3 ms·
In things like the battle of Cajamarca the Incan lost a battle against the Spanish with 8000 warriors against 150. All the 150 survived. Disease was important
by riffraff 7mo ago
In things like the battle of Cajamarca the Incan lost a battle against the Spanish with 8000 warriors against 150. All the 150 survived.
Disease was important but there was a large technological and cultural gap too (e.g. the Incan didn't fight at night!).
- tehnub 7mo agoI just read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca It seems like the Incans were overconfident and didn't expect a surprise attack (didn't have their weapons, only a small retinue around the rule in ceremonial garb instead of armor), and then the 8000 warriors were outside and didn't even attempt to fight the Spaniards because they were so demoralized.
- riffraff 7mo agoWell, yeah, and if you keep reading about it, the whole rest of the campaign has the same tenure. Spain conquered and held the whole Incan empire with 168 men, also fomenting smaller factions and internal feuds etc. The scale of this is absolutely insane.
- vasco 7mo agoAround the same time, 460 men in 6 ships destroyed 30000 men in 400 ships taking over Ormuz. Portugal and Spain were just incredibly OP during that time period. And the people in Ormuz were more advanced than the natives in US. And they still got absolutely destroyed.
- avadodin 7mo ago> the Incan didn't fight at night! To be fair to the Inca, I didn't expect the night–vision–equipped Spanish Inquisition, either.
- circlefavshape 7mo agoYou're missing a zero. It was EIGHTY thousand, not 8000.
- riffraff 7mo agoI thought so too, but wikipedia says 8k
- circlefavshape 7mo agoAh weird - the text of the page says Atahualpa had 80k troops, but then the infobox describes the Inca forces as 3-8k in size. I guess not all the 80k were involved in the battle