The Incas had bronze and used it for weaponry.
Sure, bronze pikes would have stopped the cavalry, but you need years if not centuries of mounted warfare to figure that out.
And the name-comment synergy slaps, as the youngins sometimes say :-)
Ropes with stones flung under their legs.
Killing them with arrows - really that part confuses me. The horses had in some cases some armor - but why didn't the other horses not fell from the missile barrage?
You also need enough love to be willing to be the first to fall in defense of your people.
Maybe they didn't even know that the horses could be killed? They could've looked like monsters to the locals.
But yeah, the lens of history is far from clear, except for "Fuck the conquistadors."
That said, would the locals have abandoned human sacrifice and cannabalism without getting their asses kicked?
Who knows? Sometimes, it's just assholes killing assholes, usually with innocents caught in the crossfire.
I don't know the story of the Inca very well, but I did just read about Cortes' conquest of the Aztecs (Buddy Levy, Conquistador), and the primary moral of the story that I got was "if you believe in human sacrifice of other people, and if the tribute you demand of vassal states is a certain number of their sons and daughters, don't be surprised if they follow some other dude who's got better gear". He'd have gotten nowhere without native allies, and lucky for him the Aztecs had managed to make enemies out of just about everyone else nearby.
Was he a good person? I think we can firmly say "no". Was he worse than the Aztecs? That's a tougher question. If you were an Aztec, almost certainly. If you were one of their subject peoples who cut an early deal with him, almost certainly not.
If you ask the descendants of those people, you might get a different answer.
Because even the highest ranking "natives" in the new order were still lower, than the lowest white conquisator.
> long sharpened (and hardened in fire) wooden sticks would be enough.
Also extreme discipline and training. Unprofessional armies even in Europe didn't do that well either. e.g. the Battle of Böblingen was about as one sided as some of the battles between the Spanish and Incas or Aztecs.
One person on its own, yes, but we are talking about thousands of people. Meaning the horses charge frontal, the infantery there (without Pikes) might get smashed - but those on the side would have a clear shot. Unless they all panic.
"Battle of Böblingen"
And wikipedia says 2:1. That is not in the same ballpark as 100:1 like with the conquisatores.
And by the time you start figuring these things out the Spanish already have thousands of allied soldiers from other tribes that you have subjugated fighting on their side.
e.g. when the Inca finally started trying to fight back back in earnest like in the siege of Cuzco the ratio was closer to 1:2 and the Inca were probably too reluctant to engage due to their experience in the initial battles. After that it was already way too late since the empire was reduced to a rump state with limited resources and the balance of power shifted.
Same happened in Mexico. Just like in Peru the early engagements for the Spanish were generally considerably easier than the final battles where they had 10s of thousands of soldiers fighting for them.
At the end of the day both of those empires were just a house of cards waiting to collapse. Europeans didn't do even remotely as well in less centralized areas. e.g. even against urbanized societies like the Maya who survived for much longer and successfully fended off several expeditions since the Spanish basically had to conquer each city state one by one.
Maces, war hammers, pollaxes and such were quite effective because armour doesn't protect you against blunt force. Inca or any other Native Americans didn't really have enough time to adapt before it was too late (especially with the epidemics hitting them so hard).
Pointy hammers were rather effective for pinching through the armor, not creating concussion.
And all the armors had weak spots.