The Logic Was Textbook Perfect

Abstract

Cajamarca is a picturesque colonial town in the northern highlands of Peru. Near the central square, travelers can visit a very old one- room house, built on the foundations of an Inca edifice, where the conquistador Francisco Pizarro held the last Inca emperor, Atahualpa, prisoner for several days in November 1532. William Prescott, in his classic History of the Conquest of Peru, describes what happened next: “It was not long before Atahuallpa [sic] discovered, amidst all the show of religious zeal in his Conquerors, a lurking appetite more potent in most of their bosoms than either religion or ambition. This was the love of gold. He determined to avail himself of it to procure his own freedom.”¹ Atahualpa told Pizarro that he would fill the room—some 22 by 17 feet—up to where he could point (around eight feet high) once with gold and twice with silver, if his life would be spared.