The demise of the Inca Empire was one of the most important event in the colonization of the South American lands. When the Europeans started to have contact with it, the Empire was already in the process of decline.
At the time of the Emperor Huayna Capac, the son of the previous ruler, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, and grandson of Pachacutec, the Emperor who had begun the dramatic expansion from its base in the area around Cuzco, Huayna Capac continued the expansion. He took Inca armies into what is now Ecuador, and had to put down a number of rebellions during his reign. By the time of his death, his legitimacy was as unquestioned as was the primacy of the Inca power.
Many parts of the Empire maintained distinctive Cultures and these were at best restive participants in the Imperial Project. The large extent of the land and the extremely difficult terrain in the highlands, and the fact that all communication in between the regions (Lowlands, Highlands, Coastal lands, and the Jungle) and travel had to take place on foot or by boat, challenged the effectiveness of the religious administration of the Empire. Huayna Capac relied on his sons to support this effectiveness.
He had legitimate (born of his sister-wife, under the Inca religious law) and illegitimate (born outside of the Law) children. The two of them were religiously and historically important and played a pivotal roles in the demise of the Empire.
Prince Tupac Cusi Hualpa (also known as Huascar), was the son of Coya Mama Occllo of the royal religious line.
Atahualpa was an illegitimate son born of a daughter of the last independent King of Quito, one of the states conquered by Huayna Capac, his father, during the expansion of the Empire. He spent more time with his father during the years when he was in the North with the Inca army conquering Ecuador.
The Empire spanned a considerable distance, extending SouthWard from the Patia River in Sothern Colombia to the Maule River in Central Chile, and EastWard from the Pacific Ocean to the edge of the Amazonian Jungles. The land of the empire covered the most challenging and Mountainous Terrain on Earth.
Before the arrival of the Europeans, this vas Highland area varied in cultures and climate. The Inca allowed many areas of the Highlands to be governed under the control of local leaders, who were watched and monitored by Inca officials. However, under the religious and administrative mechanisms established by the Emperor, all parts of the Empire were united under the direct control of the Inca.
The population at that time numbered more than 16 million.
When the Europeans arrived at the borders of the Inca Empire in 1528, they spent 4 years of preliminary "exploration" and "information" about the political situation of the Empire which was in the midst of a Civil War between the sons of the late Inca Huayna Capac.
The Europeans saw all of it as a great aid in their enterprise of invading and then possessing the land. Playing the role of good samaritans, they mixed themselves with the locals and introduced to the New World, new species of animals and with them all the diseases that were familiar in the Old World. Smallpox and other types of virulent diseases, unknown to the people of the mountains, easily incubated in them and killed them in great numbers in short period of time. The invaders were immune because they developed the antidote inside their own bodies given the fact that they were exposed to those virulent diseases for so many generations. The date of the appearance of the smallpox in the Old World is not settled. It evolved from a rodent virus between 68,000 and 16,000 years ago. Transmission occurred from one person to another through prolonged face-to-face contact with an infected person or infected bodily fluids.
The population of the Empire including the Inca Huayna Capac and his eldest son and designated heir, Ninan Cuyochic, died of smallpox before he could nominate the new heir. Millions died in short period of time. The fate of the Empire then was already settled and what happened after was just the final chapter of it.
168 men under Francisco Pizarro together with a great number of locals, fighting for the restitution of the Inca power to the royal family, ambushed and captured the Inca Atahualpa in 1532 in the city of Cajamarca. It was the first small step in a very long campaign that took decades of fighting but ended anyway in Spanish victory in 1572 after 40 years of fighting for the control of the land.
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