Broader Factors Facilitating European Conquest

Key Insight

The European conquest was significantly aided by infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and typhus, which were endemic in Europe but devastating to Native American populations lacking immunity. A smallpox epidemic around 1526 killed the Inca emperor Huayna Capac and his designated heir, triggering a civil war between Atahuallpa and his half-brother Huascar. This internal division left the Inca Empire vulnerable, a weakness Pizarro readily exploited, effectively facing a fractured empire rather than a united one. These diseases spread in advance of Europeans, decimating an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population across the Americas, effectively paving the way for conquest.

European maritime technology, particularly the construction of oceangoing ships, was crucial for Pizarro's presence in the New World, enabling him to cross vast oceans from Spain to Peru. Atahuallpa and the Incas lacked such technology, precluding any overseas expansion or reciprocal conquest of Europe. This maritime capability was supported by centralized European political organizations, like Spain's, which possessed the infrastructure and resources to finance, build, staff, and equip these extensive expeditions. While the Inca Empire also had a centralized government, its strong identification with a godlike monarch meant the system rapidly disintegrated after Atahuallpa's capture, paradoxically becoming a disadvantage.

The existence of writing in Spain, absent in the Inca Empire, played a critical role in the European conquest. Writing enabled information about the New World, from Columbus's voyages and Cortés's conquests, to be disseminated widely, accurately, and in detail across Europe, motivating further expeditions. In contrast, Atahuallpa received scant, inaccurate information by word of mouth from an envoy who underestimated the Spaniards. This information asymmetry led Atahuallpa to miscalculate Pizarro's intentions and power, believing them to be a minor raid rather than a force bent on permanent conquest. Pizarro, though illiterate, benefited from a literate tradition, drawing on thousands of years of European history and explicitly modeling his ambush on Cortés's successful strategies, thereby inheriting a vast body of knowledge about human behavior and warfare.