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Updated: May 16, 2025
Learning of the warlike might of the white man, he also sent an embassy of friendship to Pizarro, and a little later, in 1532, he started out in order to effect his first meeting with the strangers. This took place at Caxamalca. In an evil moment for himself Atahualpa had determined to do his utmost to impress these foreigners from overseas with the evidence of his wealth and power.
Pizarro learned that the Inca had left Guamachucho, and was now lying with a small force in the neighborhood of Caxamalca, at a place celebrated for its natural springs of warm water. The Peruvian was an intelligent person, and the Spanish commander gathered from him many particulars respecting the late contests which had distracted the empire.
With imaginations thus excited, Pizarro and his entire company, amounting to almost five hundred men, of whom nearly a third, probably, were cavalry, took their departure early in September from Caxamalca, a place ever memorable as the theatre of some of the most strange and sanguinary scenes recorded in history.
The authors of the revolution, Pizarro and his followers, remained meanwhile at Caxamalca. But the first step of the Spanish commander was to name a successor to Atahuallpa. It would be easier to govern under the venerated authority to which the homage of the Indians had been so long paid; and it was not difficult to find a successor.
The next day the Governor set out from that place, and, by his marches, arrived in the land of Guamachucho, eighteen leagues from Caxamalca. Having rested there two days, he set out for Caxamalca nine leagues ahead, and arrived there in three days, and rested four in order that his troops might have repose and opportunity to collect supplies for the march to Guaiglia, twenty leagues from there.
Close by this city the Inca, Atahualpa, lay encamped with an army, for a civil war between him and his brother Huascar had just ended in the defeat and imprisonment of the latter. Desperate was the situation of the small body of Spanish soldiers, when, in the late afternoon of the 15th of November, 1532, they marched into Caxamalca, which they found empty of inhabitants.
Seated near him was Calichuchima, the great general of Atabalipa who conquered this land, as was told in the account of the affairs at Caxamalca, and near him was also the captain Tice, one of the chiefs, and on the other side were certain brothers of the lord, while on both hands were other caciques and captains and governors of provinces and other lords of great lands, and, in short, no one sat there who was not of quality.
No sooner was this arrangement made, than the Inca despatched couriers to Cuzco and the other principal places in the kingdom, with orders that the gold ornaments and utensils should be removed from the royal palaces, and from the temples and other public buildings, and transported without loss of time to Caxamalca.
Beyond this, the Indian troops were disbanded, and Pizarro was able to send Soto and five Spaniards to Cuzco, a town situated more than 600 miles from Caxamalca, while he himself subjugated all the country within a circuit of 300 miles. In the meantime Almagro landed with 200 soldiers. This product of pillage and massacre was solemnly divided between those entitled to it on the Festival of St.
This Paccamaca the Indians have as their God and they offer him much gold and silver, and it is a well-known thing that the demon is in that idol and speaks with those who come to ask him something. And of this matter I have spoken at length in the relation which was sent to H. M. from Caxamalca.
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