I just finished this book by Kim MacQuarrie. It’s interesting that you learn how the Incas lived, and how their empire worked, but it deals primarily with their demise from the Spanish invasion. It gets a little depressing, and it took me a long time to finish it. Not high on my recommendations. You will get an appreciation for how they lived though. You wonder how an empire of close to 10 million could be taken over by an initial force of 168 Spaniards.
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The Last Days of the Incas
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I've often wondered if the NA had wiped out those very first European expeditionary forces-- Spanish, Dutch, English & French--how many years it would have taken for them to try again. Or would invasion (because ultimately that's what it became) have then come from the Far East? Interesting to speculate an alternate history.Child of the tides
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It seems every book I pick up from the west coast to the East it the Spanish were such a force . I should just sit down and look up a link about and Serb what their history says about them leaving . Even Christopher Columbus , his ships have Spanish names .
Time to brush up on forgotten history for me and bring it to the present to understand the invasions I am now finding out about .
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After Cortez conquered the Aztecs, other Spaniards, such as Pizzaro, went out searching for empires to conquer. He found the Incas in Peru. It turned out they had a lot of gold. The Incas were no match for the armored horses and Spaniards. They had no weapons that could penetrate the steel. Had they come up with better military solutions, if you want to call it that, they should have been able to defeat 168 Spaniards. It’s worth noting, that the Incas did their fair share of conquering other Indian tribes well before a Spaniard ever showed up.South Dakota
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Don't forget the European diseases wiped out entire cultures. What the Spanush didn't infect directly, was carried from town to town along the trade routes. By the time the Spanards did arrive, many NA had already died. Small pox, syphilis, influenza, & rubella all took their toll.Child of the tides
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Hi Deb. Regarding the European disease which decimated Native American populations starting early on. Many historians believe that syphilis was a disease carried by the Indians in Middle America and that it was brought back first to Spain from where it spread into Europe. At least that is some of the thinking until recently. Maybe that interpretation may not be accepted nowadays. I haven't done a recent "fact check".
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The Inca king was duped into a meeting with the Spaniards then kidnapped and held for ransom. That event and subsequent ones are well documented as is the fact that the Incas were relatively new supreme rulers and had enemy tribes among them. The same thing happened in Mexico where the Aztecs were conquered with the help of neighboring tribes. The Aztecs, too, had only recently come into power by conquering and building on civilizations already in place.
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Yes I had read that venereal disease may have been a two way street, so to speak. The infectious diseases accounted for the highest mortalities however-- small pox, measles, & plague. In some cases, by the time the Spanish troops arrived, the diseases had preceded them.
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You’re right Joe, but I do believe their king had his own intentions at that meeting to kill the Spaniards, but underestimated them. When the Spaniards attacked, most of the Incas fled from fear. They were being slaughtered by the well armored cavalry.
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