I know that Pizarro gets a bad rap for conquering the Incas, but, hey, somebody had to do it!

Actually the story of the Incan empire is a lot more complex than that. A) they had just had a major civil war that decimated their army before the Europeans arrived. B) Smallpox had already worked it's way down from the Aztec conquests and wiped out half the incan population. Maccu Picchu for instance had already been abandoned by the time PIzarro arrived. C) Atahuallpa had a bunch of women and children with him not 80,000 warriors... hence the lack of Spanish casualties.. still any idiot who faces an unknown military force without any protection and then refuses to run (which he could have done easily) deserves to have his empire wiped from the earth.

Another corrupt conquistador. He put so much grief upon the Incas.

Yes, I understand that the conquest of native people (e.g., American Indians) by civilizations with more advanced technology (e.g., Europeans) was inevitable. I understand that native people are frequently romanticized as "noble savages," when in fact they were often more savage than noble. And I understand that early explorers claimed to be doing God's work by bringing religion to the "heathens." But Pizarro's conquest of the Incans was unusually brutal and especially dishonorable. In 1532, Pizarro captured the Incan leader Atahuallpa at a town in Peru called Cajamarca. Pizarro had only a couple hundred men, while Atahuallpa had about 80,000. After luring Atahuallpa into the open, Pizarro fired guns and had his men charge on horseback, which sent the Incans (who had never seen horses or heard guns before) into a panic. Then Pizarro and his men began to slice, spear, and shoot the Incans, who were armed only with clubs. They slaughtered over 5,000 of them without losing a single man. A group of high Incan lords were holding Atahuallpa up on a raised platform, and when the Spainiards cut one of them down, another would rush to take his place. Finally the Incans were killed faster than they could replace each other, and Pizarro captured Atahuallpa. Once Pizarro had their beloved leader, he could control the Incans, and his first demand was a ransom of gold (enough to fill a huge room) in exchange for the return of Atahuallpa. Once the Incans paid this ransom, Pizarro reneged on his word and executed Atahuallpa. Classy, huh? Welcome to "civilization"!