The story of this place
This granite town in Extremadura, one of Spain's poorest and driest regions, sent an astonishing number of men to conquer the Americas—driven by dreams of escaping rural poverty. Francisco Pizarro, born here around 1478 as an illiterate swineherd's illegitimate son, sailed west, seized the Inca emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca in 1532, and with fewer than 200 men brought down an empire of millions, plundering a room filled with gold as ransom before executing the emperor. His fellow townsmen founded a new Trujillo in Peru. Pizarro's bronze equestrian statue rides across the main square, encircled by the fortified mansions that returning conquistadors built with New World silver.