Francisco Pizarro-Luis

        Francisco Pizarro is an infamous conquistador from Spain. It’s hard to explain why Pizarro is famous. But, it his infamy is mostly because of his conquering of the Incan Empire. Pizarro’s greatest accomplishment was his conquest of Peru and its inhabitants. Pizarro was a Spanish Conquistador and Soldier. He was not of great wealth growing up, he was an illegitimate child. His father was a soldier that did not marry Francisco’s mother. Because of this Francisco was considered illegitimate. Francisco did a lot of things leading up to his eventual conquest of Peru.

        Francisco Pizarro was a soldier, as all conquistadors were. His cousin, Hernan Cortés was the conqueror of the Aztec civilization. A few years after Cortés’s conquest of Mexico, Pizarro was given permission to sail to the Americas and find land. He and many others arrived in Panama. Once there, he helped arrest Vasco Núñez de Balboa and became mayor of Panama City. Soon afterward he headed to South America where he heard about Peru.

        In South America Pizarro set off for southern lands. After a long time he heard about a place with much more gold then he could imagine. He and his men went after the place the natives called Piru. After much searching he and his men found the valley of Cuzco. They were treated with hospitality by the Incan people. Pizarro and his men soon left, to return to Spain. Upon their return they would conquer all of Peru.

        When Pizarro returned he came right after the worst Incan civil war between the brothers Atahualpa and Huascar. Huascar was recently executed by his half-brother Atahualpa who took the throne afterward. Pizarro returned to Cuzco while Atahualpa was in power. After time scheming and researching his cousin Cortés’s tricks, Pizarro put his plan into action. He captured Atahualpa and held him prisoner as a puppet ruler. After some time, Atahualpa offered Pizarro and his men a room of gold and two rooms of silver as payment for Atahualpa’s release. Pizarro agreed and set his men out to Lima to get the gold and silver. After all of it was collected Pizarro executed Atahualpa now that he was no longer useful to Pizarro. Atahualpa pleaded to be executed by strangling so his remains could be mummified, but the Priest that traveled with Pizarro would only do it if Atahualpa converted to Christianity. Atahualpa agreed and was strangled the morning after his baptism.

         Pizarro not only conquered the Inca, but completely destroyed their religion and cities. He used the gold from Incan churches and jewelry to send to Spain and keep for himself. Unfortunately, Pizarro died by the hand of some of his old partner’s men, who wanted their leader to be leader of Peru. Pizarro died by sword, fighting to the end. Pizarro was a cruel vicious man who not only conquered an entire people, but wiped almost wiped them off the face of the Earth.