Francisco Xérez, Verdadera relación de la conquista del Perú. Seville, 1534.
Xérez’s Verdadera relación was the most influential of the early accounts of the conquest. Xérez, Francisco Pizarro’s secretary, was present when a small group of Spaniards met Atahualpa and his guards in Cajamarca. The Spanish friar Vicente de Valverde spoke to the Inca king through an interpreter, and handed him a Christian devotional book; when Atahualpa dropped it to the ground, Pizarro signaled his men who leapt from hiding, imprisoned the king, and massacred a far larger number of Inca soldiers. An anonymous European artist depicted a fanciful version of this scene on the cover of Xérez’s book, following European conventions (rather than accurate descriptions) to show Andeans as half-naked and dumbstruck by the book, a symbol of European superiority. It was a version of the conquest very gratifying to Spanish readers.