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spanish conquest

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The Spanish conquest

Francisco Pizarro , along with two dozen soldiers, stumbled upon and named the Pacific Ocean in 1513 while on an exploratory expedition in Panama. From that moment his determination, fired by native tales of a fabulously rich land to the south, was set. Within eleven years he had found himself financial sponsors and set sail down the Pacific coast with the priest Hernando de Luque and Diego Almagro.

With remarkable determination, having survived several disastrous attempts, the three explorers eventually landed at Tumbes in 1532. A few months later a small band of Spaniards, totalling less than 170 men, arrived at the Inca city of Cajamarca to meet the leader of what they were rapidly realizing was a mighty empire. En route to Cajamarca, Pizarro had learned of the Inca civil wars and of Atahualpa's recent victory over his brother Huascar. This rift within the empire provided the key to success that Pizarro was looking for.

The day after their arrival, in what at first appeared to be a lunatic endeavour, Pizarro and his men massacred thousands of Inca warriors and captured Atahualpa. Although ridiculously outnumbered, the Spaniards had the advantages of surprise, steel, cannons and, above all, mounted cavalry. The decisive battle was over in a matter of hours: with Atahualpa prisoner, Pizarro was effectively in control of the Inca Empire. Atahualpa was promised his freedom if he could fill the famous ransom room at Cajamarca with gold. Caravans overladen with the precious metal arrived from all over the land and within six months the room was filled: a treasure worth over one and a half million pesos, which was already enough to make each of the conquerors extremely wealthy. Pizarro, however, chose to keep the Inca leader as a hostage in case of Indian revolt, amid growing suspicions that Atahualpa was inciting his generals to attack the Spanish. Atahualpa almost certainly did send messages to his chiefs in Cusco, including orders to execute his brother Huascar who was already in captivity there. Under pressure from his worried captains, Pizarro brought Atahualpa to trial in July 1533, a mockery of justice in which he was given a free choice: to be burned alive as a pagan or strangled as a Christian. They baptized him and then killed him.

With nothing left to keep him in Cajamarca, Pizarro made his way through the Andes to Cusco where he crowned a puppet emperor, Manco Inca , of royal Indian blood. After all the practice that the Spaniards had had in imposing their culture on both the Moors in Spain and the Aztecs in Mexico, it took them only a few years to replace the Inca Empire with a working colonial mechanism. Now that the Inca civil wars were over, the natives seemed happy to retire quietly into the hills and get back to the land. However, more than wars, disease was responsible for the almost total lack of initial reaction to the new conquerors. The native population had dropped from some 32 million in 1520 to only five million by 1548 - a decline due mainly to new European ailments such as smallpox, measles, bubonic plague, whooping cough and influenza.


 


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Published articles and reviews about us

2009
Testimonials

Ajay Parikh
Date: Thu,16 Jul 2009

Hello all the folks at Peru Gateway Travel, 
We had a fantastic time in Peru.  We thank you all for making our trip a success. 
The only concern is that the accommodation in Cusco was below average and we would not recommend the Emparada Plaza (?) to anyone.  Even though the staff was good, the room/bathroom, breakfast was very bad. 
Once again, thanks a lot for making our trip to your country a memorable one.  All the guides, especially Guillarmo in Lima and Erica in Cusco, were excellent.


Kazuaki Kubo
Date: Thu,16 Jul 2009

I want to thank you and all of the staff of Peru Gateway Travel for the perfect arrangement of my trip in June.
Everything was so fantastic and I was made to think about another trip to Peru. 


Sincerely, Denise Pratico
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

I am writing to let you know that we enjoyed Peru very much. The city tour led by Marco was fantastic. We will be happy to recommend your agency to other Americans


Jane
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

We have completed our trip to Peru and are now back in New York City.  I want to thank you for all the arrangements you made.  The trip was wonderful and all our accommodations excellent.  Thank you for making our trip a success. 


Best regards, Marcy
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009

We arrived home at 4 o'clock in the morning, very tired (we had a long lay-over in Amsterdam) but very very happy. I am so pleased to tell you that our Peru vacation that you planned for us was excellent! Everything was just as the itinerary said it would be. We were very pleased with the hotels, and the transfer people and guides were always there and everybody was so nice and knowledgeable. We learned a lot about your very exciting country and its history, particularly about the Quechua culture. We will always remember the Inti Raymi festival in Cusco. I am so glad we were able to see that. Of course Machu Picchu was also a great highlight. And, Michael and I also very much liked Arequipa. We didn't know much about that city, but we had a very great time there on our free day and visited the cathedral, spent a lot of time going through the Santa Catalina monastario and, of course, went to the museum to see "Juanita". Beautiful architecture there too.
Really, every day was wonderful, and we would like to thank you so much for all your efforts. Also please extend our thanks to Maria Carmen who was so helpful on the phone and to Julia, who came to the hotel our first night to explain many things to us and give us all our tickets and vouchers. And perhaps you also had something to do with our last night in Lima at the Libertador. We got a suite -- a very big beautiful room! Thank you so much.
We wish you and your family all the best, and for sure we will be recommending Peru Gateway Travel to our friends.

 


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