History Of The Conquest Of Peru
by
William Hickling Prescott
Part 7 out of 11
returned in triumph to his quarters.
Week after week rolled away, and no relief came to the beleaguered
Spaniards. They had long since begun to feel the approaches of famine.
Fortunately, they were provided with water from the streams which
flowed through the city. But, though they had well husbanded their
resources, their provisions were exhausted, and they had for some time
depended on such scanty supplies of grain as they could gather from the
ruined magazines and dwellings, mostly consumed by the fire, or from
the produce of some successful foray.25 This latter resource was
attended with no little difficulty; for every expedition led to a fierce
encounter with the enemy, which usually cost the lives of several
Spaniards, and inflicted a much heavier injury on the Indian allies. Yet it
was at least one good result of such loss, that it left fewer to provide for.
But the whole number of the besieged was so small, that any loss greatly
increased the difficulties of defence by the remainder.
As months passed away without bringing any tidings of their
countrymen, their minds were haunted with still gloomier apprehensions
as to their fate. They well knew that the governor would make every
effort to rescue them from their desperate condition. That he had not
succeeded in this made it probable, that his own situation was no better
than theirs, or, perhaps, he and his followers had already fallen victims to
the fury of the insurgents. It was a dismal thought, that they alone were
left in the land, far from all human succour, to perish miserably by the
hands of the barbarians among the mountains.
Yet the actual state of things, though gloomy in the extreme, was not
quite so desperate as their imaginations had painted it. The insurrection,
it is true, had been general throughout the country, at least that portion of
it occupied by the Spaniards. It had been so well concerted, that it broke
out almost simultaneously, and the Conquerors, who were living in
careless security on their estates, had been massacred to the number of
several hundreds. An Indian force had sat down before Xauxa, and a
considerable army had occupied the valley of Rimac and laid siege to
Lima. But the country around that capital was of an open, level
character, very favorable to the action of cavalry. Pizarro no sooner saw
himself menaced by the hostile array, than he sent such a force against
the Peruvians as speedily put them to flight; and, following up his
advantage, he inflicted on them such a severe chastisement, that,
although they still continued to hover in the distance and cut off his
communications with the interior, they did not care to trust themselves
on the other side of the Rimac.
The accounts that the Spanish commander now received of the state of
the country filled him with the most serious alarm. He was particularly
solicitous for the fate of the garrison at Cuzco, and he made repeated
efforts to relieve that capital. Four several detachments, amounting to
more than four hundred men in all, half of them cavalry, were sent by
him at different times, under some of his bravest officers. But none of
them reached their place of destination. The wily natives permitted them
to march into the interior of the country, until they were fairly entangled
in the passes of the Cordilleras. They then enveloped them with greatly
superior numbers, and, occupying the heights, showered down their fatal
missiles on the heads of the Spaniards, or crushed them under the weight
of fragments of rock which they rolled on them from the mountains. In
some instances, the whole detachment was cut off to a man. In others, a
few stragglers only survived to return and tell the bloody tale to their
countrymen at Lima.26
Pizarro was now filled with consternation. He had the most dismal
forebodings of the fate of the Spaniards dispersed throughout the
country, and even doubted the possibility of maintaining his own
foothold in it without assistance from abroad. He despatched a vessel to
the neighboring colony at Truxillo, urging them to abandon the place,
with all their effects, and to repair to him at Lima. The measure was,
fortunately, not adopted. Many of his men were for availing themselves
of the vessels which rode at anchor in the port to make their escape from
the country at once, and take refuge in Panama. Pizarro would not
hearken to so dastardly a counsel, which involved the desertion of the
brave men in the interior who still looked to him for protection. He cut
off the hopes of these timid spirits by despatching all the vessels then in
port on a very different mission. He sent letters by them to the governors
of Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico, representing the gloomy
state of his affairs, and invoking their aid. His epistle to Alvarado, then
established at Guatemala, is preserved. He conjures him by every
sentiment of honor and patriotism to come to his assistance, and this
before it was too late. Without assistance, the Spaniards could no longer
maintain their footing in Peru, and that great empire would be lost to the
Castilian Crown. He finally engages to share with him such conquests as
they may make with their united arms.27--Such concessions, to the very
man whose absence from the country, but a few months before, Pizarro
would have been willing to secure at almost any price, are sufficient
evidence of the extremity of his distress. The succours thus earnestly
solicited arrived in time, not to quell the Indian insurrection, but to aid
him in a struggle quite as formidable with his own countrymen.
It was now August. More than five months had elapsed since the
commencement of the siege of Cuzco, yet the Peruvian legions still lay
encamped around the city. The siege had been protracted much beyond
what was usual in Indian warfare, and showed the resolution of the
natives to exterminate the white men. But the Peruvians themselves had
for some time been straitened by the want of provisions. It was no easy
matter to feed so numerous a host; and the obvious resource of the
magazines of grain, so providently prepared by the Incas, did them but
little service, since their contents had been most prodigally used, and
even dissipated, by the Spaniards, on their first occupation of the
country.28 The season for planting had now arrived, and the Inca well
knew, that, if his followers were to neglect it, they would be visited by a
scourge even more formidable than their invaders. Disbanding the
greater part of his forces, therefore, he ordered them to withdraw to their
homes, and, after the labors of the field were over, to return and resume
the blockade of the capital. The Inca reserved a considerable force to
attend on his own person, with which he retired to Tambo, a strongly
fortified place south of the valley of Yucay, the favorite residence of his
ancestors. He also posted a large body as a corps of observation in the
environs of Cuzco, to watch the movements of the enemy, and to
intercept supplies.
The Spaniards beheld with joy the mighty host, which had so long
encompassed the city, now melting away. They were not slow in
profiling by the circumstance, and Hernando Pizarro took advantage of
the temporary absence to send out foraging parties to scour the country,
and bring back supplies to his famishing soldiers. In this he was so
successful that on one occasion no less than two thousand head of cattle-
-the Peruvian sheep--were swept away from the Indian plantations and
brought safely to Cuzco.29 This placed the army above all apprehensions
on the score of want for the present.
Yet these forays were made at the point of the lance, and many a
desperate contest ensued, in which the best blood of the Spanish chivalry
was shed. The contests, indeed, were not confined to large bodies of
troops, but skirmishes took place between smaller parties, which
sometimes took the form of personal combats. Nor were the parties so
unequally matched as might have been supposed in these single
rencontres; and the Peruvian warrior, with his sling, his bow, and his
lasso, proved no contemptible antagonist for the mailed horseman, whom
he sometimes even ventured to encounter, hand to hand, with his
formidable battle-axe. The ground around Cuzco became a battle-field,
like the vega of Granada, in which Christian and Pagan displayed the
characteristics of their peculiar warfare; and many a deed of heroism was
performed, which wanted only the song of the minstrel to shed around it
a glory like that which rested on the last days of the Moslem of Spain.30
But Hernando Pizarro was not content to act wholly on the defensive;
and he meditated a bold stroke, by which at once to put an end to the
war. This was the capture of the Inca Manco, whom he hoped to surprise
in his quarters at Tambo.
For this service he selected about eighty of his best-mounted cavalry,
with a small body of foot; and, making a large detour through the less
frequented mountain defiles, he arrived before Tambo without alarm to
the enemy. He found the place more strongly fortified than he had
imagined. The palace, or rather fortress, of the Incas stood on a lofty
eminence, the steep sides of which, on the quarter where the Spaniards
approached, were cut into terraces, defended by strong walls of stone and
sunburnt brick.31 The place was impregnable on this side. On the
opposite, it looked towards the Yucay, and the ground descended by a
gradual declivity towards the plain through which rolled its deep but
narrow current.32 This was the quarter on which to make the assault.
Crossing the stream without much difficulty, the Spanish commander
advanced up the smooth glacis with as little noise as possible. The
morning light had hardly broken on the mountains; and Pizarro, as he
drew near the outer defences, which, as in the fortress of Cuzco,
consisted of a stone parapet of great strength drawn round the inclosure,
moved quickly forward, confident that the garrison were still buried in
sleep. But thousands of eyes were upon him; and as the Spaniards came
within bowshot, a multitude of dark forms suddenly rose above the
rampart, while the Inca, with his lance in hand, was seen on horseback in
the inclosure, directing the operations of his troops.33 At the same
moment the air was darkened with innumerable missiles, stones, javelins,
and arrows, which fell like a hurricane on the troops, and the mountains
rang to the wild war-whoop of the enemy. The Spaniards, taken by
surprise, and many of them sorely wounded, were staggered; and, though
they quickly rallied, and made two attempts to renew the assault, they
were at length obliged to fall back, unable to endure the violence of the
storm. To add to their confusion, the lower level in their rear was
flooded by the waters, which the natives, by opening the sluices, had
diverted from the bed of the river, so that their position was no longer
tenable.34 A council of war was then held, and it was decided to
abandon the attack as desperate, and to retreat in as good order as
possible.
The day had been consumed in these ineffectual operations; and
Hernando, under cover of the friendly darkness, sent forward his infantry
and baggage, taking command of the centre himself, and trusting the rear
to his brother Gonzalo. The river was happily recrossed without
accident, although the enemy, now confident in their strength, rushed out
of their defences, and followed up the retreating Spaniards, whom they
annoyed with repeated discharges of arrows. More than once they
pressed so closely on the fugitives, that Gonzalo and his chivalry were
compelled to turn and make one of those desperate charges that
effectually punished their audacity, and stayed the tide of pursuit. Yet
the victorious foe still hung on the rear of the discomfited cavaliers, till
they had emerged from the mountain passes, and come within sight of
the blackened walls of the capital. It was the last triumph of the Inca.35
Among the manuscripts for which I am indebted to the liberality of that
illustrious Spanish scholar, the lamented Navarrete, the most remarkable,
in connection with this history, is the work of Pedro Pizarro; Relaciones
del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los Reynos del Peru. But a single
copy of this important document appears to have been preserved, the
existence of which was but little known till it came into the hands of
Senior de Navarrete; though it did not escape the indefatigable
researches of Herrera, as is evident from the mention of several
incidents, some of them having personal relation to Pedro Pizarro
himself, which the historian of the Indies could have derived through no
other channel. The manuscript has lately been given to the public as part
of the inestimable collection of historical documents now in process of
publication at Madrid, under auspices which, we may trust, will insure its
success. As the printed work did not reach me till my present labors
were far advanced, I have preferred to rely on the manuscript copy for
the brief remainder of my narrative, as I had been compelled to do for
the previous portion of it.
Nothing, that I am aware of, is known respecting the author, but what is
to be gleaned from incidental notices of himself in his own history. He
was born at Toledo in Estremadura, the fruitful province of adventurers
to the New World, whence the family of Francis Pizarro, to which Pedro
was allied, also emigrated. When that chief came over to undertake the
conquest of Peru, after receiving his commission from the emperor in
1529, Pedro Pizarro, then only fifteen years of age, accompanied him in
quality of page. For three years he remained attached to the house hold
of his commander, and afterwards continued to follow his banner as a
soldier of fortune. He was present at most of the memorable events of
the Conquest, and seems to have possessed in a great degree the
confidence of his leader, who employed him on some difficult missions,
in which he displayed coolness and gallantry. It is true, we must take the
author's own word for all this. But he tells his exploits with an air of
honesty, and without any extraordinary effort to set them off in undue
relief. He speaks of himself in the third person, and, as his manuscript
was not intended solely for posterity, he would hardly have ventured
on great misrepresentation, where fraud could so easily have been
exposed.
After the Conquest, our author still remained attached to the fortunes of
his commander, and stood by him through all the troubles which ensued;
and on the assassination of that chief, he withdrew to Arequipa, to enjoy
in quiet the repartimiento of lands and Indians, which had been bestowed
on him as the recompense of his services. He was there on the breaking
out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro. But he was true to his
allegiance, and chose rather, as he tells us, to be false to his name and his
lineage than to his loyalty. Gonzalo, in retaliation, seized his estates, and
would have proceeded to still further extremities against him, when
Pedro Pizarro had fallen into his hands at Lima, but for the interposition
of his lieutenant, the famous Francisco de Carbajal, to whom the
chronicler had once the good fortune to render an important service.
This, Carbajal requited by sparing his life on two occasions,--but on the
second coolly remarked, "No man has a right to a brace of lives; and if
you fall into my hands a third time, God only can grant you another."
Happily, Pizarro did not find occasion to put this menace to the test.
After the pacification of the country, he again retired to Arequipa; but,
from the querulous tone of his remarks, it would seem he was not fully
reinstated in the possessions he had sacrificed by his loyal devotion to
government. The last we hear of him is in 1571, the date which he
assigns as that of the completion of his history.
Pedro Pizarro's narrative covers the whole ground of the Conquest, from
the date of the first expedition that sallied out from Panama, to the
troubles that ensued on the departure of President Gasca. The first part
of the work was gathered from the testimony of others, and, of course,
cannot claim the distinction of rising to the highest class of evidence.
But all that follows the return of Francis Pizarro from Castile, all, in
short, which constitutes the conquest of the country, may be said to be
reported on his own observation, as an eyewitness and an actor. This
gives to his narrative a value to which it could have no pretensions on the
score of its literary execution. Pizarro was a soldier, with as little
education, probably, as usually falls to those who have been trained from
youth in this rough school,--the most unpropitious in the world to both
mental and moral progress. He had the good sense, moreover, not to
aspire to an excellence which he could not reach. There is no ambition
of fine writing in his chronicle; there are none of those affectations of
ornament which only make more glaring the beggarly condition of him
who assumes them. His object was simply to tell the story of the
Conquest, as he had seen it. He was to deal with facts, not with words,
which he wisely left to those who came into the field after the laborers
had quilted it, to garner up what they could at second hand.
Pizarro's situation may be thought to have necessarily exposed him to
party influences, and thus given an undue bias to his narrative. It is not
difficult, indeed, to determine under whose banner he had enlisted. He
writes like a partisan, and yet like an honest one, who is no further
warped from a correct judgment of passing affairs than must necessarily
come from preconceived opinions. There is no management to work a
conviction in his reader on this side or the other, still less any obvious
perversion of fact. He evidently believes what he says, and this is the
great point to be desired. We can make allowance for the natural
influences of his position. Were he more impartial than this, the critic of
the present day, by making allowance for a greater amount of prejudice
and partiality, might only be led into error.
Pizarro is not only independent, but occasionally caustic in his
condemnation of those under whom he acted. This is particularly the
case where their measures bear too unfavorably on his own interests, or
those of the army. As to the unfortunate natives, he no more regards
their sufferings than the Jews of old did those of the Philistines, whom
they considered as delivered up to their swords, and whose lands they
regarded as their lawful heritage. There is no mercy shown by the hard
Conqueror in his treatment of the infidel.
Pizarro was the representative of the age in which he lived. Yet it is too
much to cast such obloquy on the age. He represented more truly the
spirit of the fierce warriors who overturned the dynasty of the Incas. He
was not merely a crusader, fighting to extend the empire of the Cross
over the darkened heathen. Gold was his great object; the estimate by
which he judged of the value of the Conquest; the recompense that he
asked for a life of toil and danger. It was with these golden visions, far
more than with visions of glory, above all, of celestial glory, that the
Peruvian adventurer fed his gross and worldly imagination. Pizarro did
not rise above his caste. Neither did he rise above it in a mental view,
any more than in a moral. His history displays no great penetration, or
vigor and comprehension of thought. It is the work of a soldier, telling
simply his tale of blood. Its value is, that it is told by him who acted it.
And this, to the modern compiler, renders it of higher worth than far
abler productions at second hand. It is the rude ore, which, submitted to
the regular process of purification and refinement, may receive the
current stamp that fits it for general circulation.
Another authority, to whom I have occasionally referred, and whose
writings still slumber in manuscript, is the Licentiate Fernando
Montesinos. He is, in every respect, the opposite of the military
chronicler who has just come under our notice. He flourished about a
century after the Conquest. Of course, the value of his writings as an
authority for historical facts must depend on his superior opportunities
for consulting original documents. For this his advantages were great.
He was twice sent in an official capacity to Peru, which required him to
visit the different parts of the country. These two missions occupied
fifteen years; so that, while his position gave him access to the colonial
archives and literary repositories, he was enabled to verify his
researches, to some extent, by actual observation of the country.
The result was his two historical works, Memorias Antiguas Historiales
del Peru, and his Annales, sometimes cited in these pages. The former is
taken up with the early history of the country,--very early, it must be
admitted, since it goes back to the deluge. The first part of this treatise is
chiefly occupied with an argument to show the identity of Peru with the
golden Ophir of Solomon's time! This hypothesis, by no means original
with the author, may give no unfair notion of the character of his mind.
In the progress of his work he follows down the line of Inca princes,
whose exploits, and names even, by no means coincide with Garcilasso's
catalogue; a circumstance, however, far from establishing their
inaccuracy. But one will have little doubt of the writer's title to this
reproach, that reads the absurd legends told in the grave tone of reliance
by Montesinos, who shared largely in the credulity and the love of the
marvellous which belong to an earlier and less enlightened age.
These same traits are visible in his Annals, which are devoted
exclusively to the Conquest. Here, indeed, the author, after his cloudy
flight, has descended on firm ground, where gross violations of truth, or,
at least, of probability, are not to be expected. But any one who has
occasion to compare his narrative with that of contemporary writers will
find frequent cause to distrust it. Yet Montesinos has one merit. In his
extensive researches, he became acquainted with original instruments,
which he has occasionally transferred to his own pages, and which it
would be now difficult to meet elsewhere.
His writings have been commended by some of his learned countrymen,
as showing diligent research and information. My own experience
would not assign them a high rank as historical vouchers. They seem to
me entitled to little praise, either for the accuracy of their statements, or
the sagacity of their reflections. The spirit of cold indifference which
they manifest to the sufferings of the natives is an odious feature, for
which there is less apology in a writer of the seventeenth century than in
one of the primitive Conquerors, whose passions had been inflamed by
longprotracted hostility. M. Ternaux-Compans has translated the
Memorias Antiguas with his usual elegance and precision, for his
collection of original documents relating to the New World. He speaks
in the Preface of doing the same kind office to the Annales, at a future
time. I am not aware that he has done this; and I cannot but think that
the excellent translator may find a better subject for his labors in some of
the rich collection of the Munoz manuscripts in his possession.
History of the Conquest of Peru
by William Hickling Prescott
Book 4
Civil Wars Of The Conquerors
Chapter 1
Almagro's March To Chili--Suffering Of The Troops-
He Returns And Seizes Cuzco--Action Of Abancay-
Gaspar De Espinosa--Almagro Leaves Cuzco-
Negotiations With Pizarro
1535--1537
While the events recorded in the preceding chapter were passing, the
Marshal Almagro was engaged in his memorable expedition to Chili. He
had set out, as we have seen, with only part of his forces, leaving his
lieutenant to follow him with the remainder. During the first part of the
way, he profited by the great military road of the Incas, which stretched
across the table-land far towards the south. But as he drew near to Chili,
the Spanish commander became entangled in the defiles of the
mountains, where no vestige of a road was to be discerned. Here his
progress was impeded by all the obstacles which belong to the wild
scenery of the Cordilleras; deep and ragged ravines, round whose sides a
slender sheep-path wound up to a dizzy height over the precipices below;
rivers rushing in fury down the slopes of the mountains, and throwing
themselves in stupendous cataracts into the yawning abyss; dark forests
of pine that seemed to have no end, and then again long reaches of
desolate tableland, without so much as a bush or shrub to shelter the
shivering traveller from the blast that swept down from the frozen
summits of the sierra.
The cold was so intense, that many lost the nails of their fingers, their
fingers themselves, and sometimes their limbs. Others were blinded by
the dazzling waste of snow, reflecting the rays of a sun made intolerably
brilliant in the thin atmosphere of these elevated regions. Hunger came,
as usual, in the train of woes; for in these dismal solitudes no vegetation
that would suffice for the food of man was visible, and no living thing,
except only the great bird of the Andes, hovering over their heads in
expectation of his banquet. This was too frequently afforded by the
number of wretched Indians, who, unable, from the scantiness of their
clothing, to encounter the severity of the climate, perished by the way.
Such was the pressure of hunger, that the miserable survivors fed on the
dead bodies of their countrymen, and the Spaniards forced a similar
sustenance from the carcasses of their horses, literally frozen to death in
the mountain passes.1--Such were the terrible penalties which Nature
imposed on those who rashly intruded on these her solitary and most
savage haunts.
Yet their own sufferings do not seem to have touched the hearts of the
Spaniards with any feeling of compassion for the weaker natives. Their
path was everywhere marked by burnt and desolated hamlets, the
inhabitants of which were compelled to do them service as beasts of
burden. They were chained together in gangs of ten or twelve, and no
infirmity or feebleness of body excused the unfortunate captive from his
full share of the common toil, till he sometimes dropped dead, in his very
chains, from mere exhaustion! 2 Alvarado's company are accused of
having been more cruel than Pizarro's; and many of Almagro's men, it
may be remembered, were recruited from that source. The commander
looked with displeasure, it is said, on these enormities, and did what he
could to repress them. Yet he did not set a good example in his own
conduct, if it be true that he caused no less than thirty Indian chiefs to be
burnt alive, for the massacre of three of his followers! 3 The heart
sickens at the recital of such atrocities perpetrated on an unoffending
people, or, at least, guilty of no other crime than that of defending their
own soil too well.
There is something in the possession of superior strength most
dangerous, in a moral view, to its possessor. Brought in contact with
semicivilized man, the European, with his endowments and effective
force so immeasurably superior, holds him as little higher than the brute,
and as born equally for his service. He feels that he has a natural right,
as it were, to his obedience, and that this obedience is to be measured,
not by the powers of the barbarian, but by the will of his conqueror.
Resistance becomes a crime to he washed out only in the blood of the
victim. The tale of such atrocities is not confined to the Spaniard.
Wherever the civilized man and the savage have come in contact, in the
East or in the West, the story has been too often written in blood.
From the wild chaos of mountain scenery the Spaniards emerged on the
green vale of Coquimbo, about the thirtieth degree of south latitude.
Here they halted to refresh themselves in its abundant plains, after their
unexampled sufferings and fatigues. Meanwhile Almagro despatched an
officer with a strong party in advance, to ascertain the character of the
country towards the south. Not long after, he was cheered by the arrival
of the remainder of his forces under his lieutenant Rodrigo de Orgonez.
This was a remarkable person, and intimately connected with the
subsequent fortunes of Almagro.
He was a native of Oropesa, had been trained in the Italian wars, and
held the rank of ensign in the army of the Constable of Bourbon at the
famous sack of Rome. It was a good school in which to learn his iron
trade, and to steel the heart against any too ready sensibility to human
suffering. Orgonez was an excellent soldier; true to his commander,
prompt, fearless, and unflinching in the execution of his orders. His
services attracted the notice of the Crown, and, shortly after this period,
he was raised to the rank of Marshal of New Toledo. Yet it may be
doubted whether his character did not qualify him for an executive and
subordinate station rather than for one of higher responsibility.
Almagro received also the royal warrant, conferring on him his new
powers and territorial jurisdiction. The instrument had been detained by
the Pizarros to the very last moment. His troops, long since disgusted
with their toilsome and unprofitable march, were now clamorous to
return. Cuzco, they said, undoubtedly fell within the limits of his
government, and it was better to take possession of its comfortable
quarters than to wander like outcasts in this dreary wilderness. They
reminded their commander that thus only could he provide for the
interests of his son Diego. This was an illegitimate son of Almagro, on
whom his father doated with extravagant fondness, justified more than
usual by the promising character of the youth.
After an absence of about two months, the officer sent on the exploring
expedition returned, bringing unpromising accounts of the southern
regions of Chili. The only land of promise for the Castilian was one that
teemed with gold.4 He had penetrated to the distance of a hundred
leagues, to the limits, probably, of the conquests of the Incas on the river
Maule.5 The Spaniards had fortunately stopped short of the land of
Arauco, where the blood of their countrymen was soon after to be poured
out like water, and which still maintains a proud independence amidst
the general humiliation of the Indian races around it.
Almagro now yielded, with little reluctance, to the renewed importunities
of the soldiers, and turned his face towards the North. It is unnecessary
to follow his march in detail. Disheartened by the difficulty of the
mountain passage, he took the road along the coast, which led him across
the great desert of Atacama. In crossing this dreary waste, which
stretches for nearly a hundred leagues to the northern borders of Chili,
with hardly a green spot in its expanse to relieve the fainting traveller,
Almagro and his men experienced as great sufferings, though not of the
same kind, as those which they had encountered in the passes of the
Cordilleras. Indeed, the captain would not easily be found at this day,
who would venture to lead his army across this dreary region. But the
Spaniard of the sixteenth century had a strength of limb and a buoyancy
of spirit which raised him to a contempt of obstacles, almost justifying
the boast of the historian, that "he contended indifferently, at the same
time, with man, with the elements, and with famine!" 6
After traversing the terrible desert, Almagro reached the ancient town of
Arequipa, about sixty leagues from Cuzco. Here he learned with
astonishment the insurrection of the Peruvians, and further, that the
young Inca Manco still lay with a formidable force at no great distance
from the capital. He had once been on friendly terms with the Peruvian
prince, and he now resolved, before proceeding farther, to send an
embassy to his camp, and arrange an interview with him in the
neighborhood of Cuzco.
Almagro's emissaries were well received by the Inca, who alleged his
grounds of complaint against the Pizarros, and named the vale of Yucay
as the place where he would confer with the marshal. The Spanish
commander accordingly resumed his march, and, taking one half of his
force, whose whole number fell somewhat short of five hundred men, he
repaired in person to the place of rendezvous; while the remainder of his
army established their quarters at Urcos, about six leagues from the
capital.7
The Spaniards in Cuzco, startled by the appearance of this fresh body of
troops in their neighborhood, doubted, when they learned the quarter
whence they came, whether it betided them good or evil. Hernando
Pizarro marched out of the city with a small force, and, drawing near to
Urcos, heard with no little uneasiness of Almagro's purpose to insist on
his pretensions to Cuzco. Though much inferior in strength to his rival,
he determined to resist him.
Meanwhile, the Peruvians, who had witnessed the conference between
the soldiers of the opposite camps, suspected some secret understanding
between the parties, which would compromise the safety of the Inca.
They communicated their distrust to Manco, and the latter, adopting the
same sentiments, or perhaps, from the first, meditating a surprise of the
Spaniards, suddenly fell upon the latter in the valley of Yucay with a
body of fifteen thousand men. But the veterans of Chili were too
familiar with Indian tactics to be taken by surprise. And though a sharp
engagement ensued, which lasted more than an hour, in which Orgonez
had a horse killed under him, the natives were finally driven back with
great slaughter, and the Inca was so far crippled by the blow, that he was
not likely for the present to give further molestation.8
Almagro, now joining the division left at Urcos, saw no further
impediment to his operations on Cuzco. He sent, at once, an embassy to
the municipality of the place, requiring the recognition of him as its
lawful governor, and presenting at the same time a copy of his
credentials from the Crown. But the question of jurisdiction was not one
easy to be settled, depending, as it did, on a knowledge of the true
parallels of latitude, not very likely to be possessed by the rude followers
of Pizarro. The royal grant had placed under his jurisdiction all the
country extending two hundred and seventy leagues south of the river at
Santiago, situated one degree and twenty minutes north of the equator.
Two hundred and seventy leagues on the meridian, by our measurement,
would fall more than a degree short of Cuzco, and, indeed, would barely
include the city of Lima itself. But the Spanish leagues, of only
seventeen and a half to a degree,9 would remove the southern boundary
to nearly half a degree beyond the capital of the Incas, which would thus
fall within the jurisdiction of Pizarro.10 Yet the division-line ran so
close to the disputed ground, that the true result might reasonably be
doubted, where no careful scientific observations had been made to
obtain it; and each party was prompt to assert, as they always are in such
cases, that its own claim was clear and unquestionable.11
Thus summoned by Almagro, the authorities of Cuzco, unwilling to give
umbrage to either of the contending chiefs, decided that they must wait
until they could take counsel--which they promised to do at once--with
certain pilots better instructed than themselves in the position of the
Santiago. Meanwhile, a truce was arranged between the parties, each
solemnly engaging to abstain from hostile measures, and to remain quiet
in their present quarters.
The weather now set in cold and rainy. Almagro's soldiers, greatly
discontented with their position, flooded as it was by the waters, were
quick to discover that Hernando Pizarro was busily employed in
strengthening himself in the city, contrary to agreement. They also
learned with dismay, that a large body of men, sent by the governor from
Lima, under command of Alonso de Alvarado, was on the march to
relieve Cuzco. They exclaimed that they were betrayed, and that the
truce had been only an artifice to secure their inactivity until the arrival
of the expected succours. In this state of excitement, it was not very
difficult to persuade their commander--too ready to surrender his own
judgment to the rash advisers around him--to violate the treaty, and take
possession of the capital.12
Under cover of a dark and stormy night (April 8th, 1537), he entered the
place without opposition, made himself master of the principal church,
established strong parties of cavalry at the head of the great avenues to
prevent surprise, and detached Orgonez with a body of infantry to force
the dwelling of Hernando Pizarro. "That captain was lodged with his
brother Gonzalo in one of the large halls built by the Incas for public
diversions, with immense doors of entrance that opened on the plaza. It
was garrisoned by about twenty soldiers, who, as the gates were burst
open, stood stoutly to the defence of their leader. A smart struggle
ensued, in which some lives were lost, till at length Orgonez, provoked
by the obstinate resistance, set fire to the combustible roof of the
building. It was speedily in flames, and the burning rafters falling on the
heads of the inmates, they forced their reluctant leader to an
unconditional surrender. Scarcely had the Spaniards left the building,
when the whole roof fell in with a tremendous crash.13
Almagro was now master of Cuzco. He ordered the Pizarros, with
fifteen or twenty of the principal cavaliers, to be secured and placed in
confinement. Except so far as required for securing his authority, he
does not seem to have been guilty of acts of violence to the
inhabitants,14 and he installed one of Pizarro's most able officers,
Gabriel de Rojas, in the government of the city. The municipality,
whose eyes were now open to the validity of Almagro's pretensions,
made no further scruple to recognize his title to Cuzco.
The marshal's first step was to send a message to Alonso de Alvarado's
camp, advising that officer of his occupation of the city, and requiring
his obedience to him as its legitimate master. Alvarado was lying, with a
body of five hundred men, horse and foot, at Xauxa, about thirteen
leagues from the capital. He had been detached several months
previously for the relief of Cuzco; but had, most unaccountably, and, as
it proved, most unfortunately for the Peruvian capital, remained at Xauxa
with the alleged motive of protecting that settlement and the surrounding
country against the insurgents.15 He now showed himself loyal to his
commander; and, when Almagro's ambassadors reached his camp, he put
them in irons, and sent advice of what had been done to the governor at
Lima.
Almagro, offended by the detention of his emissaries, prepared at once to
march against Alonso de Alvarado, and take more effectual means to
bring him to submission. His lieutenant, Orgonez, strongly urged him
before his departure to strike off the heads of the Pizarros, alleging,
"that, while they lived, his commander's life would never be safe"; and
concluding with the Spanish proverb, "Dead men never bite." 16 But the
marshal, though he detested Hernando in his heart, shrunk from so
violent a measure; and, independently of other considerations, he had
still an attachment for his old associate, Francis Pizarro, and was
unwilling to sever the ties between them for ever. Contenting himself,
therefore, with placing his prisoners trader strong guard in one of the
stone buildings belonging to the House of the Sun, he put himself at the
head of his forces, and left the capital in quest of Alvarado.
That officer had now taken up a position on the farther side of the Rio de
Abancay, where he lay, with the strength of his little army, in front of a
bridge, by which its rapid waters are traversed, while a strong
detachment occupied a spot commanding a ford lower down the river.
But in this detachment was a cavalier of much consideration in the army,
Pedro de Lerma, who, from some pique against his commander, had
entered into treasonable correspondence with the opposite party. By his
advice, Almagro, on reaching the border of the river, established himself
against the bridge in face of Alvarado, as if prepared to force a passage,
thus concentrating his adversary's attention on that point. But, when
darkness had set in, he detached a large body under Orgonez to pass the
ford, and operate in concert with Lerma. Orgonez executed this
commission with his usual promptness. The ford was crossed, though
the current ran so swiftly, that several of his men were swept away by it,
and perished in the waters. Their leader received a severe wound
himself in the mouth, as he was gaining the opposite bank, but, nothing
daunted, he cheered on his men, and fell with fury on the enemy. He was
speedily joined by Lerma, and such of the soldiers as he had gained over,
and, unable to distinguish friend from foe, the enemy's confusion was
complete.
Meanwhile, Alvarado, roused by the noise of the attack on this quarter,
hastened to the support of his officer, when Almagro, seizing the
occasion, pushed across the bridge, dispersed the small body left to
defend it, and, falling on Alvarado's rear, that general saw himself
hemmed in on all sides. The struggle did not last long; and the
unfortunate chief, uncertain on whom he could rely, surrendered with all
his force,--those only excepted who had already-deserted to the enemy.
Such was the battle of Abancay, as it was called, from the river on whose
banks it was fought, on the twelfth of July, 1537.- Never was a victory
more complete, or achieved with less cost of life; and Almagro marched
back, with an array of prisoners scarcely inferior to his own army in
number, in triumph to Cuzco.17
While the events related in the preceding pages were passing, Francisco
Pizarro had remained at Lima, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the
reinforcements which he had requested, to enable him to march to the
relief of the beleaguered capital of the Incas. His appeal had not been
unanswered. Among the rest was a corps of two hundred and fifty men,
led by the Licentiate Gaspar de Espinosa, one of the three original
associates, it may be remembered, who engaged in the conquest of Peru.
He had now left his own residence at Panama, and came in person, for
the first time, it would seem, to revive the drooping fortunes of his
confederates. Pizarro received also a vessel laden with provisions,
military stores, and other necessary supplies, besides a rich wardrobe for
himself, from Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexico, who generously
stretched forth his hand to aid his kinsman in the hour of need.18
With a force amounting to four hundred and fifty men, half of them
cavalry, the governor quitted Lima, and began his march on the Inca
capital. He had not advanced far, when he received tidings of the return
of Almagro, the seizure of Cuzco, and the imprisonment of his brothers;
and, before he had time to recover from this astounding intelligence, he
learned the total defeat and capture of Alvarado. Filled with
consternation at these rapid successes of his rival, he now returned in all
haste to Lima, which he put in the best posture of defence, to secure it
against the hostile movements, not unlikely, as he thought, to be directed
against that capital itself. Meanwhile, far from indulging in impotent
sallies of resentment, or in complaints of his ancient comrade, he only
lamented that Almagro should have resorted to these violent measures
for the settlement of their dispute, and this less-if we may take his word
for it--from personal considerations than from the prejudice it might do
to the interests of the Crown.19
But, while busily occupied with warlike preparations, he did not omit to
try the effect of negotiation. He sent an embassy to Cuzco, consisting of
several persons in whose discretion he placed the greatest confidence,
with Espinosa at their head, as the party most interested in an amicable
arrangement.
The licentiate, on his arrival, did not find Almagro in as favorable a
mood for an accommodation as he could have wished. Elated by his
recent successes, he now aspired not only to the possession of Cuzco, but
of Lima itself, as falling within the limits of his jurisdiction. It was in
vain that Espinosa urged the propriety, by every argument which
prudence could suggest, of moderating his demands. His claims upon
Cuzco, at least, were not to be shaken, and he declared himself ready to
peril his life in maintaining them. The licentiate coolly replied by
quoting the pithy Castilian proverb, El vencido vencido, y el vencidor
perdido; "The vanquished vanquished, and the victor undone."
What influence the temperate arguments of the licentiate might
eventually have had on the heated imagination of the soldier is doubtful;
but unfortunately for the negotiation, it was abruptly terminated by the
death of Espinosa himself, which took place most unexpectedly, though,
strange to say, in those times, without the imputation of poison.20 He
was a great loss to the parties in the existing fermentation of their minds;
for he had the weight of character which belongs to wise and moderate
counsels, and a deeper interest than any other man in recommending
them.
The name of Espinosa is memorable in history from his early connection
with the expedition to Peru, which, but for the seasonable, though secret,
application of his funds, could not then have been compassed. He had
long been a resident in the Spanish colonies of Tierra Firme and Panama,
where he had served in various capacities, sometimes as a legal
functionary presiding in the courts of justice,21 and not unfrequently as
an efficient leader in the early expeditions of conquest and discovery. In
these manifold vocations he acquired high reputation for probity,
intelligence, and courage, and his death at the present crisis was
undoubtedly the most unfortunate event that could befall the country.
All attempt at negotiation was now abandoned; and Almagro announced
his purpose to descend to the sea-coast, where he could plant a colony
and establish a port for himself. This would secure him the means, so
essential, of communication with the mother-country, and here he would
resume negotiations for the settlement of his dispute with Pizarro.
Before quitting Cuzco, he sent Orgonez with a strong force against the
Inca, not caring to leave the capital exposed in his absence to further
annoyance from that quarter.
But the Inca, discouraged by his late discomfiture, and unable, perhaps,
to rally in sufficient strength for resistance, abandoned his stronghold at
Tambo, and retreated across the mountains. He was hotly pursued by
Orgonez over hill and valley, till, deserted by his followers, and with
only one of his wives to bear him company, the royal fugitive took
shelter in the remote fastnesses of the Andes.22
Before leaving the capital, Orgonez again urged his commander to strike
off the heads of the Pizarros, and then march at once upon Lima. By this
decisive step he would bring the war to an issue, and forever secure
himself from the insidious machinations of his enemies. But, in the mean
time, a new friend had risen up to the captive brothers. This was Diego
de Alvarado, brother of that Pedro, who, as mentioned in a preceding
chapter, had conducted the unfortunate expedition to Quito. After his
brother's departure, Diego had attached himself to the fortunes of
Almagro, had accompanied him to Chili, and, as he was a cavalier of
birth, and possessed of some truly noble qualities, he had gained
deserved ascendency over his commander. Alvarado had frequently
visited Hernando Pizarro in his confinement, where, to beguile the
tediousness of captivity, he amused himself with gaming,--the passion of
the Spaniard. They played deep, and Alvarado lost the enormous sum of
eighty thousand gold castellanos. He was prompt in paying the debt, but
Hernando Pizarro peremptorily declined to receive the money. By this
politic generosity, he secured an important advocate in the council of
Almagro. It stood him now in good stead. Alvarado represented to the
marshal, that such a measure as that urged by Orgonez would not only
outrage the feelings of his followers, but would ruin his fortunes by the
indignation it must excite at court. When Almagro acquiesced in these
views, as in truth most grateful to his own nature, Orgonez, chagrined at
his determination, declared that the day would come when he would
repent this mistaken lenity. "A Pizarro," he said, "was never known to
forget an injury; and that which they had already received from Almagro
was too deep for them to forgive." Prophetic words!
On leaving Cuzco, the marshal gave orders that Gonzalo Pizarro and the
other prisoners should be detained in strict custody. Hernando he took
with him, closely guarded, on his march. Descending rapidly towards
the coast, he reached the pleasant vale of Chincha in the latter part of
August. Here he occupied himself with laying the foundations of a town
bearing his own name, which might serve as a counterpart to the City of
the Kings,--thus bidding defiance, as it were, to his rival on his own
borders. While occupied in this manner, he received the unwelcome
tidings, that Gonzalo Pizarro, Alonso de Alvarado, and the other
prisoners, having tampered with their guards, had effected their escape
from Cuzco, and he soon after heard of their safe arrival in the camp of
Pizarro.
Chafed by this intelligence, the marshal was not soothed by the
insinuations of Orgonez, that it was owing to his ill-advised lenity; that it
might have gone hard with Hernando, but that Almagro's attention was
diverted by the negotiation which Francisco Pizarro now proposed to
resume.
After some correspondence between the parties, it was agreed to submit
the arbitration of the dispute to a single individual, Fray Francisco de
Bovadilla, a Brother of the Order of Mercy. Though living in Lima, and,
as might be supposed, under the influence of Pizarro, he had a reputation
for integrity that disposed Almagro to confide the settlement of the
question exclusively to him. In this implicit confidence in the friar's
impartiality, Orgonez, of a less sanguine temper than his chief, did not
participate.23
An interview was arranged between the rival chiefs. It took place at
Mala, November 13th, 1537; but very different was the deportment of
the two commanders towards each other from that which they had
exhibited at their former meetings. Almagro, indeed, doffing his bonnet,
advanced in his usual open manner to salute his ancient comrade; but
Pizarro, hardly condescending to return the salute, haughtily demanded
why the marshal had seized upon his city of Cuzco, and imprisoned his
brothers. This led to a recrimination on the part of his associate. The
discussion assumed the tone of an angry altercation, till Almagro, taking
a hint--or what he conceived to be such--from an attendant, that some
treachery was intended, abruptly quitted the apartment, mounted his
horse, and galloped back to his quarters at Chincha.24 The conference
closed, as might have been anticipated from the heated temper of their
minds when they began it, by widening the breach it was intended to
heal. The friar, now left wholly to himself, after some deliberation, gave
his award. He decided that a vessel, with a skilful pilot on board, should
be sent to determine the exact latitude of the river of Santiago, the
northern boundary of Pizarro's territory, by which all the measurements
were to be regulated. In the mean time, Cuzco was to be delivered up by
Almagro, and Hernando Pizarro to be set at liberty, on condition of his
leaving the country in six weeks for Spain. Both parties were to retire
within their undisputed territories, and to abandon all further
hostilities.25
This award, as may be supposed, highly satisfactory to Pizarro, was
received by Almagro's men with indignation and scorn. They had been
sold, they cried, by their general, broken, as he was, by age and
infirmities. Their enemies were to occupy Cuzco and its pleasant places,
while they were to be turned over to the barren wilderness of Charcas.
Little did they dream that under this poor exterior were hidden the rich
treasures of Potosi. They denounced the umpire as a hireling of the
governor, and murmurs were heard among the troops, stimulated by
Orgonez, demanding the head of Hernando. Never was that cavalier in
greater danger. But his good genius in the form of Alvarado again
interposed to protect him. His life in captivity was a succession of
reprieves.26
Yet his brother, the governor, was not disposed to abandon him to his
fate. On the contrary, he was now prepared to make every concession to
secure his freedom. Confessions, that politic chief well knew, cost little
to those who are not concerned to abide by them. After some
preliminary negotiation, another award, more equitable, or, at all events,
more to the satisfaction of the discontented party, was given. The
principal articles of it were, that, until the arrival of some definitive
instructions on the point from Castile, the city of Cuzco, with its
territory, should remain in the hands of Almagro; and that Hernando
Pizarro should be set at liberty, on the condition, above stipulated, of
leaving the country in six weeks.--When the terms of this agreement
were communicated to Orgonez, that officer intimated his opinion of
them, by passing his finger across his throat, and exclaiming, "What has
my fidelity to my commander cost me!" 27
Almagro, in order to do greater honor to his prisoner, visited him in
person, and announced to him that he was from that moment free. He
expressed a hope, at the same time, that "all past differences would be
buried in oblivion, and that henceforth they should live only in the
recollection of their ancient friendship." Hernando replied, with apparent
cordiality, that "he desired nothing better for himself." He then swore in
the most solemn manner, and pledged his knightly honor,--the latter,
perhaps, a pledge of quite as much weight in his own mind as the
former,--that he would faithfully comply with the terms stipulated in the
treaty. He was next conducted by the marshal to his quarters, where he
partook of a collation in company with the principal officers; several of
whom, together with Diego Almagro, the general's son, afterward
escorted the cavalier to his brother's camp, which had been transferred to
the neighboring town of Mala. Here the party received a most cordial
greeting from the governor, who entertained them with a courtly
hospitality, and lavished many attentions, in particular, on the son of his
ancient associate. In short, such, on their return, was the account of their
reception, that it left no doubt in the mind of Almagro that all was at
length amicably settled.28--He did not know Pizarro.
Book 4
Chapter 2
First Civil War--Almagro Retreats To Cuzco--Battle Of Las Salinas--
Cruelty Of The Conquerors--Trial And Execution Of Almagro-
His Character
1537--1538
Scarcely had Almagro's officers left the governor's quarters, when the
latter, calling his little army together, briefly recapitulated the many
wrongs which had been done him by his rival, the seizure of his capital,
the imprisonment of his brothers, the assault and defeat of his troops; and
he concluded with the declaration,--heartily echoed back by his military
audience,--that the time had now come for revenge. All the while that
the negotiations were pending, Pizarro had been busily occupied with
military preparations. He had mustered a force considerably larger than
that of his rival, drawn from various quarters, but most of them familiar
with service. He now declared, that, as he was too old to take charge of
the campaign himself, he should devolve that duty on his brothers; and
he released Hernando from all his engagements to Almagro, as a
measure justified by necessity. That cavalier, with graceful pertinacity,
intimated his design to abide by the pledges he had given, but, at length,
yielded a reluctant assent to the commands of his brother, as to a
measure imperatively demanded by his duty to the Crown.1
The governor's next step was to advise Almagro that the treaty was at an
end. At the same time, he warned him to relinquish his pretensions to
Cuzco, and withdraw into his own territory, or the responsibility of the
consequences would lie on his own head.
Reposing in his false security, Almagro was now fully awakened to the
consciousness of the error he had committed; and the warning voice of
his lieutenant may have risen to his recollection. The first part of the
prediction was fulfilled. And what should prevent the latter from being
so? To add to his distress, he was laboring at this time under a grievous
malady, the result of early excesses, which shattered his constitution, and
made him incapable alike of mental and bodily exertion.2
In this forlorn condition, he confided the management of his affairs to
Orgonez, on whose loyalty and courage he knew he might implicitly rely.
The first step was to secure the passes of the Guaitara, a chain of hills
that hemmed in the valley of Zangalla, where Almagro was at present
established. But, by some miscalculation, the passes were not secured in
season; and the active enemy, threading the dangerous defiles, effected a
passage across the sierra, where a much inferior force to his own might
have taken him at advantage. The fortunes of Almagro were on the
wane.
His thoughts were now turned towards Cuzco, and he was anxious to get
possession of this capital before the arrival of the enemy. Too feeble to
sit on horseback, he was obliged to be carried in a litter; and, when he
reached the ancient town of Bilcas, not far from Guamanga, his
indisposition was so severe that he was compelled to halt and remain
there three weeks before resuming his march.
The governor and his brothers, in the mean time, after traversing the pass
of Guaitara, descended into the valley of Ica, where Pizarro remained a
considerable while, to get his troops in order and complete his
preparations for the campaign. Then, taking leave of the army, he
returned to Lima, committing the prosecution of the war, as he had
before announced, to his younger and more active brothers. Hernando,
soon after quitting Ica, kept along the coast as far as Nasca, proposing to
penetrate the country by a circuitous route in order to elude the enemy,
who might have greatly embarrassed him in some of the passes of the
Cordilleras. But unhappily for him, this plan of operations, which would
have given him such manifest advantage, was not adopted by Almagro;
and his adversary, without any other impediment than that arising from
the natural difficulties of the march, arrived, in the latter part of April,
1538, in the neighborhood of Cuzco.
But Almagro was already in possession of that capital, which he had
reached ten days before. A council of war was held by him respecting
the course to be pursued. Some were for making good the defence of the
city. Almagro would have tried what could be done by negotiation. But
Orgonez bluntly replied,--"It is too late; you have liberated Hernando
Pizarro, and nothing remains but to fight him." The opinion of Orgonez
finally prevailed, to march out and give the enemy battle on the plains.
The marshal, still disabled by illness from taking the command, devolved
it on his trusty lieutenant, who, mustering his forces, left the city, and
took up a position at Las Salinas, less than a league distant from Cuzco.
The place received its name from certain pits or vats in the ground, used
for the preparation of salt, that was obtained from a natural spring in the
neighborhood. It was an injudicious choice of ground, since its broken
character was most unfavorable to the free action of cavalry, in which the
strength of Almagro's force consisted. But, although repeatedly urged by
the officers to advance into the open country, Orgonez persisted in his
position, as the most favorable for defence, since the front was protected
by a marsh, and by a little stream that flowed over the plain. His forces
amounted in all to about five hundred, more than half of them horse. His
infantry was deficient in firearms, the place of which was supplied by the
long pike. He had also six small cannon, or falconets, as they were
called, which, with his cavalry, formed into two equal divisions, he
disposed on the flanks of his infantry. Thus prepared, he calmly awaited
the approach of the enemy.
It was not long before the bright arms and banners of the Spaniards
under Hernando Pizarro were seen emerging from the mountain passes,
The troops came forward in good order, and like men whose steady step
showed that they had been spared in the march, and were now fresh for
action. They advanced slowly across the plain, and halted on the
opposite border of the little stream which covered the front of Orgonez.
Here Hernando, as the sun had set, took up his quarters for the night,
proposing to defer the engagement till daylight.3
The rumors of the approaching battle had spread far and wide over the
country; and the mountains and rocky heights around were thronged with
multitudes of natives, eager to feast their eyes on a spectacle, where,
whichever side were victorious, the defeat would fall on their enemies.4
The Castilian women and children, too, with still deeper anxiety, had
thronged out from Cuzco to witness the deadly strife in which brethren
and kindred were to contend for mastery.5 The whole number of the
combatants was insignificant; though not as compared with those usually
engaged in these American wars. It is not, however, the number of the
players, but the magnitude of the stake, that gives importance and
interest to the game; and in this bloody game, they were to play for the
possession of an empire.
The night passed away in silence, unbroken by the vast assembly which
covered the surrounding hill-tops. Nor did the soldiers of the hostile
camps, although keeping watch within hearing of one another, and with
the same blood flowing in their veins, attempt any communication. So
deadly was the hate in their bosoms! 6
The sun rose bright, as usual in this beautiful climate, on Saturday, the
twenty-sixth day of April, 1538.7 But long before his beams were on the
plain, the trumpet of Hernando Pizarro had called his men to arms. His
forces amounted in all to about seven hundred. They were drawn from
various quarters, the veterans of Pizarro, the followers of Alonso de
Alvarado,--many of whom, since their defeat, had found their way back
to Lima,--and the late reinforcement from the isles, most of them
seasoned by many a toilsome march in the Indian campaigns, and many a
hard-fought field. His mounted troops were inferior to those of
Almagro; but this was more than compensated by the strength of his
infantry, comprehending a well-trained corps of arquebusiers, sent from
St. Domingo, whose weapons were of the improved construction
recently introduced from Flanders. They were of a large calibre, and
threw double-headed shot, consisting of bullets linked together by an
iron chain. It was doubtless a clumsy weapon compared with modern
firearms, but, in hands accustomed to wield it, proved a destructive
instrument.8
Hernando Pizarro drew up his men in the same order of battle as that
presented by the enemy,--throwing his infantry into the centre, and
disposing his horse on the flanks; one corps of which he placed under
command of Alonso de Alvarado, and took charge of the other himself.
The infantry was headed by his brother Gonzalo, supported by Pedro de
Valdivia, the future hero of Arauco, whose disastrous story forms the
burden of romance as well as of chronicle.9
Mass was said, as if the Spaniards were about to fight what they deemed
the good fight of the faith, instead of imbruing their hands in the blood of
their countrymen. Hernando Pizarro then made a brief address to his
soldiers. He touched on the personal injuries he and his family had
received from Almagro; reminded his brother's veterans that Cuzco had
been wrested from their possession; called up the glow of shame on the
brows of Alvarado's men as he talked of the rout of Abancay, and,
pointing out the Inca metropolis that sparkled in the morning sunshine,
he told them that there was the prize of the victor. They answered his
appeal with acclamations; and the signal being given, Gonzalo Pizarro,
heading his battalion of infantry, led it straight across the river. The
water was neither broad nor deep, and the soldiers found no difficulty in
gaining a landing, as the enemy's horse was prevented by the marshy
ground from approaching the borders. But, as they worked their way
across the morass, the heavy guns of Orgonez played with effect on the
leading files, and threw them into disorder. Gonzalo and Valdivia threw
themselves into the midst of their followers, menacing some,
encouraging others, and at length led them gallantly forward to the firm
ground. Here the arquebusiers, detaching themselves from the rest of the
infantry, gained a small eminence, whence, in their turn, they opened a
galling fire on Orgonez, scattering his array of spearmen, and sorely
annoying the cavalry on the flanks.
Meanwhile, Hernando, forming his two squadrons of horse into one
column, crossed under cover of this well-sustained fire, and, reaching the
firm ground, rode at once against the enemy. Orgonez, whose infantry
was already much crippled, advancing his horse, formed the two
squadrons into one body, like his antagonist, and spurred at full gallop
against the assailants. The shock was terrible; and it was hailed by the
swarms of Indian spectators on the surrounding heights with a fiendish
yell of triumph, that rose far above the din of battle, till it was lost in
distant echoes among the mountains.10
The struggle was desperate. For it was not that of the white man against
the defenceless Indian, but of Spaniard against Spaniard; both parties
cheering on their comrades with their battlecries of "El Rey y Almagro,"
or "El Rey y Pizarro,"--while they fought with a hate, to which national
antipathy was as nothing; a hate strong in proportion to the strength of
the ties that had been rent asunder.
In this bloody field well did Orgonez do his duty, fighting like one to
whom battle was the natural element. Singling out a cavalier, whom,
from the color of the sobre-vest on his armour, he erroneously supposed
to be Hernando Pizarro, he charged him in full career, and overthrew
him with his lance. Another he ran through in like manner, and a third
he struck down with his sword as he was prematurely shouting
"Victory!" But while thus doing the deeds of a paladin of romance, he
was hit by a chain-shot from an arquebuse, which, penetrating the bars of
his visor, grazed his forehead, and deprived him for a moment of reason.
Before he had fully recovered, his horse was killed under him, and
though the fallen cavalier succeeded in extricating himself from the
stirrups, he was surrounded, and soon overpowered by numbers. Still
refusing to deliver up his sword, he asked "if there was no knight to
whom he could surrender." One Fuentes, a menial of Pizarro, presenting
himself as such, Orgonez gave his sword into his hands,--and the dastard,
drawing his dagger, stabbed his defenceless prisoner to the heart! His
head, then struck off, was stuck on a pike, and displayed, a bloody
trophy, in the great square of Cuzco, as the head of a traitor.11 Thus
perished as loyal a cavalier, as decided in council, and as bold in action,
as ever crossed to the shores of America.
The fight had now lasted more than an hour, and the fortune of the day
was turning against the followers of Almagro. Orgonez being down,
their confusion increased. The infantry, unable to endure the fire of the
arquebusiers, scattered and took refuge behind the stone-walls, that here
and there straggled across the country. Pedro de Lerma, vainly striving
to rally the cavalry, spurred his horse against Hernando Pizarro, with
whom he had a personal feud. Pizarro did not shrink from the encounter.
The lances of both the knights took effect. That of Hernando penetrated
the thigh of his opponent, while Lerma's weapon, glancing by his
adversary's saddle-bow, struck him with such force above the groin, that
it pierced the joints of his mail, slightly wounding the cavalier, and
forcing his horse back on his haunches. But the press of the fight soon
parted the combatants, and, in the turmoil that ensued, Lerma was
unhorsed, and left on the field covered with wounds.12
There was no longer order, and scarcely resistance, among the followers
of Almagro. They fled, making the best of their way to Cuzco, and
happy was the man who obtained quarter when he asked it. Almagro
himself, too feeble to sit so long on his horse, reclined on a litter, and
from a neighboring eminence surveyed the battle, watching its
fluctuations with all the interest of one who felt that honor, fortune, life
itself, hung on the issue. With agony not to be described, he had seen
his faithful followers, after their hard struggle, borne down by their
opponents, till, convinced that all was lost, he succeeded in mounting a
mule, and rode off for a temporary refuge to the fortress of Cuzco.
Thither he was speedily followed, taken, and brought in triumph to the
capital, where, ill as he was, he was thrown into irons, and confined in
the same apartment of the stone building in which he had imprisoned the
Pizarros.
The action lasted not quite two hours. The number of killed, variously
stated, was probably not less than a hundred and fifty,--one of the
combatants calls it two hundred,13--a great number, considering the
shortness of the time, and the small amount of forces engaged. No
account is given of the wounded. Wounds were the portion of the
cavalier. Pedro de Lerma is said to have received seventeen, and yet was
taken alive from the field! The loss fell chiefly on the followers of
Almagro. But the slaughter was not confined to the heat of the action.
Such was the deadly animosity of the parties, that several were murdered
in cold blood, like Orgonez, after they had surrendered. Pedro de Lerma
himself, while lying on his sick couch in the quarters of a friend in
Cuzco, was visited by a soldier, named Samaniego, whom he had once
struck for an act of disobedience. This person entered the solitary
chamber of the wounded man took his place by his bed-side, and then,
upbraiding him for the insult, told him that he had come to wash it away
in his blood! Lerma in vain assured him, that, when restored to health,
he would give him the satisfaction he desired. The miscreant, exclaimed
"Now is the hour!" plunged his sword into his bosom. He lived several
years to vaunt this atrocious exploit, which he proclaimed as a reparation
to his honor. It is some satisfaction to know that the insolence of this
vaunt cost him his life.14 --Such anecdotes, revolting as they are,
illustrate not merely the spirit of the times, but that peculiarly ferocious
spirit which is engendered by civil wars,--the most unforgiving in their
character of any, but wars of religion.
In the hurry of the flight of one party, and the pursuit by the other, all
pouring towards Cuzco, the field of battle had been deserted. But it soon
swarmed with plunderers, as the Indians, descending like vultures from
the mountains, took possession of the bloody ground, and, despoiling the
dead, even to the minutest article of dress, left their corpses naked on the
plain.15 It has been thought strange that the natives should not have
availed themselves of their superior numbers to fall on the victors after
they had been exhausted by the battle. But the scattered bodies of the
Peruvians were without a leader; they were broken in spirits, moreover,
by recent reverses, and the Castilians, although weakened for the
moment by the struggle, were in far greater strength in Cuzco than they
had ever been before.
Indeed, the number of troops now assembled within its walls, amounting
to full thirteen hundred, composed, as they were, of the most discordant
materials, gave great uneasiness to Hernando Pizarro. For there were
enemies glaring on each other and on him with deadly though smothered
rancor, and friends, if not so dangerous, not the less troublesome from
their craving and unreasonable demands. He had given the capital up to
pillage, and his followers found good booty in the quarters of Almagro's
officers. But this did not suffice the more ambitious cavaliers; and they
clamorously urged their services, and demanded to be placed in charge
of some expedition, nothing doubting that it must prove a golden one.
All were in quest of an El Dorado. Hernando Pizarro acquiesced as far
as possible in these desires, most willing to relieve himself of such
importunate creditors. The expeditions, it is true, usually ended in
disaster; but the country was explored by them. It was the lottery of
adventure; the prizes were few, but they were splendid; and in the
excitement of the game, few Spaniards paused to calculate the chances of
success.
Among those who left the capital was Diego, the son of Almagro.
Hernando was mindful to send him, with a careful escort, to his brother
the governor, desirous to remove him at this crisis from the
neighborhood of his father. Meanwhile the marshal himself was pining
away in prison under the combined influence of bodily illness and
distress of mind. Before the battle of Salinas, it had been told to
Hernando Pizarro that Almagro was like to die. "Heaven forbid," he
exclaimed, "that this should come to pass before he falls into my
hands!"16 Yet the gods seemed now disposed to grant but half of this
pious prayer, since his captive seemed about to escape him just as he had
come into his power. To console the unfortunate chief, Hernando paid
him a visit in his prison, and cheered him with the assurance that he only
waited for the governor's arrival to set him at liberty; adding, "that, if
Pizarro did not come soon to the capital, he himself would assume the
responsibility of releasing him, and would furnish him with a conveyance
to his brother's quarters." At the same time, with considerate attention to
his comfort, he inquired of the marshal "what mode of conveyance
would be best suited to his state of health." After this he continued to
send him delicacies from his own table to revive his faded appetite.
Almagro, cheered by these kind attentions, and by the speedy prospect of
freedom, gradually mended in health and spirits.17
He little dreamed that all this while a process was industriously preparing
against him. It had been instituted immediately on his capture, and every
one, however humble, who had any cause of complaint against the
unfortunate prisoner, was invited to present it. The summons was readily
answered; and many an enemy now appeared in the hour of his fallen
fortunes, like the base reptiles crawling into light amidst the ruins of
some noble edifice; and more than one, who had received benefits from
his hands, were willing to court the favor of his enemy by turning on
their benefactor. From these loathsome sources a mass of accusations
was collected which spread over two thousand folio pages! Yet Almagro
was the idol of his soldiers! 18
Having completed the process, (July 8th, 1538,) it was not difficult to
obtain a verdict against the prisoner. The principal charges on which he
was pronounced guilty were those of levying war against the Crown, and
thereby occasioning the death of many of his Majesty's subjects; of
entering into conspiracy with the Inca; and finally, of dispossessing the
royal governor of the city of Cuzco. On these charges he was
condemned to suffer death as a traitor, by being publicly beheaded in
the great square of the city. Who were the judges, or what was the
tribunal that condemned him, we are not informed. Indeed, the whole
trial was a mockery; if that can be called a trial, where the accused
himself is not even aware of the accusation.
The sentence was communicated by a friar deputed for the purpose to
Almagro. The unhappy man, who all the while had been unconsciously
slumbering on the brink of a precipice, could not at first comprehend the
nature of his situation. Recovering from the first shock, "It was
impossible," he said, "that such wrong could be done him,--he would not
believe it." He then besought Hernando Pizarro to grant him an
interview. That cavalier, not unwilling, it would seem, to witness the
agony of his captive, consented: and Almagro was so humbled by his
misfortunes, that he condescended to beg for his life with the most
piteous supplications. He reminded Hernando of his ancient relations
with his brother, and the good offices he had rendered him and his family
in the earlier part of their career. He touched on his acknowledged
services to his country, and besought his enemy "to spare his gray hairs,
and not to deprive him of the short remnant of an existence from which
he had now nothing more to fear."--To this the other coldly replied, that
"he was surprised to see Almagro demean himself in a manner so
unbecoming a brave cavalier; that his fate was no worse than had
befallen many a soldier before him; and that, since God had given him
the grace to be a Christian, he should employ his remaining moments in
making up his account with Heaven!"19
But Almagro was not to be silenced. He urged the service he had
rendered Hernando himself. "This was a hard requital," he said, "for
having spared his life so recently under similar circumstances, and that,
too, when he had been urged again and again by those around him to
take it away." And he concluded by menacing his enemy with the
vengeance of the emperor, who would never suffer this outrage on one
who had rendered such signal services to the Crown to go unrequited. It
was all in vain; and Hernando abruptly closed the conference by
repeating, that "his doom was inevitable, and he must prepare to meet
it."20
Almagro, finding that no impression was to be made on his ironhearted
conqueror, now seriously addressed himself to the settlement of his
affairs. By the terms of the royal grant he was empowered to name his
successor. He accordingly devolved his office on his son, appointing
Diego de Alvarado, on whose integrity he had great reliance,
administrator of the province during his minority. All his property and
possessions in Peru, of whatever kind, he devised to his master the
emperor, assuring him that a large balance was still due to him in his
unsettled accounts with Pizarro. By this politic bequest, he hoped to
secure the monarch's protection for his son, as well as a strict scrutiny
into the affairs of his enemy.
The knowledge of Almagro's sentence produced a deep sensation in the
community of Cuzco. All were amazed at the presumption with which
one, armed with a little brief authority, ventured to sit in judgment on a
person of Almagro's station. There were few who did not call to mind
some generous or good-natured act of the unfortunate veteran. Even
those who had furnished materials for the accusation, now startled by the
tragic result to which it was to lead, were heard to denounce Hernando's
conduct as that of a tyrant. Some of the principal cavaliers, and among
them Diego de Alvarado, to whose intercession, as we have seen,
Hernando Pizarro, when a captive, had owed his own life, waited on that
commander, and endeavored to dissuade him from so highhanded and
atrocious a proceeding. It was in vain. But it had the effect of changing
the mode of execution, which, instead of the public square, was now to
take place in prison.21
On the day appointed, a strong corps of arquebusiers was drawn up in
the plaza. The guards were doubled over the houses where dwelt the
principal partisans of Almagro. The executioner, attended by a priest,
stealthily entered his prison; and the unhappy man, after confessing and
receiving the sacrament, submitted without resistance to the garrote.
Thus obscurely, in the gloomy silence of a dungeon, perished the hero of
a hundred battles! His corpse was removed to the great square of the
city, where, in obedience to the sentence, the head was severed from the
body. A herald proclaimed aloud the nature of the crimes for which he
had suffered; and his remains, rolled in their bloody shroud, were borne
to the house of his friend Hernan Ponce de Leon, and the next day laid
with all due solemnity in the church of Our Lady of Mercy. The Pizarros
appeared among the principal mourners. It was remarked, that their
brother had paid similar honors to the memory of Atahuallpa.22
Almagro, at the time of his death, was probably not far from seventy
years of age. But this is somewhat uncertain; for Almagro was a
foundling, and his early history is lost in obscurity.23 He had many
excellent qualities by nature; and his defects, which were not few, may
reasonably be palliated by the circumstances of his situation. For what
extenuation is not authorized by the position of a foundling,--without
parents, or early friends, or teacher to direct him,--his little bark set adrift
on the ocean of life, to take its chance among the rude billows and
breakers, without one friendly hand stretched forth to steer or to save it!
The name of "foundling" comprehends an apology for much, very much,
that is wrong in after life.24
He was a man of strong passions, and not too well used to control
them.25 But he was neither vindictive nor habitually cruel. I have
mentioned one atrocious outrage which he committed on the natives.
But insensibility to the rights of the Indian he shared with many a better
instructed Spaniard. Yet the Indians, after his conviction, bore testimony
to his general humanity, by declaring that they had no such friend among
the white men.26 Indeed, far from being vindictive, he was placable and
easily yielded to others. The facility with which he yielded, the result of
good-natured credulity, made him too often the dupe of the crafty; and it
showed, certainly, a want of that self-reliance which belongs to great
strength of character. Yet his facility of temper, and the generosity of his
nature, made him popular with his followers. No commander was ever
more beloved by his soldiers. His generosity was often carried to
prodigality. When he entered on the campaign of Chili, he lent a
hundred thousand gold ducats to the poorer cavaliers to equip themselves
and afterwards gave them up the debt.27 He was profuse to ostentation.
But his extravagance did him no harm among the roving spirits of the
camp, with whom prodigality is apt to gain more favor than a strict and
well-regulated economy.
He was a good soldier, careful and judicious in his plans, patient and
intrepid in their execution. His body was covered with the scars of his
battles, till the natural plainness of his person was converted almost into
deformity. He must not be judged by his closing campaign, when,
depressed by disease, he yielded to the superior genius of his rival; but
by his numerous expeditions by land and by water for the conquest of
Peru and the remote Chili. Yet it may be doubted whether he possessed
those uncommon qualities, either as a warrior or as a man, that, in
ordinary circumstances, would have raised him to distinction. He was
one of the three, or, to speak more strictly, of the two associates, who
had the good fortune and the glory to make one of the most splendid
discoveries in the Western World. He shares largely in the credit of this
with Pizarro; for, when he did not accompany that leader in his perilous
expeditions, he contributed no less to their success by his exertions in the
colonies.
Yet his connection with that chief can hardly be considered a fortunate
circumstance in his career. A partnership between individuals for
discovery and conquest is not likely to be very scrupulously observed,
especially by men more accustomed to govern others than to govern
themselves. If causes for discord do not arise before, they will be sure to
spring up on division of the spoil. But this association was particularly
ill-assorted. For the free, sanguine, and confiding temper of Almagro
was no match for the cool and crafty policy of Pizarro; and he was
invariably circumvented by his companion, whenever their respective
interests came in collision.
Still the final ruin of Almagro may be fairly imputed to himself. He
made two capital blunders. The first was his appeal to arms by the
seizure of Cuzco. The determination of a boundary-line was not to be
settled by arms. It was a subject for arbitration; and, if arbitrators could
not be trusted, it should have been referred to the decision of the Crown.
But, having once appealed to arms, he should not then have resorted to
negotiation,--above all, to negotiation with Pizarro. This was his second
and greatest error. He had seen enough of Pizarro to know that he was
not to be trusted. Almagro did trust him, and he paid for it with his life.
Book 4
Chapter 3
Pizarro Revisits Cuzco--Hernando Returns To Castile-
His Long Imprisonment--Commissioner Sent To Peru-
Hostilities With The Inca--Pizarro's Active Administration-
Gonzalo Pizarro
1539--1540
On the departure of his brother in pursuit of Almagro, the Marquess
Francisco Pizarro, as we have seen, returned to Lima. There he
anxiously awaited the result of the campaign; and on receiving the
welcome tidings of the victory of Las Salinas, he instantly made
preparations for his march to Cuzco. At Xauxa, however, he was long
detained by the distracted state of the country, and still longer, as it
would seem, by a reluctance to enter the Peruvian capital while the trial
of Almagro was pending.
He was met at Xauxa by the marshal's son Diego, who had been sent to
the coast by Hernando Pizarro. The young man was filled with the most
gloomy apprehensions respecting his father's fate, and he besought the
governor not to allow his brother to do him any violence. Pizarro, who
received Diego with much apparent kindness, bade him take heart, as no
harm should come to his father;1 adding, that he trusted their ancient
friendship would soon be renewed. The youth, comforted by these
assurances, took his way to Lima, where, by Pizarro's orders, he was
received into his house, and treated as a son.
The same assurances respecting the marshal's safety were given by the
governor to Bishop Valverde, and some of the principal cavaliers who
interested themselves in behalf of the prisoner.2 Still Pizarro delayed his
march to the capital; and when he resumed it, he had advanced no farther
than the Rio de Abancay when he received tidings of the death of his
rival. He appeared greatly shocked by the intelligence, his whole frame
was agitated, and he remained for some time with his eyes bent on the
ground showing signs of strong emotion.3
Such is the account given by his friends. A more probable version of the
matter represents him to have been perfectly aware of the state of things
at Cuzco. When the trial was concluded, it is said he received a message
from Hernando, inquiring what was to be done with the prisoner. He
answered in a few words :--"Deal with him so that he shall give us no
more trouble."4 It is also stated that Hernando, afterwards, when
laboring under the obloquy caused by Almagro's death, shielded himself
under instructions affirmed to have been received from the governor.5 It
is quite certain, that, during his long residence at Xauxa, the latter was in
constant communication with Cuzco; and that had he, as Valverde
repeatedly urged him,6 quickened his march to that capital, he might
easily have prevented the consummation of the tragedy. As commander-
in-chief, Almagro's fate was in his hands; and, whatever his own
partisans may affirm of his innocence, the impartial judgment of history
must hold him equally accountable with Hernando for the death of his
associate.
Neither did his subsequent conduct show any remorse for these
proceedings. He entered Cuzco, says one who was present there to
witness it, amidst the flourish of clarions and trumpets, at the head of his
martial cavalcade, and dressed in the rich suit presented him by Cortes,
with the proud bearing and joyous mien of a conqueror.7 When Diego
de Alvarado applied to him for the government of the southern
provinces, in the name of the young Almagro, whom his father, as we
have seen, had consigned to his protection, Pizarro answered, that "the
marshal, by his rebellion, had forfeited all claims to the government."
And, when he was still further urged by the cavalier, he bluntly broke off
the conversation by declaring that "his own territory covered all on this
side of Flanders"!8--intimating, no doubt, by this magnificent vaunt, that
he would endure no rival on this side of the water.
In the same spirit, he had recently sent to supersede Benalcazar, the
conqueror of Quito, who, he Was informed, aspired to an independent
government. Pizarro's emissary had orders to send the offending captain
to Lima; but Benalcazar, after pushing his victorious career far into the
north, had returned to Castile to solicit his guerdon from the emperor.
To the complaints of the injured natives, who invoked his protection, he
showed himself strangely insensible, while the followers of Almagro he
treated with undisguised contempt. The estates of the leaders were
confiscated, and transferred without ceremony to his own partisans.
Hernando had made attempts to conciliate some of the opposite faction
by acts of liberality, but they had refused to accept anything from the
man whose hands were stained with the blood of their commander.9 The
governor held to them no such encouragement; and many were reduced
to such abject poverty, that, too proud to expose their wretchedness to
the eyes of their conquerors, they withdrew from the city, and sought a
retreat among the neighboring mountains.10
For his own brothers he provided by such ample repartimientos, as
excited the murmurs of his adherents. He appointed Gonzalo to the
command of a strong force destined to act against the natives of Charcas,
a hardy people occupying the territory assigned by the Crown to
Almagro. Gonzalo met with a sturdy resistance, but, after some severe
fighting, succeeded in reducing the province to obedience. He was
recompensed, together with Hernando, who aided him in the conquest,
by a large grant in the neighborhood of Porco, the productive mines of
which had been partially wrought under the Incas. The territory, thus
situated, embraced part of those silver hills of Potosi which have since
supplied Europe with such stores of the precious metals. Hernando
comprehended the capabilities of the ground, and he began working the
mines on a more extensive scale than that hitherto adopted, though it
does not appear that any attempt was then made to penetrate the rich
crust of Potosi.11 A few years more were to elapse before the Spaniards
were to bring to light the silver quarries that lay hidden in the bosom of
its mountains.12
It was now the great business of Hernando to collect a sufficient quantity
of treasure to take with him to Castile. Nearly a year had elapsed since
Almagro's death; and it was full time that he should return and present
himself at court, where Diego de Alvarado and other friends of the
marshal, who had long since left Peru, were industriously maintaining
the claims of the younger Almagro, as well as demanding redress for the
wrongs done to his father. But Hernando looked confidently to his gold
to dispel the accusations against him.
Before his departure, he counselled his brother to beware of the "men of
Chili," as Almagro's followers were called; desperate men, who would
stick at nothing, he said, for revenge. He besought the governor not to
allow them to consort together in any number within fifty miles of his
person; if he did, it would be fatal to him. And he concluded by
recommending a strong body-guard; "for I," he added, "shall not be here
to watch over you." But the governor laughed at the idle fears, as he
termed them, of his brother, bidding the latter take no thought of him, "as
every hair in the heads of Almagro's followers was a guaranty for his
safety.''13 He did not know the character of his enemies so well as
Hernando.
The latter soon after embarked at Lima in the summer of 1539. He did
not take the route of Panama, for he had heard that it was the intention of
the authorities there to detain him. He made a circuitous passage,
therefore, by way of Mexico, landed in the Bay of Tecoantepec, and was
making his way across the narrow strip that divides the great oceans,
when he was arrested and taken to the capital. But the Viceroy Mendoza
did not consider that he had a right to detain him, and he was suffered to
embark at Vera Cruz, and to proceed on his voyage. Still he did not
deem it safe to trust himself in Spain without further advices. He
accordingly put in at one of the Azores, where he remained until he
could communicate with home. He had some powerful friends at court,
and by them he was encouraged to present himself before the emperor.
He took their advice, and shortly after, reached the Spanish coast in
safety.14
The Court was at Valladolid; but Hernando, who made his entrance into
that city, with great pomp and a display of his Indian riches, met with a
reception colder than he had anticipated.15 For this he was mainly
indebted to Diego de Alvarado, who was then residing there, and who, as
a cavalier of honorable standing, and of high connections, had
considerable influence. He had formerly, as we have seen, by his timely
interposition, more than once saved the life of Hernando; and he had
consented to receive a pecuniary obligation from him to a large amount.
But all were now forgotten in the recollection of the wrong done to his
commander; and, true to the trust reposed in him by that chief in his
dying hour, he had come to Spain to vindicate the claims of the young
Almagro.
But although coldly received at first, Hernando's presence, and his own
version of the dispute with Almagro, aided by the golden arguments
which he dealt with no stinted hand, checked the current of indignation,
and the opinion of his judges seemed for a time suspended. Alvarado, a
cavalier more accustomed to the prompt and decisive action of a camp
than to the tortuous intrigues of a court, chafed at the delay, and
challenged Hernando to settle their quarrel by single combat. But his
prudent adversary had no desire to leave the issue to such an ordeal;
and the affair was speedily terminated by the death of Alvarado himself,
which happened five days after the challenge. An event so opportune
naturally suggested the suspicion of poison.16
But his accusations had not wholly fallen to the ground; and Hernando
Pizarro had carried measures with too high a hand, and too grossly
outraged public sentiment, to be permitted to escape. He received no
formal sentence, but he was imprisoned in the strong fortress of Medina
del Campo, where he was allowed to remain for twenty years when in
1560, after a generation had nearly passed away, and time had, in some
measure, thrown its softening veil over the past, he was suffered to
regain his liberty.17 But he came forth an aged man, bent down with
infirmities and broken in spirit,--an object of pity, rather than
indignation. Rarely has retributive justice been meted out in fuller
measure to offenders so high in authority,--most rarely in Castile.18
Yet Hernando bore this long imprisonment with an equanimity which,
had it been rounded on principle, might command our respect. He saw
brothers and kindred, all on whom he leaned for support, cut off one
after another; his fortune, in part, confiscated, while he was involved in
expensive litigation for the remainder;19 his fame blighted, his career
closed in an untimely hour, himself an exile in the heart of his own
country;--yet he bore it all with the constancy of a courageous spirit.
Though very old when released, he still survived several years, and
continued to the extraordinary age of a hundred.20 He lived long
enough to see friends, rivals, and foes all called away to their account
before him.
Hernando Pizarro was in many respects a remarkable character. He was
the eldest of the brothers, to whom he was related only by the father's
side, for he was born in wedlock, of honorable parentage on both sides
of his house. In his early years, he received a good education,--good for
the time. He was taken by his father, while quite young, to Italy, and
there learned the art of war under the Great Captain. Little is known of
his history after his return to Spain; but, when his brother had struck out
for himself his brilliant career of discovery in Peru, Hernando consented
to take part in his adventures.
He was much deferred to by Francisco, not only as his elder brother, but
from his superior education and his knowledge of affairs. He was ready
in his perceptions, fruitful in resources, and possessed of great vigor in
action. Though courageous, he was cautious; and his counsels, when not
warped by passion, were wise and wary. But he had other qualities,
which more than counterbalanced the good resulting from excellent parts
and attainments. His ambition and avarice were insatiable. He was
supercilious even to his equals; and he had a vindictive temper, which
nothing could appease. Thus, instead of aiding his brother in the
Conquest, he was the evil genius that blighted his path. He conceived
from the first an unwarrantable contempt for Almagro, whom he
regarded as his brother's rival, instead of what he then was, the faithful
partner of his fortunes. He treated him with personal indignity, and, by
his intrigues at court, had the means of doing him sensible injury. He
fell into Almagro's hands, and had nearly paid for these wrongs with his
life. This was not to be forgiven by Hernando, and he coolly waited for
the hour of revenge. Yet the execution of Almagro was a most impolitic
act; for an evil passion can rarely be gratified with impunity. Hernando
thought to buy off justice with the gold of Peru. He had studied human
nature on its weak and wicked side, and he expected to profit by it.
Fortunately, he was deceived. He had, indeed, his revenge; but the hour
of his revenge was that of his ruin.
The disorderly state of Peru was such as to demand the immediate
interposition of government. In the general license that prevailed there,
the rights of the Indian and of the Spaniard were equally trampled under
foot. Yet the subject was one of great difficulty; for Pizarro's authority
was now firmly established over the country, which itself was too remote
from Castile to be readily controlled at home. Pizarro, moreover, was a
man not easy to be approached, confident in his own strength, jealous of
interference, and possessed of a fiery temper, which would kindle into a
flame at the least distrust of the government. It would not answer to send
out a commission to suspend him from the exercise of his authority until
his conduct could be investigated, as was done with Cortes, and other
great colonial officers, on whose rooted loyalty the Crown could
confidently rely. Pizarro's loyalty sat, it was feared, too lightly on him to
be a powerful restraint on his movements; and there were not wanting
those among his reckless followers, who, in case of extremity, would be
prompt to urge him to throw off his allegiance altogether, and set up an
independent government for himself.
Some one was to be sent out, therefore, who should possess, in some
sort, a controlling, or, at least, concurrent power with the dangerous
chief, while ostensibly he should act only in subordination to him. The
person selected for this delicate mission, was the Licentiate Vaca de
Castro, a member of the Royal Audience of Valladolid. He was a
learned judge, a man of integrity and wisdom, and, though not bred to
arms, had so much address, and such knowledge of character, as would
enable him readily to turn the resources of others to his own account.
His commission was guarded in a way which showed the embarrassment
of the government. He was to appear before Pizarro in the capacity of a
royal judge; to consult with him on the redress of grievances, especially
with reference to the unfortunate natives; to concert measures for the
prevention of future evils; and above all, to possess himself faithfully of
the condition of the country in all its details, and to transmit intelligence
of it to the Court of Castile. But, in case of Pizarro's death, he was to
produce his warrant as royal governor, and as such to claim the
obedience of the authorities throughout the land.--Events showed the
wisdom of providing for this latter contingency.21
The licentiate, thus commissioned, quilted his quiet residence at
Valladolid, embarked at Seville, in the autumn of 1540, and, after a
tedious voyage across the Atlantic, he traversed the Isthmus, and,
encountering a succession of tempests on the Pacific, that had nearly sent
his frail bark to the bottom, put in with her, a mere wreck, at the
northerly port of Buenaventura.22 The affairs of the country were in a
state to require his presence.
The civil war which had lately distracted the land had left it in so
unsettled a state, that the agitation continued long after the immediate
cause had ceased. This was especially the case among the natives. In
the violent transfer of repartimientos, the poor Indian hardly knew to
whom he was to look as his master. The fierce struggles between the
rival chieftains left him equally in doubt whom he was to regard as the
rulers of the land. As to the authority of a common sovereign, across the
waters, paramount over all, he held that in still greater distrust; for what
was the authority which could not command the obedience even of its
own vassals?23 The Inca Manco was not slow in taking advantage of
this state of feeling. He left his obscure fastnesses in the depths of the
Andes, and established himself with a strong body of followers in the
mountain country lying between Cuzco and the coast. From this retreat,
he made descents on the neighboring plantations, destroying the houses,
sweeping off the cattle, and massacring the people. He fell on travellers,
as they were journeying singly or in caravans from the coast, and put
them to death--it is told by his enemies--with cruel tortures. Single
detachments were sent against him, from time to time, but without effect.
Some he eluded, others he defeated; and, on one occasion, cut off a party
of thirty troopers, to a man.24
At length, Pizarro found it necessary to send a considerable force under
his brother Gonzalo against the Inca. The hardy Indian encountered his
enemy several times in the rough passes of the Cordilleras. He was
usually beaten, and sometimes with heavy loss, which he repaired with
astonishing facility; for he always contrived to make his escape, and so
true were his followers, that, in defiance of pursuit and ambuscade, he
found a safe shelter in the secret haunts of the sierra.
Thus baffled, Pizarro determined to try the effect of pacific overtures.
He sent to the Inca, both in his own name, and in that of the Bishop of
Cuzco, whom the Peruvian prince held in reverence, to invite him to
enter into negotiation.25 Manco acquiesced, and indicated, as he had
formerly done with Almagro, the valley of Yucay, as the scene of it. The
governor repaired thither, at the appointed time, well guarded, and, to
propitiate the barbarian monarch, sent him a rich present by the hands of
an African slave. The slave was met on the route by a party of the Inca's
men, who, whether with or without their master's orders, cruelly
murdered him, and bore off the spoil to their quarters. Pizarro resented
this outrage by another yet more atrocious.
Among the Indian prisoners was one of the Inca's wives, a young and
beautiful woman, to whom he was said to be fondly attached. The
governor ordered her to be stripped naked, bound to a tree, and, in
presence of the camp, to be scourged with rods, and then shot to death
with arrows. The wretched victim bore the execution of the sentence
with surprising fortitude. She did not beg for mercy, where none was to
be found. Not a complaint, scarcely a groan, escaped her under the
infliction of these terrible torments. The iron Conquerors were amazed
at this power of endurance in a delicate woman, and they expressed their
admiration, while they condemned the cruelty of their commander,--in
their hearts.26 Yet constancy under the most excruciating tortures that
human cruelty can inflict is almost the universal characteristic of the
American Indian.
Pizarro now prepared, as the most effectual means of checking these
disorders among the natives, to establish settlements in the heart of the
disaffected country. These settlements, which received the dignified
name of cities, might be regarded in the light of military colonies. The
houses were usually built of stone, to which were added the various
public offices, and sometimes a fortress. A municipal corporation was
organized. Settlers were invited by the distribution of large tracts of land
in the neighborhood, with a stipulated number of Indian vassals to each.
The soldiers then gathered there, sometimes accompanied by their wives
and families; for the women of Castile seem to have disdained the
impediments of sex, in the ardor of conjugal attachment, or, it may be, of
romantic adventure. A populous settlement rapidly grew up in the
wilderness, affording protection to the surrounding territory, and
furnishing a commercial depot for the country, and an armed force ready
at all times to maintain public order.
Such a settlement was that now made at Guamanga, midway between
Cuzco and Lima, which effectually answered its purpose by guarding the
communications with the coast.27 Another town was founded in the
mining district of Charcas, under the appropriate name of the Villa de la
Plato, the "City of Silver." And Pizarro, as he journeyed by a circuitous
route along the shores of the southern sea towards Lima, planted there
the city of Arequipa, since arisen to such commercial celebrity.
Once more in his favorite capital of Lima, the governor found abundant
occupation in attending to its municipal concerns, and in providing for
the expansive growth of its population. Nor was he unmindful of the
other rising settlements on the Pacific. He encouraged commerce with
the remoter colonies north of Peru, and took measures for facilitating
internal intercourse. He stimulated industry in all its branches, paying
great attention to husbandry, and importing seeds of the different
European grains, which he had the satisfaction, in a short time, to see
thriving luxuriantly in a country where the variety of soil and climate
afforded a home for almost every product.28 Above all, he promoted the
working of the mines, which already began to make such returns, that the
most common articles of life rose to exorbitant prices, while the precious
metals themselves seemed the only things of little value. But they soon
changed hands, and found their way to the mother-country, where they
rose to their true level as they mingled with the general currency of
Europe. The Spaniards found that they had at length reached the land of
which they had been so long in search,--the land of gold and silver.
Emigrants came in greater numbers to the country, and, spreading over
its surface, formed in the increasing population the most effectual barrier
against the rightful owners of the soil.29
Pizarro, strengthened by the arrival of fresh adventurers, now turned his
attention to the remoter quarters of the country. Pedro de Valdivia was
sent on his memorable expedition to Chili; and to his own brother
Gonzalo the governor assigned the territory of Quito, with instructions to
explore the unknown country towards the east, where, as report said,
grew the cinnamon. As this chief, who had hitherto acted but a
subordinate part in the Conquest, is henceforth to take the most
conspicuous, it may be well to give some account of him.
Little is known of his early life, for he sprang from the same obscure
origin with Francisco, and seems to have been as little indebted as his
eider brother to the fostering care of his parents. He entered early on the
career of a soldier; a career to which every man in that iron age, whether
cavalier or vagabond, seems, if left to himself, to have most readily
inclined. Here he soon distinguished himself by his skill in martial
exercises, was an excellent horseman, and, when he came to the New
World, was esteemed the best lance in Peru.30
In talent and in expansion of views, he was inferior to his brothers.
Neither did he discover the same cool and crafty policy; but he was
equally courageous, and in the execution of his measures quite as
unscrupulous. He lied a handsome person, with open, engaging features,
a free, soldier-like address, and a confiding temper, which endeared him
to his followers. His spirit was high and adventurous, and, what was
equally important, he could inspire others with the same spirit, and thus
do much to insure the success of his enterprises. He was an excellent
captain in guerilla warfare, an admirable leader in doubtful and difficult
expeditions; but he had not the enlarged capacity for a great military
chief, still less for a civil ruler. It was his misfortune to be called to fill
both situations.
Book 4
Chapter 4
Gonzalo Pizarro's Expedition--Passage Across The Mountains--
Discovers The Napo--Incredible Sufferings-
Orellana Sails Down The Amazon--Despair Of The Spaniards-
The Survivors Return To Quito
1540--1542
Gonzalo Pizarro received the news of his appointment to the government
of Quito with undisguised pleasure; not so much for the possession that it
gave him of this ancient Indian province, as for the field that it opened
for discovery towards the east,--the fabled land of Oriental spices, which
had long captivated the imagination of the Conquerors. He repaired to
his government without delay, and found no difficulty in awakening a
kindred enthusiasm to his own in the bosoms of his followers. In a short
time, he mustered three hundred and fifty Spaniards, and four thousand
Indians. One hundred and fifty of his company were mounted, and all
were equipped in the most thorough manner for the undertaking. He
provided, moreover, against famine by a large stock of provisions, and
an immense drove of swine which followed in the rear.1
It was the beginning of 1540, when he set out on this celebrated
expedition. The first part of the journey was attended with
comparatively little difficulty, while the Spaniards were yet in the land of
the Incas; for the distractions of Peru had not been felt in this distant
province, where the simple people still lived as under the primitive sway
of the Children of the Sun. But the scene changed as they entered the
territory of Quixos, where the character of the inhabitants, as well as of
the climate, seemed to be of another description. The country was
traversed by lofty ranges of the Andes, and the adventurers were soon
entangled in their deep and intricate passes. As they rose into the more
elevated regions, the icy winds that swept down the sides of the
Cordilleras benumbed their limbs, and many of the natives found a
wintry grave in the wilderness. While crossing this formidable barrier,
they experienced one of those tremendous earthquakes which, in these
volcanic regions, so often shake the mountains to their base. In one
place, the earth was rent asunder by the terrible throes of Nature, while
streams of sulphurous vapor issued from the cavity, and a village with
some hundreds of houses was precipitated into the frightful abyss! 2
On descending the eastern slopes, the climate changed; and, as they came
on the lower level, the fierce cold was succeeded by a suffocating heat,
while tempests of thunder and lightning, rushing from out the gorges of
the sierra, poured on their heads with scarcely any intermission day or
night, as if the offended deities of the place were willing to take
vengeance on the invaders of their mountain solitudes. For more than six
weeks the deluge continued unabated, and the forlorn wanderers, wet,
and weary with incessant toil, were scarcely able to drag their limbs
along the soil broken up and saturated with the moisture. After some
months of toilsome travel, in which they had to cross many a morass and
mountain stream, they at length reached Canelas, the Land of
Cinnamon.3 They saw the trees bearing the precious bark, spreading out
into broad forests; yet, however valuable an article for commerce it
might have proved in accessible situations, in these remote regions it was
of little worth to them. But, from the wandering tribes of savages whom
they occasionally met in their path, they learned that at ten days' distance
was a rich and fruitful land abounding with gold, and inhabited by
populous nations. Gonzalo Pizarro had already reached the limits
originally proposed for the expedition. But this intelligence renewed his
hopes, and he resolved to push the adventure farther. It would have been
well for him and his followers, had they been content to return on their
footsteps.
Continuing their march, the country now spread out into broad savannas
terminated by forests, which, as they drew near, seemed to stretch on
every side to the very verge of the horizon. Here they beheld trees of
that stupendous growth seen only in the equinoctial regions. Some were
so large, that sixteen men could hardly encompass them with extended
arms! 4 The wood was thickly matted with creepers and parasitical
vines, which hung in gaudy-colored festoons from tree to tree, clothing
them in a drapery beautiful to the eye, but forming an impenetrable
network. At every step of their way, they were obliged to hew open a
passage with their axes, while their garments, rotting from the effects of
the drenching rains to which they had been exposed, caught in every
bush and bramble, and hung about them in shreds.5 Their provisions,
spoiled by the weather, had long since failed, and the live stock which
they had taken with them had either been consumed or made their escape
in the woods and mountain passes. They had set out with nearly a
thousand dogs, many of them of the ferocious breed used in hunting
down the unfortunate natives. These they now gladly killed, but their
miserable carcasses furnished a lean banquet for the famishing travellers;
and, when these were gone, they had only such herbs and dangerous
roots as they could gather in the forest.6
At length the way-worn company came on a broad expanse of water
formed by the Napo, one of the great tributaries of the Amazon, and
which, though only a third or fourth rate river in America, would pass for
one of the first magnitude in the Old World. The sight gladdened their
hearts, as, by winding along its banks, they hoped to find a safer and
more practicable route. After traversing its borders for a considerable
distance, closely beset with thickets which it taxed their strength to the
utmost to overcome, Gonzalo and his party came within hearing of a
rushing noise that sounded like subterranean thunder. The river, lashed
into fury, tumbled along over rapids with frightful velocity, and
conducted them to the brink of a magnificent cataract, which, to their
wondering fancies, rushed down in one vast volume of foam to the depth
of twelve hundred feet! 7 The appalling sounds which they had heard for
the distance of six leagues were rendered yet more oppressive to the
spirits by the gloomy stillness of the surrounding forests. The rude
warriors were filled with sentiments of awe. Not a bark dimpled the
waters. No living thing was to be seen but the wild tenants of the
wilderness, the unwieldy boa, and the loathsome alligator basking on the
borders of the stream. The trees towering in wide-spread magnificence
towards the heavens, the river rolling on in its rocky bed as it had rolled
for ages, the solitude and silence of the scene, broken only by the hoarse
fall of waters, or the faint rustling of the woods,--all seemed to spread
out around them in the same wild and primitive state as when they came
from the hands of the Creator.
For some distance above and below the falls, the bed of the river
contracted so that its width did not exceed twenty feet. Sorely pressed
by hunger, the adventurers determined, at all hazards, to cross to the
opposite side, in hopes of finding a country that might afford them
sustenance. A frail bridge was constructed by throwing the huge trunks
of trees across the chasm, where the cliffs, as if split asunder by some
convulsion of nature, descended sheer down a perpendicular depth of
several hundred feet. Over this airy causeway the men and horses
succeeded in effecting their passage with the loss of a single Spaniard,
who, made giddy by heedlessly looking down, lost his footing and fell
into the boiling surges below.
Yet they gained little by the exchange. The country wore the same
unpromising aspect, and the river-banks were studded with gigantic
trees, or fringed with impenetrable thickets. The tribes of Indians, whom
they occasionally met in the pathless wilderness, were fierce and
unfriendly, and they were engaged in perpetual skirmishes with them.
From these they learned that a fruitful country was to be found down the
river at the distance of only a few days' journey, and the Spaniards held
on their weary way, still hoping and still deceived, as the promised land
flitted before them, like the rainbow, receding as they advanced.
At length, spent with toil and suffering, Gonzalo resolved to construct a
bark large enough to transport the weaker part of his company and his
baggage. The forests furnished him with timber; the shoes of the horses
which had died on the road or been slaughtered for food, were converted
into nails; gum distilled from the trees took the place of pitch; and the
tattered garments of the soldiers supplied a substitute for oakum. It was
a work of difficulty; but Gonzalo cheered his men in the task, and set an
example by taking part in their labors. At the end of two months a
brigantine was completed, rudely put together, but strong and of
sufficient burden to carry half the company,--the first European vessel
that ever floated on these inland waters.
Gonzalo gave the command to Francisco de Orellana, a cavalier from
Truxillo, on whose courage and devotion to himself he thought he could
rely. The troops now moved forward, still following the descending
course of the river, while the brigantine kept alongside; and when a bold
promontory or more impracticable country intervened, it furnished
timely aid by the transportation of the feebler soldiers. In this way they
journeyed, for many a wearisome week, through the dreary wilderness on
the borders of the Napo. Every scrap of provisions had been long since
consumed. The last of their horses had been devoured. To appease the
gnawings of hunger, they were fain to eat the leather of their saddles and
belts. The woods supplied them with scanty sustenance, and they
greedily fed upon toads, serpents, and such other reptiles as they
occasionally found.8
They were now told of a rich district, inhabited by a populous nation,
where the Napo emptied into a still greater river that flowed towards the
east. It was, as usual, at the distance of several days' journey; and
Gonzalo Pizarro resolved to halt where he was and send Orellana down
in his brigantine to the confluence of the waters to procure a stock of
provisions, with which he might return and put them in condition to
resume their march. That cavalier, accordingly, taking with him fifty of
the adventurers, pushed off into the middle of the river, where the stream
ran swiftly, and his bark, taken by the current, shot forward with the
speed of an arrow, and was soon out of sight.
Days and weeks passed away, yet the vessel did not return; and no speck
was to be seen on the waters, as the Spaniards strained their eyes to the
farthest point, where the line of light faded away in the dark shadows of
the foliage on the borders. Detachments were sent out, and, though
absent several days, came back without intelligence of their comrades.
Unable longer to endure this suspense, or, indeed, to maintain
themselves in their present quarters, Gonzalo and his famishing followers
now determined to proceed towards the junction of the rivers. Two
months elapsed before they accomplished this terrible journey those of
them who did not perish on the way,--although the distance probably' did
not exceed two hundred leagues; and they at length reached the spot so
long desired, where the Napo pours its tide into the Amazon, that mighty
stream, which, fed by its thousand tributaries, rolls on towards the ocean,
for many hundred miles, through the heart of the great continent,--the
most majestic of American rivers.
But the Spaniards gathered no tidings of Orellana, while the country,
though more populous than the region they had left, was as little inviting
in its aspect, and was tenanted by a race yet more ferocious. They now
abandoned the hope of recovering their comrades, who they supposed
must have miserably perished by famine or by the hands of the natives.
But their doubts were at length dispelled by the appearance of a white
man wandering half-naked in the woods, in whose famine stricken
countenance they recognized the features of one of their countrymen. It
was Sanchez de Vargas, a cavalier of good descent, and much esteemed
in the army. He had a dismal tale to tell.
Orellana, borne swiftly down the current of the Napo, had reached the
point of its confluence with the Amazon in less than three days;
accomplishing in this brief space of time what had cost Pizarro and his
company two months. He had found the country altogether different
from what had been represented; and, so far from supplies for his
countrymen, he could barely obtain sustenance for himself. Nor was it
possible for him to return as he had come, and make head against the
current of the river; while the attempt to journey by land was an alternative
scarcely less formidable. In this dilemma, an idea flashed across his
mind. It was to launch his bark at once on the bosom of the Amazon,
and descend its waters to its mouth. He would then visit the rich and
populous nations that, as report said, lined its borders, sail out on the
great ocean, cross to the neighboring isles, and return to Spain to claim
the glory and the guerdon of discovery. The suggestion was eagerly
taken up by his reckless companions, welcoming any course that would
rescue them from the wretchedness of their present existence, and fired
with the prospect of new and stirring adventure,--for the love of
adventure was the last feeling to become extinct in the bosom of the
Castilian cavalier. They heeded little their unfortunate comrades, whom
they were to abandon in the wilderness! 9
This is not the place to record the circumstances of Orellana's
extraordinary expedition. He succeeded in his enterprise. But it is
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