Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

by Jared Diamond

did Atahuallpa walk into the trap? In hindsight, we find it astonishing that Atahuallpa marched into Pizarro’s obvious trap at Cajamarca. The Spaniards who captured him were equally surprised at their success. The consequences of literacy are prominent in the ultimate explanation. The immediate explanation is that Atahuallpa had very little information about the Spaniards, their military power, and their intent. He derived that scant information by word of mouth, mainly from an envoy who had visited Pizarro’s force for two days while it was en route inland from the coast. That envoy saw the Spaniards at their most disorganized, told Atahuallpa that they were not fighting men, and that he could tie them all up if given 200 Indians. Understandably, it never occurred to Atahuallpa that the Spaniards were formidable and would attack him without provocation. In the New World the ability to write was confined to small elites among some peoples of modern Mexico and neighboring areas far to the north of the Inca Empire. Although the Spanish conquest of Panama, a mere 600 miles from the Incas’ northern boundary, began already in 1510, no knowledge even of the Spaniards’ existence appears to have reached the Incas until Pizarro’s first landing on the Peruvian coast in 1527. Atahuallpa remained entirely ignorant about Spain’s conquests of Central America’s most powerful and populous Indian societies. As surprising to us today as Atahuallpa’s behavior leading to his capture is his beh...