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Atawallpa is the son of the Wayna Inca and a ruler of the Inca Empire. Around 1520, when Wayna Inca tasks Atawallpa with conquering the peoples of the equatorial forests, Atawallpa does not succeed, and is shamed publicly. When Wayna Inca dies, his half-brother, Washkar, takes the throne. Despite this, Atawallpa mounts a bloody and costly coup, and the Inca plunge into civil war. In 1533, Washkar is captured by Spaniard Francisco Pizarro and his conquistadors. At Cajamarca, Atawallpa is double-crossed by the Spaniards, ransomed, and executed by garroting, plunging the world's greatest empire into further chaos.

Francisco Pizarro Gonzalez is a Spanish conquistador. He is the illegitimate son of an infantry colonel. Mostly illiterate, he becomes a conquistador and adventurer in the hopes of securing an independent fortune in the newly-discovered region of Peru. After a number of a expeditions to the region, Pizarro captures the Inca emperor Atawallpa in the Battle of Cajamarca, holding him for a massive ransom of gold and silver. However, once the ransom is secured, Pizarro nevertheless has Atawallpa executed. Pizarro is assassinated eight years later, in Lima, during a coup for the governorship of Peru. 

Tlacaelel is the cihuacoatl, or head of internal affairs, for the Aztec Empire. The nephew of Itzcoatl, arguably the most famous leader of the Mexica, Tlacaelel helps to engineer a coup of the existing Aztec rulers, who at the time presided over the rise of the Mexica within the Aztec Empire during the 15th century. In the process of this expansion over much of Mesoamerica, Tlacaelel promotes some of the Aztec Empire’s most violent practices, including human sacrifice. 

Hernán Cortés is a Spanish conquistador. Before beginning his campaign against the Aztec Empire in 1519, Cortés studies the various internal divisions within Aztecan society. Cortes captures the tlatoani Motecuhzoma (known as Montezuma) in his palace, but is eventually routed by Montezuma’s successor, Cuitlahuac. Undeterred, Cortés raises another vast army, composed of indigenous soldiers and Spaniards, and lays waste to the Aztecan city of Tenochtitlan on August 21, 1521.

Ruth Shady Solis is an archaeologist of the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and worked on an archaeological site known as Caral. After difficult, even life-threatening episodes, she discovers a complex site, founded before 2600 B.C. The site attracts the attention of Haas and Creamer, who are more well-known archaeologists working in the region. Solis receives little credit for her discovery, which cements the existence of ancient civilizations in Peru.

Chak Tok Ich'aak is a Mayan king of the city-state of Mutal, on the Yucatan Peninsula. Taking the throne in the year 360 A.D., Chak Tok Ich'aak presides over a period of expansion and development in Mayan civilization. Chak Tok Ich'aak is believed to have died in an invasion by the forces of Teotihuacan, a rival city-state, on January 14, 378 A.D.

"Sky Witness" is the title of a ruler of Kaan, a Mayan city-state. In the 6th century A.D., Sky Witness begins a war against Mutal, a nearby city-state on the Yucatan Peninsula. The war is costly, destructive, and risky. Sky Witness's strategy is to encircle Mutal and cut off its resources. After a long siege, in 562, Sky Witness sacks much of the city and dethrones its king. However, in 695, Kaan is defeated by Mutal, heralding in the decline of Mayan civilization.

Gaspar de Carvajal is a 16th-century explorer who writes the first European account of the Amazon region while on a harrowing journey down the Amazon River. Carvajal's account received little recognition on account of its unbelievability: he speaks of a densely-populated region, clustered with villages along the river's banks. The most infamous of these stories is Carvajal's account of a village guarded exclusively by tall, bare-chested women who lived without men.

Betty J. Meggers is an archaeologist. In 1971, her book, Amazonia: Man and Culture in a Counterfeit Paradise, is published. In the book, she argues forcefully that the predominant form of agriculture in the Amazon—"slash and burn" agriculture—is a response developed to the ecological tolerances of the terrain and climate of the Amazon region. Rather than being a wasteful, destructive, and "primitive" form of agriculture, it is, instead, a form of agriculture uniquely suited to the specific conditions of the Amazon rainforests.