Guns, germs and Steel by Jared Diamond Page B
Authors: Jared Diamond
Tags: General Interest
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in the Americas far to the south of that entry route, developing in complete isolation from the emerging Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel complex societies of the Old World. After that initial colonization from Asia, the sole well-attested further contacts between the New World and Asia involved only huntergatherers living on opposite sides of the Bering Strait, plus an inferred transpacific voyage that introduced the sweet potato from South America to Polynesia.
As for contacts of New World peoples with Europe, the sole early ones involved the Norse who occupied Greenland in very small numbers between A.D. 986 and about 1500. But those Norse visits had no discernible impact on Native American societies. Instead, for practical purposes the collision of advanced Old World and New World societies began abruptly in A.D. 1492, with Christopher Columbus's Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel "discovery" of Caribbean islands densely populated by Native Americans.
The most dramatic moment in subsequent European-Native American relations was the first encounter between the Inca emperor Atahuallpa and the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro at the Peruvian highland town of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532.
Atahuallpa was absolute monarch of the largest and most advanced state in the New World, while Pizarro represented the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (also known as King Charles I of Spain), monarch of the most powerful state in Europe. Pizarro, leading a ragtag group of 168 Spanish soldiers, was in unfamiliar terrain, ignorant of the local inhabitants, completely out of touch with the nearest Spaniards (1,000 miles to the north in Panama) and far Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel beyond the reach of timely reinforcements.
Atahuallpa was in the middle of his own empire of millions of subjects and immediately surrounded by his army of 80,000 soldiers, recently victorious in a war with other Indians. Nevertheless, Pizarro captured Atahuallpa within a few minutes after the two leaders first set eyes on each other. Pizarro proceeded to hold his prisoner for eight months, while extracting history's largest ransom in return for a promise to free him. After the ransom – enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet – was delivered, Pizarro reneged on his promise and executed Atahuallpa.
Atahuallpa's capture was decisive for the European conquest of the Inca Empire.
Although the Spaniards' superior weapons Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel would have assured an ultimate Spanish victory in any case, the capture made the conquest quicker and infinitely easier.
Atahuallpa was revered by the Incas as a sungod and exercised absolute authority over his subjects, who obeyed even the orders he issued from captivity. The months until his death gave Pizarro time to dispatch exploring parties unmolested to other parts of the Inca Empire, and to send for reinforcements from Panama. When fighting between Spaniards and Incas finally did commence after Atahuallpa's execution, the Spanish forces were more formidable.
Thus, Atahuallpa's capture interests us specifically as marking the decisive moment in the greatest collision of modern history.
But it is also of more general interest, because the factors that resulted in Pizarro's Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel seizing Atahuallpa were essentially the same ones that determined the outcome of many similar collisions between colonizers and native peoples elsewhere in the modern world. Hence Atahuallpa's capture offers us a broad window onto world history.
WHAT UNFOLDED THAT day at Cajamarca is well known, because it was recorded in writing by many of the Spanish participants. To get a flavor of those events, let us relive them by weaving together excerpts from eyewitness accounts by six of Pizarro's companions, including his brothers Hernando and Pedro:
"The prudence, fortitude, military discipline, labors, perilous navigations, and
As for contacts of New World peoples with Europe, the sole early ones involved the Norse who occupied Greenland in very small numbers between A.D. 986 and about 1500. But those Norse visits had no discernible impact on Native American societies. Instead, for practical purposes the collision of advanced Old World and New World societies began abruptly in A.D. 1492, with Christopher Columbus's Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel "discovery" of Caribbean islands densely populated by Native Americans.
The most dramatic moment in subsequent European-Native American relations was the first encounter between the Inca emperor Atahuallpa and the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro at the Peruvian highland town of Cajamarca on November 16, 1532.
Atahuallpa was absolute monarch of the largest and most advanced state in the New World, while Pizarro represented the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (also known as King Charles I of Spain), monarch of the most powerful state in Europe. Pizarro, leading a ragtag group of 168 Spanish soldiers, was in unfamiliar terrain, ignorant of the local inhabitants, completely out of touch with the nearest Spaniards (1,000 miles to the north in Panama) and far Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel beyond the reach of timely reinforcements.
Atahuallpa was in the middle of his own empire of millions of subjects and immediately surrounded by his army of 80,000 soldiers, recently victorious in a war with other Indians. Nevertheless, Pizarro captured Atahuallpa within a few minutes after the two leaders first set eyes on each other. Pizarro proceeded to hold his prisoner for eight months, while extracting history's largest ransom in return for a promise to free him. After the ransom – enough gold to fill a room 22 feet long by 17 feet wide to a height of over 8 feet – was delivered, Pizarro reneged on his promise and executed Atahuallpa.
Atahuallpa's capture was decisive for the European conquest of the Inca Empire.
Although the Spaniards' superior weapons Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel would have assured an ultimate Spanish victory in any case, the capture made the conquest quicker and infinitely easier.
Atahuallpa was revered by the Incas as a sungod and exercised absolute authority over his subjects, who obeyed even the orders he issued from captivity. The months until his death gave Pizarro time to dispatch exploring parties unmolested to other parts of the Inca Empire, and to send for reinforcements from Panama. When fighting between Spaniards and Incas finally did commence after Atahuallpa's execution, the Spanish forces were more formidable.
Thus, Atahuallpa's capture interests us specifically as marking the decisive moment in the greatest collision of modern history.
But it is also of more general interest, because the factors that resulted in Pizarro's Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel seizing Atahuallpa were essentially the same ones that determined the outcome of many similar collisions between colonizers and native peoples elsewhere in the modern world. Hence Atahuallpa's capture offers us a broad window onto world history.
WHAT UNFOLDED THAT day at Cajamarca is well known, because it was recorded in writing by many of the Spanish participants. To get a flavor of those events, let us relive them by weaving together excerpts from eyewitness accounts by six of Pizarro's companions, including his brothers Hernando and Pedro:
"The prudence, fortitude, military discipline, labors, perilous navigations, and
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