Collision at Cajamarca

In Chapter 3, "Collision at Cajamarca", Diamond describes a “battle” between Incans and Spaniards in what is today Peru. Most of the chapter is directly quoted from the accounts of Spanish soldiers who participated in the battle, which pitted 168 Spaniards against 80,000 Incan soldiers. It seems inconceivable, but not one Spaniard was killed, while the Incans lost thousands of soldiers.

Since the chapter is largely written by the participants themselves, we can hear the shock in the voice of the participants, and their incredulity at what they managed to achieve.  This is history, written by the victors, giving us a glimpse into their minds as they tried to explain to themselves how they managed to achieve such a lopsided victory.

Diamond uses the one-sided encounter as an example of the forces that allowed Europeans to colonize the New World, rather than the New World “discovering” and conquering Europe. The same factors which played into the Spanish slaughter at Cajamarca also had a deciding impact in countless other encounters between the Old World and the New World.  The specific factors he identified are military technology, infectious diseases, maritime technology, centralized political organization, and writing.

This list contrasts dramatically with what the Spaniards themselves fell back upon to explain the slaughter. The consensus in the Spanish accounts is that the Spanish victory was a product of the "grace of God".

So, the difference in Diamond's assessment of and explanation for the encounter and that of the Spanish is somewhere between "military technology, infectious diseases, maritime technology, centralized political organization, and writing", and "the grace of God."

I cannot tell you how distasteful I found it to read this Spanish explanation. This distaste was heightened by the incongruity of the transition between the detailed description of the bloody encounter, and the pious praising of God for allowing the slaughter.  The movement from slaughter to praise was so abrupt, so unexpected, that it was shocking.  To hear the detailed accounts of the slaughter gratefully attributed to God was repulsive.

During a discussion this morning, unrelated to Jared Diamond and the fates of human societies, some friends and I struggled with the idea of prayer.  What started as a laughable acknowledgement that both teams in a football game pray to God for victory, became a little more grim when we thought about war.  Certainly, the Spanish at Cajamarca prayed to God for victory, and credited God with the victory afterwards.  Presumably, the Incans may have prayed to their gods for victory as well, but their defeat would have been explained by the Spanish as a failure of the Incan gods when compared to the Christian God.

What would the Spanish have said to explain a loss or a victory in a battle with another Christian nation?  Undoubtedly, both armies would have prayed for victory, and would have credited any victory to a decision by God of the worthiness of one side over another.  What is it about human nature that results in our blaming God for our bloodiness?  We are so quick to attribute our weaknesses to God.