Compare And Contrast The Fall Of The Aztec And Inca Empires

The fall of the Aztec and Inca empires depended on many factors. These factors included strategic advances from the Spanish that would essentially allow the smaller, Spanish troops to successfully slaughter the vast amount of Aztec and Inca troops, and advanced weaponry that these empires did not have. One of these strategic advances was successfully attempting to make indigenous allies. These great and powerful empires outnumbered the Spanish, but their lack of weaponry and technology resulted in the fall of the empires. The fall of the Aztec was primarily led by Hernan Cortes while the fall of the Inca was led by Francisco Pizarro. Though the fall of the Aztec empire was led by Hernan Cortes, he could not have done it with only the Spanish

Pizarro only had a troop of roughly 168 Spaniards against the tens of thousands indigenous army of Inca leader, Atahualpa. Pizarro took the Inca ruler captive in 1532, which was a crucial part of their divide and conquer strategy. The advanced weaponry of the Spanish was much overpowered compared to the arsenal of the Inca Empire. Pizarro invited the troops of Atahualpa into a space where they were then ambushed by the Spaniards. On this day, Pizarro and his troops had hidden cannons to attack the indigenous troops. The Spanish had successfully captured Atahualpa all the while slaughtering thousands of Inca troops including the nobles. Frantically, Atahualpa’s people had brought the Spanish gold in order to take Atahualpa back. However, Pizarro took the gold and executed the ruler anyway. Pizarro had broken up rival-city states and had killed the Inca ruler and the successors. There was a power struggle that Pizarro created between the two sides that the Inca ruling had, Atahualpa leading one side, and his brother, Huascar, who led the other. Playing both sides against each other, Pizarro ended up the real winner in the end. Due to this feud amongst each other, an Inca civil war