ABSTRACT
The Incas had established a significant world empire that extended from the northern section of Chile to what is the southernmost point of Colombia. Pizarro, an illiterate swineherd, organized his adventure into the heart of the Inca Empire at Panama and sailed down the Pacific coast in 1532. When the Inca ruler inspected, then tossed the Holy Book to the ground, the slaughter began. The empire, though, was essentially in a state of civil war in the early 1530s over the question of dynastic succession, and the Spaniards took advantage of this situation when they arrived in 1532. Atahualpa had just consolidated the empire from his base at Quito and was making his way to Cuzco, having stopped to set up a capital at Cajamarca, which sat roughly halfway between the northern and southern axes of the Inca dominion.
