few months. Blaming his death on poison, Pizarro replaced him with another son of Huáscar, Manco Capac II, and permitted some of the traditional observances to continue so long as suitable tribute flowed into Spanish coffers. Manco Capac, however, subsequently rebelled and raised an army that briefly troubled the Spaniards before being destroyed. The last puppet Inca, Tupac Amaru, was executed, and henceforth, the Spaniards ruled directly.

Significance

Atahualpa’s civil war with Huáscar weakened the Inca Empire at a time when it needed all its resources to repel an external invader. Later historians have hotly debated just how critical the civil war was in the catastrophic collapse of the Inca armies in the face of a much smaller force. Many writers have emphasized the differences of culture and technology that would have ultimately made a Spanish victory inevitable, although perhaps at a much greater cost.

The magical-ritual worldview of the Inca, in which great effort was expended on propitiating the gods before, during, and after each battle, could not compete with the Spaniards’ drive for total victory and long-term conquest. Atahualpa’s naïve trust of Pizarro’s promises and his unwillingness to see the Spaniards’ motivations for what they were only made the process easier for the Spanish.

Bibliography

Davies, Nigel. The Incas. Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1995. A readable and rigorous study of the Inca Empire from its legend-shrouded origins to its catastrophic collapse.

Gabai, Rafael Varon. Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers: The Illusion of Power in Sixteenth Century Peru. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. A study of the relationship of Pizarro and his three brothers, who cooperated in the conquest of Peru.

Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. San Diego, Calif.: Harvest Books, 2003. A sympathetic account, giving equal time to the Inca resistance and Pizarro’s conquest.