The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. This historic process of military conquest was made by Spanish conquistadores and their native allies. After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 169 Spanish soldiers under Francisco Pizarro and their native allies ambushed the Sapa Inca Atahualpa (emperor of the Inca Empire) and captured him in the 1532 Battle of Cajamarca. It was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting to subdue the mightiest empire in the Americas. In subsequent years Spain extended its rule over the Empire.
Some scholars[who?] believe that while the Spanish conquest was undoubtedly the proximate cause of the collapse of the Inca Empire, it may very well have been past its peak and in the process of decline. In 1528, Emperor Huayna Capac (Young Lord) ruled the Inca Empire (or as the Inca called it, Tahuatinsuyu, or the Land of the Four Quarters , which referred to the four major administrative areas into which the empire was divided). He could trace his lineage back to a stranger king named Manco Capac, the mythical founder of the Inca clan, who supposedly emerged from a cave in a region called Pacariqtambo.
More importantly, Huayna Capac was the son of the previous ruler, Túpac Inca, and the grandson of Pachacutec, the Emperor who had begun the dramatic expansion by conquest of the Inca Empire from its base in the area around Cuzco. On his accession to the throne, Huayna Capac had continued the policy of expansion by conquest by bringing Inca armies north into what is today Ecuador. While he also had to put down a number of rebellions during the course of his reign, by the time of his death his legitimacy was as unquestioned as was the reality of Inca power. Expansion had created problems, however. Many parts of the empire maintained their cultural identity, and were at best restive participants in the imperial project. The large extent of the empire, the extremely difficult terrain of much of it, and the fact that all communication and travel had to take place on foot, seems to have caused increasing difficulty in administering the empire effectively.
Among the most important aspects of Huayna Capac's reign were his sons. While he had many legitimate and illegitimate children (legitimate meaning born of his sister-wife), two sons are historically important. The first was Prince Túpac Cusi Hualpa, also known as Huáscar, whose mother was Coya (meaning Empress) Mama Rahua Occllo. The second was Atahualpa, an illegitimate son who was likely born of a daughter of the last independent King of Quitu, one of the states conquered by Huayna Capac during the great expanse of the Inca Empire.[3] These two sons would play pivotal roles in the final years of the Inca Empire.
