La fine degli Incas

by John Hemming

Avvincente, tragica, spesso in bilico tra verità e leggenda, la storia della fine degli Incas è densa di episodi e figure memorabili. Dal tempo in cui la banda di avventurieri spagnoli messi insieme da Pizarro riuscì a penetrare nei territori degli Incas, fino all’uccisione dell’ultimo indio ribelle, il grande storico John Hemming ripercorre gli eventi che cambiarono la storia delle Americhe e, con esse, del mondo intero: le prime incursioni spagnole; lo scoppio delle ostilità; la cattura e il supplizio del potente Atahualpa; la ribellione dell’Inca Manco; la creazione di uno Stato inca autonomo sulle montagne di Vilcabamba; l’ultima resistenza e la fine del leggendario Tupac Amaru; il definitivo attacco spagnolo culminato nel genocidio degli Incas. Capace di combinare alla perfezione il punto di vista degli spagnoli e degli indios, La fine degli Incas non è solo uno studio scientifico senza uguali, ma anche un’opera narrativa di assoluto valore. Che con ricchezza di particolari storici e ritratti indelebili dei protagonisti, restituisce tutta la complessità di quei convulsi momenti che portarono alla distruzione di un grande impero e di una favolosa civiltà.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Travel, War, Spain, World History, Latin American History

736 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Dr. John Hemming, CMG is one of the world's experts on Brazilian Indians, the Amazon environment, the Incas, Peruvian archaeology, The Royal Geographical Society, and the history of exploration generally. He is also Chairman of Hemming Group Ltd., a company that publishes trade magazines and organises trade exhibitions and conferences.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just about everyone knows about how Francisco Pizarro, the illiterate conquistador, captured the Inca Atahualpa, demanded a king's ransom in gold and silver, and put his prisoner to death anyway.

But that is only the beginning of the tale. The Incas rebelled under Manco Inca and retreated to Vilcabamba, from which they ran a truncated version of their society until they were finally defeated by the Spanish decades later.

John Hemming tells the whole story in Conquest of the Incas, from both the point of view of the Spaniards and of the Incas, from Pizarro's landing at Tumbes to the execution of Tupac Amaru. The whole story spans a century and is one of the great tales of conquest, rivaling William Prescott's and Bernal Diaz del Castillo's tales of the conquest of the Aztecs.

This is an excellent edition with useful maps. If you have any plans to visit Peru, this book should travel in your luggage.

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

List of Illustrations
Maps
Preface
Acknowledgements

--The Conquest of the Incas

Chronology
Genealogies
Glossary
Tables of Measurements and Values
Bibliography
Notes and References
Index

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Conquest of the Incas" is certainly one of the finest--perhaps the finest--large-scale Historical study I have ever read. It has a remarkable precision of detail, depth of analysis, and epic scope that make it difficult to put down. And always we see the human element--the odd combination of religiosity and hideous greed of the conquistadors, the equally strange mixture of contempt for the Indians and a willingness to exploit them as well as a paternalistic concern for their welfare in Viceroy Toledo. With the Incas themselves the tiny and vulnerable Vilcabamba State teetered on the edge of survival under the leadership of Manco and his followers but was destroyed in the end owing to foolish actions of its final rulers.

The book is written in a beautiful lucid prose which portrays faithfully and objectively the inevitable destruction of a civilisation and yet it retains a sense of drama. While remaining an objective narrator, Hemming nonetheless implies a number of political and moral lessons which are, I suspect, relevant today.

This book is an historical masterpiece.

[Paola · Rating 3 out of 5]

If like me you only had an approximate idea of what the Spanish conquest of what is modern Peru meant for the local population, this book will shock you. The extent of the harassment and exploitation to which refined, modern Spaniards subjected the Indios surpasses imagination, especially as it is coupled with a hefty amount of hypocrisy: religious committees and even the Pope giving their blessing to what turned out to be mistreatment and downright abuse of the locals as well as pillaging of their resources.

Most of the key actors appear blinded by greed, stopping at nothing, including treachery and murder, to achieve their goals. The chapters from 18 to 21 (out of the 25 contained in the 2013 edition I read) were the most poignant for me, as they move further away from the strict chronology of the facts to deal with the effect of experiments with various forms of government on the oppressed masses.
Issues of succession to the Inca "throne" are important, so make sure you get yourself a good hard copy of this book.

Indeed, my enjoyment of this book was spoiled by the electronic edition I had being particularly badly made: so from the bottom of my heart, DO NOT buy the 2013 ebook by Crux publishing: none of the photographic plates are there, those available online from the publisher's webpage are cumbersome to access clicking on them as instructed does not work), the genealogy trees are very poor quality so in practice unusable, and there are no links from text to endnotes, making reading this a real pain in the neck.

[Bruno · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Peruvian it was painful to read this episode in the history of my country. Specially since I am familiar with all the places mentioned in the book. As a reader I think this is a superb piece of work. Read it

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this shortly after visiting Peru and more than anything it made me want to return to explore the country more as well as the rest of South America. The detailed account of the Spanish conquest of the Incas leaves nary a stone unturned in capturing the sequence of events that resulted in the invaders emerging as victors and stamping their mark on the face of the country. It was more complex than I imagined; I guess history always is. It is easy to picture the Conquistadors galloping through the country and running off with all the gold, but it was far from straightforward, and they were vastly outnumbered. They had a lot of fortune in the Incas being in the midst of civil war at the time the Spanish arrived, and of course they were much better equipped with horses proving a huge boon time after time.

Having visited some of the sites in Peru it is sad to think that once great buildings laden with gold were torn down and built on top of, but I guess this is something that happens throughout history, and it is easy to forget the Incas had just completed their own conquest of a vast empire.

The Inca stone-work has to be seen to be believed, it is exceptional in its quality and modern attempts to reproduce it e.g. at Koricancha don't get near the same standards. The scale of the work at Sacsayhuaman is unbelievable - possibly that was Pre-Inca I'm not certain. And Machu Picchu of course is a magical place. It was interesting to read about VilcaBamba.

A must read for anyone who has visited or is planning to visit to Peru or who is simply interested in the history of the area. A very rewarding read.

[Scot · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly well-researched and balanced look at the Spanish conquest of Peru that treated the conquered Incas as a noble people and shined a light on both the atrocities and few glimmers of goodness from the Spaniards.

Hemming's account explored the best theories of pre-conquest time through the final vestiges of Incan family lines. It was a surprisingly easy to read (though not fast) despite all of the accounts and literature he must have combed through. His accounts of the various leaders that tried to navigate the Spanish, the various factions from Spain and the possible reasons why everything happened the way that it did were quite excellent.

One is left to ponder many "what-ifs" and with curiosity as to whether it was simply guns, germs and steel or if there was a deeper reason why. My own take is that after so much oppression and innumerable atrocities, the indigenous people's spirit of rebellion was broken and they came to accept the new conquerors in the same way they had previously accepted the Incas.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in Peru, history, or most importantly enjoy an account that tells the other side of history from the point of view of the oppressed, a la The People's History.

[Zachary Rudolph · Rating 4 out of 5]

“'We assume that Your Majesty has not been informed of this, since you have not ordered that it be remedied. For it is so contrary to divine and natural law that free men should be forced and compelled to such excessive labour, so prejudicial to their health and lives.'”

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although written over half a century ago this is still one of the best books in English and most readable accounts of the long conquest of the Incas. It is a fascinating story and if you want to really understand what happened then Hemming's is one of the best places to start. A dramatic and painful story told intelligently and with great understanding from a time when authors didn't feel it necessary to keep pushing their moral outrage on readers. They let the awful truth speak for itself.

And be in no doubt there is awfulness a plenty in Hemmings account though I rather liked the way he made clear just how tenacious the Inca elite were in attempting to create new strongholds and continu resistance long after Cuzco had fallen. He is also particularly good on the impact of the dissension and civil war that immediately preceded Atahualpa encounter with Pizarro and how diseases were already ravaging undermining the ability of the locals to resist. There were complex webs of interdependent over lapping causation and Hemming's is aware of them all. Hemming's is also an example of how a writer whose immersion in other South American cultures and histories provide him with the knowledge and subtleties to add an essential context and understanding to his history which those without such experience cannot match.



A really wonderful history.

[Finn Maunder · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most gripping histories I’ve ever read, a story at times so strange, improbable and tragic that it almost reads more like myth than reality. If the first 100 pages don’t pull you in, you must be insane. I think most Europeans grow up learning very little of colonialism, and that which we learn about the Spanish conquests is that ‘it was bad’. This is utterly hypnotic stuff, although once the Inca rebellion had failed and Manco Inca had been assassinated, the book does slow a little. John Hemming is a living legend, one of the greatest English-speaking authorities on the conquest and on Amazonian cultural history, and I’m very excited to seek out more of his work. I feel honoured to live and work in Perú, and now have a lot of new places to add to my list of places I want to go.

[Brumaire Bodbyl-Mast · Rating 4 out of 5]

A work which 1. Is very much of, if not a bit too old for its time of publication 2. A nice comprehensive history of the fall of the Incan Empire, with a lean more towards a traditional narrative of it. In general, perhaps the best history you can get of the Spanish side, with better coverage of life in the aftermath of the fall of Cuzco. I think the back half of the work is much stronger than the front, the front is doomed to follow the older historiography of the conquest, while you can see some of the emergence of the new historiography coming through, it is far less prominent in this first half/the section on Pizarro’s initial taking of Cuzco. Hemming specifically de-emphasizes, (though doesn’t ignore entirely, which is interesting, )the role of indigenous allies in the overthrow of the Inca. He also does place heavy credit onto the civil war then ongoing in Peru at the time of the conquest, which doubtlessly assisted the Spanish in their blitzkrieg. His history of the Inca Imperial family beyond the conquest, and the dynamics ongoing in post conquest Peru is far more admirable, however. Relationships between Indigenous peoples, both Inca and Non-Inca, The conquerors, the metropole and the setters all make for very insightful reading on early colonial life. Some these dynamics repeat in the Anglo context, as the competition between settlers and metropole, along with the elite of the colony results in overly bellicose settlers feuding with the metropole & settler elite. Overall a decent read with some very outdated language, and bottom heavy accuracy.

[Zoltán · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a massive work of history, accurate as I can guess it and as history will ever be (i.e. never count on it, it's always a point of view)

I liked it a lot, especially reading it prior to my Peruvian holiday it was a great read.

Only it's sheer size and detail proved to be a burden as it became impossible of tracing every person, place and story throughout with the book covering such a long time-frame and such tumultuous times.

[clara · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Conquest of the Incas sucked all of the happiness out of my life and replaced it with people named Pizarro. It is so long and so dry and so boring. The Neo-Inca State isn't even boring. This book made it boring. I deserve a medal for reading it. I will never smile again. I want to throw this book out the window, but I can't, because it's from the library.

[Märt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about the 50 unbelievable years starting in 1530 when a group of at first 170 Spaniards ended up taking control of the mighty Inca empire, with at least 3 million people spanning via Andes from Southern Colombia to Northern Argentina.

The surprise conquest of Mexico by Cortez and 500 men in 1519-1529 had fired the imagination of many youngsters searching for glory, so Pizarro, already an experienced soldier of the West Indies, was authorised to claim the lands in the south to the Spanish crown where no-one had an idea lies a great empire.

How were they able to do it? Some factors were:
- Extreme luck with timing. As they managed to take the ruler Atahualpha (who had just won the civil war against his brother) a hostage, he played along doing what the Spanish asked him to do, because it didn't seem possible they'd get away with it in the end.
- Incas had conquered most of the continent just a few generations before, so Spanish ended up replacing incas in a way, and in some places were seen as liberators.
- Superior technology of the Spanish was key, and also justified the spread of their best technology, Christianity. Soldiers riding on horseback, armed with metal weapons and European war tactics polished over centuries (none of these Incas had or could easily copy) were deadly efficient - for example a group of 62 horsemen and 106 foot soldiers could easily butcher 5000-10000 natives on an open terrain in a few hours.
- Treachery, manipulation, and walking back on their word whenever they were in power position helped, too. Especially sad were the executions of several Inca rulers, with manufactured charges and without the approval of the Spanish king (which at those times took at least 6 months to obtain) where Incas behaved with high integrity, even converting to Christianity before they died, and making moving thoughtful speeches worthy of history books.

The story includes a lot of juicy details, including the fascination of travelling to a new land and discovering the empire with such scale and sophistication (gold, stonework, irrigation, culture) that no-one in Europe had ever heard of.

The cast of characters includes the four Pizzarro brothers, none of whom died naturally but who dominated the colonization story for a good 30 years. Lima, the Peruvian capital on the coast that has much milder climate than Cuzco in the Andes with over 3 km elevation, was founded by Francisco Pizzarro who also served as the Governor of Peru. Viceroy Toledo a few decades later was the most notable, putting in place systems of Spanish rule and forced labor (which was still milder than in North America) which lasted until the 19th century.

After most of the Inca gold was pillaged (it had a decorative use only, for Incas had no monetary system, no writing system apart from knots called quipus used for accounting that no-one really understands to present day, and no wheel as it had little use in the mountains), mines were discovered and natives forced to work in them in gruelling conditions. The most famous was the "silver mountain" Potosi in present day Bolivia which sponsored the Spanish empire for several centuries and made all the colonization effort pay off. Spanish treasures first travelled to the coast, then sailed to the Isthmus of Panama (as Canal was opened much later in 1914), carried overland to the other side, then sailed to Havana, then to Canaries, and only then to Spain.

Peru is full of ruins from Inca and earlier civilizations. The most famous, Machu Picchu, was likely an estate of Pachacuti, the earlier creator of the Inca Empire. It was re-discovered along with the long-sought-for "last city of the Incas" Vilcabamba by an American professor Bingham during just one trip in 1910. How fascinating it must have been for the explorers to scout Peru in the 1960s and 1970s and find these exact places in the mountains and rivers where the battles described in Spanish and Peruvian chronicles in the 16th century had taken place. When travelling in Cuzco and the surrounding valleys nowadays, the legends are all still there.

I nicked a star because the book is very diligently put together (entirely 36% of it is made up of notes and comments!) and it hurts readability at times. At the same time, many chapters are just fascinating, especially if you have been to Peru. Reader can also really appreciate the author's approach of presenting different viewpoints by the most renowned experts, and being one of them, adding a personal opinion with probabilities of truth of what might have happened.

I'll leave this review with a few more highlights, just to leave a taste of what all went down back then:
- But it was no trap, and the conquistadores witnessed the wild final scenes of one of the last great royal hunts, in which ten thousand natives took part, surrounding many miles of land and killing some eleven thousand head of game.
- In their awe, the sixteenth-century chroniclers soon exhausted the mighty buildings of Spain with which to compare Sacsahuaman.
- This was an extraordinary move. ‘Probably never before or since has a mighty emperor—and in 1550 Charles V was the strongest ruler in Europe with an overseas empire besides—in the full tide of his power ordered his conquests to cease until it could be decided whether they were just.’ Amazingly, the prohibition on expeditions was totally effective until it was repealed in 1559.  No campaigns of conquest occurred during that decade - because unauthorised conquistadors knew that they would lose their gains and probably also their heads.
- ‘we cannot conceal the great paradox that a barbarian, Huayna-Capac, kept such excellent order that the entire country was calm and all were nourished, whereas today we see only infinite deserted villages on all the roads of the kingdom.’
- Under the Incas they had lived in a paternalistic society without money, personal property or writing. It was impossible for them to grasp that they were now regarded by the authorities as free individuals expected to earn money, compete and stand up for their rights, if necessary by written Spanish law.
- The miners then spent three million pesos in the construction of a system of thirty-two lakes, a ten-mile artificial sluiceway, eighteen dams and hundreds of waterwheels: a remarkable feat of engineering that guaranteed the power to grind a steady flow of silver.*
- By the end of the sixteenth century, the boom city of Potosí had all the trappings of a Klondike: fourteen dance halls, thirty-six gambling houses, seven or eight hundred professional gamblers, one theatre, a hundred and twenty prostitutes, and dozens of magnificent baroque churches.... For almost two centuries its manually produced bars and coins were recognised throughout the western world.
- Amerindians grow little facial hair, and a moustache is a sign of European blood in South America to this day.
- The 35-year-old American even looked like Harrison Ford of the Indiana Jones movies.  He was tall (6 foot, 4 inches; 1.93 metres), ruggedly handsome, fit, ambitious and bursting with energy.
- It was the National Geographic Society that realised how important it was, devoting an entire issue of its magazine in 1913 to Machu Picchu and helping to finance major expeditions there in 1913 and 1915.
- The archaeologists calculated that the man-days expended in this earthmoving represented a staggering sixty per cent of all the work of building Machu Picchu.

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now this is a history book. It's detailed and impressive and occasionally because of that it veers into territory that is not quite of interest to this particular reader who knew very little about the Incas and colonial Spain. But most importantly—and this is my favorite thing about Hemming's book—The Conquest of the Incas is deeply invested in the Incas as a group of survivors, who held onto political power, wealth, military power, and religious practices in whatever ways they could while dealing with a violent Spanish invasion and colonization.

My one real gripe with Hemming's book is that he treats Christianity as if it's a vaguely positive force in the world.

[Margaret Crampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely well researched book and should be read by any visitor to Peru. It tells of the tragic demise of the amazing Inca civilization at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadors. In the 16th Century: The cruelty the deception, the bravery and violence and the looting and destruction of priceless gold and silver works of art, and the huge loss of the Inca kings and their Empire. Interesting are the final chapters detailing the searches in the 20th Century to discover explain and map the Inca cities, refuges temples and palaces.

[A.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this book took just a little while to read (the better part of a year, ahem). I now consider myself a quasi-expert on Incan history at the conquest. Seriously though, the end of their empire was basically a foregone conclusion once the Spanish invaded; couldn't they at least have had a few more victories against the Spanish along the way?

[Wyatt Reu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough, nuanced, interesting. The conquest of Peru is perhaps one of the strangest and most tragic encounters in all of history.

[Veronika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating reading

[Holden Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, fun. Can’t say I remember too much from this book specifically as I was super into Incan history books for a bit during covid. Incan history is quite fascinating though

[Raymond · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Conquest of the Incas makes for rather grim reading, even more so than the conquest of Mexico. If any event contributed to the Leyenda Negra it was this, owing to its chaotic nature and opportunities for low level roguery, as well as the institutionalized cruelty that was an inevitable consequence of the rich silver mines in the area, given Spain's ambitions and economy at the time which entirely overrode the concerns raised by its humanist intellectuals. It's the story of a people's hopeless struggle against a technologically superior invader which ultimately doomed them to centuries of slavery and oppression.

The book is heavily weighted towards narrative history despite the author being an archaeologist. All major events as well as the fate of the individuals involved in them are covered in abundant detail, but there is little analysis of the causes and effects of the conquest outside of individual examples that form part of the narrative. If you're primarily interested in how the conquest transformed the region as a whole you'll only find the occasional paragraph interjected here and there in the narrative, but if you're mainly after the story of Francisco Pizarro and his brothers or Atahualpa and his descendants then this is the right book. I would have liked a greater balance between the two.

There's also a chapter at the end which deals with the modern day discovery of Macchu Picchu and the whole debate about whether Macchu Picchu was the Inca refuge of Vilcabamba or not, which although interesting does not fit well the rest of the book and feels like more of an aside that might as well have been published as a stand alone article.

[Cathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a devastating, comprehensive, and well-researched history of the Spanish Conquest in Peru. Hemming is authoritative in his details and unflinching in his descriptions of the acts by the Spanish and Incas that caused much conflict, death, and destruction beginning in 1532 with Pizarro’s capture of Atahualpa Inca. Over the next 40 or so years, the Spanish systematically destroyed the Inca while the Incas attempted various methods of resistance, surrender, or negotiations. An important read for anyone interested in the history of the Americas.

[Talita Machado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Li esse livro como preparação para a minha viagem ao Peru. Gostei muito! Achei bem completo e com uma narrativa tranquila de ler, sem ser chato ou maçante. Reflexão final: os incas eram foda! e os espanhóis os mais sem-graça (eufemismo gigante para fdp) da história por terem destruído tudo aquilo.

[Linda Harkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed, thorough, rigorously researched, and extraordinary, this is the BEST book I've read about the Incas. How difficult it is to imagine what drove Francisco Pizarro except a quest for fame! The illegitimate son of a military officer, Pizarro was born in a barren area called Extremadura, about 140 miles from Madrid. Interestingly, this area is known as "the cradle of most of the leading conquistadores." Males born into poor circumstances in fifteenth-century Spain had the choice of marrying a rich female or joining the conquistadores. Despite their small numbers and against all odds, the Spanish defeated the Incas by bringing horses, steel swords, and smallpox to Peru. After his capture, Atahaulpa thought he would be released if he supplied the gold and silver the Spanish conquistadores demanded. Pizarro executed him instead. Spanish colonialism became a harsh reality, a deep horror for Peru.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Incas and the conquest of Peru are two of the most interesting stories in Latin American history. This book captures the whole of that story and in wonderful detail relates the invasion of Pizzaro and the fall of the Incas. From Manco Inca to Tuti Cosi the Inca rebellions raged against Spanish occupation and eventually resulted in the free Inca state of Villacamba. In the end this state was doomed to fall to Spanish greed but the attempts at the Incas to preserve sovereignty is impressive. The writing style is excellent and the book is a very quick read. If you want to get a start on learning about the Inca's there is not a better book out there. If you are starting a study of South America as a whole this is an essential addition to that library. Highly recommend.

[Mike Harmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two weeks till the Harmon Siblings travel to Peru - read up and ready.

A thorough account of the conquest of the Peruvian Inca Empire by the Spanish Pizzaro brothers. Poor Incas - a typical battle with the Spanish Conquistadors would read something like: 150 Conquistadors went to fight the Incas. Eleven Spaniards were injured, one Spaniard and two horses were killed...3,000 Incas perished. I can't imagine how the Inca felt - one day a vastly superior alien race just shows up and all that you know becomes useless. The Spanish either killed or converted the masses to Christianity. The Inca were very accepting of the new religion...but who knows how much of that was motivated by the desire to remain among the living.

[W · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good telling of a seminal and famous historical period. However, despite its wealth of information about all sides of the conflict, it still seems to overplay the bravado and audacity of the conquistadors, and to underplay the role of Andean allies and the degree of intra-Inca civil war involved. For example, compare the information in this documentary on the archaeology of the siege of Lima: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/... In the book, this is a spectacular triumph of Spanish courage against all but overwhelming numbers. In the archaeology and lesser known sources, there was a major element of intra-Inca fighting. Perhaps while emphasising Spanish bravado and arms, history has neglected their political skill.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought an old version on Amazon for About $2. When I got it I saw how old it looked and set it aside for a year (thinking I would never be interested). I picked it up before I trip to Peru and was very surprised and how concise and well told the story is. It's a great story with good academic credentials, written in 1970 when a lot of the myths of the Inca's (Machu Pichu erroneously being confused as the last holdout of the Inca's, which it wasn't) still abounded.

Highly recommend for people interested in South America, The Spanish Conquest and the clash of native cultures with Europeans.

[Marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very scholarly book about the Spanish conquest of Peru. It details the activities of Pizarro and his generals on their march through the Inca lands, the capture of the Inca and subsequent activities as they subdued the entire population in a short time. The plethora of details make for slow going, but the book gives an excellent picture of what took place and is based on written accounts by the Spanish involved as well as Inca records of the time.

[Mac · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic and all encompassing account of the Incas from the beginning of Spanish conquest until the conquest was complete and no longer in doubt in any form. I cannot recommend this book enough, it was well written and although it was quite academic it was highly readable.

I think this is a book I will find myself coming back to in future years. It was immensely interesting and makes me excited to explore new areas that this book inspired.