The Rest Is History - 647. The Fall of the Incas: The King in the North (Part 4)

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

How did the Spanish conquistadors under Francisco Pizarro take advantage of the Incan civil War? Were they able to discover the glorious city of Cusco, with all of its riches? And, what terrible brutalities did they commit along the way…? Join Dominic and Tom, as they discuss the next dramatic phase of the Spaniards conquest of the Incas, as the violence escalates and the city of gold prepares to fall… _______ This episode is sponsored by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Try Claude for free today at Claude.ai/restishistory. _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek + Harry Swan Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Their capital is completely round. They call it the naval of the earth, and that's what it looks like. In the middle is a huge temple, the centre of their faith. The walls were plated with gold, enough to blind us. Inside, set out on tables, golden platters for the sun to dine off. Outside the garden, acres of gold soil, planted with gold maize, entire apple trees in gold, gold, gold birds on the branches, gold geese and ducks, gold butterflies. in the air on silver strings. And imagine this. Away in a field, life-sized, 20 golden llamas grazing with their kids. The Garden of the Sun at Kusko.

A wonder of the earth. Look at it now. So that was Posh boy Anando de Soto in Peter Schaffer's play, The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Came out in 1964. We've been hearing a lot from it. And DeSoto, in that passage,

is describing one of the great wonders of the world in the early 16th century, which was Corricancha, the temple of the sun in Cusco. And Dominic, that is from a play. But Peter Schaffer, I mean, he loves his research, doesn't he? He's obviously gone to the primary sources and rework them. It's very, very closely based on some primary sources that were here from later in this episode. They were written by Spanish chroniclers a few years after the fall of the Inkers. And that sense, I mean, you did it in a sense.

sort of very clipped 1950s war film voice but I think generally when people perform that play there's a sense of wonder and awe

in their voices Well should I go back and redo it No no no one wants that Their capital is completely round They call it The Naval of the Earth

Oh And that's what it looks like How about that Yeah Have I got the part Definitely Definitely Gold geese and ducks

very toast 20 golden lamas it's very toast of London that reading Matt Berry would do a very good job right yes so and actually while he's speaking in that voice loads of Indian porters in the play

I'd say Indian in inverted commas because that's what they're called in the play they've been removing the rays of the sun which are like petals and piling them up in this giant horde of loot for the Spaniards and this is what we talked about last time, the pillaging of the Temple of the Sun

to pile up Ato Alper's ransom. So he ended with Atowalpa being grotted by the Spanish anyway. So this is paranoid atmosphere in Kakamaika, where since November 1532, Pizarro and his comrades have been holding Attawalpa prisoner. And this is just the beginning

of the looting of Peru, because this is the story of one of the greatest gold heists, surely actually the greatest gold heist in history. The, surely. I mean, I can't think of anything comparable. And at the heart of the story are the temples and treasure houses

of the Inca's holy city of Kusko. So it's a story today of gold and greed on an epic scale. But there is more. We'll be telling the story of the greatest pitched battle in the history of the conquest of Peru, so tens of thousands of warriors.

Because to be honest, we haven't had any yet, have we? No, and I think people are gagging for a battle and they're going to get one. We'll be meeting a terrifying Inca warlord who turns his victims into percussion instruments. We love an Inca Warlord who turns its victims

into percussion instruments. On the rest is history. And most exciting. And this is a real gift for long-standing listeners. We should be welcoming back to the show one of our favorite characters, top Gilles and Red Trousers model, Pedro de Alvarado.

Bloody good bloke. Total ledge. So that's something to look forward to. So let's begin with Pizarra and the Conquistadors in Kachamaka. It's the summer of 1534. They've just killed Atta Walper. What now?

So, killing Atta Walper has made their life much simpler in a couple of respects. First of all, they are now free to push on for the gold of Kusko, which is about 750 miles, 800 miles to the south. And this is especially important for Pizarro's partner Diego Diomagro, who, as we heard last time, is absolutely seething because he's been cut out of the ransom. Hopping mad. He's a short man, a very colourfully dressed man, a boastful man, and, as we'll see, a violent man. Secondly, the Spaniards have definitively now taken a side in the civil war between Atahualpa and Huasca.

Now, initially they were pro-Ato-Welper, but by killing him, Pizarro has put himself very firmly on the side of the late Huasca who represented Cuscoe and the south of the empire. and he cements this further with his choice of the new puppet emperor. So they have been holding in Khachemaka all this time, Huasca's younger brother, who is called Tupac Hualpa. He's probably in his 20s, we know virtually nothing about him. This bloke's just been hanging around somewhere. And as soon as Attawalpa, they've held their Christian funeral service for Attawalpa and buried him, Pizarro summons all the local chiefs, and he unveils this bloke, Tupac Hualpa.

And they have a kind of coronation ceremony for him. There's a lot of interesting tribal dancing and feathered costumes play a part. I'm happy to say. So they haven't converted to Christianity? No. And actually, the Spaniards, it's really interesting actually this story, a little bit different from the conquest of Mexico. They don't really make that much efforts to impose Christianity and to stamp out the local

cults and whatnot at this stage. I think probably because they're so heavily outnumbered, and they know it would be madness to even try. It's all about the gold. There's a big difference, because you remember in the conquest of the Aztecs, the Spaniards are always kind of going into temples and being rude about the local idols and stuff.

Well, also, there was human sacrifice going on, and I think that that possibly intensifies the sense of cultural difference. Maybe, yeah. They're not fans of cultural difference, so they're the Spaniards by and large. And actually, to the local chiefs, after the coronation service,

you can see that they think basically the natural order now has been restored. Huasca's family are back in charge. His brother is the new emperor. Yes, he's got these weird foreign mercenaries who are working for him. But you can see how they could sell that across the empire.

So it's kind of like Roman Italy in the 5th century AD with an ineffectual Roman emperor surrounded by Gothic guards. Completely. And that's, you know, I actually thought about that in the last, while we're recording the last episode. The parallel with kind of barbarian murks.

who are working for you. And the difference, of course, is that the Spanish are going to come in such overwhelming numbers, I suppose. Also, that they feel no aspiration to become an Inca. Exactly. So that's the other big difference. Yeah. There's no place in the Spanish world for you to tolerate the cults and the gods,

for instance, of the Inca, whereas the German mercenaries, they all became Christian. Well, the German mercenaries want to become Romans, don't they, to some degree? Whereas the Spanish have no desire to become Peruvians. No. And actually, at the end of this coronation ceremony, Tupac Qualpa gives Pizarro ceremonially this white feathered headdress

and says this is a tribute to my overlord Charles V. And that is a sign of where power really lies in this dynamic. Now, in a lot of accounts of the fall of the Inkers, this is when the story ends. Atualpa is dead, the Spanish of the gold, the Spanish of a puppet emperor, the Spanish of Wom. So they finish without any mention of the... the percussion based. Yeah. Do you remember that from your children's book? I don't.

Because it would have made a brilliant illustration and we're preempting the show. It would have been. It would have been. I mean, it would have been tremendous. This is where most of the children's books end. And for some of Pizarro's men, this is the end. So he gives them permission to go back to Spain with their winnings. His brother, Anando, has already gone, of course. He reached Seville in January 1534. and his gold was a huge sensation when he unloaded it.

When he unloaded it in Seville, the council of the Indies immediately wrote to Charles V and said, you've got to welcome this guy at court, you've got to see this. Anando was invited to the court in Toledo. He was a massive celebrity. Everyone was very excited. He then went to Extra Madura to the Pizarro's kind of ancestral homeland, and he went on a recruitment drive to get more people.

You can come and get gold. Why don't we all go? And meanwhile, two of the other guys who returned, Christobald de Meña and Francisco Hereth, they wrote accounts of their time in Peru, which became, by the standards of the 16th century, huge bestsellers. And they were translated into Italian and into German.

And people in Venice, mapmakers in Venice, started producing sort of imaginary maps of Peru. And it became this great sensation, basically if you're young, if you fancy yourself as an adventurer, Peru is where you now go. And I think from that moment onwards, clearly the Inca's are doomed because a lot more people are going to arrive by ship in the next few years.

So it's the very familiar story, isn't it, of the winning of the West, that Native peoples in the Americas once there's a sniff of gold, they're doomed? Yeah, the gold rushes on, exactly. So just one question. Do you think there is an alternative reality where the Inca's do survive? Had they seen off Pizarro, had they become alert to the possibility, had they got horses, had they obtained weapons? Yeah.

Do you think that they could have upgraded their infrastructure fast enough and sufficiently enough to sea off Spanish conquerors? No, deep down, because, I mean, nobody in the Americas does it. But maybe the Inca's more than anyone else because they're so isolated, so hard to get to. Yes, I think the terrain actually makes it perfectly possible you could imagine. I would say some sort of Andean highland state surviving, just hard to get to. So the lowlands being conquered, but the coastline always,

the Spanish are always coming, but maybe, you know, so the Inkers don't have a couple of things, really, something that might have been a massive gain changer if then is a bow and arrow. Because they don't have that many trees in the Andes,

they have remarkably few kind of pikes and bows and arrows, which might have helped bring down the horses. I mean, it's amazing, as we'll come to in this episode. you know, a handful of horses can see off hundreds and hundreds of men who are terrified and they don't know

how to bring them down because they don't have many bows and arrows. But they might have learned, if they'd had a sufficient breathing space, they might have. Yeah, the counter argument to that is nowhere else on the continent to people hold out.

And the weight of Spanish technology of numbers and also disease. I mean, one thing we haven't really talked about much, we talked about in the first episode, Smallpox has made its entrance and has, before the Spaniards even arrived, and disease will continue to decimate the populations of South America. Okay, so it's bad news for the incomes, basically. Yeah.

So back in Kachamaka, Pizarro and Al-Magro are preparing to set off south. And this really, I mean, even by their own standards, this is an absolutely insane journey to be doing. They're going 800 miles almost south across the central Andes. They're basically going up and down the whole time. down into these valleys, crossing rivers, climbing these peaks. As John Heming says in his brilliant book, it's one of the most staggering invasions in history. Without supplies, communications or reinforcements,

this tiny contingent was going to try to force its way into the heart of an enormous hostile empire to seize its capital city. And they set off on the 11th of August. It's very like Alexander the Great kind of going through what's now, you know, Turkey, Iran and whatnot. Sort of endless river crossing. rope bridges, climbing rock faces,

ambushes by strange people, all of this kind of thing. Anyway, after about eight weeks of this, it's actually going pretty well. So they're about halfway, which I think is really good going. The locals, by and large, are Hwaska supporters. Well, these are the wanker people. Yes, so it's always good to have the wankers on side.

I think you've always got them on side, haven't you, Tom, the wankers? They're very much team Tom Holland, I think. I would never snub a wanker. No. So by early October, the Spaniards are approaching the valley of Shaosha. So this is where Enando Pizarro lured away Chalcuchima. The rugby player. He got burnt.

Yes, he got burnt. And actually, he's still alive, isn't he? The Spaniards have brought him with them. He's very badly singed, if you may recall. His tendons, I think, had been badly burned, aren't he? And they've now chained him up, but they've brought him with them. Now at about this point So the halfway

The Spaniards start to get very jittery The scouts are reporting There are northern troops So that's Attawalpa's former armies The troops from Quito in the north Are nearby And these are led by the northern commander Kiskeskis

Who is the guy who had taken Kusko for Attawalpa Anyway the Spaniards go on The terrain becomes more desolate It's now very cold And some of the Spanish Not surprisingly have got terrible Altitude sickness

You know there are tens of thousands of feet high up. The villages are deserted, there are more rumours of northern troops, and at last they come out in the valley of Shaosha, and there are two more reminders of the Civil War. So first, very ominously, I mean, I know we said this with the Aztecs,

but this would be another brilliant Hollywood film or series. They ride past the bodies of 4,000 people who'd been killed by the Keaton army some months earlier, and the bodies have been left there to rot. And then, as they continue, the locals start to turn out and to greet them as liberators. I quote, the natives all came out onto the road to look at the Christians and greatly celebrated their arrival, for they thought it would mean their escape from the servitude in which they were held by that foreign army.

The foreign army, which is the Inca's. Yeah, is an Inca army from Quito, in Ecuador, from the north. The Spanish go into Zhaosha, and they find that the northerners have left behind 600 men to set fire to the storehouses. It's the Spanish charge, they drive off the northerners, and they save some of the gold. And then there's a bit of a chase, as the Spanish are chasing basically the rear guard of the Northern Army through this valley. And this is clearly one of many little, you get this little snippet, behind which lies a much bigger story that is unknown to us. The pursuit continued for four leagues and many Indians were speared. We took all the serving people and many beautiful women.

there was a good haul of both gold and silver. And just in those words, we took all the serving people and many beautiful women. You don't have to be too cynical to imagine that what the fate that befalls the many beautiful women is not a pleasant one at all. There's probably a lot of this stuff happening offstage. Now, during all this, when the Spanish had probably behaving very badly, a wholly unexpected development. During the journey, the young emperor, puppet emperor, Tupac Hualpa, has fallen ill.

and we have no idea whatsoever what he fell ill with. Isn't there a rumour that Chalkachima had poisoned him? Yes, I think almost certainly rubbish. I think this is part of the... The blackening of his name. I mean, the blackening, he's already blackened, remember? Yeah. But now they're blackening him metaphorically.

Yeah, so Tubaqualpa suddenly basically falls ill and then he dies. And this is very bad news for Pizarro, because he's lost his puppet emperor. And he summons all the local bigwigs. And he says, well, who should be the emperor now? And some people say there's some bloke who's a brother of Huasca who's called Manco, who's off in Kusko. And other people say, no, no, he's no good. Get one of Atalpa's sons. And they can't agree and there's basically a stalemate and there's no decision for the time being.

So I leave that thought, that hanging. There's a vacuum there. Meanwhile, the Spanish are preparing for the last section of the march, which is the most dramatic bit, which is crossing the central Andes towards Kuzko. And this is real kind of, you know, rope bridge, clans. impossible cliff faces, all of this kind of thing. So there's a account by Pedro Sancho Pizarro's secretary on one of many of these mountain ascents.

Looking up at it from below, it seemed impossible for birds to scale it by flying through the air, let alone men on horseback climbing by land. And yet they do it with all their kind of native porters and, you know, camp followers and stuff. There are two more skirmishes with the Keaton army who are still hanging around at a place called Vilkas Hwauman and Vilka Conga.

But both times, although the Spanish are outnumbered, they managed to drive their attackers back. And the interesting question is why the Inca's are not able to defeat the Spaniards, because they massively outnumber them. Well, because when you say Inkers, yeah. I mean, it's specifically the Inkers from the North, right? Yes, the Keetans, as I guess we should call them.

So it's only a faction of the Inkers. It is, but there's maybe 30,000 of them. They've got the Southern Inkers and they've got the Wanker. Yeah, well, they've got native support that's absolutely crucial. So this isn't Spanish versus Incas. It's Spanish and half of the Inca Empire against the other half. That's one thing. I think you're dead right.

And then the other thing is the horses. All the accounts say that a handful of horsemen would even in quite hilly terrain could see off hundreds, even thousands of Inkers. And the Spanish start to get this reputation for really awe in Spain. You know, at this point, I think no Spaniard has been killed, which is incredible. That is incredible, isn't it? Yeah. But I suppose if they haven't got pikes and they haven't got bows and arrows, how do you stop a horse? Right.

You've got a kind of club or something. I mean, you might get a lucky blow in. What about one of those pieces of string with stones on either end and you throw them? Oh, yes. And they go round the hooves and bring them down. That's what I would do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. In a film, that's what they would have.

I mean, they would be excellent slingshot action. I mean, they do have slings, but they're just never able to bring any of these people down. So we're now up to November 1533, and now a massively important figure enters this story. So a day or so after the last skirmish at Vilco Conga, a group of locals approached the Spanish camp. And one of them, and I quote, looking like a common Indian, I mean, obviously all through this story, the Spanish called the locals Indians. He identifies himself and he says, I am Manco. I am the younger brother of the late Huasca. I'm a son of the late emperor Hwena Capac.

I am the new candidate of the southern faction, the Kusko faction in the Civil War. How old is we don't quite know? Some Spaniards said he was 15, some said he was 20 but looked younger. Let's say late teens. He's been on the run for months. When AtuAlpa captured Kusko, Manko had basically run away. because he knew he'd be a dead man if Atulapur's men found him. And Pizarro is delighted when this guy Manco turns up.

And he says to Manco, I have come for one reason only to free you from slavery by the men of Quito. Knowing the injuries they were doing to you, I wanted to put stop to them, and I wanted to liberate the people of Kuzko from this tyranny. So he says this through interpreters. And Manco appears to believe it and says, oh, brilliant, well, we can work together.

that's all that I want. Oh, I'm so pleased. And we know that Manco is not an idiot and is a man of steel because he shows his steel right away. The Spaniards have been dragging this boat Chalcuchima around with them. And now Manco confronts Chalcuchima in front of them and he says, I know you've been smuggling orders to the Keaton army to Kiskees and his men. Basically, either through informants or presumably through your nice bits of string.

And there's a massive row. Pizarro loses the plot and he shouts at Chalcuchis. You dog! How could you pull such a navis trick? And basically they dragged Chalcuchima into the nearest village square. They say to him, you know, we're going to kill you, convert to Christianity, and we'll garrot you instead of burning you. He says, you know, I've been burned already. You might as well just finish the job. Do you think he's like Hachui, wasn't it, in the Caribbean, who said that he wouldn't convert to Christianity because he didn't want to be in a heaven where there was Spaniards?

Yeah. That kind of vibe. If heaven's full of people like you, I'm not going there. Exactly. So they set him on fire and burn him to death. Actually, a small detail, one of the sources says the people who burned him most keen and enthusiastically were his own former friends, which I think is a lesson to us all. Don't have friends. Yeah. He dies very bravely, though. He calls on Kiskes to avenge him. He shouts out, you know, you will avenge me one day. And actually Kiskees is still hanging around somewhere with his army. There's one more battle on the last. mountain pass before they get to Kusko. And this time, the Keaton army almost beats them. They drive the Spanish back, but it's a constant issue. They can never finish them off completely before nightfall.

And actually, all night the Spanish kind of hunker down, slightly Rourke's drift style. And when dawn comes, Kiskes' men are nowhere to be seen. They've melted away into the mountains. They think the Spanish can't be beaten. And they've slightly lost heart. And Kiskees now begins this long retreat with his army. I mean, the guy who a few months earlier was on Cloud 9 because he thought he'd won the Civil War, he starts this long retreat towards the north, back to Ecuador.

His men are obviously knackered, and their morale is ebbing, and we will see how that plays out in the second half of this episode. But for now, the morning of Saturday, the 15th of November, 1533, Pizarro and Manco, who's, I think some of the sources say, on a horse, which must have been an amazing sight for the people of Kusko, they ride into the capital city as conquerors. Now Kusko, a very popular tourist destination today, is the heart of Inca civilization. The Inca's called it the naval of the world. It was the political and spiritual center of the empire, famous across the Andean region for its

palaces and its architecture and its temples and so on and so forth. So if you imagine it, Kusko then as now is spread across the foothills at the top of this very fertile, very green Andean Valley. Its buildings then were kind of one story made of stone or adobe and they were thatched. There was a grid system. It's very clean. It's very orderly. The Spaniards wrote home and said beautiful paved little roads. They've always got water channels down the middle. It's very clean. At the center is this great square called Alke-Pata, which is lined with the palaces of of the Inca's.

So basically, each Inca, each emperor, would build a palace or a mansion during his lifetime. And this was going to be his own mausoleum, his own resting place. And when he was dead, his mummified body would be put in this palace with all his furniture, all his stuff, and all his old servants. Which is great. Yeah. I mean, effectively, you're not dead. And if they have a kind of procession, a royal wedding or coronation or something, they're all brought

out, aren't they? And they're all brought out, aren't they? And they're kind of carried around in litters. and they line them up chronologically. Yeah. So it would be like, you know, having a royal wedding here and you'd have Queen Victoria and George III and they'd all be wheeled out and they'd just kind of sit there.

That'll be great. Yeah. That would be great. Tabby in the chat correctly points out that we should do this with former Restus History producers. So we could have Theo, just bring him in here. Our erstwhile producer, Theo Young Smith, we could bring out his mummified body at Restus history events

and parade it around on a litter. I'm sure everyone would enjoy that. It's lessons from history. Yeah, completely. So the Spanish thought that Kusko was brilliant. Can I just ask, surely Kusko must be in a massive state, though. I mean, everyone's died of smallpox, and there's been all this fighting, and it's been occupied by people who hate it. But here's the thing.

Clearly not. Right? Otherwise, they would report on it. Maybe Kiskesis has not, you know, he hasn't raised it to the ground, and the northern army that has been occupying hasn't left a terrible mess. I mean, I don't know why that is. But the sources would tell us, wouldn't they? The Spanish, they would want to tell us. Or maybe it's so outside the sense that the Spanish had of what a city should look like,

that it strikes them again like something from a romance, because that was a theme in Mexico, wasn't it? Maybe. Yeah. Or maybe they, I mean, all the Spanish sources, of course, it's always in their interest to big these things up because they want to attract more people and they want to impress the king. Yeah.

So they write to Charles V, the city's the greatest ever seen in the Indies. We can assure your majesty it's so beautiful and there's such fine buildings It would be remarkable even in Spain. I guess one point worth saying is none of these people have been to Mexico. So they've got no standard of comparison. Yeah. Because it's not as good as Tenochtitland, which is bigger, I think, and more impressive. Yeah.

Or maybe they've been in Peru long enough and kind of cantering through so many small villages that arrive at somewhere this vast is kind of overwhelming. I think that's probably right. You know, they were anxious when they arrived, of course, after all the fighting and after with Chiamaka and stuff, but they are delighted. The people greet them as liberators. They move into the palaces of the Inca's. What happens to their bodies, to the mummies?

Presumably still there? I don't know. Well, that's a bit creepy. Oh, and Pizarro, don't forget, Pizarro's got a form. I mean, he spent the night with Atta Welper. Yeah, but he was alive. I mean, would he spend a night with Atta Welper's father? A 200-year-old mummy.

With George III, would you? I don't know. Do you know what? I probably would, just to say that I'd done it for the experience, wouldn't you? I guess. If somebody said, would you like to spend that night

with William the Conqueror? I mean, actually his body would be dead. He exploded. That would be horrible. Yeah. No, I mean,

who would you choose? I would probably choose I don't know. George the 5th, my favorite king. George the 5th. We could talk about stamp collecting. Be disrespectful.

But he'd be dead, Dominic. That's the point. Yeah, but he'd be about as interesting a conversation as if he was alive. I mean...

I think maybe Charles the second. Yeah, of course. Just for the bans. Yeah. Well. It would feel less disrespectful. Charles the first would be a twist, wouldn't it? Yeah, would his head be sewn on or just rolling around.

Exactly. So they all move into these palaces. What the locals make of this, we do not know. But they don't rebel. You know, they don't rise up. They don't drive the Spanish out. There's no reason to doubt that they do greet them as liberators. The Spanish accounts are buzzing with excitement at the beauty and wealth of Kusko.

So Pedro Pizarro, Pedro Sancho, these accounts of the storehouses bursting with stuff, with cloaks, with gold, with weapons, with shields. All the goods that are manufactured in this country, says Pedro Sancho. You know, they can't believe the warehouse is full of stuff because there's no equivalent for this in Europe. The central government doesn't just pile up stuff in great warehouses and have it hanging around in its capital. And then, of course, the temples, they're the things they've really come for. So Cusco's temples were full of relics, ornaments, holy objects from other temples. Because basically, if the Inca's conquered you, they would demand some of your stuff as a sort of hostage for good behavior. And would this stuff be gold?

Often it would be gold, of course, yes. It would be gold or silver. Of course, the thing they've really come to see is the Temple of the Sun, the Kodokansha, which is the thing we heard about right at the beginning. Now, the wall plates have already been taken. he uses Atta Elp's ransom, but the place is still absolutely stuffed with gold. So one of the conquistadors, Diego de Trujillo, wrote, As we entered, Vilak Umu, who was their high priest, cried, how dare you enter here?

Anyone who enters here has to fast for a year beforehand and must enter barefoot and bearing a load. Which is true, this is what you had to do, is your kind of ritual thing. But we paid no attention to what he said and went in. I mean, presumably this is all through interpreters. I mean, it's interesting, isn't it, that a lot of the Spaniards, when they come to these temples, describe them as mosques. Because they're coming from the world of the Reconquista and the Conquista and the Conquist of Granada and stuff. Yeah, and so the kind of desoliation of mosques would be very much their bag. And so they go in. Another conquistador, Juan Ruiz de Athe, writes,

Since Atso-Alpa had ordered that nothing of his fathers should be touched, we found many golden lamas, women, pictures, jars, and other objects. Are there any golden lamas left, or did they all get melted down? No, I don't think there are. See, I remember, you know, we were talking about the children's book last time, the children's books that had pictures of Atualpa's ransom. It was always golden llamas that were in the pictures for me, and sort of images of the sun and things. The two things that really are memorable from the temple.

So in the intro reading that you did, you mentioned a garden of the sun. This is from another chronicler, Thea Theta de Leon. In the rear of the cloisters was the garden of the sun. where all the flowers, fruits and leaves were of pure beaten gold. And we know they were because we know that they took one of them to Charles V's court to show him.

And he said, wow, melt it down. They melted it down. They melted everything down. Because they did preserve the Aztec stuff, some of it. I mean, we do have Aztec treasures. That's a good question about why there's a difference. And I wonder if part of the difference,

Charles V at this point is fighting. Remember we mentioned he's fighting two wars simultaneously. Yeah. And the demand for money, you know, fighting the French in Italy must just be overwhelming. No time for the arts. No time for the arts. The real star of the temple, there's a thing called the Pun Chow, which it means the dawn. And this was, and I quote, an image of the sun of great size made of gold, beautifully wrought and set with many precious stones.

This image of the sun was the single most important of all Inca artifacts. And no one knows what happened to it. So there's one bass conquistador who basically went around for years afterwards saying, I lost it in a game of dice or something, very hand solo or whatever. That sounds improbable. Yeah, other people said that's rubbish. He never had it to lose. It just vanished and it was never found.

So maybe it's still buried somewhere outside Kusko. That's the exciting thing in a cave or something. With the mummy of Atapalpa. With Atta Vapa's body, yeah, who knows? Now, while his men have been looking at all this golden stuff, Pizarre's been thinking about the future of the empire. The day after entering the city, he summons Manco and he says to him, you know, you're obviously a great chap.

I want you to be the new emperor. So this is a fantastic moment for Manco. I mean, just a few months earlier, he was a teenage fugitive fearing for his life. And now he's going to become the Sapa Inca. He's going to get the whole thing. He goes off outside the city and he fasts for three days at a mountain retreat. And then he returns for his coronation, which is this absolutely massive public event. So he's going to be crowned with this kind of red tasseled string on his head. So the tassel

that goes down the forehead. Yes, exactly. There's loads of dancing. There's loads of fiestas and all this kind of stuff. Have they brought the mummies out? The mummies come out. Great. So Miguel de Estete, one of the conquistadors, has a lovely description and bringing out the mummies. They've all got diadems on their heads. They're put on thrones. There were women who ministered to them with as much respect as if they've been alive. And actually my favorite detail. So the mummies are brought out. And next to each mummy, there's a little kind of altar with Miguel de Estetti says on which were his fingernails, hair, teeth and other things that had been removed after death. I mean, imagine sitting next to Queen Victoria's teeth. Yeah, but what are the other things?

Finger nails, hair, teeth. What does that leave? What else? What are the other things? And then here's the fun detail. And I quote, I think this is from Miguel de Estetre again, there were so many people in the past. in the parties and both men and women

were such heavy drinkers that all day two wide drains ran with urine as abundantly as a flowing spring gorgeous so just imagine the scene

you're there as a Spaniard the sight of mummies being paraded around with their fingernails teeth and other things and meanwhile people are constantly relieving themselves

into these massive overflowing drains of urine so it's that being in a festival I guess Yeah, it's kind of Glastonbury, isn't it? Or the Rest is History Festival at Hampton Court this summer. I don't think that the people who will be coming to our wonderful festival would be urinating and bringing the mummies of their ancestors.

I mean, I may be surprised. Who knows? Yeah. But I don't think so. I put nothing past the members of the Restis History Club, quite frankly. So the climax to this event is the Spanish you take charge. Vicente de Valverde reads Mass, and then they parade into the square where Manco is sitting on a stool surrounded by his nobles.

And then Pizarro's secretary Pedro Sancho reads out for all to hear the requirement, which we've discussed earlier. It's this mad legal thing that the Spanish have to read, the history of the world, the story of Christ,

the history of the papacy and the, it's like a brilliant, Restis History series, and the Spanish monarchy and then the legal obligation of the Inca's to accept the Pope, the church, and the king of Spain.

And then it ends, with this warning, which always amuses me. If they don't do this, the Spanish are legally obliged to do you, quote, all the harm and damage that we can, and any deaths and losses which shall result from this are your fault. So it's like those little disclaimers that we read at the end of our Restors History adverts. Exactly. May contain. Side effects may include.

So at the end, Manco and Pizarro share a kind of golden cup. There's a ritual where all his chiefs pay tribute to the flag of Spain. The Inca sing a lovely song, thanking the sun for allowing them to drive out their enemies, and thanking the son for sending the Spanish to rule over them. Miguel de Estete says in his memoir, I do not believe they truly meant it. They only wanted to make us think they were happy with our company. I don't think you have to be terribly astute to draw that conclusion.

And then one more set piece. Sometimes people, perhaps the more earnest listeners to this podcast, sometimes comment, there's a lot of bad behavior towards. animals at the rest is history. And this is a very good example. Because Manco decides to celebrate his triumph with a traditional royal hunt, which is called a Chaco. And he sends out 10,000 beaters, 10,000 beaters,

to encircle this huge area of the countryside around Kusko. And these blokes basically have to sort of close ranks slowly until they can all hold hands. And inside this huge ring of people are now trapped all the animals. So that's Vicunias and Guilla's. Manacos, which are kind of bit like llamas. There's roe deer, mountain foxes, hares and pumas. And then Manco and his entourage enter the ring, along with Pizarro, and about 50 Spaniards

who've all been armed with sticks. And then they have a brilliant time killing every animal in sight, bludgeoning them to death. They're not tossing them. Not tossing them. And the sources say they killed 11,000 animals with sticks. God, I wouldn't want to take on a puma with a stick. No, you wouldn't. In fact, I wouldn't want to take any orphan with a stick.

No, no, I think that's fair. John Heming says on the plus side, it was a moment of great cordiality between Spaniards and Peruvians. It's the universal language, isn't it? Killing animals. Yeah, but bad news, Tom, this cordiality is not going to last. Because beyond the gates of Kusko, Kis is still there with his northern army. And further north, there is an army under a much more terrifying warlord who has just turned one of his victims into a musical instrument. Tom, a very different hunt will soon begin.

But this time, who is the hunter and who is the hunted? Well, we will find out after the break and we will be meeting the human drum. They go away. This episode is brought to you by Claude, by Anthropic. Now, history lives in the contradictions. Yeah, I've always been fascinated by the great mysteries of history. Like what happened to the Maya civilization of Central America? Why were all those great cities deserted?

But Tom, there's one mystery that's always fascinated you, isn't there? Yes, Dominic, I've always been fascinated by the question of how humans came to make and use fire. How did that originate? And a tremendous discovery was announced just last year that the place where it seems fire was invented was Suffolk. Well, you know, one of the things that makes history so fascinating is the kind of back and forth between sources to try and explain these great mysteries. And you know what's built for that kind of thinking? Claude is built for that way of thinking.

It doesn't smooth things over. It helps you dig into the disagreement to reveal something new. Anthropic just committed to not running adverts in Claude. So your thinking stays yours. Try Claude for free at clod. Hello, welcome back to The Restless History. It is January 1534. We're in Cusco, the capital of the Inca's.

And it's only three years since Francisco Pizarro set off from Panama. It's a year since he captured Atahelpa. And so far, Dominic, it has to be said, I mean, he has enjoyed an incredible streak of luck. So many points where things could have gone. slightly differently, and he and all the Spaniards would have been wiped out. But instead, here he is. He's installed in the great capital of the Inca's, you know, the very center of this massive empire. He's got temples.

He's got palaces all around him. They've got this compliant young puppet in the form of Manco. He must just be thinking, this is great. Everything's going superbly. What could possibly go wrong? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And now he can really get stuck into what he's come here for, which is the gold. So some of the gold of Kusko has been moved north to Kiamaka, but not all of it.

There is a lot more gold in the temples of Kusko, and there is four times as much silver as the Spanish have already shared out. So for the Spanish, this is basically the best thing ever. So all their accounts, you know, they say, you know, wherever you went, you basically found pictures of gold, gold and effigies. Pedro Pizarro has a section where he says, you know, we went and found to this. cave and it was full of women's shoes made of gold. I mean, you can see why it drives the Spaniards mad, because this is exactly what in their wildest fantasies they had been imagining. And now those fantasies have come true. And it will implant a kind of gold lust that will continue to rage for decades and centuries afterwards. Yeah, it will. And actually, the mad thing that they're

about them all falling out, which they do, spoiler alerts, they all end up killing each other, is they were all really rich men. They've got enough money now to buy a country of states back in Spain, to make their family's reputation, all of this kind of thing. But the lust for more and more just seems to seize them. And the competitiveness, and the fear that your gold will be taken away, I suppose.

That's at the back of their mind the whole time. There is Christopher a moralist. There is Christopher a moralist. So there's a young priest who wrote an account of this, Christobald de Molina. Their only concern was to collect gold and silver to make themselves all rich without thinking that what they were doing was wrong and that they were wrecking and destroying. For what was being destroyed was more perfect than anything they possessed.

So it's like the lamentations over the beauties of Tenor Titlan, isn't it? Yeah, after that had been destroyed. And there are people clearly at the time who think, you know, there are one or two people to think, God, hold on, are we losing our minds here? Are we the baddies here? Are we the baddies, exactly. But Pizarro himself is in no mood to mess around. So exactly one month after he entered the city on the 15th of December, 1533,

he says let's start the melting down. And for the next two months, as in Cajomaca, the forges are roaring day and night and they're producing another colossal, colossal horde of gold and silver bars for shipment back to Spain. Now, in the meantime, Pizarro is thinking about the issue of the wider Inca Empire. So Pizarro is not a fool. He knows what happened to Cortez in Mexico,

that Cortez ended up cornered in the Aztec capital, Tenostitland, the future Mexico city, and basically had to fight his way out. And he doesn't want that to happen to him. So if we think about the map and think about the Inca Empire in thirds, because it's a long, it's not wide, it's just very long. The Spaniards are in the central third. So that's basically modern-day Peru.

And they control that Pizarro and Manco. Then you've got the southern third to below that. And that's modern day Bolivia and northern Chile. And that's so far, no Spaniard has been there. They don't know what it's like. But as far as they know, it's loyal to Manco. So that's fine. But the problem is the northern third.

So that's modern day Ecuador and southern Colombia. That is Attawalpa's heartland. You know, the civil war in the minds of the people of the north is still going on. and the Spaniards are merely a new factor in this war. And one of Atta Huolper's achievements during his imprisonment had been to spare Quito and the north from the attentions of the Spaniards, hasn't it? He'd sent all the kind of the looting party southwards.

Yes, exactly. So if the Spaniards want to unite the empire under Manco, they will have to beat Atowelper's former generals, two of whom, I mean, they've already burned Chalko Chalchima, but two of them are on the loose. So one of them is this guy, Kiskees, who had previously been in Kusko. He's been driven north from Kusko.

He still probably has about 20,000 men, so quite battle-hardened troops at this point. Most of Kiskis' men, although they're battle-hardened, they are exhausted. They've been on the road for, what, two years, and they want to go home to Ecuador, and so he's trudging back all this time towards Ecuador with a gigantic mob.

I mean, thousands of lamas and porters carrying all their stuff. So bear them in mind. But there is another general up in the north who is a very ruthless man. And this is a guy called Ruminjawi. And he enters this story with some very colourful behaviour, which we have been trailing extensively. So basically, after Attau'alpa died,

there was a question among the northerners about who would succeed him as the claimant. Atowalpa had a brother called Kili Skatecha. And he said, well, I'll do it. And it's not clear whether he wants to be emperor himself, regent for Attawalpa's sons. Anyway, Ruminjawi, who was the commander, the military commander, he said, you want to do it?

Great. Let's have a big wake for Atalpa. You know, we'll have a party to celebrate and celebrate your elevation. They have this wake. It's like the sort of red wedding or something. Ruminiawi gives Kiliqa and his entourage. He says, have some lovely drinks. These drinks have been drugged. And when they pass out,

Rumi Nawis men cut their throats. So that's the end of them. well, not quite the end, because then Rumi Niawi literally turns Kilius Kachar into a drum and I quote, I shouldn't laugh because it's hideous.

He extracted all the bones through a certain part. We don't know what that part is. Very coy these chroniclers, aren't they? Yeah, he extracted all the bones through a certain part, leaving the skin intact and made him into a drum. The shoulders formed one end of the

drum and the abdomen the other. So, with the head, feet and hands embalmed, he was preserved intact but transformed... He was preserved intact but transformed into a kettle drum. Goodness. Well, you know, it's like Jan Zizka, the Hussite General, but he had himself turned into a drum after he died. Did he?

So the story goes. See, Rumi Nyawi's got this bloke as a drum, but they weren't even particularly... enemies. He's just a former ally who was stabbed in the back. I mean, it's a good lesson to others, isn't it? You don't mess with him. So with this kettle drum, he now rules in Quito as an independent warlord. I mean, he's literally kind of the king in the north, Rumi Nyawi. His problem, however, is now the Spanish are after him. So the Spanish have heard rumors that Quito is just as rich as Kuzko, and they want its gold. Dominic, is there someone else who has heard similar rumors,

who we have met in a previous series? One of the best people we've ever done on the rest of his history. He's up there with Augustus the Strong, the Kaiser, and all the other big friends of the show with checkered pasts. He is a man who loves a Gile. He loves a great laugh. He loves a massacre of indigenous people at a festival. And he loves a weekend trip with the girls to Cornwall, to rock or similar.

He climbed the Giralda in Seville. He let himself down quite badly in Mexico. He almost certainly went to Tabby's old school, Moorborough College. he's Pedro de Alvarado. So what's he been doing? So if you listen to the fall of the United States, you will remember that Pedro Alvarado is a great laugh, but you want to stay on the right side of him.

So actually, he's been roistering around Guatemala, and he's been slaughtering indigenous people and being a total legend. And he's heard all these rumors of the gold of Peru, and he wants in. So he finally turns up. February 1534, Pedro de Alvarado lands on the coast of Ecuador, with a load of Spanish infantry and crossbowmen, 500 of them.

So he's turned up with a lot of men and 4,000 Guatemalans. And a great thing about Pedro is everything he touches turns to dust and disaster. Even as he arrives, people in Central America are writing to Spain saying, Pedro's turned up and it's all going to go horribly wrong for him. So an official in Panama writes to Charles V, although there are many Guatemalans, I believe they will all die soon because they're from a hot country and they're going to a cold one. And that sounds like the official in Panama is an idiot, but no, he's actually quite right.

So Alvarado kicks off in absolutely textbook Pedro fashion. He indulges in what John Heming calls some unnecessary cruelty to the coastal tribes. Oh, don't do that, Pedro. Oh, Pedro, don't do that. Oh, Pedro. Pedro's such a laugh. So even by Spanish standards, he is so cruel that the other conquistadors later hold a Judicial inquiry.

I mean, how bad do you have to be? Yeah, for all the other guys, Pizarro, all these people saying you've crossed the line. So to give you an indication, he starts enslaving women and children, slit chain gangs, he hangs some village chiefs, he has people burned alive, he has one local chief fed to some dogs. Because he's bought a whole load of war dogs, hasn't he? Yes, he has. He has. I love a dog. A hoon.

And then once he's had some fun there, he heads inland into the forest towards Quito, having enslaved hundreds of local people to act as his porters. Big spoiler alert, this is not going to end well for the porters or indeed for anybody else associated with Pedro de Alvarado's expedition. And the other Spaniards, the other conquistador leaders, when Alvarado turns up, it's a bloody massacre, right? Yeah. I mean, you kind of go, oh no. Yeah, they're gutted. Not Alvarado. That is a little bit unreliable.

They're going to be bloody carnage. Exactly. They're gutted. They're shocked, actually. And immediately two other rival armies shoot off. I mean, I say armies, they're sort of expeditions, to try to beat Alvarado to the gold of Quito. So one of them goes from the coast, and it's 200 men under one of Pizarro's captains, a guy called Sebastian de Ben Al-Katha, who is from Andaluthea, the Chronocl. The chronicler Theaethe de Leon said he was a man of little knowledge, poor origin and a low intellect.

Which doesn't really inspire confidence. Yeah, but actually he does quite well as we shall see. And the other is Al-Magro, Pizarro's partner. Imagine if you're Al-Magro, right? You've already been treated out of a load of gold once. Now you think, well, at least I'll probably get the gold of keto. And now Alvarado has turned up with his red trousers to get your girlfriends. Oh, dear.

You're like, oh, no. So what happens next is a bonkers story. It's very, I already mentioned Game of Thrones. It's very George Arar Martin. It's actually a shame that the Spanish chroniclers don't go into it in loads of detail. So, you know, the details are a bit sketchy. Ben Alcathara gets there first. He goes across the desert of northern Peru.

He goes up into the mountains and he comes out on the high moors of southern Ecuador. And he's picked up a load of native supporters called the canyari. The canyari had always hated the Inca's. Atowalpa had been really cruel to them. They basically can't wait to have a crack at Keto. They can't stand Keto. What about the wanker? Their wanker adds to the picture now, Tom.

They're not part of it. No, they're not part of it. So they advanced towards Keto, and they get to the shadow of Mount Chimborathol. That is so fantasy story, isn't it? And at the hamlet of Teokahas in the shadow of this mountain, this bloke Ruminiawi is waiting for them. With his drum. With his huge drum and his massive army.

Do you know, I reckon that Alvarado would, I mean, he'd find that a bloody good laugh. With a drum. Yeah. Yeah, he'd turn loads of people and he'd have an old orchestra of people. With trombones. What would the most amusing instruments that you could make somebody into? An oba. You'd be gutted if they said, you're going to end up as a triangle.

Yeah, you really would. Anyway, this battle, right? I mean, historians, first of all, they can't agree when it happened, possibly third of men. May, 1534. They don't even agree what to call it. So some historians call it the Battle of Teukhas. Some people call it the Battle of Mount Chimbaratho. They can't agree.

It's a massive battle that no one knows anything about. So the Spanish chronicler, Gonzalo Fernandez de Obiedo, claimed that there were 50,000 people fighting there. Nine out of ten of them were indigenous. The Spanish are only a tiny element of this battle. But the Spanish, because it's on the high moors, that favours the Spanish horses. And Oviedo's account is great actually.

He says it started with this sort of Lord the Rings, Battle of the Pelano Fields charged by the Spanish cavalry. They were shouting Santiago. And I quote, they attacked fiercely, trampling the Indians under their horses and causing great bloodshed with their lances. Terrible bravery and fury were shown by the side. The Indians rallied to a cry that this was the moment of fight for their liberty.

The Spaniards shouted that they were. Their very lives were at stake. The Indians' bravery was exceptional, although they saw the battlefield soaked in blood and covered with the bodies of their dead, and although they realized their doom, they fought on with marvellous vigor, lacking neither strength nor spirit.

So it's this great sort of Tolkien-esque clash. And Rumiño's men were in danger breaking, but then they rallied, they killed some of the horses, maybe they did manage to club them to death, or hit them with a drum or whatever. and they forced the Spanish to fall back and night falls and the two sides are deadlocked

and you would think this might be a disaster for the Spanish since they're outnumbered but overnight the Spanish tricks the Keitans they left their campfires burning but they slipped away in the darkness and Ruminawa's men didn't realise till it was too late and did they just leave their porters and behind I think they must have left some of them I guess

but what this means that basically they're able to get into Quito So Ben Alcatha and his men are able to basically skirt Rumiñois' army and get into Quito. But when they get there, they're gutted to find that Ruminiawi has already taken sort of Russia 1812 style action. Ruminioi has gutted Quito. He'd taken all the treasure. He's taken Atowalpa's family. He's taken 4,000 women.

And he's set fire to the palaces and the storehouses. And he's withdrawn. And he's basically withdrawn with all them. into the forests. Some poor behaviour by Ruminari. Ruminio and his men said to the virgins of the sun temple, there were 300 of them. You should leave with us because the Spanish will arrive

and they will rape you if you don't. And the virgins said, no, we don't want to. So Ruminow's men killed them all. Do you know, if Rumini told me to do something, I would do it. I'm not going to mess around. I'm going to go, yes, fine, whatever. Please don't turn me into a drum. So then the Spanish disgraced themselves massively.

They couldn't find the treasure. They sort of raid around the local countryside, are looking for the treasure. They can't find it. They start slaughtering all the women and children demanding, you know, where is the gold? Even the official royal chronicler of the expedition said this was cruelty, unworthy of a Castilian. God, that is stern words. There's are stern words.

And actually, if you're Ecuadorian, you think things are bleak, but now things are going to get a lot worse. Because both Diego de El Magero and Pedro de Alvarado are fast advancing on the Ecuadorian heartland. So Almagro arrived first and actually he behaved himself by his own standards quite well. Unfortunately, it's a very different story with Marlborough College's Pedro de Alvarado. Because he has absolutely disgraced himself. Even by his previous standards. So basically, after he left the coast, he got completely lost in the jungle. His men were hacking their way through the jungle being attacked by insects and ravaged by disease.

All their stuff rusts in the humidity. They're caught in a volcanic eruption and covered with ash. They're covered with ash. They say, come on, you know, stop complaining. Manor. They get through the jungle. They emerge into the Andes. Then they go the wrong way.

And they go up the highest mountain pass into the Andes. So they're wading through snow drifts covered with snow. 85 Spaniards died of exposure or hypothermia because they've gone the wrong way in this mountain pass. But just as that bloke in Panama had predicted, all of the Guatemalans and Alvarado's native porters and a huge mob of female camp followers literally freeze to death as well. It's classic Alvarado. It is. They've all died. He hasn't died, however. He finally approaches Kito where he finds the other Spaniards waiting for him. And basically everybody thinks there's going to be this huge inter-Spanish battle. But one of them blinks. And do you know what?

this is a very poor advertisement for Tabby's old school because the person who blinks is Pedro. After all that, what's going on there? He's lost his bottle. He's completely lost his nerve. I think because he's covered with snow and volcanic ash. And he's killed all his people.

He's lost his mojo a little bit because basically he does a deal. He will sell all his ships and gear to Almagro for 100,000 gold pieces. All his men that he's come with them, the ones who are still left, will stay in Peru, work for the other Spanish generals. But he himself, Avarado, agrees that he will leave Peru and never come back.

That is a shame. And he goes back to Guatemala, sort of in disgrace. And if people want to know what happened to him, his later life, there was a lot more sort of roistering around in Mexico and Central America, a lot of killing people and unnecessary cruelty. And he ended up dying in a very amusingly banal way. He died in 1541. and a freak accident and went out.

Horse sat on him, didn't he? Yeah, a horse fell on him. He had a very, a very impressive wife. Donia Louisa. The governor of Guatemala. Yeah. And I think she's in the entire history of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. She was the only female governor.

Is that right? They're both buried in, I can't remember what it's called. Is it called Antigua or something like that in the old capital of Guatemala? I've often thought I'd like to go and see his grave. Tabby said she went and saw his portrait in Seville when she went to Seville. Good on Tabby.

So that leaves two of the Spanish generals Al-Magro and Ben Al-Catha to deal with the northern warlords. So first of all, Kiskees. Kis has been trudging all the way out from Kusko with his colossal llamas. And does he know what's waiting for him?

Not really. No, no he doesn't actually. So there's a bit of mountain pass, action, skirmishes and stuff, which we won't go into. basically eventually they emerge into southern Ecuador him and his men his men arrive in quito province to discover the Spanish have captured their capital they are gutted they can't believe it they thought they'd won the civil war you know a year ago or whatever and now they've got home to find that these weird bearded men have basically killed everybody and seized their own city they're distraught

and they go to kiskis and they say to him you know look general go and ask the Spanish for peace, quote, that they are invincible. And Kiskes says, you cowards, I would rather starve in the wilds than bend the knee and surrender my country. He reminds me of Shalda Gawl. And is he similarly successful? Does he emerge as the leader of a proud and independent Incan state? No.

But when he says that, his officers take out their clubs and they bludgeon him to death. So that's the end of him. John Heming says, it was a tragic end for one of the empire's finest generals. who passionately resented the menace and humiliation of the conquest. So I was sorry for him. He didn't turn anyone into a musical instrument. He led his men with great valor. He wouldn't surrender and he ended up on the wrong side of a club and that's sad.

Okay, but the guy, I mean, kettle drum guy, he's still very much on the scene, isn't he? He is, but he's lost momentum too. A lot of his men desert. They think the Spanish can't be beaten. He's taken refuge in the mountains outside Quito. And at last, a conquistro called Miguel de la Tate. Chika gets a tip off that Rumiwaniawi is resting by a mountain lake. Quote,

When I reached the lake, the Lord Ruminiawi was beside a small hillock leaning against a tree. I closed with him, and after struggling for a very long time, I captured him. And so Rumi Nyawi is taken under guard back to Keto, where Sebastian de Bel Alcathar is in charge of interrogating him. Whether he's got his drum with him, I do not know. Does he have any gold? No. Has he got a drum? got gold, what's the point of him?

I'd like to think he's still got his drum. But surely they allow him to get, because Atowalpa was allowed to keep the severed head of that bloke to use as a teapot or whatever. So surely this guy is allowed to keep his human drum. Anyway, they torture him, they burn him again, more singeing, where's the gold? No joy.

And at last, they bring him out 1535, June 1535, into the main square of Quito, and they execute Rumi Nyawi. I think they burn him as well. And the conquest of the north is complete. It's rapid. isn't it? Yeah.

It's what? It's a year to conquer the whole thing and beat two armies. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it, I think, not because the Spanish overpowered people in battle, but they just, it's about morale. The Keaton's just sort of lost hearts. They thought they can never beat these folks with their horses.

Also, I guess, a key point. They've got tribal allies. The Caniari people, I mentioned, you mentioned the great enthusiasm, the Huancas. Yes. They've got various such people. What did we say in the Aztec series? Diversity is not their strength. So now you might think this is the end of the story, but you would be wrong.

Because back in Kusko, Manco has been surveying all this and thinking, this is not quite what I thought it would be. He's slightly riding a crocodile here? Yeah. Because clearly, you know, the Spanish had been melting down all this gold and silver all this time. It took them three months to do it. And then Pizarro shared it out. But the Spanish do not stop there.

Now, every previous Spanish expedition to the new world had degenerated quite quickly. into disorder and feuding. And the conquest of Peru, I'm sorry to say, is no different. So in March 1934, Pizarro had refounded Cusco as a Spanish city under Spanish law. And at the time, Pizarro, to be fair to him, had directed that locals should be well treated. And I quote, the native people of this country were created as our brothers and our descendants of our first ancestors. I mean, that's the sort of message of the Las Casas school, isn't it, Tom? Yes.

that there are always people in the Spanish world who are saying, if we are true Christians, we cannot treat these people just as slaves and as dogs and all of this. We can't burn them and chain them up and execute them. We've got to treat them properly. We've got to be true to our principles. Yeah, but I mean, it never crosses their mind that turning up, nicking their city, turning it into something completely else. I mean, that's quite bad.

Well, I think we think it's bad. They didn't think it was bad. They thought it was tremendous. Yeah. I know. But the problem I think is they don't even do the bare minimum. Because Pizarro's men are clearly disobeying him, and we know this because he's having to send out constant instructions. Stop looting gold and silver from the local. Stop mistreating people. There's a story about a conquistador called Gonzalo Maldonado, who ignores him, he imprisons the high priest of Kusko and says, I won't let you out until he give me gold and silver.

And Pizarro basically has to threaten to execute this guy to force him to release the high priest. It would still have been possible, surely, for the people of Kusko, the native people, to rise up and wipe these people out. Yeah, but at this point, Manco, and therefore the elite, are on their side. On their side. Because, of course, at this point, they are still using the Spaniards in their own minds to conquer the North. And this is what's changing in Manco's mind. And I suppose also what is starting to happen at the same time is that all these guys who've been told, brilliant, there's loads of gold out in Peru, who've been coming.

coming from Spain are starting to turn up. I'm beginning to turn up. So this is a huge thing. The colonial officials across the rest of the Spanish Empire, that's the Caribbean, Central America, are already writing to Spain and saying, there's going to be nobody left. The news from Peru is so extraordinary that old and young men alike are packing up to go there. Unless they're tied down, we won't have a single citizen left. That's from Puerto Rico.

So there are loads of such letters. And there are so many people arriving on the coast now that Pizarro decides we're going to build a new base. on the coast, a new city on the coast. And he picks a site in January 1535. He wants to call it the city of the kings, Thurudad de los Rheyes. But it ends up being called after a local oracle, which in Quechua was called the Speaker,

or Lima, now meanwhile, all these people, as you correctly say, Tom, are turning up, and they want something. Now the gold's being distributed, so what Pizarro is giving them is land. He is giving out huge tracts of land. of Spaniards, entire villages, thousands of labourers. What you would do, if you were a settler, you would live in a Spanish townhouse, Spanish built in a Spanish town, a Spanish foundation in Peru,

but you would be given huge landed estates outside the town, and you would be given hundreds or thousands of workers. Because remember, there was no private property before this. There was no private enterprise. There was basically enforced labour. You would be given thousands of called Indians who are obliged to deliver regular tribute to you. So this is the encomienda set up that the Spanish have been practicing in the new world since the very beginning. Yes, especially in Mexico. And which is so open to abuse.

Exactly. It is, I hate to use the jargon because I don't like using jargon generally, but people talk of settler colonialism. And if you want a really good example of extractive settler colonialism, this is a very good one. And actually royal officials are telling Pizarro stop. Stop giving out other people's lands. The Indians, so-called, are free Spanish subjects under the crown. It's not your place to give them to people. But the other conquistadors keep saying to him, we want more land. And if he wants to keep his position as top dog, he has to appease them. It's a big problem for Bizarro. Bigger problem for

Manco, though. If young Manco, the young emperor, is watching this in his palace, he is thinking, thinking, what's happening? My empire has been given away around me. His position, of course, is incredibly insecure. He's young. There's been a civil war. You know, there's a growing sense that he's a Spanish puppet. There are complaints coming in to his palace all the time. The Spanish are behaving badly in the countryside. They're enslaving people. They're raiding villages. They're searching for gold. And then in the summer of 1535, two things happen that are absolutely disastrous. one of the Pizarro brothers takes a fancy to Manko's sister who is also his wife

and secondly the feud between the Pizarro brothers and Diego de al-Magro reaches boiling point and what we'll be talking about next time Manko summons his people to war the battle for Cusco one of the greatest sieges in the history of the Americas Pizarro's darkest hour and the bloody climax of his feud with his form business partner, Diego de Al-Magro. So still so much to come. And Restis History Club members can hear that episode right now, of course. And if you would like to join them, if you would like to pile in to the Cusco of our special offer in the Restis History Club,

then you can go to the Restis History.com and do so there. But for now, goodbye. Goodbye.