From the settlement of Santa Marta, on the northern coast of New Granada, the Spaniards advanced in the meantime very slowly toward the south. The periodical overflows of the Magdalena, the thick woods of the interior, the resistance of the exasperated Indians, and, above all, the previous devastation of the inhabited districts by Dalfinger, created extremely formidable obstacles to their progress. Tamalameque, which Luis de Cardoso captured in 1531, was, till 1536, the most southern point which the Spaniards could reach from Santa Marta or Cartagena.
In the meantime reports had been brought from the western coast of South America which caused great excitement in all the Spanish colonies in America, and even in the mother-land itself. The coasting voyages southward, initiated by Pascual de Andagoya in 1522, were continued by Francisco Pizarro in 1524. The accounts which he received concerning the southern country (Peru) on his first expedition determined him on his return to Panamá to lay out the plans for a larger enterprise, and on March 10, 1526, an agreement was made between him, Diego Almagro, and the licentiate Gaspar de Espinosa, in which the subsequent conquest of Peru was designated as a “business.” On a third voyage, in 1528, Pizarro touched at Tumbez, in Quito, and saw the stone houses, the llamas, the emeralds, and the gold of the land of the Quichua. Three years later the actual descent upon the Peruvian coast began, and events succeeded one another with surprising rapidity. On the 15th of November, 1532, the Capac Inca Atahualpa was a prisoner of the white men at Cassamarca. The weak bonds which held together the government of the Quichua tribe were broken at once, and every chief, every subjected district, acted independently. Huascar Inca, the regularly chosen chief in Cuzco, was murdered at his brother’s command; the Apu Quizquiz tried in vain to defend Cuzco; the Apu Rumiñavi fled to the north, whither Sebastian de Belalcazar pursued him as far as Quito, worrying him with bloody battles; and the Inca Manco Yupanqui surrendered to the Spaniards. The conquerors found the whole land open to them almost without having to draw the sword, and their spoil in precious metals was immense. According to the partition deed which the royal notary, Pedro Sancho, drew up at Cassamarca in July, 1533, Atahualpa’s ransom, as it was called, amounted to 3,933,000 ducats of gold and 672,670 ducats of silver. The plundering of Cuzco yielded at least as much more. In the presence of such treasure the recollection of the riches of Mexico grew faint. A gold fever seized the Spanish colonists everywhere in America, and every one who could wandered to Peru. The existence of many of the settlements was thereby endangered. The leaders and founders of those colonies could not look on quietly while their men were leaving them to hasten into new lands of gold. In order to retain them they were obliged to make fresh efforts to find treasures in the vicinity, and occupation that would attach them to the country.