The most important event of the conquest of Peru was the conversion of Inca Atahualpa to Christianity. This act had immediate juridical consequences, since if the Inca converted and accepted the Catholic religion, his entire kingdom and subjects would do so as well.
Atahualpa’s conversion took place between November 16, 1532, and August 29, 1533, the date on which he was executed after a trial that found him guilty of murdering his brother Huáscar and of other acts of barbarity.
The Spanish Monarchy, and the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, devoted themselves passionately to the task of evangelizing the world and confronting the Muslim, who represented a constant political and economic threat.
The Ottoman Empire controlled the Mediterranean trade routes to the East, as well as the ports along the North African coast. The gigantic—and until then impossible—task of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to reach China, evangelize it, trade, and attack the Turk from the rear was carried out by Spain, with its faith in God and in the Catholic Church.
Eratosthenes, three centuries before the Christian era, had already speculated about the Earth’s diameter, but it was the Spaniards who confirmed it.
Speculation is what differentiates us from animals; only humans possess it. In the end, it was not necessary to attack the Ottomans from the rear: the Spanish Monarchy defeated them at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.
On the journey of the Catholic Monarchs’ enterprise, the Indies appeared in Columbus’s path, an event that changed the history of humanity and gave an unprecedented boost to Christianity, as well as to its enemies within.
The work of conquest and evangelization of the new territories was carried out according to the law.
The priest and the notary accompanied the soldier of the Tercio, whose military tradition went back to the Roman legions stationed in Hispania.
During his captivity, the Inca used to dine with Francisco Pizarro and play chess. Someone among Pizarro’s troops must have taught him. Perhaps it was Fray Vicente de Valverde, from Oropesa and Toledo, a Spanish nobleman, relative of Pizarro, of the Dominican Order and student at the University of Salamanca, where he studied under Francisco de Vitoria.
Fray Vicente was not just any priest; on the contrary, he was the best Europe could offer the world and, precisely, the one in charge of explaining the Gospel to the Inca.
The religion of the Inca nobility was not very far from Catholic doctrine: they had a single supreme god, the Sun, and, more importantly, Inca religion had a place where their god dwelled, the Hanan Pacha; the Kay Pacha, the world inhabited by the living; and the Uku Pacha, where life originates, with seeds and trees, and where the ancestors dwell and births are conceived.
It is the earthly paradise, from which one emerges to inhabit the Kay Pacha. It was not a difficult task for the Inca to understand the meaning of the Catholic Gospel, especially when observing how the Spanish soldiers knelt devoutly before the cross and before Valverde to receive communion.
It is also said that Atahualpa wept much during his process of conversion. This is not a sign of cowardice; noble is the one who weeps in recognizing his errors and sins.
Atahualpa had committed acts of extreme cruelty against his own brother and family, killing entire populations. “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). Valverde, the theologian, must have explained to him the value of repentance and forgiveness.
Fray Valverde would later become the first archbishop of Cuzco and of the Kingdom of Peru. That archbishopric, the one of Cuzco, extended from Tierra del Fuego to present-day Nicaragua.
Both the Inca nobility and that of the nations that collaborated with the Spanish conquest accepted the Catholic religion immediately.
The first buildings constructed in the Kingdom of Peru were churches, with engineering and design of Roman tradition and local, indigenous labor, who worked in the art of the viceregal churches of Peru.
The common Indian was the most devoted, since the Catholic Church elevated him, for the first time, to the level of a human being, created in the image and likeness of God.
It also told him that he could become a saint and, most importantly, that he was free; no one could enslave him. Queen Isabella the Catholic freed the Indians of the Americas.
The conquest of the Kingdom of Peru was carried out with the word of God, with the Bible. There were no great battles for power, because it continued to be held by the local nobles.
The structure of authority did not undergo major alterations; on the contrary, the local nobility joined in marriage with the European nobility, expanding its influence.
The Indians abandoned their idolatrous customs immediately, beginning to celebrate their patron saints with dances and European garments, which are still practiced and worn in daily life today.
Thus, the Kingdom of Peru, from Atahualpa’s conversion onward, became a land of saints: Saint Rose of Lima, the first saint of the Americas; Saint Martin de Porres, a Black saint; Saint Toribio of Mogrovejo, also a nobleman, graduate of the University of Salamanca, who baptized half a million Indians in the Kingdom of Peru, a missionary work still unmatched.
Peru, land of saints, now land of Pope Leo XIV, who lived there most of his life, forty years, more than enough to understand that the idolatry of Pachamama is a modern, urban phenomenon of the New Age movement from the United States, introduced into the Americas along with hippie indigenism of the 1960s.
It is not part of the tradition or idiosyncrasy of the Indians of the Americas, but it is offered to unwary tourists who visit Peru. I remember that, in 2024, I was offered a Pachamama ceremony as a Peruvian experience. I could do nothing but be horrified by the pagan proposal and reject it. Just another product of ideologies.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of Gateway Hispanic.
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