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I happened to read some accounts of the meeting at Cajamarca, and I got to wondering how much of Pizarro's decision to seize Atahuallpa was a spur-of-the-moment type deal. It sounds as though the immediate spark came when Atahuallpa asked to see a friar's breviary, then threw it on the ground, which the Spanish took as a provocation. If this was actually the case, and not made up as a later justification, then what might have happened if Atahuallpa had not done this? Would Pizarro still have found some excuse to spring his ambush, or would he have held off? In the later case, what effects might this have on the attempted conquest? Does he just try to seize Atahuallpa at a later date? Or might the Sapa Inca escape capture altogether, with consequences for any resistance to the Spanish?
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