Pizarro ambushed the Inca emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca
On this day · 16 November 1532
With 168 men, a Spanish conquistador sprang a trap in a highland plaza in 1532 and seized the ruler of an empire of millions.
On November 16, 1532, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro seized the Inca ruler Atahualpa during a surprise attack in the highland city of Cajamarca, in present-day Peru. Pizarro commanded just 168 men, with a few horses, cannons, and a friar.
Atahualpa, fresh from winning a civil war against his half-brother, agreed to meet the strangers and arrived in the plaza with thousands of unarmed attendants. Pizarro had hidden his soldiers in the surrounding buildings. At a signal, they opened fire and charged, slaughtering Atahualpa’s retinue and dragging the emperor from his litter.
An empire that stretched nearly 3,000 miles down the Andes was decapitated in a single afternoon.
Held captive, Atahualpa offered an extraordinary ransom: a room filled once with gold and twice with silver. The Spanish accepted the treasure, then executed him the following year. Cajamarca opened the conquest of the Inca world.
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