Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro (c. 1478–1541), a conquistador from Trujillo, led the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. He grew up illiterate and sailed to the New World in 1509, and in 1513 accompanied Balboa across Panama. Later he arrested Balboa, who was beheaded in 1519, and was made mayor of Panama City. After two failed expeditions toward Peru, he obtained the Crown's permission in 1529 to conquer it.

At Cajamarca in November 1532 he captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa. Atahualpa filled a room with gold as ransom, but Pizarro had him garrotted in July 1533. That year he entered Cuzco. He founded Lima in 1535 and was made Marquess of the Conquest in 1537.

Caught in the power struggles among the conquerors, he was assassinated in Lima on 26 June 1541. The Inca state was destroyed, and Pizarro has been reviled for killing Atahualpa after the ransom was paid.