Francisco Pizzaro, refused permission by the governor of Panama for further exploration of the lands to the south, has traveled to Spain in 1528 to appeal directly to the king, reaching Seville from Panama in early summer.

King Charles I, who is at Toledo, has an interview with Pizarro and hears of his expeditions in South America, a territory the conquistador describes as very rich in gold and silver which he and his followers have bravely explored "to extend the empire of Castile."

The king, who is soon to leave for Italy, is impressed by the accounts of Pizarro and promises to give his support for the conquest of Peru.

Queen Isabel, though, in the absence of the king, signs the Capitulación de Toledo on July 6, 1529, a license document that authorizes Francisco Pizarro to proceed with the conquest of Peru.

Pizarro is officially named the Governor, Captain general, Adelantado, and Alguacil Mayor, of New Castile for the distance of two hundred leagues along the newly discovered coast, and invested with all the authority and prerogatives, his associates Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Luque being left in wholly secondary positions (a fact which will later incense Almagro and lead to eventual discords with Pizarro).

One of the conditions of the grant is that within six months, Pizarro should raise a sufficiently equipped force of two hundred and fifty men, of whom one hundred might be drawn from the colonies.

This gives Pizarro time to leave for …

…his native Trujillo and persuade his brother Hernando Pizarro and other close friends to join him on his third expedition.

Along with him also comes Francisco de Orellana, who will later discover and explore the entire length of the Amazon River.

Two more of his brothers from his father, Juan Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro, and a brother from his mother, Francisco Martin de Alcantara, will later decide to also join him, as well as his cousin Pedro Pizarro, who will serve as his page.

Pizarro’s expedition includes three ships, one hundred and eighty men, and twenty-seven horses.

Unable to meet the number of men the Capitulación had required, Pizarro sails clandestinely in January 1530 from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda for the Canary Island of La Gomera, where to be joined by his brother Hernando and the remaining men in two vessels that will sail back to Panama.

The emperor has made Candia commander-in-chief of artillery of the fleet sent out to conquer Peru under Captain General Pizarro, whose third and final expedition leaves Panama for Peru on December 27, 1530.

Francisco Pizarro and his brothers Gonzalo, Juan, and Hernando, attracted by the news of a rich and fabulous kingdom, had left the impoverished Extremadura, like many migrants after them.

In 1529, Francisco had Pizarro obtained permission from the Spanish Monarchy to conquer the land they called Peru.

According to historian Raúl Porras Barrenechea, Peru is neither a Quechuan nor a Caribbean word, but Indo-Hispanic or hybrid.

Pizarro’s Spanish army, following a long and difficult journey from Panama throughout which many had fallen to disease and other hazards, had docked at the Inca city of Tumbes in April.

Here, some gold, silver, and emeralds are procured and dispatched to Almagro, who had stayed in Panama to gather more recruits.

Sebastián de Belalcázar had soon arrived with thirty men.

Born Sebastián Moyano in the province of Córdoba, Spain, in either 1479 or 1480, he had taken the name Belalcázar after the name of the castle-town near to his birthplace in Córdoba.

According to various sources, he may have left for the New World with Christopher Columbus as early as 1498, but Juan de Castellanos will write that he killed a mule in 1507 and fled to Spain for the West Indies due to fear of punishment, and as a chance to escape the poverty in which he lived.

An encomendero in Panama in 1522, he had entered Nicaragua with Francisco Hernández de Córdoba in 1524 during the conquest of Nicaragua, and had become the first mayor of the city of León in Nicaragua.

He remained there until 1527, when he left for Honduras as a result of internal disputes among the Spanish governors.

Briefly returning to León, he then sailed to the coast of Peru, where he unites with Pizarro’s expedition.

Received with quiet hostility by Incas who had perhaps been alerted to the acts of pillage and plunder committed on the fringes of the Empire by the invaders, the Spaniards, deeming it unsafe to remain in Tumbes, relocate their camp to …

…the nearby island of Puna in preparation for an assault on the Inca city.

Initially, the Spanish occupation of the island proceeds without bloodshed.

The natives of Puna are a warrior people who, reluctantly bowing before the might of the Inca Empire, had intermittently accepted the status of tributary state, though periods of friction and even open warfare had frequently erupted with the Incas out on the mainland.

The path to war is first triggered by Pizarro's native interpreters, who warn him, perhaps falsely, that several Punian chiefs have gathered to plan an insurrection.

Pizarro has the chiefs captured, interrogated, and, apparently satisfied with their guilt, delivered to their traditional enemies at Tumbes where they are duly massacred by the Incas.

According to Spanish sources, the warrior class of Puná, maddened with rage, immediately rush to arms and storm the Spanish camp, charging in the thousands.

It seems that the diminutive Spanish force will surely be overwhelmed and scattered, but what the Spaniards lack in numbers they make up for in armaments and discipline.

As the natives approach, many are met head on with deadly rows of lowered pikes, the use of which the Spanish had long mastered in the great wars of Italy and Flanders.

Other Punians, charging in confused masses, are cut down and slaughtered in vast numbers by the concerted volleys of orderly musketeers.

At length, Hernando Pizarro, sensing the enemy falter, musters his cavaliers to his standard and spurs his horse into a charge.

The Spanish cavalry slices through the native ranks with devastating effect.

Within minutes, the Punians are in full rout.

The natives of Puná, having regrouped in the island's forests, have waged a guerrilla war with some success, destroying Spanish provisions and waylaying several scouts.

However, two Spanish ships with reinforcements, under Hernando de Soto, whose patron Pedro Arias Dávila had died in 1531, soon arrive by sea (with at least a hundred volunteers and several horses).

In return for the use of his ships, Pizarro appoints de Soto his chief lieutenant.

On these ships, the Spaniards, bound for more fruitful conquests on the Peruvian mainland, embark without incident and sail back …

…towards Tumbes, arriving here on May 16, 1532, only to find the place deserted and destroyed.

Their two fellow conquistadors they expected to find have disappeared or died under murky circumstances.

The local chiefs explain that the fierce tribes of Punians had earlier attacked them and ransacked the place.

Unknown to Pizarro, as he was lobbying for permission to mount an expedition, his proposed enemy was being devastated by the diseases brought to the American continents during earlier Spanish contacts.

When Pizarro lands on the coast of the Gulf of Guayaquil in 1532, he finds Peru vastly different from when he had been there just five years before.

Amid the ruins of the city of Tumbes, he tries to piece together the situation before him.

From Felipillo and Yacané, the two young local boys whom he has taught to speak Spanish in order to translate for him, Pizarro learns of the civil war and of the disease that is destroying the Inca Empire.

Pizarro, after four long expeditions, establishes the first Spanish settlement in northern Peru on the banks of the Chira River in the Tangarará Valley, naming it San Miguel de Piura.

The founding date is still a subject of controversy.

July 15 will be adopted as the official date, however, during the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebrations.

Pizarro and his men were thought to be viracocha cuna or "gods" when first spotted by the natives,

The Indians describe Pizarro's men to the Inca.

They say that the capito is tall with a full beard and is completely wrapped in clothing.

The Indians describe the men's swords and how they kill sheep with them.

The men do not eat human flesh, but rather sheep, lamb, duck, pigeons, and deer, and cook the meat.

Atahualpa is fearful of the strange men’s capabilities.

If they are runa quicachac or "destroyers of peoples," then he should flee.

If they are viracocha cuna runa allichac or "gods who are benefactors of the people," then he should not flee, but welcome them.

The messengers go back to Tangarala, and Atahualpa sends Cinquinchara, an Orejon warrior, to the Spanish to serve as an interpreter.

Pizarro leaves fifty men back at the settlement under the command of Antonio Navarro and on September 24, 1532, proceeds with his conquest, accompanied by two hundred men.

Hernando de Soto, after arriving at Zaran, is dispatched to a Peruvian garrison at Caxas.

After a week, he returns with an envoy from the Inca himself, with some presents, and an invitation to visit the Inca ruler's camp.