ABSTRACT
The territory of Quito lay in the north of the territory granted to Pizarro by royal document. Rumanivi, who had had one of Atahualpa’s brothers assassinated, held sway there. The city had been evacuated and put to the torch. Sebastian de Benalcazar sent his fastest horsemen after Rumanivi, but he was able to execute a turning movement and attack Quito by night. There was no chronicler of this campaign. But it is known that at the first encounter between the forces of Quito and the Spaniards, the sight of the horses put the Indians to flight, and Benalcazar won the support of the Canaris, a tribe hostile to Inca rule. The resistance of the men of Quito disintegrated, while, after a long retreat, Quizquiz’s forces were nearing Quito without even knowing that it had fallen. All organized resistance in the province of Quito soon ceased. Rumanivi, the last of Atahualpa’s three generals, was executed on the great square at Quito.
