LogFAQs > #948651257

K181 posted...

Smallpox ravaged native populations across the Americas. The wars were effectively already won before the Europeans even showed up.

And of the ones that were meaningfully competitive, local alliances played a bigger role. Tenochtitlan only fell to the Spanish due to tens of thousands of local allies that jumped on the chance to take down the Aztecs. The Inca got wiped out by smallpox and civil war prior the Spanish arrival, they were a shell by the time the Spanish showed up and even they needed local alliances to win.

I feel like expanding on how ridiculously, improbably lucky Pizarro was.

Basically, not long before the Spanish invaded, Sapa Inca Huayna Capac died of smallpox, without naming a successor(though that probably would not have mattered). Succession wars weren't uncommon, and one broke out between two potential heirs: Huascar, based in the capital in Cuzco, and Atahualpa, who was based in Quito in the north. Atahualpa gained the support of the military and his forces overwhelmed Huascar's fairly quickly, capturing Cuzco(and Huascar). As was standard for a Sapa Inca, Atahualpa remained behind at his court in Quito while his generals handled the gritty work of conquest. He probably received word of his victory around the time the Spanish landed(a bit to the north of Quito). Apparently, a Spanish emissary rode a horse into his presence. Not only had no one seen a horse before, but there were lots of protocols for approaching a man of Atahualpa's stature that the Spanish were ignorant of(and likely wouldn't have cared about anyway), and this was ultimately regarded as a grievous insult. Atahualpa agreed to treat with the Spanish in a village square(through an interpreter, likely some one the Spanish had kidnapped years before), and he brought his army with him, likely fully intending to teach the Spanish a lesson in respect. There was possibly an incident: a priest presented Atahualpa with a Bible and exhorted him to abide by it, and apparently Atahualpa(who had never seen a book before) tossed it aside, causing the priest to cry out in anger. The Incan army would primarily have been men armed with clubs, spears, and slings, and was crowded into a tiny square.
Pizarro, of course, had no intention of treating peacefully either: he had ordered his men to conceal their few cannons in buildings on one side of the square(a likely unnecessary conceit: Incan scouts would not have known what they were even if they had seen them). As soon as talks broke down, the cannoneers fired, unleashing terrible carnage on the Incan army. The Incans panicked: they had never encountered such a weapon, and in the carnage, Pizarro himself is said to have dragged Atahualpa from his palanquin and managed to get him to convince the Incans who had not fled to surrender. At some point, either just before or after his capture, he dispatched messengers to Cuzco ordering Huascar's execution, unwittingly ensuring the only legitimate authority in the entire empire was a Spanish captive. He initially believed he was being held for ransom, but eventually realized that his predicament was far graver. Pizarro, concluding that he was too dangerous, ultimately had Atahualpa put to death after the Spanish seized Cuzco, and a child(whom they believed would be more pliable) was enthroned, in a Catholic ceremony.