Inca civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa

Between about 1525 and 1528 the Inca emperor Huayna Capac died in the north of his empire, near Quito, along with his chosen heir. A disease killed them, and many scholars think it was smallpox, which may have spread south from Spanish contacts in Panama and Colombia before any Spaniard reached Peru. The emperor left no clear successor. Two sons claimed the throne: Huascar, backed by the noble families of the capital Cusco, and Atahualpa, who had grown up in the north and commanded the veteran army that had been campaigning there.¹²

Huascar held the traditional center in Cusco, while Atahualpa held the army and the northern provinces. The empire's road system let both sides move troops over long distances, which made the fighting wide and costly. Atahualpa's generals, Quizquiz and Chalcuchimac, won the decisive battles and took Cusco, and Huascar was captured. In late 1532, while Atahualpa was traveling south to claim the throne, a small Spanish force under Francisco Pizarro reached Cajamarca. The Spaniards found an empire weakened by war, disease and bitter divisions among its elites, and some Andean peoples who resented Inca rule were willing to help them. Historians still debate how much the civil war explains the speed of the Spanish conquest, but few doubt it made the conquest easier.²³