Peru: Colonial Period

Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro landed on the northern coast of South America in the early 1530s and, exploiting a civil war within the Inca Empire, captured the Inca ruler Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532. Pizarro's men executed Atahualpa the following year and pressed on to seize the Inca capital of Cuzco, effectively ending the Tawantinsuyu's independent rule over the central Andes. In 1535 Pizarro founded Lima on the Pacific coast, which soon replaced Cuzco as the region's administrative and commercial center.

Rivalries among the conquistadors themselves plunged the new territory into years of internal conflict, prompting the Spanish crown to impose the New Laws of 1542 and establish the Viceroyalty of Peru under a royally appointed viceroy. Lima's port access and the discovery of vast silver deposits, most notably at Potosí, turned the viceroyalty into the wealthiest and most important Spanish possession in South America, with silver shipments financing much of the crown's overseas administration.

Colonial rule brought profound disruption to Peru's indigenous population through forced labor systems, tribute demands, and the imposition of Catholicism, even as a Neo-Inca state at Vilcabamba resisted Spanish authority until 1572. Discontent over taxation and forced labor persisted for generations, culminating in the 1780 uprising led by Túpac Amaru II, a descendant of the last Inca emperor, which remains one of the largest indigenous rebellions of the colonial era.