The Last Conquistador: Mansio Serra De Leguizamon and the Conquest of the Incas [Hardcover]

Stuart Stirling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2000

The Inca civilization of Peru was one of the gratest of the ancient civilizations of the Americas. Famous for their massive temples and fortresses built from huge blocks of stone and decorated with sheets of pure gold, the Incas also developed a system of government, capable of holding a vast area of territory together, and an extensive system of roads, connecting administrative centres, which acted as a means of colonization. Their religion of human sacrifice, worshipping Inti, the Sun God, was forcibly imposed throughout the empire. The population in 1500 numbered between six and seven million, but in the 1530s the Spanish, led by conquistador Pizarro, arrived in Peru. In their search for gold they devastated the Inca culture, destroying its treasures, killing its leaders and bringing to an end the infrastructure of its empire. By the 1570s, native American control in Peru had been completely lost and the civilization was no more. With Pizarro came Mansio Serra de Leguizamon, who became the last of the Spanish conquistadors to die. This book tells his story. After crossing the Atlantic when still in his teens, he played a central part in the conquest of the Incas, survived imprisonment and torture, took an Inca princess as his lover, abandoned his wife for the gaming tables of Lima, and spent the rest of his life in Peru. He died at the age of 78, leaving a famous apology for the conquest in his will. This book takes this document as its starting point, weaving a tale of the vicious subjugation of the Inca civilization.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Andes are rocky and this book is mountainous. It's all about Leguizamon, a top lieutenant of Francisco Pizzarro during the Spanish conquest of the Inca empire. Leguizamon accompanies Pizzarro on his many forays into Machu Picchu, Cuzco, and Tahuantinsuyo, and the eventual swallowing up of all of Peru by the Spaniards. Pizzarro and his brother, Juan, and one of his generals, Diego de Almagro, figure largely in all the episodes, which are presented by Stirling in a basic, often arid, prose style. The adventures of the Spaniards and the Incas are eye-popping, to be sure, but Stirling's textbook approach undercuts his own extensive research, much of which does include diary entries from the conquistadores and, in some cases, the captured Incas. Many of the later adventures are revealed in an extremely well researched and translated appendix, in the words of Leguizamon himself, making this book a credible close-up look at the conquest and the crumbling of the most powerful empire in the Americas. Joe Collins

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Sutton Pub Ltd; First Edition edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075092246X
• ISBN-13: 978-0750922463
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,602,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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