How the Mighty Inca Fell

It is known as el Cuarto del Rescate, or the Ransom Chamber, and it is located in Cajamarca, a green and pleasant city perched high amid the cloud-draped Andes of northern Peru—a town with a history.

In the early 16th Century, an Inca prince named Atawallpa promised to fill the room in question with ornaments of gold, while also stocking two similar cubicles with silverwork, all in a bargain to save himself from execution at the hands of the alien Spaniards.

The gathering of so many riches took months to accomplish, but Atawallpa was as good as his word, while his conquerors fell far short of theirs.

They killed the poor man anyway, by strangling him—a “mercy” conferred by their leader, Francisco Pizarro, after Atawallpa underwent a last-minute...