Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Pizarro. The soldiers of the Inca did not dare to counter-attack for fear of killing the Em-
peror Atahualpa. An army of less than 200 now held for ransom an empire of more than
eight million.
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Pizarro promised freedom to the emperor provided that a room seventeen by twenty-
two feet (approximately eight feet high) be filled once with gold and twice with silver.
Messengers carried the ransom across a network of 10,000 miles of roads. When the room
was filled with treasure as ordered, the emperor was given a choice: accept the terms of the
Proclamation and be strangled. Reject Christianity and burn at the stake. Atahualpa chose
to be strangled. His afterlife depended on a bodily journey.
Even by today's standards, the treasure collected at Cajamarca was astounding. Each
of Pizarro's men received twenty-four pounds of gold and ninety pounds of silver. A stand-
ard coinage in the sixteenth century was the Florentine ducat. Each of Pizarro's soldiers
received the equivalent of 3,000 Florentine ducats. By way of measure and comparison,
in Spain, the richest man in the kingdom, the Marquis of Villena, had a yearly income of
100,000 ducats. Workers on his vast estates earned one ducat per year. In these terms, each
one of Pizarro's men received gold ducats equivalent to almost 3,000 years of an agricul-
tural worker's pay.
WHAT WERE THE CONSEQUENCES OF CAJAMARCA?
The vast fortune shipped to Spain from Peru induced Europe's first inflation: too much
wealth chasing too few goods. Added to Peruvian bullion were the output of silver from
Mexico and Bolivia, which poured into Spain continuously in large quantities. Best estim-
ates suggest that between 1550 and 1650, nearly one million pounds of gold made their way
to Spain along with thirty-five million pounds of silver. The Spanish treasure fleet was fair
game for pirates who did their utmost to “liberate” Spanish treasure. Among the most cel-
ebrated pirates was Sir Francis Drake. As imports from outside the Spanish empire slipped
into Spain (despite royal policy attempting to hoard precious metals), commerce and trade
in Europe began to quicken. Estimates suggest that silver in circulation in Europe increased
by 300 percent and gold by 20 percent.
Spain was now the richest nation in Europe (if not the world), and in 1570 it appended
the kingdom of Portugal to Spain, along with its mighty seaport river, the Tagus. From here
the king of Spain (formerly the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V) dispatched the greatest
fleet yet assembled, the mighty Armada of 1588: 130 warships to carry 30,000 men in-
tent on crushing the troublesome and heretical kingdom of England's Queen Elizabeth.
Wind, weather, and faulty planning—along with the courageous battle tactics of the Eng-
lish—put the Armada to flight. Less than half the fleet returned to home base. England, al-
most without an army, was saved from conquest. And now spared the threat of the Spanish
fleet, England, Holland, and France embarked on their own race for empire. The Caribbean
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