this time accusing him of plotting against the Spanish. In 1533, Atahualpa was strangled and killed and his brother was given the throne of the Incas. Pizarro established a new capital at Lima and the Incan empire was renamed New Castile. Later the Spanish discovered gold and silver in the Andes Mountains. This discovery helped Spain become one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Pizarro’s success and his wealth made many people resent him and he was murdered by his own men in 1541.
Fig 6.26 Francisco Pizarro seizing the Incan emperor. Source D
u An extract from Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru by Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616).
The historians bear false witness [lie] that Fray Vicente de Valverde gave the alarm, asking the Spaniards to execute justice and vengeance for the fact that the king had thrown on the ground the book he is said to have asked the friar to give him. They bear false witness against the king as well as the priest, for he neither threw the book down, nor even took it in his hands. What happened was that Fray Vicente was alarmed by the sudden shouting of the Indians, and feared they would harm him. He therefore rose abruptly from the chair in which he sat talking to the king, and in rising dropped the cross from his hands and the book from his lap. He snatched them from the ground and hurried to his companions, shouting to them not to harm the Indians, for he was much taken by Atahualpa, realizing his good sense and understanding from his reply and the questions he put. The friar was on the point of satisfying these questions when the uproar began; and because of this the Spaniards did not hear what the priest was saying on behalf of the Indians … Atahualpa did not deny the right to ask for tribute, but insisted on being told the grounds for it, and it was at this stage that the Indians raised their outcry. The Spanish general and his captains sent the version given by the historians to the emperor [Charles V], and took great trouble and pains to prohibit [stop] anyone from setting down the truth about what happened, which is what we have said.