A major new history of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, set in a larger global context than previous accounts
Previous accounts of the fall of the Inca empire have played up the importance of the events of one violent day in November 1532 at the highland Andean town of Cajamarca. To some, the "Cajamarca miracle"-in which Francisco Pizarro and a small contingent of Spaniards captured an Inca who led an army numbering in the tens of thousands-demonstrated the intervention of divine providence. To others, the outcome was simply the result of European technological and immunological superiority.
Inca Apocalypse develops a new perspective on the Spanish invasion and transformation of the Inca realm. Alan Covey's sweeping narrative traces the origins of the Inca and Spanish empires, identifying how Andean and Iberian beliefs about the world's end shaped the collision of the two civilizations. Rather than a decisive victory on the field at Cajamarca, the Spanish conquest was an uncertain, disruptive process that reshaped the worldviews of those on each side of the conflict.. The survivors built colonial Peru, a new society that never forgot the Inca imperial legacy or the enduring supernatural power of the Andean landscape.
Covey retells a familiar story of conquest at a larger historical and geographical scale than ever before. This rich new history, based on the latest archaeological and historical evidence, illuminates mysteries that still surround the last days of the largest empire in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Author(s): R. Alan Covey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 592
City: Oxford
Contents
Acknowledgments
Orthographic Note
Maps
Timelines
Introduction Revelations of the Spanish Conquest
Lost Legends and Modern Myths
Inca Revelations
Discovering Pizarro
Machu Picchu and the Mysterious Inca
Anthropological Incas
Pizarro’s Second Coming
The Modern Myth of Cajamarca
Miraculous Cajamarca
The Inca Apocalypse
1 Assembling Inca History
Ancestral Origins
Andean Creation
Fabricated Legends
The Archaeological Evidence
Cuzco’s Archaeological Past
Channels of Imperial History
Universal Aspirations
Centering Cuzco
Palace Intrigues
Unfulfilled Unity
Universal Cycles
Prophetic Histories
2 The Invention of Catholic Spain
The Iberian Apostle
Imagined Reconquest
The Way of Santiago
Apocalyptic Visions
The Romance of Reconquest
Christian Expansion
Factions and Effigies
A Printed Past
Conquering the Future
The Sephardic Apocalypse
An Apocalyptic New World
3 Royal Progress
Sovereignty Proclaimed
Sovereignty Questioned
Uncivilized Frontiers
Female Power
The Coya Raises an Inca
Cuzco in the Heart of Darkness
Civil War
4 Building a Catholic Empire
The Medieval Conquest Model
A Spanish Pope Divides the Globe
Jubilee for a New Era
Catastrophic Colonies in the Indies
Colonists and Conquistadores
Plus Ultra
Luther’s Antichrist
Chasing the Legend of Peru
5 Two Roads to Cajamarca
Broken Promises
Tawantinsuyu Unbound
Darkness in Cuzco
Advent of the Viracochas
Betrayal in Tumbez
Atahuallpa’s Descent
Strange Tidings
Pizarro Ascending
Confrontation in Cajamarca
6 Beyond Cajamarca
A Lord’s Ransom
Building New Alliances
Making Incas
Two New Cuzcos
The Destruction of Quito
A Fragile Beginning
News of the Miracle of Cajamarca
7 Sovereign Failures and New Miracles
Familiar Rivalries
Resolving Almagro’s Claims
The Inca Reconquest
The Miracle of Cuzco
Manco’s Retreat
Division
Royal Judgment
8 Royal Conquests in the Poor Soldier’s Paradise
Rewarding Christian Incas
New Laws
A Poor Soldier’s Paradise
The End and Beginning of Inca History
The Final Conquest of Peru
9 Conquering Andean Hearts and Minds
The Triumph of Crusader Christianity
Religious Alliances
New Converts and Wayward Souls
Diabolical Imitations
Christian Incas
Reforming Peru
Intensification
Return of the Huacas
Conspiracies
God’s Poor Soldiers
10 The Spanish Pachacuti
Imposing Catholic Rule in Peru
Sovereign Approach
Corporate Histories
The Passion of the Last Inca
Relics for Solomon’s Temple
11 Overturning Andean Landscapes
Race-Making and Mine Labor
Commensal Invaders
Lands without Measure
Reducing Unruly Landscapes
Transforming the Mines
Santiago among the Savages
Sovereign Titles
Downward Spirals
Claiming Inca Lands
12 Transcendent Inca
The Literary Inca
Cuzco at the Turn of the New Century
Jesuit Alliances
The Last Coya
Peruvian Saints and Inca Heretics
1650
Postscript The Unconquered Inca
Glossary
References
Index
