To Dobyns, the moral of this story was clear. The Inka, he wrote in his 1963 article, were not defeated by steel and horses but by disease and factionalism. In this he was echoing conclusions drawn centuries before by Pedro Pizarro. Had Wayna Qhapaq “been alive when we Spaniards entered this land,” the conquistador remarked, “it would have been impossible for us to win it.… And likewise, had the land not been divided by the [smallpox-induced civil] wars, we would not have been able to enter or win the land.”
