The History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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Geography partook of the embarrassments which belonged to every
other department of science in the primitive ages of the world.
The knowledge of the earth could come only from an extended
commerce; and commerce is founded on artificial wants or an
enlightened curiosity, hardly compatible with the earlier
condition of society. In the infancy of nations, the different
tribes, occupied with their domestic feuds, found few occasions
to wander beyond the mountain chain or broad stream that formed
the natural boundary of their domains. The Phoenicians, it is
true, are said to have sailed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and
to have launched out on the great western ocean. But the
adventures of these ancient voyagers belong to the mythic legends
of antiquity, and ascend far beyond the domain of authentic
record.
The Greeks, quick and adventurous, skilled in mechanical art, had
many of the qualities of successful navigators, and within the
limits of their little inland sea ranged fearlessly and freely.
But the conquests of Alexander did more to extend the limits of
geographical science, and opened an acquaintance with the remote
countries of the East. Yet the march of the conqueror is slow in
comparison with the movements of the unencumbered traveller. The
Romans were still less enterprising than the Greeks, were less
commercial in their character. The contributions to geographical
knowledge grew with the slow acquisitions of empire. But their
system was centralizing in its tendency; and instead of taking an
outward direction and looking abroad for discovery, every part of
the vast imperial domain turned towards the capital as its head
and central point of attraction. The Roman conqueror pursued his
path by land, not by sea. But the water is the great highway
between nations, the true element for the discoverer. The Romans
were not a maritime people. At the close of their empire,
geographical science could hardly be said to extend farther than
to an acquaintance with Europe, - and this not its more northern
division, - together with a portion of Asia and Africa; while
they had no other conception of a world beyond the western waters
than was to be gathered from the fortunate prediction of the
poet. *1

[Footnote 1: Seneca's well-known prediction, in his Medea, is,
perhaps, the most remarkable random prophecy on record. For it
is not a simple extension of the boundaries of the known parts of
the globe that is so confidently announced, but the existence of
a New World across the waters, to be revealed in coming ages

"Quibus Oceanus
Vincula rerum laxet, et ingens
Pateat tellus, Typhisque Novos
Detegat Orbes."

It was the lucky hit of the philosopher rather than the poet.]
Then followed the Middle Ages; the dark ages, as they are called,
though in their darkness were matured those seeds of knowledge,
which, in fulness of time, were to spring up into new and more
glorious forms of civilization. The organization of society
became more favorable to geographical science. Instead of one
overgrown, lethargic empire, oppressing every thing by its
colossal weight, Europe was broken up into various independent
communities, many of which, adopting liberal forms of government,
felt all the impulses natural to freemen; and the petty republics
on the Mediterranean and the Baltic sent forth their swarms of
seamen in a profitable commerce, that knit together the different
countries scattered along the great European waters.
But the improvements which took place in the art of navigation,
the more accurate measurement of time, and, above all, the
discovery of the polarity of the magnet, greatly advanced the
cause of geographical knowledge. Instead of creeping timidly
along the coast, or limiting his expeditions to the narrow basins
of inland waters, the voyager might now spread his sails boldly
on the deep, secure of a guide to direct his bark unerringly
across the illimitable waste. The consciousness of this powered
thought to travel in a new direction; and the mariner began to
look with earnestness for another path to the Indian
Spice-islands than that by which the Eastern caravans had
traversed the continent of Asia. The nations on whom the spirit
of enterprise, at this crisis, naturally descended, were Spain
and Portugal, placed, as they were, on the outposts of the
European continent, commanding the great theatre of future
discovery.

Both countries felt the responsibility of their new position.
The crown of Portugal was constant in its efforts, through the
fifteenth century, to find a passage round the southern point of
Africa into the Indian Ocean; though so timid was the navigation,
that every fresh headland became a formidable barrier; and it was
not till the latter part of the century that the adventurous Diaz
passed quite round the Stormy Cape, as he termed it, but which
John the Second, with happier augury, called the Cape of Good
Hope. But, before Vasco de Gama had availed himself of this
discovery to spread his sails in the Indian seas, Spain entered
on her glorious career, and sent Columbus across the western
waters.

The object of the great navigator was still the discovery of a
route to India, but by the west instead of the east. He had no
expectation of meeting with a continent in his way, and, after
repeated voyages, he remained in his original error, dying, as is
well known, in the conviction that it was the eastern shore of
Asia which he had reached. It was the same object which
directed the nautical enterprises of those who followed in the
Admiral's track; and the discovery of a strait into the Indian
Ocean was the burden of every order from the government, and the
design of many an expedition to different points of the new
continent, which seemed to stretch its leviathan length along
from one pole to the other. The discovery of an Indian passage
is the true key to the maritime movements of the fifteenth and
the first half of the sixteenth centuries. It was the great
leading idea that gave the character to the enterprise of the
age.

It is not easy at this time to comprehend the impulse given to
Europe by the discovery of America. It was not the gradual
acquisition of some border territory, a province or a kingdom
that had been gained, but a New World that was now thrown open to
the European. The races of animals, the mineral treasures, the
vegetable forms, and the varied aspects of nature, man in the
different phases of civilization, filled the mind with entirely
new sets of ideas, that changed the habitual current of thought
and stimulated it to indefinite conjecture. The eagerness to
explore the wonderful secrets of the new hemisphere became so
active, that the principal cities of Spain were, in a manner,
depopulated, as emigrants thronged one after another to take
their chance upon the deep. *2 It was a world of romance that was
thrown open; for, whatever might be the luck of the adventurer,
his reports on his return were tinged with a coloring of romance
that stimulated still higher the sensitive fancies of his
countrymen, and nourished the chimerical sentiments of an age of
chivalry. They listened with attentive ears to tales of Amazons
which seemed to realize the classic legends of antiquity, to
stories of Patagonian giants, to flaming pictures of an El
Dorado, where the sands sparkled with gems, and golden pebbles as
large as birds' eggs were dragged in nets out of the rivers.

[Footnote 2: The Venetian ambassador, Andrea Navagiero, who
travelled through Spain in 1525, near the period of the
commencement of our narrative, notices the general fever of
emigration. Seville, in particular, the great port of
embarkation, was so stripped of its inhabitants, he says, "that
the city was left almost to the women." Viaggio fatto in Spagna,
(Vinegia, 1563.) fol. 15.]

Yet that the advtenturers were no impostors, but dupes, too easy
dupes of their own credulous fancies, is shown by the extravagant
character of their enterprises; by expeditions in search of the
magical Fountain of Health, of the golden Temple of Doboyba, of
the golden sepulchres of Zenu; for gold was ever floating before
their distempered vision, and the name of Castilla del Oro,
Golden Castile, the most unhealthy and unprofitable region of the
Isthmus, held out a bright promise to the unfortunate settler,
who too frequently, instead of gold, found there only his grave.

In this realm of enchantment, all the accessories served to
maintain the illusion. The simple natives, with their
defenceless bodies and rude weapons were no match for the
European warrior armed to the teeth in mail. The odds were as
great as those found in any legend of chivalry, where the lance
of the good knight overturned hundreds at a touch. The perils
that lay in the discoverer's path, and the sufferings he had to
sustain, were scarcely inferior to those that beset the
knight-errant. Hunger and thirst and fatigue, the deadly
effluvia of the morass with its swarms of venomous insects, the
cold of mountain snows, and the scorching sun of the tropics,
these were the lot of every cavalier who came to seek his
fortunes in the New World. It was the reality of romance. The
life of the Spanish adventurer was one chapter more - and not the
least remarkable - in the chronicles of knight-errantry.

The character of the warrior took somewhat of the exaggerated
coloring shed over his exploits. Proud and vainglorious, swelled
with lofty anticipations of his destiny, and an invincible
confidence in his own resources, no danger could appall and no
toil could tire him. The greater the danger, indeed, the higher
the charm; for his soul revelled in excitement, and the
enterprise without peril wanted that spur of romance which was
necessary to rouse his energies into action. Yet in the motives
of action meaner influences were strangely mingled with the
loftier, the temporal with the spiritual. Gold was the incentive
and the recompense, and in the pursuit of it his inflexible
nature rarely hesitated as to the means. His courage was sullied
with cruelty, the cruelty that flowed equally - strange as it may
seem - from his avarice and his religion; religion as it was
understood in that age, - the religion of the Crusader. It was
the convenient cloak for a multitude of sins, which covered them
even from himself. The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy,
committed more cruelties in the name of religion than were ever
practised by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem. The
burning of the infidel was a sacrifice acceptable to Heaven, and
the conversion of those who survived amply atoned for the foulest
offences. It is a melancholy and mortifying consideration, that
the most uncompromising spirit of intolerance - the spirit of the
Inquisitor at home, and of the Crusader abroad - should have
emanated from a religion which preached peace upon earth and
good-will towards man!

What a contrast did these children of Southern Europe present to
the Anglo-Saxon races who scattered themselves along the great
northern division of the western hemisphere! For the principle
of action with these latter was not avarice, nor the more
specious pretext of proselytism; but independence, - independence
religious and political. To secure this, they were content to
earn a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. They
asked nothing from the soil, but the reasonable returns of their
own labor. No golden visions threw a deceitful halo around their
path, and beckoned them onwards through seas of blood to the
subversion of an unoffending dynasty. They were content with the
slow but steady progress of their social polity. They patiently
endured the privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of
liberty with their tears and with the sweat of their brow, till
it took deep root in the land and sent up its branches high
towards the heavens; while the communities of the neighbouring
continent, shooting up into the sudden splendors of a tropical
vegetation, exhibited, even in their prime, the sure symptoms of
decay.

It would seem to have been especially ordered by Providence that
the discovery of the two great divisions of the American
hemisphere should fall to the two races best fitted to conquer
and colonize them. Thus the northern section was consigned to
the Anglo-Saxon race, whose orderly, industrious habits found an
ample field for development under its colder skies and on its
more rugged soil; while the southern portion, with its rich
tropical products and treasures of mineral wealth, held out the
most attractive bait to invite the enterprise of the Spaniard.
How different might have been the result, if the bark of Columbus
had taken a more northerly direction, as he at one time
meditated, and landed its band of adventurers on the shores of
what is now Protestant America!

Under the pressure of that spirit of nautical enterprise which
filled the maritime communities of Europe in the sixteenth
century, the whole extent of the mighty continent, from Labrador
to Terra del Fuego, was explored in less than thirty years after
its discovery; and in 1521, the Portuguese Maghellan, sailing
under the Spanish flag, solved the problem of the strait, and
found a westerly way to the long sought Spice-islands of India, -
greatly to the astonishment of the Portuguese, who, sailing from
the opposite direction, there met their rivals, face to face, at
the antipodes. But while the whole eastern coast of the American
continent had been explored, and the central portion of it
colonized, - even after the brilliant achievement of the Mexican
conquest, - the veil was not yet raised that hung over the golden
shores of the Pacific.

Floating rumors had reached the Spaniards, from time to time, of
countries in the far west, teeming with the metal they so much
coveted; but the first distinct notice of Peru was about the year
1511, when Vasco Nunez de Balboa, the discoverer of the Southern
Sea, was weighing some gold which he had collected from the
natives. A young barbarian chieftain, who was present, struck
the scales with his fist, and, scattering the glittering metal
around the apartment, exclaimed, - "If this is what you prize so
much that you are willing to leave your distant homes, and risk
even life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where they eat
and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is as cheap as iron is
with you." It was not long after this startling intelligence that
Balboa achieved the formidable adventure of scaling the mountain
rampart of the isthmus which divides the two mighty oceans from
each other; when, armed with sword and buckler, he rushed into
the waters of the Pacific, and cried out, in the true chivalrous
vein, that "he claimed this unknown sea with all that it
contained for the king of Castile, and that he would make good
the claim against all, Christian or infidel, who dared to gain
say it"! *3 All the broad continent and sunny isles washed by the
waters of the Southern Ocean! Little did the bold cavalier
comprehend the full import of his magnificent vaunt.

[Footnote 3: Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 1. lib. 10, cap. 2. -
Quintana, Vidas de Espanoles Celebres, (Madrid, 1830,) tom. II.
p. 44.]

On this spot he received more explicit tidings of the Peruvian
empire, heard proofs recounted of its civilization, and was shown
drawings of the llama, which, to the European eye, seemed a
species of the Arabian camel. But, although he steered his
caravel for these golden realms, and even pushed his discoveries
some twenty leagues south of the Gulf of St. Michael, the
adventure was not reserved for him. The illustrious discoverer
was doomed to fall a victim to that miserable jealousy with which
a little spirit regards the achievements of a great one.

The Spanish colonial domain was broken up into a number of petty
governments, which were dispensed sometimes to court favorites,
though, as the duties of the post, at this early period, were of
an arduous nature, they were more frequently reserved for men of
some practical talent and enterprise. Columbus, by virtue of his
original contract with the Crown, had jurisdiction over the
territories discovered by himself, embracing some of the
principal islands, and a few places on the continent. This
jurisdiction differed from that of other functionaries, inasmuch
as it was hereditary; a privilege found in the end too
considerable for a subject, and commuted, therefore, for a title
and a pension. These colonial governments were multiplied with
the increase of empire, and by the year 1524, the period at which
our narrative properly commences, were scattered over the
islands, along the Isthmus of Darien, the broad tract of Terra
Firma, and the recent conquests of Mexico. Some of these
governments were of no great extent. Others, like that of Mexico,
were of the dimensions of a kingdom; and most had an indefinite
range for discovery assigned to them in their immediate
neighbourhood, by which each of the petty potentates might
enlarge his territorial sway, and enrich his followers and
himself. This politic arrangement best served the ends of the
Crown, by affording a perpetual incentive to the spirit of
enterprise. Thus living on their own little domains at a long
distance from the mother country, these military rulers held a
sort of vice-regal sway, and too frequently exercised it in the
most oppressive and tyrannical manner; oppressive to the native,
and tyrannical towards their own followers. It was the natural
consequence, when men, originally low in station, and unprepared
by education for office, were suddenly called to the possession
of a brief, but in its nature irresponsible, authority. It was
not till after some sad experience of these results, that
measures were taken to hold these petty tyrants in check by means
of regular tribunals, or Royal Audiences, as they were termed,
which, composed of men of character and learning, might interpose
the arm of the law, or, at least, the voice of remonstrance, for
the protection of both colonist and native.

Among the colonial governors, who were indebted for their
situation to their rank at home, was Don Pedro Arias de Avila, or
Pedrarias, as usually called. He was married to a daughter of
Dona Beatriz de Bobadilla, the celebrated Marchioness of Moya,
best known as the friend of Isabella the Catholic. He was a man
of some military experience and considerable energy of character.
But, as it proved, he was of a malignant temper; and the base
qualities, which might have passed unnoticed in the obscurity of
private life, were made conspicuous, and perhaps created in some
measure, by sudden elevation to power; as the sunshine, which
operates kindly on a generous soil, and stimulates it to
production, calls forth from the unwholesome marsh only foul and
pestilent vapors. This man was placed over the territory of
Castilla del Oro, the ground selected by Nunez de Balboa for the
theatre of his discoveries. Success drew on this latter the
jealousy of his superior, for it was crime enough in the eyes of
Pedrarias to deserve too well. The tragical history of this
cavalier belongs to a period somewhat earlier than that with
which we are to be occupied. It has been traced by abler hands
than mine, and, though brief, forms one of the most brilliant
passages in the annals of the American conquerors. *4

[Footnote 4: The memorable adventures of Vasco Nunez de Balboa
have been recorded by Quintana, (Espanoles Celebres, tom II.) and
by Irving in his Companions of Columbus. - It is rare that the
life of an individual has formed the subject of two such elegant
memorials, produced at nearly the same time, and in different
languages, without any communication between the authors.]
But though Pedrarias was willing to cut short the glorious career
of his rival, he was not insensible to the important consequences
of his discoveries. He saw at once the unsuitableness of Darien
for prosecuting expeditions on the Pacific, and, conformably to
the original suggestion of Balboa, in 1519, he caused his rising
capital to be transferred from the shores of the Atlantic to the
ancient site of Panama, some distance east of the present city of
that name. *5 This most unhealthy spot, the cemetery of many an
unfortunate colonist, was favorably situated for the great object
of maritime enterprise; and the port, from its central position,
afforded the best point of departure for expeditions, whether to
the north or south, along the wide range of undiscovered coast
that lined the Southern Ocean. Yet in this new and more
favorable position, several years were suffered to elapse before
the course of discovery took the direction of Peru. This was
turned exclusively towards the north, or rather west, in
obedience to the orders of government, which had ever at heart
the detection of a strait that, as was supposed, must intersect
some part or other of the long-extended Isthmus. Armament after
armament was fitted out with this chimerical object; and
Pedrarias saw his domain extending every year farther and farther
without deriving any considerable advantage from his
acquisitions. Veragua, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, were successively
occupied; and his brave cavaliers forced a way across forest and
mountain and warlike tribes of savages, till, at Honduras, they
came in collision with the companions of Cortes, the Conquerors
of Mexico, who had descended from the great northern plateau on
the regions of Central America, and thus completed the survey of
this wild and mysterious land.

[Footnote 5: The Court gave positive instructions to Pedrarias to
make a settlement in the Gulf of St. Michael, in obedience to the
suggestion of Vasco Nunez, that it would be the most eligible
site for discovery and traffic in the South Sea. "El asiento que
se oviere de hacer en el golfo de S. Miguel en la mar del sur
debe ser en el puerto que mejor se hallare y mas convenible para
la contratacion de aquel golfo, porque segund lo que Vasco Nunez
escribe, seria muy necessario que alli haya algunos navios, asi
para descubrir las cosas del golfo; y de la comarca del, como
para la contratacion de rescates de las otras cosas necesarias al
buen provoimiento de aquello; e para que estos navios aprovechen
es menester que se hagan alla." Capitulo de Carta escrita por el
Rey Catolico a Pedrarias Davila, ap. Navarrete, Coleccion de los
Viages y Descubrimientos, (Madrid, 1829.) tom. III. No. 3.]
It was not till 1522 that a regular expedition was despatched in
the direction south of Panama, under the conduct of Pascual de
Andagoya, a cavalier of much distinction in the colony. But that
officer penetrated only to the Puerto de Pinas, the limit of
Balboa's discoveries, when the bad state of his health compelled
him to reembark and abandon his enterprise at its commencement.
*6

[Footnote 6: According to Montesinos, Andagoya received a severe
injury by a fall from his horse, while showing off the
high-mettled animal to the wondering eyes of the natives.
(Annales del Peru, Ms., ano 1524.) But the Adelantado, in a
memorial of his own discoveries, drawn up by himself, says
nothing of this unlucky feat of horsemanship, but imputes his
illness to his having fallen into the water, an accident by which
he was near being drowned, so that it was some years before he
recovered from the effects of it; a mode of accounting for his
premature return, more soothing to his vanity, probably, than the
one usually received. This document, important as coming from
the pen of one of the primitive discoverers, is preserved in the
Indian Archives of Seville, and was published by Navarrete,
Coleccion, tom. III. No. 7.]

Yet the floating rumors of the wealth and civilization of a
mighty nation at the South were continually reaching the ears and
kindling the dreamy imaginations of the colonists; and it may
seem astonishing that an expedition in that direction should have
been so long deferred. But the exact position and distance of
this fairy realm were matter of conjecture. The long tract of
intervening country was occupied by rude and warlike races; and
the little experience which the Spanish navigators had already
had of the neighbouring coast and its inhabitants, and still
more, the tempestuous character of the seas - for their
expeditions had taken place at the most unpropitious seasons of
the year - enhanced the apparent difficulties of the undertaking,
and made even their stout hearts shrink from it.
Such was the state of feeling in the little community of Panama
for several years after its foundation. Meanwhile, the dazzling
conquest of Mexico gave a new impulse to the ardor of discovery,
and, in 1524, three men were found in the colony, in whom the
spirit of adventure triumphed over every consideration of
difficulty and danger that obstructed the prosecution of the
enterprise. One among them was selected as fitted by his
character to conduct it to a successful issue. That man was
Francisco Pizarro; and as he held the same conspicuous post in
the Conquest of Peru that was occupied by Cortes in that of
Mexico, it will be necessary to take a brief review of his early
history.