The Dawson Ledger
Event

Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire (1532-1572 CE)

Small Spanish force exploits Inca civil war, indigenous alliances and disease; Andean counterpart to event-spanish-conquest-tenochtitlan-1521ce.

Andean

Event Details

  • Date: 1532 CE-1572 CE
  • Type: conquest
  • Civilizations: andean, western-atlantic

Description

Small Spanish force exploits Inca civil war, indigenous alliances and disease; Andean counterpart to Spanish Conquest of Tenochtitlan (1521 CE).

Quantitative facts and their sourcing

  • Dates 1532-1572; outcome: Spanish victory.
  • Wikipedia-compiled (stub): ~168 Spaniards at Cajamarca in 1532; later ~3,000+ Spaniards with ~150,000 indigenous allies (1535). Wikipedia also lists "5,500,000 deaths from disease" - a very uncertain demographic figure; LOW confidence; not used as data.
  • PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): Xerez (Markham transl. 1872): before marching inland from San Miguel, Pizarro "mustered sixty-two horsemen and one hundred and two foot soldiers", with crossbowmen made up to twenty. Cajamarca figures: see Battle of Cajamarca (1532 CE).

Confidence

medium (narrative); numbers low. Numbers marked "Wikipedia-compiled (stub)" come from a secondary aggregator and must be upgraded to page-level scholarly citations before any Official use.

Citations

  • hemming1970-conquest-incas [formal] John Hemming (1970). The Conquest of the Incas. Macmillan. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL4463013W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • wp-spanish-conquest-inca [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_Empire. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).

Review status

SOFT draft. Not Official. Needs editor review of CAD tags (estimated) and page-level citation upgrade.

About this entry

A draft entry preserved from civilization.study. Evidence grade: low. 2 of 3 listed sources are fully documented; the rest are names only. Method and sources

Conflict card

This card is generated from Civitas's war record and carries the same evidence badge as every other conflict card.

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conquest · 1532 CE-1572 CE

Spanish Conquest of the Inca Empire (1532-1572 CE)

Small Spanish force exploits Inca civil war, indigenous alliances and disease; Andean counterpart to event-spanish-conquest-tenochtitlan-1521ce.

Evidence: Primary text read Draft estimate

What the record says

  • Note Dates 1532-1572; outcome: Spanish victory.
  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Wikipedia-compiled (stub): ~168 Spaniards at Cajamarca in 1532; later ~3,000+ Spaniards with ~150,000 indigenous allies (1535). Wikipedia also lists "5,500,000 deaths from disease" - a very uncertain demographic figure; LOW confidence; not used as data.
  • Primary text PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): Xerez (Markham transl. 1872): before marching inland from San Miguel, Pizarro "mustered sixty-two horsemen and one hundred and two foot soldiers", with crossbowmen made up to twenty. Cajamarca figures: see event-battle-cajamarca-1532ce.

Confidence. medium (narrative); numbers low.

Where it sits

Sources and evidence

No page-level citation is claimed for any source. Figures marked unverified come from a Wikipedia aggregator and are not for Official use.

Link to this conflict

Art: Patterns of Civilization chronicle art, made with AI: illustrations, not historical evidence. Entries are drafts preserved from civilization.study. Method and sources.