Why did the Incas suck at fighting the Spaniards?

Factual Questions
1

I was watching TLC the other day when a program came on about Pizzaro’s conquest of the Incas.

Well, anyway, at a certain point after Pizarro had conquered and set up a puppet Incan king, the Incans attempted to revolt and throw out the Spaniards from the Incan capital city. There were only about 100 spaniards occupying the city (not including indian allies). The Incan army totaled some 100,000 troops. This amazingly huge army failed to recapture the city, only able to torch most of it to the ground, and actually lost ground to the Spanish.

What the heck?!?!?! I would think if I could amass an army of 100,000 10-year olds, with nothing but sticks they could do better against 100 sword carrying Spaniards.

I know the Incans weren’t incompetent warriors as they were very successful killing the Spanish reinforcements to the city, but geez. Why couldn’t they all just rush the city all at once? There would be no way they could lose.

Finally, the Incas ran out of food and most of the army disbanded in order to plant crops. However, after they left a couple hundred rival Spanish troops invaded the city and easily took over. Just odd…

2

Incan society around that time was kind of in a bad way; they had just come off a civil war between two brothers after their father, the Inca, died.

Also, the Inca thought Pizarro might be Viracocha, their white-skinned god. (Kinda like the Aztecs thought Cortes might be Quetzalcoatl.) The Spanish use of cannons added to this idea–Viracocha controlled thunder. It’s got to be pretty intimidating, trying to fight a god. The Spanish soldiers were also very well armored.

So you had a demoralized, frightened population that was unsure of it’s ruler. Add to that the superior weaponry and armor of the Spaniards, plus the fact that the Incas probably had never seen soldiers on horseback, and it’s not really surprising as you might think.

3

IIRC, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel discussed this pretty thoroughly.

4

One important bit was that whole deal about the ruler.

Inca Atahualpa, the victor of the just-finished civil war (and the less-legitimate of the two pretenders that had fought it), managed to let himself be taken hostage very early on. Atahualpa, of course, had to show he was confident and unafraid (and reverent, if this really was V) so he showed up to meet the Spanish with a few hundred unarmed escorts, leaving his main army behind. Then when he was in, the Spanish let go at them with horses and guns.

At this point a key weakness in Inca Atahualpa’s power structure takes over: it was totalitarian, centered Stalin-like on him – his commanders and administrators incapable of doing a damned thing on their own initiative, without his direct orders. Specially not acting to do whatever it took to save the country if it meant endangering his sacred person. No arrangement for regency or provisional command was in place; and they certainly were not going to call upon the former supporters of Inca Huascar.

Atahualpa attempted to buy his way out of the bind by paying Pizarro a stupendous amount of gold. This only had the effect of whetting the Spaniards’ appetite (if they can pay a king’s ransom so promptly, there must be more where this all came from). When eventually they killed him, the entire Inca apparatus went from being de-facto decapitated to being truly so.
Thing is, in the 1520s and 30s the great PreColumbian nations were in a weakened position. The Maya were already out of the game; the Aztec believed the end of the world was at hand (and had most of their neighbors eager to join against them anyway); a generation earlier Inca Huayna Capac had decreed his empire would not grow any more, and his successors promptly proceeded to turn their aggression inward.

Rich pickings for the well-equipped, aggressive, confident, tricky, unscrupulous conquistadores.

5

Numbers are only an advantage up to a point. If you outnumber your oppenent five to one, for instance, you might be able to get five of your guys fighting each of the enemy’s guys at once. If you outnumber your enemy a thousand to one, then you might be able to get five of your guys on each of the enemy at once. See what I mean? Depending on the terrain, an outnumbered defender might be able to take on the enemy in groups so small that the attackers are actually outnumbered, and mountainous areas tend to be ideal for this.

Of course, the Spaniards didn’t just have swords, either. Yes, firearms were very primitive then, compared to what we have now, but the Incans didn’t have anything that compared even remotely.

6

The revolt studdoggie is talking about happened several years after Atahualpa had been eliminated. It was Manco Capac II ( I think - I need to check that ), a scion of the main line that Atahualpa had displaced who rebelled. He had been set up as a puppet as studdoggie mentioned, as the Spanish were still very much parasitic on Incan society at that point.

First off, no way was there 100,000 rebel warriors. There was still a lot ( I’ve seen a figure of 30,000 quoted as well ), but the total population of Cuzco itself probably barely exceeded 100,000. The population of the whole Inca Empire pre-conquest was likely in the 7-11 million range and they had just gone through 1.) A smallpox epidemic that had killed the legitimate Inca ( after making its way across the isthmus of Panama ahead of the Spaniards ), precipitating the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa, and 2.) that devastating civil war itself. The Spanish ( most of them ignorant mercenary yahoos who were probably lucky if they could count their fingers and toes ) almost certainly exaggerated for effect and through ignorance ( it’s damn hard to estimate crowds - just ask the park service in D.C. :smiley: ).

Second the Spanish had the colossal good fortune of being able to launch a sally that captured the massive citadel at Sacasayhuaman ( think that’s right ) that dominated Cuzco. Once inside they were virtually invulnerable ( the Incas being not that great at siegecraft ). A small group can stand off a large army under those circumstances.

So Manco Capac abandoned the fruitless siege and retreated to the religiously ( and hence politically ) important river “valley” ( the name of which eludes me at the moment ) that sheltered the town of Vilcabamba and terminated at Macchu Picchu. There he formed the “Neo-Inca” rump state of Vilcabamba that persisted for some 40 years and at times seriously threatened Spanish control. One aborted assault ( that might well have succeeded if they had pulled it off ) was arranged as a coordinated multi-front thrust of the Diarquites of Tucuman, the Araucanians in Chile, and the “Neo-Incas”, all timed to coincide with a general uprising. Ultimately, though, smallpox laid Vilcabamba low and a Spanish army ( which was in fact ~90% Indian ) invaded and smashed the badly weakened state ( but missed Macchu Picchu ).

The Peruvians actually adapted to Spanish warfare in some clever ways. They used timed avalanches, learned how to use lariats to dehorse Spanish calvary ( who were irresistable in a charge across level ground ), made captured Spaniards use captured guns against their compatriots, etc. .

But the spaniards had smallpox, measles, cholera, and typhus working for them - You can’t beat that :frowning: .

  • Tamerlane ( who will double-check his facts in the morning and make corrections as necessary :slight_smile: )
7

Okay - A few facts checked :slight_smile: .

It was Manco Capac II, younger brother of Huascar - Installed in 1533, rebelled 1536, died in 1545.

The valley was called the Urubamba and lay just east of Cuzco. It was shielded by a string of fortresses starting with Ollantaytambo and terminating with Macchu Picchu on the edge of Amazonia. For awhile the Vilcabamba state controlled the whole east slope of Andes stretching some 800 miles north to the city of Huanaco.

The harassing attacks out of Vilcabamba were taken seriously by the Spanish. A number of defensive measures were taken such as the construction of the fortified town of San Juan de la Frontera in 1539, designed to guard the road from Lima to Cuzco.

The Vilcabamba state under Titu Cusi ( 1560 - 1571 ), was also active in spreading the anti-Christian millenarian sect known as Taqui Ongo, which originated in central Peru and spread as far north as Lima and south to La Paz. It reached its peak in 1565, the same year as the narrowly avoided Jauja uprising I referenced above.

However smallpox struck the Urubamba valley in 1571 and a Spanish expedition the following year ( some 250 Spaniards, plus 2000 Indians ) found the defenses virtually unmanned. They advanced against only light resistance and captured the last independent Inca, Tupac Amaru, who they then executed, thus terminating the state that had threatened to overrun them just a few years earlier.

Starting population figures are a little controversial. But from, say, 7 or 9 million in the 1520’s, the native population dropped to about 2.5 million by 1560 ( based on Spanish census data ), then to around 1.4 million by 1590. Pretty devastating. Of course Mexico took it on the chin even worse ( for reasons I won’t go into ).

  • Tamerlane
8

My knowledge about Pizarro and the Incas is zero so take this for what it’s worth. My impression is that the image of a handful of Spaniards winning fights with vastly superior numbers of natives who were scared shitless because of the firearms, horses and local superstitions is quite wrong.

I can imagine Pizarro addressing his men saying “Ok, gang, here’s the plan for tomorrow: all 200 of us are going to fight 200,000 indians and win a great victory”.

I can see the men replying:
#1- Hey, Pizarro, are you sure this is a good idea?
#2- Yeah, can’t we put it off until next week so I can finish the report I’m working on?
#3- I think I hear my mother calling me… gotta go… email me if you need anything…

I think a much more accurate picture is that the Spaniards took advantage of local disputes and wars among tribes. They would land somewhere and ask the local chief “Hi Chief, how are things going? Everything OK?” And the chief would say: “Well, we’re doing ok but this would be a much nicer neighborhood if it weren’t for the guys over those hills there who come down here once in a while and take our women, our cash and then kill a few of us for good measure”.

The Spaniards would then convince them that they would become allies and would be invincible and beat the crap out of the guys on the other side. In the actual fighting the Spaniards would be a very small minority and it was mostly natives on both sides. The Spaniards were mostly valuable as leaders and catalists, not because the were any better at fighting. Most Spaniards did not have firearms or horses. Mostly what they had was a crazy sense of destiny where conquering the world was possible (sort of like Bill Gates).

Also, the imposition of Spanish jurisdiction was not an overnight thing:
-Pizarro: You have lost in battle Chief. Sign here your surrender
-Chief: It is a sad day for my people but I sign to avoid further bloodshed. (signs and sighs)
-Pizarro: Ok, now all your base belong to us.

Effective Spanish control, jurisdiction and customs probably took many decades, even centuries to introduce, and in many places never were. The Spanish managed to become the rulers because they managed to sustain a certain peace among the tribes. However little the natives might have liked the Spanish, in many cases they were not affected so much by them and in any case it was better than fighting the tribe next door every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

In a nutshell: I think a small number of Spaniards beating the crap out of large numbers of Indians is probably all wrong. But then again, did I say I have never read the history of Pizarro and the conquest of Peru? Which is a shame because I have right here Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru which I have been intending to read for a while now… maybe one of these days…

9

Most of the facts you guys have written were way off…just check Wikipedia to get a better idea. But the main reason the Inca army (and yes, they fielded an army of at least 100, 000 in Cusco although most were armed farmers) failed to defeat the Spanish was that the Spanish were aided by anti-Inca tribes who welcomed the Spanish who they hoped would free them from the dominant Incas (The enemy of my enemy is my friend right!).
So when the 100,000+ Inca army fought the small Spanish army in Cusco, the Spanish were aided by tens of thousands of pro-Spanish natives. They assisted the Spanish for many decades.
Also the Spanish were lucky because Western disease had devastated up to 90% of the indigenous population, thereby reducing the army and leadership.
If you are interested in the Incas and similar questions, the best book on the subject is “The Conquest of the Incas” by John Hemming

10

Yeah, but they’ve had 11 years to raise that army!

11

Also, 11 years to create wikipedia.

12

Wikipedia was just coming on line before this thread was started. Not sure how big it was then, but it did exist.

13

I concur with this line of thinking. The one question I have, tho, is to the catalyst for this series of events to occur - I think that would be communication. In Mexico, Cortez had a concubine given to him by a local chief when he came on shore. This woman apparently was a genius with languages, and soon was able to intepret the local languages for Cortez. What did Pizzaro have? How was he able to both assess the local’s issues with the ruling tribe, and gain their alliance? He would have had to be able to communicate with them, but how?

14

The book 1491, by Charles Mann, also addresses this. Discoveries of large numbers of skulls from the battle area with puncture wounds typical of native weapons of the era point to the Spanish being aided by local tribes hostile to Incan rule. It also addresses the spread of smallpox which arrived from Mexico (which had already met its fate at the hands of the Spanish) not long before the Pizzaro invasion. The accounts of 100 Spaniards holding off tens of thousands comes from written records of Spanish missionaries; while these records are of significant historical value, the military accounts are suspect.

15

IIRC, Diamond mentions the primary hand-to-hand weapons of the Inca were clubs, armour was leather with cotton padding underneath. They did not have the ironwork to create cutting edge weapons ( :smiley: ) or solid armour. A bunch of guys with swords and the wherewithall to make more would be very dangerous in constricted quarters. (I’m sure anyone who travelled with horses travelled with a smith and his portable equipment…)

16

If that’s the book I’m thinking of, I wouldn’t take anything the book says for truth without the praise of twelve angels and Pizarro himself rising from the dead to validate it. Alright, thats an exaggeration, but I’ve heardf some rathers poor repiorts of his scholarship - namely, that he’s fairly uncritical about sources and tends not to realize that something new to him may be old hat even in relatively non-technical sources. That said, I haven’t read him myself and can’t say for sure.

17

100 musket-carrying Spaniards with several thousand native allies. The best conquistadores’ biggest weapon was always alliances with the enemies of whichever the local big nation happened to be.

18

I suspect you may be thinking of 1421 by Gavin Menzies, which is a very speculative and largely discredited account of China’s “discovery” of America. 1491 by Charles Mann, on the other hand, is a much more reliable work, named Book of the Year by the National Academy of Sciences. It’s also a great read.

19

Charles Mann. His credentials seem pretty sound.

20

More likely wool, I think.