Collision at Cajamarca Notes - James LaoIt's just software

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1、Luke Zhou, James LaoCollision at Cajamarca Notes part II November 19, 2006 Period 6, IB Juniors HistoryQuestions/Main PointsHow did the Spaniards win?What were the only Native tribes able to withstand European conquest?The Spaniards were outnumbered.The Spaniards had allies. Guns and horses played a

2、 role.Guns are the new swords.During the Spanish conquest of the Incas, what was the weapon of choice?What advantages did horses offer?How did the Incas defeat cavalry? In what situations did this technique not work?Horses were an important military weapon for 6,000 years.Why did Atahuallpa go to Ca

3、jamarca?What was one of the biggest factors in the European conquests of the Americas and other areas as well?What factors led Pizarro to be in Cajamarca rather than Atahuallpa in Spain?What was the importance of a writing system?Why was Atahuallpa led to believe that the Spaniards were peaceful?Whe

4、n did Atahuallpa and the Incas finally learn of the white men?What did Atahuallpa believe Pizarro would do after he got his ransom?What other people did the Spaniards deceive? The Natives had never heard of Europeans. Pizarro didnt know anything about the Incas either.What part did literacy play?Not

5、esThe Spaniards had the upper hand in terms of military power. They had steel swords, steel armor, guns and horses. The Indians had no animals to ride on, had stone, bronze, or wooden clubs, maces, and hand axes, plus slingshots and quilted armor. Imbalances of power like this were decisive in sever

6、al European-Native American confrontations.The only Native American tribes able to resist European conquest for many centuries were those who acquired and mastered horses and guns. Most Americans think of a mounted Indian brandishing a rifle when they hear “Indian” but we forget that horses and guns

7、 were unknown to Indians before the Europeans came. Three Indian tribes held off the white invaders longer than any other Native Americans thanks to their mastery of horses and guns: The Plains Indians of North America The Araucanian Indians of southern Chile The Pampas Indians of ArgentinaThey were

8、 only defeated by massive army operations in the 1870s and 1880s.The extent to which the Spaniards were outnumbered was ridiculous. 168 Spaniards crushed a Native American army 500 times larger without losing a single soldier. Time and again, accounts of Pizarros later battles with the Incas, Corts

9、conquest of the Aztecs, and other European campaigns against Native Americans describe situations where a few dozen Europeans slaughtered a Native force much larger than theirs. Pizarro marched from Cajamarca to the Inca capital of Cuzco after Atahuallpas death. There were four battles involving Spa

10、niards being outnumbered during that march: Jauja 80 Spanish horsemen Vilcashuaman 30 Spanish horsemen Vilcaconga 110 Spanish horsemen Cuzco 40 Spanish horsemenThe Spanish victories can not be totally written off due to the help of Native allies, physiological novelty of guns and horses, or the Inca

11、s mistaking the Spaniards as the returning god of Viracocha. The initial success of Pizarro and Corts had attracted Native allies, but many of them would not have been allies if it they had not been persuaded by the earlier devastating successes of unassisted Spaniards. Resistance was useless so the

12、y joined the side they thought would win. The “novelty” of horses and guns had paralyzed the Incas at Cajamarca but it wore off during later battles against Incan armies who had already seen guns and horses. Within 6 years of the initial conquest, the Incas mounted two large-scale rebellions against

13、 the Spaniards in desperation but they both failed.By the 1700s guns had replaced swords as the weapon of choice by European invaders. In 1808, a British sailor named Charlie Savage paddled a canoe up a river to the Fijian village of Kasavu and stopped within firing range. He than proceeded to kill

14、the helpless villagers from a distance with his gun. So many were killed that the survivors piled up the bodies for cover.Guns played a minor role in the Spanish conquest of the Incas. The guns of the time (called harquebuses) were hard to load and fire, and Pizarro only had a dozen of them. However

15、, they did produce a psychological affect. The real advantage the Spaniards had was their steel weapons. The steel swords, lances, and daggers sliced through the thin quilted armor worn by the Incas. The Spaniards steel and chain mail armor and steel helmets protected them from the blunt clubs carri

16、ed by Incas.Horses were also a great advantage. Horsemen could easily outride Indian and kill sentries before they had time to warn Indian troops. The shock of the horses charge, its maneuverability, the speed of attack, and the raised fighting platform gave the Spaniards the upper hand and left Ind

17、ian helpless. The affect of horses was not due only to the terror they inspired either.By the Inca rebellion of 1536, the Incas learned how to defeat cavalry by ambushing them in narrow passes. However, cavalry were undefeatable in the open. Quizo Yupanqui, the best general of emperor Manco (Atahual

18、lpas successor), besieged the Spaniards at Lima in 1536 and tried to storm the city. Two squadrons of Spanish cavalry charged into the much larger Indian force on flat ground and killed Quizo and defeated his army. A similar cavalry charge of 26 horsemen routed Mancos best troops as he was besieging

19、 the Spaniards at Cuzco.The transformation of warfare by horses began with their domestication around 4000 B.C. in the steppes north of the Black Sea. Horses allowed to: Cover greater distances than they could on foot. Attack by surprise. To run away before a superior defending force could be gather

20、ed.Their role as a military weapon remained true for 6,000 years until the early 20th century. Their dominance ended in WWI.Atahuallpa came to Cajamarca because he had just won decisive battles in a civil war that left the Incas divided and vulnerable. Pizarro exploited this vulnerability. The reaso

21、n behind the civil war was an epidemic of smallpox had spread among the South American Indians after the arrival of Spanish settlers in Panama and Columbia. The epidemic had killed the Inca emperor Huayna Capac and most of his court around 1562, and then killed his heir, Ninan Cuyuchi. Those deaths

22、caused a contest for the throne between Atahuallpa and his brother Huascar. If the Incas had not been divided, the Spaniards would have faced a united empire.Diseases transmitted to non-immune people by invaders with considerable immunity are one of the key factors in world history. Smallpox, measle

23、s, influenza, typhus, bubonic plague, etc. played major roles in European conquests. Diseases introduced by the Europeans spread in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing about 95% of the pre-Columbus population. Examples of disease epidemics brought by Europeans: Aztecs a smallpox epidemic de

24、vastated them after the failure of the first Spanish attack. Mississippian chiefdoms they were the most populous and highly organized native society in North America. They disappeared from disease before the 1st European settlement on the Mississippi River ever appeared. San people of South Africa d

25、estroyed by a small pox epidemic. Aboriginal Australians soon after the British established Sydney, the first epidemic among them began. Fiji epidemic brought by a few shipwrecked Europeans swept over the island. Tonga, Hawaii, and other Pacific Islands similar epidemics also occurred.However, disea

26、ses such as Malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases of tropical Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and New Guinea became the most important obstacles in colonizing these tropical areas.Pizarro got to Cajamarca by means of European maritime technology and ships. Atahuallpa had no ships and could not ex

27、pand out of South America. Pizarros presence depended on the centralized political organization that allowed the ships to be made and manned. The Incas also had a centralized political organization, but it worked to their disadvantage. Pizarro kept it intact by capturing Atahuallpa. It then disinteg

28、rated after Atahuallpas death. Maritime technology and political organization was essential for expansions to other continents for the Europeans and others as well.Another factor was writing. Spain had a writing system; the Inca Empire did not. Information could be spread more widely, more accuratel

29、y, and more in detail by writing rather than by mouth. Information from Columbus and Cortss conquests sent Spaniards pouring into the New World. It provided motivation and sailing directions. Published reports of Pizarros exploits became a best seller and sent more Spaniards to tighten the grip on P

30、eru.Atahuallpa had little info about the Spaniards, their military power, and their intent. He only heard info by word of mouth, mostly from an envoy that had seen Pizarros forces a few days earlier. However, he only saw them at their most disorganized time and concluded they were not fighters and c

31、ould be easily subdued. He never thought they would attack without provocation.In the New World, only a few elites far to the north of the Inca Empire could write. The Inca remained completely oblivious to the Spanish conquests of Central Americas largest and most powerful Indian societies. They did

32、 not even know of the white men until they landed on the Peruvian coast.After his capture, Atahuallpa offered his famous ransom in the belief that the Spaniards would let him go and leave after it was paid. He did not know that Pizarro and his men were only the start of a force bent on permanent con

33、quest rather then an isolated raid.Even after Atahuallpas capture, Francisco Pizarros brother deceived Atahuallpas leading general, commanding a large army, into delivering himself to the Spaniards. This marked a turning point in the collapse of Inca resistance. The Aztec emperor Montezuma took Cort

34、s for a returning god and allowed him and his army to enter the capital, resulting in the emperors capture and the conquering of the Aztec Empire.The cause for these miscalculations and those by countless other Native American leaders was the fact that no inhabitants of the New World had been to the

35、 Old World and thus knew very little about the Spaniards. However, Pizarro too arrived at Cajamarca with no info about the Incas except what he learned by interrogating Inca subjects. Pizarro himself was illiterate as well, but he belonged to a literate tradition. From books, the Spanish knew of man

36、y civilizations remote from Europe and thousands of years of European history. Pizarro modeled his conquest after that of Corts.Because of literacy, the Spaniards knew a lot about human behavior and history. Not only did Atahuallpa no little about the Spaniards themselves and no experience with othe

37、r invaders from across the sea, but he had not heard or read of similar threats elsewhere.SummaryReasons for Pizarros success include better weapons (guns, steel, horses); diseases to which the Europeans had developed immunity to; ship building skills; the centralized political organization of European states; and literacy skills.4 of 4