Pizarro
Pizarro names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Pizarro FRANCISCO, a Spanish explorer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
FRANCISCO, a Spanish explorer, the conqueror of Peru; the illegitimate son of a gentleman of Truxilla, being left entirely dependent on his mother, a peasant girl, he received no education. He embarked in 1510, with some other adventurers, for America; and, in 1524, after having distinguished himself under Nuñez de Balboa on many occasions, he associated at Panama with Diego de Almagro and Hernandez Luque, a priest, in an enterprise to make fresh discoveries. In this voyage they reached the coast of Peru, but being too few to make any attempt at a settlement, Pizarro returned to Spain, where all that he gained was power from the court to prosecute his object. However, having raised some money, he was enabled again, in 1531, to visit Peru, where a civil war was then raging between Huascar, the legitimate monarch, and his half - brother, Atahualpa, or Atabalipa, as he is variously called, the reigning inca. Pizarro, by pretending to take the part of the latter, was permitted to march into the interior, where he made the unsuspecting king his prisoner, while partaking of a friendly banquet to which he had invited him and his whole court; then extorting from him, as it is said, a house full of the precious metals by way of ransom, he had him tried for a pretended conspiracy, and sondemned him to be burned, al allowing him first to be strangled, as a reward for becoming a Christian. In 1533 the conqueror laid the foundation of Lima; FRANCISCO PIZARRO but, in 1537, a contest arose between him and Almagro, who was defeated and murdered by executed. Pizarro was Almagro's followers, June 26, 1541.
Pizarro GONZALO, half brother of the preceding
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
GONZALO, half brother of the preceding; born in 1502. His brother appointed him governor of Quito in 1540, and after the assassination of Francisco, he raised an army against the new viceroy, Blasco Nuñez, and the latter was defeated and slain near Quito in 1546. But Pizarro did not long enjoy his success, being beaten, taken prisoner, and beheaded in 1548.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts Collier's set down in 1921 mostly still hold, but two things have moved a long way. In 1977 workmen in the crypt of Lima Cathedral found a lead box holding a skull and bones marked with sword and dagger wounds; a forensic team concluded in 1984 that these, and not the mummy long displayed to visitors, were Francisco Pizarro, killed in his own palace on 26 June 1541. Historians now also stress what the old account omits: the smallpox epidemic that had swept Peru ahead of the Spaniards and killed the Inca Huayna Capac, and the tens of thousands of indigenous allies, Cañari and Huanca among them, without whom 168 Spaniards could not have taken an empire. Peru's estimate of the man has changed too — his equestrian statue was removed from the main square of Lima in 2003 and re-erected in a small park nearby.
Written for this edition, 2026.