Atahualpa was the thirteenth Inca emperor, and although he had several successors named by the Spanish conquistadors, he is considered the last Inca emperor.

He was born in 1500 and after the death of his father Emperor Huayna Capac in 1525, Atahualpa inherited the kingdom of Quito, in Ecuador, the northern part of the Inca Empire, to the detriment of his half-brother Huascar, the legitimate heir, to whom corresponded the kingdom of Cuzco, in the southeast of present-day Peru.