Peru, country, South America: The Spanish Conquest

Atahualpa had defeated Huascar for control of the Inca empire by 1532, when Francisco Pizarro, a Spaniard, arrived on the coast of Peru with a small band of adventurers. Atahualpa agreed to meet Pizarro at Cajamarca, where he was imprisoned after refusing to accept Spanish suzerainty and Christianity. Although the emperor's followers collected a huge ransom in gold and silver for his release, the Spaniards executed him in mid-1533. By late 1533, Pizarro had captured Cuzco, the Inca capital, and the empire had disintegrated. In 1535, Pizarro founded Lima, which in 1542 became the center of Spanish rule in South America.

From 1536 to 1544, Manco Capac, who had succeeded Atahualpa as emperor, led several unsuccessful uprisings against the Spaniards. At the same time, Pizarro and his brothers and companions (including Sebastián de Benalcázar) were unsuccessfully challenged by Pedro de Alvarado and then by Diego de Almagro and his son, who was defeated (1542) by Vaca de Castro, a representative of the Spanish crown sent to restore order. Pizarro forced the natives held in encomienda to work in the mines, on the lands of Spanish landlords, and in the small textile mills (obrajes).

The New Laws of 1542, which would have ended the abuses of the encomienda system, caused Gonzalo Pizarro to revolt (1544). He defeated the viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, but was in turn defeated (and executed) by Pedro de la Gasca in 1548. However, the New Laws were never administered for the benefit of the native peoples.

Francisco de Toledo, who was viceroy from 1569 to 1581, improved administration, defeated a revolt under the Inca Tupac Amaru, and resettled the natives in new villages, or reductions. The viceroyalty of Peru was expanded to include all of Spanish-ruled South America except Venezuela, and the mining of silver and gold increased. Lima was the administrative, religious, economic, and cultural center of the viceroyalty.

In the 18th cent. Peru was drastically reduced in size by the creation of the viceroyalty of New Granada and a viceroyalty centered at Buenos Aires (see Argentina); as a result, Lima lost control over considerable trade and mineral wealth. At the same time, government in Peru was reformed, but Spaniards retained almost complete control in the viceroyalty, and the indigenous peoples and creoles (persons of Spanish descent born in Peru) remained powerless and poor. Led by a man who called himself Tupac Amaru in reference to his alleged Inca ancestor, the native inhabitants revolted in 1780, but were defeated by 1783. There were a few additional uprisings in the early 19th cent.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Twentieth-Century Peru
• The Late Nineteenth Century
• Independence
• The Spanish Conquest
• Early History to the Spanish Conquest
• Government
• Economy
• People
• Land
• Bibliography

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