[1532–1821] Spanish Conquest and Viceroyalty of Peru

In 1532, the world of the Andes, a realm of sun gods and mountain spirits, was about to be shattered. The Inca Empire, a marvel of engineering and social organization stretching for 2,500 miles, was in turmoil. A brutal civil war between two royal brothers, Huáscar and Atahualpa, had just concluded. Atahualpa was victorious, but the empire was wounded, its people weary. It was into this moment of vulnerability that a small, determined band of men arrived on the coast. They were led by Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate but ruthlessly ambitious conquistador from the Spanish region of Extremadura. He commanded just 168 men, 62 of whom were on horseback. What followed was not a war of armies, but a collision of worlds. In the highland city of Cajamarca, Pizarro arranged a meeting with the new Inca emperor. Atahualpa arrived in breathtaking splendor, carried on a golden litter adorned with parrot feathers, surrounded by thousands of his lightly armed retainers. The Spanish, hidden in the city's buildings, were a study in grim contrast: bearded men encased in steel, their hands gripping harquebuses and swords. A priest approached Atahualpa, offering a Bible and demanding he accept the Christian God and the Spanish King. When the emperor, unfamiliar with the concept of a book, tossed the object to the ground, it was the pretext Pizarro needed. A cannon fired. The Spanish cavalry, a terrifying apparition to a people who had never seen horses, charged into the stunned and panicked crowd. Steel blades sliced through the fine-spun wool tunics of the Inca nobility. In a matter of hours, thousands of Andeans lay dead, and their emperor, the living son of the Sun God, was a prisoner. Atahualpa, a shrewd leader even in captivity, noticed the Spaniards’ insatiable lust for precious metals. He made an astonishing offer: in exchange for his freedom, he would fill a room measuring 22 feet long by 17 feet wide with gold, and then fill it twice over with silver. For months, a river of treasure flowed to Cajamarca from every corner of the empire—golden llamas, silver jewelry, intricate plates from the temples of Cusco. It was perhaps the largest ransom in human history. But it wasn't enough. Fearing an Inca counter-attack and seeing Atahualpa as a liability, the Spanish staged a sham trial. In 1533, they executed him by garrote, forever decapitating the Inca state. The capture of the capital, Cusco, followed. Its magnificent temples, like the Coricancha whose walls were sheathed in gold, were stripped bare. The perfectly fitted stone foundations of Inca palaces became the bases for Spanish colonial mansions and churches, a powerful architectural symbol of the new order. But the conquest was not yet complete. A new puppet emperor, Manco Inca, soon realized the Spaniards' true intentions. In 1536, he escaped and led a massive rebellion, laying siege to Cusco for ten months with an army of nearly 100,000 warriors. The Spanish nearly broke, but their superior weaponry and the arrival of reinforcements ultimately forced Manco Inca to retreat into the dense jungle sanctuary of Vilcabamba, where a neo-Inca state held out for another 36 years. It was only in 1572, with the capture and public execution of the final Inca ruler, Túpac Amaru, that the last ember of organized resistance was extinguished. With the conquest complete, the era of the Viceroyalty of Peru began, a period of nearly 300 years that would reshape the land and its people. Lima, the "City of Kings," founded by Pizarro on the coast, became the opulent capital of Spanish South America. From here, the Viceroy ruled in the king’s name over a society built on a rigid, racial hierarchy known as the *sistema de castas*. At the very top were the *Peninsulares*, officials and clergy born on the Iberian Peninsula. They held all the political power. Just below them were the *Criollos* (Creoles), people of pure Spanish descent but born in the Americas. They could accumulate vast wealth through land and trade but were largely barred from the highest offices, a source of deep and growing resentment. Below them were the *mestizos*, of mixed Spanish and Indigenous heritage, occupying a wide social space as artisans, shopkeepers, and overseers. The vast majority of the population were the Indigenous peoples, whose numbers had catastrophically collapsed due to European diseases like smallpox and measles, to which they had no immunity. Some estimates suggest the population fell from 9 million to around 600,000 in the first century of colonial rule. They were theoretically protected by the crown but were in reality the bedrock of the colonial economy, subjected to forced labor and tribute payments. At the bottom of this pyramid were the enslaved Africans, brought to work on coastal sugar plantations and as domestic servants in the cities. The engine of the Viceroyalty was silver. Deep in the Andes, in what is now Bolivia, was a mountain the Spanish called the Cerro Rico, the "Rich Hill," looming over the city of Potosí. This single mountain produced an estimated 60% of all the silver mined in the world during the second half of the 16th century. To extract this wealth, the Spanish revived and twisted an Inca labor system called the *mita*. Every year, thousands of Indigenous men from hundreds of miles away were forced to travel to Potosí to work in the dark, dangerous, and mercury-laced mines. It was a death sentence for many, earning Potosí the grim nickname "the mountain that eats men." This river of silver flowed across the Atlantic, funding Spain’s European wars and fueling a global economy, all at a staggering human cost. Life was a blend of imposition and adaptation. The Catholic Church was a dominant force, its ornate Baroque churches, dripping with gold leaf and elaborate carvings, rising in every town. Missionaries worked tirelessly to convert the Indigenous population, often by force. Yet, Andean beliefs did not simply vanish. They blended with Catholicism in a process called syncretism. The Earth Mother, Pachamama, became associated with the Virgin Mary, and mountain gods, or *apus*, were fused with Catholic saints. This religious fusion was a quiet, persistent form of cultural resistance. As the 18th century dawned, the system began to crack. The *Criollos*, educated and wealthy, grew ever more frustrated with their second-class status. Then, in 1780, the Andes exploded in the largest rebellion in the history of the Spanish Americas. A *mestizo* landowner and merchant named José Gabriel Condorcanqui, claiming descent from the last Inca emperor, took the name Túpac Amaru II. He rallied tens of thousands of Indigenous and *mestizo* followers, protesting brutal taxation and forced labor. His rebellion spread like fire across the southern Andes, threatening the very foundations of Spanish rule. The colonial response was swift and merciless. After his capture in 1781, Túpac Amaru II was forced to witness the execution of his wife, son, and other commanders in the main plaza of Cusco. Then, his limbs were tied to four horses, which were driven in opposite directions in a failed attempt to tear him apart. He was finally beheaded. Though brutally crushed, his rebellion lit a fuse. The memory of his defiance, coupled with the Enlightenment ideals filtering into the Americas and the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, created the perfect storm. The *Criollo* elite, seeing Spain weakened, seized their chance. In 1821, the foreign general José de San Martín declared Peru's independence in Lima, bringing the long, complex, and often brutal chapter of the Viceroyalty to a close, and setting the stage for the birth of a new nation.