Atahualpa

Biography

Atahualpa won an empire and lost it within a year. A son of the emperor Huayna Capac, he was campaigning in the north when smallpox — running ahead of the Spanish down the trade routes from Mexico — killed his father and the designated heir in about 1527, throwing the succession open. The war that followed between Atahualpa and his half-brother Huáscar tore the Inca state apart for five years. Atahualpa's veteran northern armies won it in 1532, and Huáscar was taken prisoner. Weeks later, messengers reported a small band of strangers on the coast. Atahualpa, with an army of tens of thousands, was curious rather than alarmed, and invited them to meet him at Cajamarca. He entered the square with several thousand unarmed retainers. Within two hours he was a prisoner and thousands of his people were dead. He read his captors quickly, offering a room filled with gold for his freedom and having Huáscar killed from captivity to prevent a rival claim. The ransom arrived — the greatest ever paid — and Pizarro took it and had him garrotted regardless in July 1533. He was about thirty-one, and the empire's entire authority died with him.

Key Battles