Asher Sisneros

The Inca Empire and the Aztec Empire were two serious, sophisticated powers in the Americas before European colonization. Even though both empires were far more organized than their Native American counterparts in North America, both empires provided seemingly little resistance to the Spanish invasion. Their large numbers and organized military did not seem to impact their defenses in any way. Rather, both the Aztecs and the Incas were conquered relatively easily. This is a curious topic seeing how developed their civilizations were. It is a misconception to think the Incas were equivalent to the Native Americans in New England. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the Incas developed complicated irrigation systems, among other things. In light of this, a natural question arises. Why were they defeated so easily? 

Mario Vargas Llosa attempts to answer this question in his piece Questions of Conquest. Llosa quickly acknowledges the intellect of the Incas. Their temples serve as wonderful examples of their deep understanding of architecture. Even regarding agriculture, the Incas managed to completely eliminate hunger in their empire. At its peak, the Inca Empire was filled with approximately twenty million people. That seriously outnumbered the Spanish conquistadors, who were only one hundred eighty. By the numbers alone, this invasion should have been impossible, but it succeeded anyway. 

Llosa attributes this miracle to the mentality of the Incas. From childhood, each member of the civilization was raised to be a serf to the clerical/imperial class. As the epitome of a demonic theocracy, they dedicated their lives in service to their false gods and their emperor. However, in their religion, individuals were not rewarded for their personal actions. In a sense, it was a type of communism in which the state owned everything and each person was only valuable insofar as they were a member of the whole population. In short, there was no individualism, individual expression, or criticism. All of the Incas acted in unison and in perfect obedience to their emperor. Part of this slavish obedience was due to a lack of literature. They were not a literate society. As many people have pointed out, the American plantation owners were very deliberate in outlawing literacy among their slaves. Critical thinking and a desire for liberty are directly correlated with literacy. Llosa argues that illiteracy may have contributed to this slavish nationalism and imperial reverence in their society. Regardless, it was this attribute that allowed the Spanish conquistadors to conquer them so easily. Amid the battle, the entire Inca army lost hope when their emperor was killed by Francisco Pizarro’s Spaniards. They believed the guns and horses possessed by the Spanish meant they were gods bringing forth judgment on their civilization, and being incapable of thinking for themselves, they were confused and lost without their leader. The entire army gave up and just stood frozen as the Spanish slaughtered them all. There was no resistance whatsoever. 

The historian Tom Woods adds to this by pointing out that European plagues had also diminished the Native American populations. Their immune systems were unaccustomed to the diseases that European colonizers brought with them. This also made them notoriously bad slaves, as they kept on dying. All of that to say plagues likely impacted the invasion as well. 

Nevertheless, Mario Vargas Llosa makes a valuable point. The Inca civilization quite literally could not think for themselves. They were that dependent on leadership. Nobody could step up and lead the troops with a fallen emperor. The Europeans, on the other hand, were very individualistic and thought for themselves. When one of their leaders fell, they were not lost. Someone else was capable of filling the vacancy. But even without leadership, Europeans were still accustomed to thinking for themselves. This was not the case for the Incas, and as Llosa articulates, this led to their downfall.