PIZARRO Y LOS INCAS PART FIVE

Peru Travel: Saint Joseph and Child Jesus Iconography, Cuzco

Saint Joseph and Child Jesus Iconography, Cuzco - © Jorge Sarmiento / PromPeru

In the night of July 26th. of 1533 , Inca Atahualpa was strangled to death.

A group of mercenaries put an end to the life of one of the most important emperors on earth at the time, and to the Inca empire or Tawantinsuyo.

Now they were rich and- without a common enemy any longer - they soon turned against each other.

Pizarro, now one of the richest men on earth, had gained many enemies throughout the conquest and the wrath of his men turned against himself as well.

He never returned to Spain.

A conspiration took place and he was assassinated by twelve men in Lima, Peru, on June 26th of 1543, eight years after Atahualpa's execution.

Enormous quantities of gold and silver were shipped back to Spain during the Spanish conquest of the New World.

Even though there isn't an exact number to this, it's estimated that by 1600s, some 285,000 kg of gold and 16,000,000 kg of silver made their way to the Spanish Crown...