The Rest Is History

649. The Fall of the Incas: The Last Emperor (Part 6)

March 5, 2026

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  • The internal Spanish conflict between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro culminated in Almagro's execution in 1538, marking a decisive victory for the Pizarro faction in the civil war, despite Almagro's initial advantage in controlling Cusco. 
  • Francisco Pizarro, despite achieving immense wealth and power by 1541, was assassinated by followers of the late Almagro, led by Diego de Almagro the Younger, demonstrating the enduring, self-destructive nature of the conquistador vendettas. 
  • Manco Inca, the last significant native resistance leader, was ultimately betrayed and murdered by his Almagrista refugee guests in 1544, effectively ending any serious organized native fightback against Spanish supremacy in the Andean region. 
  • The demographic collapse in Peru following the conquest was catastrophic, driven by disease, Spanish violence, and the destruction of infrastructure during the preceding Civil War, leading to widespread trauma and population decline. 
  • The narrative of the Incas as purely peaceful victims, popularized by writers like Las Casas, is an oversimplification, as the Inca rule itself involved brutality, forced labor, and denial of private property. 
  • The final vestiges of the Neo-Inca state in Vilcabamba ended with the execution of the last Inca, Tupac Amaru, in 1572, despite the earlier efforts of his brother, Tito Cusi, to maintain a peaceful, semi-autonomous existence under Spanish oversight. 
  • The massive influx of silver from mines like Potosi, fueled by forced indigenous labor, profoundly destabilized not only the Spanish and European economies but the entire global economy. 

Segments

Literary Opening and Regret
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: The opening uses a reading from Peter Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt of the Sun to frame the conquest as a tragic endeavor resulting in ruin and avarice.
  • Summary: The narrator Martin expresses profound regret over the destruction wrought upon Peru by the pursuit of gold and glory. This sentiment echoes the anti-imperial themes found in 16th-century Spanish accounts of the conquest, originating from sources like Bartolomé de las Casas. The play itself, written in the 1960s, reflects this long-standing ambivalence toward the conquest.
Almagro’s Position and Manco’s Escape
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(00:04:05)
  • Key Takeaway: In mid-1537, the Spanish civil war pitted Diego de Almagro in Cusco against Francisco Pizarro in Lima, while Manco Inca fled to the jungle stronghold of Vilcabamba.
  • Summary: Almagro, despite controlling the capital, was hesitant to leave Cusco undefended while pursuing Manco, tasking Rodrigo Orgones with the hunt. Orgones’ pursuit was delayed by the Spanish looting of the town of Vitkos, allowing Manco to escape deeper into the forest. Almagro recalled Orgones upon receiving envoys from Pizarro seeking to settle their feud.
Almagro’s Fatal Negotiation Errors
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(00:08:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Almagro made critical errors by releasing Hernando Pizarro without securing his brother Francisco’s compliance, leading to the collapse of his leverage and the subsequent Battle of Las Salinas.
  • Summary: Almagro marched toward the coast to negotiate with Pizarro, whose control of the coast provided vital access to reinforcements and communication with the Crown. Almagro’s subsequent tantrum during arbitration with the friar Francisco de Bobadilla resulted in the friar awarding Cusco to Pizarro. Releasing Hernando Pizarro in exchange for a promise that proved false was Almagro’s second major mistake.
Battle of Las Salinas and Almagro’s Death
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(00:13:35)
  • Key Takeaway: The Battle of Las Salinas in April 1538, described as one of the last medieval battles, resulted in Almagro’s defeat and his subsequent garroting by Hernando Pizarro’s forces.
  • Summary: The battle was fought between Almagro’s forces, led by Rodrigo Orgones, and Hernando Pizarro’s army, with thousands of native spectators watching. Orgones was killed after surrendering under false pretenses to a knight who immediately stabbed him. Almagro, ill and captured, was executed on July 8, 1538, despite begging for an appeal to Charles V.
The Puppet Inca and Manco’s Guerrilla War
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(00:17:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Following Almagro’s death, the collaborator Inca Paullu received Spanish honors, while the true Inca ruler Manco Inca waged a brutal guerrilla campaign from the jungle.
  • Summary: Paullu, Manco’s rival, immediately switched allegiance to the Pizarros, receiving a Spanish townhouse and a complex coat of arms, and disgracefully handing over the mummy of his father, Huayna Capac. Manco, operating from Vilcabamba, launched retaliatory attacks, torturing tribes who sided with the Spanish, including the Huanca.
Assassination of Francisco Pizarro
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(00:27:04)
  • Key Takeaway: By 1541, Francisco Pizarro, having seemingly won the empire, was assassinated in Lima by followers of the late Almagro, led by Almagro the Younger, who sought revenge.
  • Summary: Pizarro, described as cunning but dull and uninterested in spending his vast wealth, dismissed warnings about a coup planned by Almagro the Younger. The conspirators attacked Pizarro during Mass, and he was killed when Juan Borregán smashed a water urn onto his face after he was stabbed. This event immediately shifted power in Lima to Almagro the Younger.
Final Almagro Defeat and Manco’s Death
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(00:37:05)
  • Key Takeaway: The second Almagro faction was crushed by the royal representative Vaca de Castro at the Battle of Chupas, leading to Almagro the Younger’s execution, shortly before Manco Inca was assassinated by his own Spanish guests.
  • Summary: Vaca de Castro defeated Almagro the Younger’s forces in 1542, executing many rebels, including Almagro Jr. Meanwhile, Manco Inca, having naively sheltered seven Almagrista refugees to teach his people Spanish ways, was stabbed to death by them during a game of quoits in 1544. Manco is remembered as an indomitable patriot whose death ended serious native resistance.
Gonzalo Pizarro’s Rebellion and End
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(00:50:16)
  • Key Takeaway: Gonzalo Pizarro led a major rebellion against the Crown’s ‘New Laws’—which aimed to curb indigenous exploitation—but was ultimately defeated and executed by the royal envoy Pedro de la Gasca.
  • Summary: The New Laws of the early 1540s, intended to treat Indians as equal subjects and end slavery, enraged the Spanish settlers who relied on forced labor. Gonzalo Pizarro, acting as a proto-American revolutionary, killed the first viceroy and seized Lima, demanding the right to exploit the territory. His rebellion ended when his own men deserted him, leading to his execution in Cusco, marking the end of the Pizarro brothers’ dominance.
Demographic Disaster & Spanish Accounts
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(00:56:38)
  • Key Takeaway: Spanish writers like Valverde and Las Casas documented the ’total and utter demographic disaster’ in Peru, noting massive population drops in valleys from 40,000 to 4,000.
  • Summary: John Hemming’s work highlights the devastating demographic impact on Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Valverde reported seeing terrible destruction in 1539, unable to recognize the land he had seen before. Las Casas’ 1552 work, The Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies, framed the events as a genocidal destruction of a paradise.
Inca Rule vs. Spanish Atrocities
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(00:57:46)
  • Key Takeaway: The narrative portraying Incas as peaceful contrasts with historical reality, as Inca rule involved forced labor, denial of private property, and deportations.
  • Summary: The idealized narrative of peaceful Incas, inherited by Protestant countries, ignores the harsh realities of Inca governance established in earlier episodes. Crucially, the documentation of the conquistadors’ monstrous crimes originates from Spanish moralists and writers themselves. This reveals an inherent tension in attitudes toward European actions in the Americas from the very beginning.
Debate on Genocide and Disease
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(00:59:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Historians often dispute applying the term ‘genocide’ to the conquest because the majority of deaths were likely caused by Old World diseases like smallpox and measles, not direct Spanish violence.
  • Summary: Las Casas’ rhetoric heavily influenced later terminology regarding the destruction in Peru. The massive death toll is attributed primarily to disease outbreaks, similar to those seen earlier in the Caribbean and Mesoamerica. The preceding Inca Civil War also severely damaged infrastructure like irrigation canals and roads, contributing to famine.
Trauma and Spanish Exploitation
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(00:59:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Colonial trauma manifested in high suicide rates and infanticide among indigenous populations, while survivors faced punishing labor under the encomienda system.
  • Summary: Philip II of Spain documented reports of people hanging themselves, refusing food, and mothers killing infants to spare them hardship, mirroring accounts from the Caribbean Taino people. Four out of five men in 16th-century Spanish Peru were subjected to forced labor. Spanish royal official Fernando de Santián described the indigenous people as living the most wretched lives despite being hard-working.
Potosi Silver and Global Economy
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(01:01:36)
  • Key Takeaway: The silver mine at Potosi, known as the ‘mountain that eats men,’ caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands to 8 million people and massively destabilized the global economy.
  • Summary: Labor in the mines was the worst fate for survivors of the conquest. Estimates for deaths at Cerro Rico in Potosí range up to 8 million people. The resulting silver shipment to Spain rippled through the world economy, a topic explored in Charles C. Mann’s book 1493.
The Neo-Inca Kingdom’s End
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(01:02:50)
  • Key Takeaway: Tito Cusi, ruler of the Neo-Inca state in Vilcabamba, fostered a decade of relative peace and diplomacy with the Spanish before his untimely death.
  • Summary: Manco’s successor, Sayri Tupac, accepted Philip II’s offer of pardon and emerged from Vilcabamba in 1552, receiving honors and papal dispensation to marry his sister. Tito Cusi, who succeeded him, deliberately avoided provoking the Spanish, allowing missionaries and even being baptized while maintaining his own religion. John Hemming suggested Vilcabamba might have evolved into an independent state under Spanish protection had Tito Cusi lived longer.
Tupac Amaru’s Rebellion and Execution
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(01:05:44)
  • Key Takeaway: Tupac Amaru, Tito Cusi’s successor, provoked a ‘war of fire and blood’ by killing a friar and rejecting Spanish authority, leading to his capture and public execution in Cuzco in 1572.
  • Summary: Tupac Amaru blamed Christians for his brother’s death and outlawed Christianity, leading Viceroy Francisco de Toledo to declare war. The Spanish captured Tupac Amaru and brought him back to Cuzco alongside the mummies of Manco and Tito Cusi. His final words before execution were an appeal to the creator god Pacha Camac as the crowd wailed.