647. The Fall of the Incas: The King in the North (Part 4)

13:03Tom Holland:The rugby player.

13:04Dominic Sandbrook:He got burnt. Yes, who 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, have been badly burnt. Oh, God. And they've now chained him up, but they've brought him with them. Now, at about this point, so they're halfway, the Spaniards start to get very jittery. The scouts are reporting there are northern troops. So that's Atahualpa's former armies. The troops from Quito in the north nearby. and these are led by the northern commander Quisquis, who is the guy who had taken Cuzco for Atahualpa.

13:39Dominic Sandbrook: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, they're 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 Xausa. And there, 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.

14:19Dominic Sandbrook:And then, as they continue, the locals start to turn out and to greet them as liberators. I quote,

14:54Dominic Sandbrook: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.

15:29Dominic Sandbrook:There's probably a lot of this stuff happening offstage. Now, during all this, when the Spanish are 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.

15:47Tom Holland:Isn't there a rumour that Chalcochima had poisoned him?

15:51Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, I think almost certainly rubbish. I think this is part of the blackening of his name. I mean, the blackening, he's already blackened, remember? Yeah. But now they're blackening him metaphorically. Yeah, so Tubac Hualpa 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 Huascar who's called Manco, who's off in Cuzco. And other people say, no, no, he's no good. get one of atahualpa's sons and they can't agree and there's basically a stalemate and there's no decision for the time being so i'll 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 cuzco and this is real kind of you know rope bridge climbing 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.

16:53Dominic Sandbrook: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 Vilcashuaman and Vilca Conga. But both times, although the Spanish are outnumbered they managed to drive their attackers back and the interesting question is why the Incas are not able to defeat the Spaniards because they massively outnumber them

17:27Tom Holland:well because when you say Incas yeah I mean it's it's specifically the Incas from the north right

17:33Dominic Sandbrook:yes the Keetons as I guess we should call them so it's only a faction of the Incas it is but

17:38Tom Holland:there's maybe 30 ,000 of them they've got the southern Incas and they've got the Wanka yeah

17:43Dominic Sandbrook: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 Incas. And the Spanish start to get this reputation for really awe-inspiring invincibility. You know, at this point, I think no Spaniard has been killed,

18:18Tom Holland: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?

18:27Dominic Sandbrook:Right. You've got a kind of club or something. I mean, you might get a lucky blow in.

18:31Tom Holland:What about one of those pieces of string with stones on either end and you throw them? Oh, yes. And they go around the hooves and bring them down. That's what I would do.

18:39Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, yeah, exactly. In a film, that's what they would have. I mean, they would do excellent slingshot action. I mean, they do have slings, but they just are 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 Vilca 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 Huascar.

19:17Dominic Sandbrook:I'm a son of the late Emperor Juana Capac. I am the new candidate of the southern faction, the Cusco faction in the Civil War. How old this guy 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 Atahualpa captured Cusco, Manco had basically run away because he knew he'd be a dead man if Atahualpa'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 Cusco from this tyranny.

20:01Dominic Sandbrook: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 bloke chalcochima around with them and now manco confronts chalcochima in front of them and he says i know you've been smuggling orders to the keaton army to kiss kiss 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 chalcochima you dog how could you pull such a navish trick and basically they drag chalcochima 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

20:56Tom Holland:Do you think he's like Hatchui, wasn't it, in the Caribbean, who said that he would convert to Christianity because he didn't want to be in a heaven where there were Spaniards?

21:05Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

21:06Tom Holland:That kind of vibe.

21:07Dominic Sandbrook: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 keenly 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 kis kis to avenge him he shouts out you know you will avenge me one day and actually kis kis is still hanging around somewhere with his army there's one more battle on the last mountain pass before they get to kuzco 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 Qiskis's 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 Qiskis now begins this long retreat with his army I mean the guy who a few months earlier was on cloud nine 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 cusco they ride into the capital city as conquerors now Cusco a very popular tourist destination today is the heart of Inca civilization the Incas called it the navel 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 Cusco then as now is spread across the foothills at the top of this very fertile, very green Andean valley.

23:10Dominic Sandbrook: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 Acapata, which is lined with the palaces of the Incas. 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.

23:55Dominic Sandbrook:Which is great. Yeah. I mean, effectively, you're not dead.

23:58Tom Holland: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 kind of carried around in litters and they line them up chronologically.

24:09Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. So it would be like, you know, having a royal wedding here

24:12Tom Holland:and you'd have Queen Victoria and George III and they'd all be wheeled out and they'd just kind of sit there.

24:18Dominic Sandbrook:That would be great. Yeah. That would be great. Tabby in the chat correctly points out that we should do this with former Rest His History producers. So we could have Theo just bring him in here. Our erstwhile producer, Theo Youngsmith, we could just bring out his mummified body at Rest His History events and parade it around on a litter. I'm sure everyone would enjoy that. It's lessons from history. Yeah, completely.

24:38Tom Holland:So the Spanish thought that Cusco was brilliant. Can I just ask, surely Cusco 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.

24:49Dominic Sandbrook:But here's the thing, clearly not, right? Otherwise they would report on it. Maybe Kisukis has not, 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.

25:10Tom Holland:Or maybe it's so outside the sense that the Spanish out of water city should look like that it strikes them again like something from a romance because that was a theme in Mexico, wasn't it?

25:20Dominic Sandbrook:Maybe, yeah. Or maybe they, I mean, all the Spanish sources, of course, it's always in their interest to pick these things up because they want to attract more people and they want to impress the king. Yeah. So they write to Charles V, if this 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'd 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 Tenochtitlan, which is bigger, I think, and more impressive.

25:49Tom Holland:Yeah. Or maybe they've been in Peru long enough and kind of cantering through so many small villages that to arrive at somewhere this vast is kind of overwhelming.

25:59Dominic Sandbrook:I think that's probably right. You know, they were anxious when they arrived, of course, after all the fighting and after Kayamaka and stuff, but they are delighted. The people greet them as liberators. They move into the palaces of the Incas.

26:11Tom Holland:What happens to their bodies, to the mummies?

26:14Dominic Sandbrook:Presumably still there. I don't know.

26:16Tom Holland:Well, that's a bit creepy.

26:17Dominic Sandbrook:And Pizarro, don't forget, Pizarro's got a form. I mean, he spent the night with Attawalpa.

26:20Tom Holland:Yeah, but he was alive. I mean, would he spend a night with a 200-year-old mummy with George III? Would you? I don't know.

26:30Dominic Sandbrook: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 the night with William the Conqueror? I mean, actually, his body would be dead. Yeah, he just exploded. That'd be horrible. Yeah, no. I mean, who would you choose? I would probably choose, I don't know, George V, my favourite king. George V? We could talk about stamp collecting. Be disrespectful.

26:53Tom Holland:He'd be dead, Dominic. That's the point.

26:55Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, but he'd be about as interesting a conversation as if he was alive.

26:59Tom Holland:I think maybe Charles II.

27:01Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, of course.

27:02Tom Holland:Just for the bants.

27:03Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah.

27:03Tom Holland:It would feel less disrespectful.

27:06Dominic Sandbrook:Charles I would be a twist, wouldn't it?

27:07Tom Holland:Yeah, it would.

27:08Dominic Sandbrook: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 Cusco. 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.

27:51Dominic Sandbrook: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 Cuzco's temples were full of relics, ornaments, holy objects from other temples. Because basically, if the Incas 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 Coricancha, which is the thing we heard about right at the beginning.

28:26Dominic Sandbrook:Now, the wall plates have already been taken to use as Atalpa'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

28:59Tom Holland:isn't it that a lot of the spaniards when they come to these temples describe them as mosques

29:03Dominic Sandbrook:because they're coming from the world of the reconquista and the conquest of granada and

29:07Tom Holland:stuff yeah and so the the kind of despoliation of mosques would be yes very much their bag and so

29:13Dominic Sandbrook:they go in another conquistador Juan Ruiz de Athe writes since Atahualpa had ordered that nothing of his father's should be touched we found many golden llamas women pitchers jars and other objects

29:28Tom Holland:are there any golden llamas left or did they all get melted down no I don't think there are

29:32Dominic Sandbrook:I see I remember you know we were talking about the children's book last time the children's books that had pictures of Atahualpa'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 fiesta 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.

30:08Dominic Sandbrook:And he said, wow, melt it down. They melted it down.

30:12Tom Holland:They melted everything down. Because they did preserve the Aztec stuff, some of it. I mean, we do have Aztec treasures.

30:20Dominic Sandbrook: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.

30:34Tom Holland:No time for the arts.

30:35Dominic Sandbrook:No time for the arts. The real star of the temple, though, is a thing called the Pun Chao, which 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 Basque conquistador who basically went around for years afterwards saying, I lost it in a game of dice or something. very Han Solo or whatever.

31:05Tom Holland:That sounds improbable.

31:06Dominic Sandbrook: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 Cusco. That's the exciting thing, in a cave or something.

31:18Tom Holland:With the mummy of Atualpa.

31:20Dominic Sandbrook:With Atualpa's body, yeah, who knows? Now, while his men have been looking at all this golden stuff, Pizarro'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 sapper 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 oh Oh, yeah.

32:00Dominic Sandbrook:String on his head.

32:01Tom Holland:So the tassel that goes down the forehead. Yes, exactly.

32:04Dominic Sandbrook:There's loads of dancing. There's loads of fiestas and all this kind of stuff.

32:07Tom Holland:Have they brought the mummies out?

32:09Dominic Sandbrook:The mummies come out. Great. So Miguel de Estete, one of the conquistadors, has a lovely description of 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'd been alive. And actually, my favourite detail. So the mummies are brought out and next to each mummy, there's a little kind of altar with Miguel de Estete says on which were his fingernails, hair, teeth and other things that had been removed after death.

32:37Tom Holland:I mean, imagine sitting next to Queen Victoria's teeth.

32:40Dominic Sandbrook:What are the other things? Fingernails, hair, teeth. What does that leave? What are the other things? And then here's the fun detail. And I quote, I think this is from Miguel de Estete again. there were so many people 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 this light of mummies being paraded around with their fingernails teeth and other other things and meanwhile people are constantly relieving themselves into these massive overflowing drains of urine so it's that being at a festival i guess

33:24Tom Holland:yeah 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'll be coming to our wonderful festival will be urinating and bringing the mummies of their ancestors i mean i may be surprised who knows yeah but i don't

33:40Dominic Sandbrook:think so i put nothing past the members of the rest is history club quite frankly so um the The climax of this event is the Spanish who 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 it's like a brilliant Restless History series, and the Spanish monarchy and then the legal obligation of the Incas to accept the Pope, the Church and the King of Spain.

34:22Dominic Sandbrook: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.

34:35Tom Holland:So it's like those little disclaimers that we read at the end of our Rest is History adverts.

34:40Dominic Sandbrook: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 Incas sing a lovely song thanking the sun for allowing them to drive out their enemies and thanking the sun 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 behaviour towards animals at the rest is history.

35:26Dominic Sandbrook: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 Cusco. 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 vicuñas and guanacos, which are kind of a 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.

36:06Dominic Sandbrook: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.

36:19Tom Holland:God, I wouldn't want to take on a puma with a stick.

36:22Dominic Sandbrook:No, you wouldn't.

36:23Tom Holland:In fact, I wouldn't want to take any of them with a stick.

36:25Dominic Sandbrook:No, no, I think that's fair. John Hemming 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 Cuzco, Kiskes 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?

37:00Tom Holland:Well, we will find out after the break and we will be meeting the human drum. Don't go away.

37:11Tom Holland:This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic. Now, history lives in the contradictions.

37:19Dominic Sandbrook: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?

37:30Tom Holland: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

37:49Dominic Sandbrook: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 an anthropic just committed to not running adverts in claude

38:09Tom Holland:so your thinking stays yours try claude for free at claude.ai slash rest is history

38:24Tom Holland:hello welcome back to the rest is history it is january 1534 we're in cusco the capital of the Incas and it's only three years since Francisco Pizarro set off from Panama it's a year since he captured um Atahualpa and so far Dominic it has to be said I mean he has enjoyed an incredible streak of luck yeah 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 at the you know in the great capital of the incas 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 um he must just be thinking this is great everything's going superbly what could possibly

39:14Dominic Sandbrook: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 cusco has been moved north to caymarca but not all of it there is a lot more gold in the temples of Cusco and there was 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 golden 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

39:53Tom Holland: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

40:12Dominic Sandbrook:the mad thing that they're about them all falling out which they do spoiler alerts they all end up you know killing each other is they were all really rich men they've got enough money now to buy a country estate 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.

40:40Tom Holland:There is Christopher a moralist.

40:42Dominic Sandbrook:There is Christopher a moralist. So there was a young priest who wrote an account of this, Cristobal 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

41:01Tom Holland:lamentations over the beauties of tenochtitlan isn't it yeah after that had been destroyed and

41:06Dominic Sandbrook:there are people clearly at the time who think you know there are one or two people who think god

41:11Tom Holland:hold on are we losing our minds here are we the baddies here are we the baddies exactly but

41:17Dominic Sandbrook: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 Cajamarca, 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 Cortes in Mexico. That Cortes ended up cornered in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, future Mexico city, and basically had to fight his way out.

41:57Dominic Sandbrook:And he doesn't want that to happen to him. So if we think about the map, think about the Inca Empire in thirds, 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, 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 Atahualpa's heartland.

42:39Dominic Sandbrook: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.

42:46Tom Holland:And one of Atahualpa'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 parties southwards.

42:58Dominic Sandbrook:Yes, exactly. So if the Spaniards want to unite the empire under Manco, they will have to beat Atahuelpa's former generals, two of whom, I mean, they've already burned Chalcochima, but two of them are on the loose. So one of them is this guy, Kis Kis, who had previously been in Cusco. He's been driven north from Cusco. He still probably has about 20 ,000 men, so quite battle-hardened troops at this point. most of kiss kiss's 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 llamas and porters carrying all their stuff so bear them in mind but there is another general up in the north who's a very ruthless man.

43:49Dominic Sandbrook:And this is a guy called Ruminyawi. And he enters this story with some very colorful behavior, which we have been trailing extensively. So basically, after Atahualpa died, there was a question among the northerners about who would succeed him as the claimant. Atahualpa had a brother called Kiliskacha. And he said, well, I'll do it. And it's not clear whether he wants to be emperor himself or regent for Atahualpa's sons. Anyway, Ruminyawi, who was the commander, the military commander, he said, you want to do it? Great. Let's have a big wake for Atahualpa. We'll have a party to celebrate and celebrate your elevation.

44:26Dominic Sandbrook:They have this wake. It's like the sort of red wedding or something. Ruminyawi gives Kilius Kacha and his entourage, says, have some lovely drinks. These drinks have been drugged. And when they pass out, Ruminyawi's men cut their throats. So that's the end of them. Well, not quite the end, because then ruminyawi literally turns chileas catcher into a drum and i quote i shouldn't laugh because it's hideous he extracted all the bones through a certain part

44:59Tom Holland:we don't know what that part is very coy these chroniclers aren't they yeah he extracted all

45:05Dominic Sandbrook: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 um

45:31Tom Holland:yan zizka the hussite general but he had himself turned into a drum after he died did he so the

45:38Dominic Sandbrook:story goes see ruminyawi'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 ruminyawi his problem however is now the spanish are after him so the spanish have heard rumors that quito is just as rich as kuzco and they want its gold. Dominic, is there someone else

46:07Tom Holland:who has heard similar rumours

46:09Dominic Sandbrook:who we have met in a previous series? One of the best people we've ever done on The Rest is 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 gilet. 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, Marlborough College. He's Pedro de Alvarado. So what's he been doing? So if you listen to The Fall of the Outstakes, you will remember that Pedro Alvarado is a great laugh, but you want to stay on the right side of him.

46:52Dominic Sandbrook: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 the great thing about Pedro is everything he touches turns to dust and disaster. even as he arrives people in central america 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 the fifth 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 Hemming calls some unnecessary cruelty to the coastal tribes.

47:57Tom Holland:Oh, don't do that, Pedro. Oh, Pedro, don't do that. Oh, Pedro. Pedro's such a laugh.

48:04Dominic Sandbrook: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, Magro, all these people saying you've crossed the line. So to give you an indication, he starts enslaving women and children in chain gangs. He hangs some village chiefs. He has people burned alive. He has one local chief fed to some dogs. Because he's brought a whole load of war dogs, hasn't he? Yes, he has. Bloody love a dog. A hooned. 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.

48:44Dominic Sandbrook:Big spoiler alert. But this is not going to end well for the porters or indeed for anybody else associated with Pedro de Alvarado's expedition.

48:53Tom Holland: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.

49:04Dominic Sandbrook:Not Alvarado. He's 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 Sebastián de Benalcátha who is from Andalucía the chronicler Theatha de León 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 Almagro Pizarro's partner imagine if you're Almagro right you've already been cheated out of a load of gold once now you think well at least I'll probably get the gold of Quito and now Alvarado has turned up with his red trousers to get your gold friends 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 R.R.

50:07Dominic Sandbrook:Martin it's actually a shame that the Spanish chroniclers don't go into it in loads of detail so So, you know, the details are a bit sketchy. Then Alcáfora 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 Incas. Atahualpa had been really cruel to them. They basically can't wait to have a crack at Quito. They can't stand Quito.

50:38Tom Holland:What about the Wanka?

50:39Dominic Sandbrook:The Wanka out of the picture now, Tom.

50:41Tom Holland:They're not part of it?

50:41Dominic Sandbrook:No, they're not part of it. So they advance towards Quito, and they get to the shadow of Mount Chimboratho. That is so fantasy story, isn't it? And at the hamlet of Teokajas, in the shadow of this mountain, this bloke, Ruminyawe, 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. Trombones. what would be the most amusing instrument that you could make somebody into an obama you'd be gutted if they said you you're going to end up as a triangle you really would anyway this battle right i mean historians first of all they can't agree when it happened possibly 3rd of may 1534 they don't even agree what to call it so some historians call it the battle of teokajas some people call it the battle of mount chimboratho they can't agree it's a massive battle that no one knows anything about so the spanish chronicler gonzalo fernandez obiedo claimed that there were 50 000 people fighting there nine out of 10 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 favors the spanish horses and obiedo's account is great actually he says it started with this sort of Lord of the Rings battle of the Pelennor fields charged by the Spanish cavalry.

52:13Dominic Sandbrook: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 was shown by the side. The Indians rallied to a cry that this was the moment of fight for their liberty. The Spaniards shouted that 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 marvelous vigor lacking neither strength nor spirit so it's this great sort of tolkien-esque clash and ruminyahu's men were in danger of 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 tricked the keitans they left their campfires burning but they slipped away in the darkness and ruminyawa's men didn't

53:17Tom Holland:realize till it was too late did they just leave their porters and behind i think they must left

53:22Dominic Sandbrook:some of them i guess but what this means that basically they're able to get into keto so ben Alcatha and his men are able to basically skirt Ruminyawa's army and get into Quito. But when they get there, they're gutted to find that Ruminyawa has already taken sort of Russia 1812 style action. Ruminyawa has gutted Quito. He'd taken all the treasure. He's taken Atahualpa's family. He's taken 4 ,000 women and he's set fire to the palaces and the storehouses. And he's withdrawn. He's basically withdrawn with all them into the forests. some poor behavior by ruminyari ruminyari 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 virgin said no we don't want to so ruminyari's men killed them all do you know if

54:13Tom Holland:ruminyari told me to do something i would do it i'm not gonna mess around i'm gonna go yes fine

54:17Dominic Sandbrook: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 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 a 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 almagro and pedro de alvarado no a 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 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 that they he says come on you know stop complaining man up they get through the jungle they emerge into the andes then they go the wrong way and they go up the 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'd 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 Quito 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 have gone with him the ones who are still left will stay in Peru and work for the other Spanish generals but he himself Alvarado agrees that he will leave Peru and never come back

57:02Tom Holland:that is a shame

57:03Dominic Sandbrook: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 when a horse sat on him didn't he yeah a horse fell on

57:27Tom Holland:him he had a very um a very impressive wife doña luisa 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.

57:41Dominic Sandbrook: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, Almagro and Ben Alcázar, to deal with the northern warlords so first of all kis kis kis has been trudging all the way up from cuzco 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 kis kis and they say to him you know look general go and ask the spanish for peace quote they are invincible and kis kis says you cowards i would rather starve in the wilds then bend the knee and surrender my country he reminds me of charles de gaulle and

59:02Tom Holland:is he similarly successful does he emerge as the leader of a proud and independent incan state

59:06Dominic Sandbrook:no but when he says that his officers take out their clubs and they bludgeon him to death oh so that's the end of him john hemming 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 feel 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

59:34Tom Holland:kettle drum guy he's still very much on the scene isn't he he is but he's lost momentum too a lot

59:40Dominic Sandbrook: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 conquistador called miguel de la chica gets a tip off that rumen yahwi is resting by a mountain lake quote when i reached the lake the lord ruminyawi 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 ruminyawi is taken under guard back to quito where sebastian de bellacatha is in charge of interrogating him whether he's got his drum with him i do not know does he have any gold No. Hasn't got a drum?

1:00:18Dominic Sandbrook:Hasn't got gold? What's the point of him? I'd like to think he's still got his drum. Surely they allow him to keep... Because Atahualpa 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 Ruminyawe. 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, a year? Yeah. To conquer the whole thing and beat two armies?

1:00:53Tom Holland:Yeah.

1:00:54Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. And a lot of it, I think, not because the Spanish overpowered people in battle, but they just, it's about morale. The Keetons just sort of lost hearts. They thought they could never beat these blokes with their horses. Also, I guess, a key point, they've got tribal allies. The Canyari people I mentioned, you mentioned with great enthusiasm, the Juancas. 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 Cusco, Manco has been surveying all this and thinking,

1:01:26Tom Holland:this is not quite what I thought it would be. He's slightly riding a crocodile here.

1:01:31Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah. Because clearly, you know, the Spanish have 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 Cuzco 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.

1:02:11Dominic Sandbrook: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 you know 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

1:02:33Tom Holland: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

1:02:42Dominic Sandbrook: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 locals Stop mistreating people There's a story about a conquistador Called Gonzalo Maldonado Who ignores him He imprisons the high priest of Cusco And says I won't let you out Until we give me gold and silver and Pizarro basically has to threaten to execute this guy to force him to release the high priest.

1:03:15Tom Holland:It would still have been possible, surely, for the people of Cusco, the native people, to rise up and wipe these people out.

1:03:23Dominic Sandbrook: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.

1:03:34Tom Holland: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 um out in peru who've been coming from spain are starting

1:03:47Dominic Sandbrook:to turn up are 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 feudad de los reyes but it ends up being called after a local oracle which in quechua was called the speaker or Lima, i.e.

1:04:32Dominic Sandbrook:Lima. Now, meanwhile, all these people, as you correctly say, Tom, are turning up and they want something. Now, the gold's been distributed. So what Pizarro is giving them is land. He's giving out huge tracts of land to Spaniards, entire villages, thousands of laborers. 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.

1:05:10Dominic Sandbrook:There was basically enforced labor. You would be given thousands of so-called Indians who are obliged to deliver regular tribute to you.

1:05:20Tom Holland:So this is the the encomienda set up that the Spanish have been practicing in the new world since the very beginning. Yes especially in Mexico. And which

1:05:30Dominic Sandbrook: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 Pizarro.

1:06:08Dominic Sandbrook:Bigger problem for Manco, though. If young Manco, the young emperor, is watching this in his palace, he is 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 Manco's sister, who is also his wife.

1:06:50Dominic Sandbrook:And secondly, the feud between the Pizarro brothers and Diego de Almagro reaches boiling point. And what we'll be talking about next time. Manco 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 former business partner, Diego de Almagro.

1:07:14Tom Holland:So still so much to come. And Rest is 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 Rest is History Club, then you can go to therestishistory.com and do so there. But for now, goodbye.

1:07:35Dominic Sandbrook:Bye-bye.

1:07:44Dominic Sandbrook:Hi, guys. It's Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci here from The Rest is Politics US.

1:07:48Tom Holland:We have just recorded a four-part series that's all about Donald Trump becoming the global phenomenon we know him as today.

1:07:58Dominic Sandbrook:You know, Katty, I knew Donald Trump since 2005.

1:08:00Tom Holland:So in this series, we rewind the clock right back and dig into the people, the events and the scandals that built him. Yeah, we're going to take you from his days in military school, what he learned there, how he actually weirdly thrived there, to his father's ties to the Ku Klux Klan, his days as a business mogul in New York and how that really shaped his worldview and his way of doing business. And we're going to explore parts of the Trump story that you might never have even heard of.

1:08:27Dominic Sandbrook:Not to mention, Caddy, the nefarious trickster, Roy Cohn. Where's my Roy Cohn? I heard him say that so many times. I mean, I was only there for 11 days, Caddy. Where's my Roy Cohn? Well, let me tell you something. If you want to know who Roy Cohn was, you're going to tune into this series.

1:08:44Tom Holland:With all the headlines that come out of Trump World every single day, we just felt there'd never really been a more important time to try to understand the America that created Donald Trump. To listen to episode one of Becoming Trump, head over to The Rest is Politics US wherever you get your podcasts.