Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire
Francisco Pizarro's force enters Cusco
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Pizarro entered at the hour of high mass — and still made his soldiers sleep beside their horses in the plaza.
Dawn, 15 November 1533, on the road to Cusco
At dawn on 15 November 1533, Francisco Pizarro arranged his horse and foot soldiers and advanced toward Cusco expecting an attack. No opposing force appeared on the road.
Manco Inca Yupanqui had warned Pizarro — then four leagues from the city — that the Atahualpa-aligned general Quizquiz intended to burn Cusco.
A Spanish advance party of about 40 horsemen had fought Quizquiz's troops outside the city the day before. Those forces withdrew during the night.
In at the hour of high mass
According to Pizarro's secretary Pedro Sancho, the force entered Cusco without further battle on Friday 15 November, "at the hour of high mass."
Pizarro lodged the Spaniards in buildings around the principal plaza but ordered them to bring their horses into the plaza and sleep in tents there in case Quizquiz's army returned. The precaution ran for a month.
Sancho was Pizarro's secretary writing an official conquest account. His figure of 200 Inca dead in the previous day's clash is the conquerors' own uncorroborated number.
Not the end of anything
The following day Pizarro recognized Manco as lord, seeking to separate Cusco's factions from Quizquiz and mobilize local forces against him.
Quizquiz remained active, and Manco launched a major rebellion and siege in 1536.
The formal Spanish foundation and naming of "the very noble and great city of Cuzco" belongs to March 1534, not to the November entry.
Sources
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What the sources leave uncertain
- Pedro Sancho supplies the clearest exact-date narrative, but he was Pizarro's secretary and wrote an official conquest account. His casualty figures and descriptions of Indigenous motives require caution.
- “Cusco” is the preferred modern Peruvian spelling; “Cuzco” is common in Spanish colonial sources and in UNESCO's English listing.