Qualla: Battle of Cajamarca https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Battle of Cajamarca https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca Battle of Cajamarca: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Public domain. Atahualpa came down to the plaza unarmed. He had eighty thousand veteran soldiers in the hills above Cajamarca, fresh from beating his half-brother Huascar in a civil war that had just made him sole Sapa Inca - the supreme ruler of an empire stretching from Quito to central Chile. The 168 Spaniards who had walked into his mountain stronghold seemed strange and foreign and not particularly threatening. Atahualpa accepted their invitation to meet in the plaza on 16 November 1532 because he intended to overawe and capture them. He brought attendants, knives for hunting llamas, and a small honor guard of perhaps eight thousand men who were not carrying battle weapons. By sundown, his attendants and guard were dead. He himself was a prisoner. The empire he ruled would last another forty years, in fragmented form, before collapsing entirely.

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Cajamarca: The Sapa Inca and the Conquistador https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Rodolfo pimentel, CC BY-SA 4.0. Atahualpa was perhaps thirty-two years old, the son of the great expansionist emperor Huayna Capac, and had just won a brutal civil war against his half-brother Huascar. His commanders had captured Huascar near Cuzco only weeks before. The empire he now ruled was the largest in p...

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Image: Rodolfo pimentel | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-the-sapa-inca-and-the-conquistador.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Cajamarca: The Trap https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Harley Calvert, CC BY-SA 3.0. Pizarro arrived in Cajamarca on Friday 15 November 1532. The town's two thousand inhabitants had largely cleared out. The Spaniards moved into the buildings around the empty central plaza, hiding cavalry in the alleyways, infantry behind the doorways, the cannons inside a stone b...

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Image: Harley Calvert | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-the-trap.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Cajamarca: The Massacre https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Harley Calvert, CC BY-SA 3.0. Friar Vicente de Valverde walked out into the plaza carrying a cross and a missal, with an interpreter, to demand that Atahualpa accept Catholicism and Charles V as his sovereign. Atahualpa was offended and confused. According to the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega, he tried to m...

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Image: Harley Calvert | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-the-massacre.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Cajamarca: The Ransom and the Garrote https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Henry Perronet Briggs, Public domain. Atahualpa, imprisoned, offered Pizarro the largest ransom in human history: a room filled once with gold and twice with silver. The Spanish accepted. For eight months Inca runners hauled treasure from temples and palaces across the empire to fill the room. While the gold piled up...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-the-ransom-and-the-garrote.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Cajamarca: What Was Lost, What Survived https://qualla.com/battle-of-cajamarca/ Photo credit Henry Perronet Briggs, Public domain. Atahualpa's wife, Cuxirimay Ocllo, was ten years old when the Spanish captured her husband. She stayed with him in prison, was taken to Cuzco after his execution, became Pizarro's mistress at some point and bore him two sons. After Pizarro's assassination in 1541, she married the...

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]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/6/q/8/p/battle-of-cajamarca-wp/6q8p-battle-of-cajamarca-what-was-lost-what-survived.mp3 0:06 6 full