Born c. 1475,
Extremadura, Spain
Died June 26, 1541,
Lima, Peru
Francisco Pizarro was one of several Spanish soldiers of fortune called conquistadors who came to the New World to seize an empire for Spain. Pizarro’s field of conquest was Peru; his relative, Hernán Cortés (see entry), added Mexico to Spain’s possessions. In subduing the Incas, Pizarro took wealth so vast that it is difficult to imagine, even by today’s standards. Spain instantly became the most powerful country in the world, and Peru, its residents inspired by religious zeal, was quickly converted to Catholicism.
Pizarro was born sometime around the year 1475 in the town of Trujillo in the Spanish province of Extremadura. He was the illegitimate son of Colonel Gonzalo Pizarro and a peasant woman. Having no formal education, Pizarro was illiterate and worked as a swineherd during his youth. There were only two careers open to a person with his background: either the military or the priesthood. Pizarro chose to become a soldier and took part in campaigns in Italy and Navarre. He drifted to Seville, which was the center of Spanish expeditions to the Americas. He sailed to Santo Domingo in 1502. From there, he went with Alonso de Ojeda (see entry) on his expedition to the Gulf of Urabá in Colombia in 1509.
When Ojeda left the struggling colony he had founded on the northern coast of South America to get supplies, he left Pizarro in charge of the garrison. Pizarro then went to Panama when Vasco Núñez de Balboa (see entry) moved the settlement there. He accompanied Balboa on his trip across the Darien Peninsula to the Pacific in 1513; he is listed in the chronicle of the expedition as being the second European to see the Pacific Ocean. It was Pizarro who later arrested Balboa when he was charged with treason in 1518. Pizarro served as mayor of Panama from 1519 until 1523.
Ever since their arrival in Panama, the Spanish had heard rumors of a rich land to the south called Birú, which is known today as Peru. Pizarro set up a partnership with two other men, Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Luque, to search out these lands. Luque, a priest, put up the money while the other two led the expedition. Almagro and Pizarro had similar backgrounds: they both escaped poverty to become rough-and-ready soldiers of fortune. It was an association that ended with the violent deaths of both men. Leaving Panama in November 1524, Pizarro and Almagro went as far south as the San Juan River, which is now on the border between Ecuador and Colombia. The climate, terrain, and Native Americans they met were all inhospitable. Suffering greatly from hunger, the men barely survived their first voyage. A positive result of their trip was that they collected some gold and heard tales of richer kingdoms to the south. They returned to Panama in 1525.
In 1526 Pizarro and Almagro signed another agreement with Luque, in which they agreed to divide any conquered lands among the three of them. Pizarro and Almagro then sailed from Panama with 160 men, who had been difficult to recruit after the hardships of the previous voyage. They retraced their previous voyage to the San Juan, which empties into the bay at Buenaventura. The pilot, Bartolomé Ruiz, was sent ahead to see what he could find. He crossed the equator and came back with stories about a heavily populated, highly civilized land that was rich with gold and silver. He was the first European to see Peru.
The entire expedition sailed southward to the city of Tumbes on the southern shore of the Bay of Guayaquil in Ecuador. They found Tumbes to be a large and beautiful seaport; the friendly inhabitants came out to greet them in large, oceangoing boats made of balsa wood with fine cotton sails. The Spaniards sampled a wide variety of foods and saw llamas for the first time. To the Incas, the Spanish were the exotics, strange and terrifying. Not yet ready for conquest, Pizarro cordially greeted an Inca nobleman on his ship. He also sent two of his men ashore with instructions to travel 200 miles south, where they heard about a great city in the interior that was the capital of a rich and powerful king. Upon their return the men told about a sophisticated and ancient civilization that had developed in total isolation from their world in Europe.
In 1528 Pizarro’s partners sent him to Spain to seek backing from Emperor Charles V for an expedition to Peru. Pizarro obtained support from the emperor, but he was appointed governor and captain-general of a new province stretching 200 leagues south of Panama. He also struck a deal with Charles that would guarantee him the majority of future profits. Pizarro returned to Panama accompanied by his four half-brothers, Almagro, 180 men, and 27 horses. The groundwork had been laid; this voyage in 1531 was to be one of conquest, not of exploration.
Pizarro and his men traveled once again to Tumbes hoping to find treasure, but they found the city destroyed. He learned about a civil war among the Incas that had resulted in the capture and death of one rival for the throne, Huascar, by his brother Atahualpa. Atahualpa was camped at the city of Cajamarca, much closer to Tumbes than the distant Inca capital of Cuzco. Pizarro immediately sensed that he could use the civil war to his advantage by manipulating rival groups, just as Cortés had done in Mexico 12 years earlier.
Before leaving Tumbes, Pizarro received reinforcements, and he established a base and supply camp at San Miguel on the Chira River. In September of 1532, five months after landing in Tumbes, he set off from San Miguel. They had to travel through the cold and mountainous country of the Andes but reached Cajamarca on November 15, 1532. The following day Atahualpa visited Pizarro with a large retinue of brilliantly uniformed warriors. While Atahualpa was distracted by a Spanish priest, Pizarro gave a signal for his men to massacre the Inca guards. He then took Atahualpa prisoner.
In order to obtain his release, Atahualpa offered to fill a room 17 feet by 22 feet with gold to a height of 9 feet and to fill two smaller rooms with silver. Pizarro eagerly agreed. There were 11 tons of gold objects alone. When the task was completed, however, Pizarro had Atahualpa put on “trial” and then executed, even though Atahualpa had offered to become a Christian. Pizarro received criticism for this act from the Spanish monarch. Atahualpa on his part had seriously misjudged the Spanish and their motives, thinking they would take their treasure and leave. With Atahualpa’s slaying, the Incas were left leaderless and dispirited.
By this time, Almagro had arrived in Cajamarca with reinforcements, and the Spanish set off for Cuzco. Along the way they met Manco, a brother of Huascar, and made him the puppet ruler of Peru. They had him enthroned in Cuzco in November 1533, so it was not necessary to conquer the city. By this time the Spaniards had started to quarrel among themselves. Pedro de Alvarado, another Spanish conquistador, landed in Ecuador in order to conquer the country but was persuaded to leave by Pizarro. Almagro was given the lands south of Peru to conquer but returned in 1537 to put down an Inca revolt. When he tried to make himself governor he was defeated by troops led by Pizarro’s brother Hernando in the Battle of Las Salinas in April 1538. Almagro had felt slighted by Pizarro as the wealth and property were being divided. Now the governor of Peru, Pizarro had his old friend and comrade Almagro tried and executed.
By this time Pizarro, who had been named the marquis of Atavillas, was an extremely wealthy member of the Spanish aristocracy. In 1535 he occupied himself with building a new capital, Lima, on the coast of Peru. However, the antagonisms of the civil war among the Spanish did not die down; the Almagro faction had complained about Pizarro’s treatment of Almagro to the king of Spain.
When Hernando Pizarro, Francisco Pizarro’s brother, was sent back to Madrid to report on his brother’s conduct in 1539, he was imprisoned; he remained a prisoner until 1561. In the meantime, vowing revenge, the Almagrists had formed a faction under the leadership of Francisco Almagro, the son of Diego and a Native American woman from Panama. Apparently unaware of their plots, Pizarro was assassinated in his own palace in Lima by 20 Almagro supporters on June 26, 1541.
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