The History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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[Footnote 5: "These crevices are so deep," says M. de Humboldt,
with his usual vivacity of illustration, "that if Vesuvius or the
Puy de Dome were seated in the bottom of them, they would not
rise above the level of the ridges of the neighbouring sierra"
Vues des Cordilleres, p. 9.]

By a judicious system of canals and subterraneous aqueducts, the
waste places on the coast were refreshed by copious streams, that
clothed them in fertility and beauty. Terraces were raised upon
the steep sides of the Cordillera; and, as the different
elevations had the effect of difference of latitude, they
exhibited in regular gradation every variety of vegetable form,
from the stimulated growth of the tropics, to the temperate
products of a northern clime; while flocks of llamas - the
Peruvian sheep - wandered with their shepherds over the broad,
snow-covered wastes on the crests of the sierra, which rose
beyond the limits of cultivation. An industrious population
settled along the lofty regions of the plateaus, and towns and
hamlets, clustering amidst orchards and wide-spreading gardens,
seemed suspended in the air far above the ordinary elevation of
the clouds. *6 Intercourse was maintained between these numerous
settlements by means of the great roads which traversed the
mountain passes, and opened an easy communication between the
capital and the remotest extremities of the empire.

[Footnote 6: The plains of Quito are at the height of between
nine and ten thousand feet above the sea. (See Condamine,
Journal d'un Voyage a l'Equateur, (Paris, 1751,) p. 48.) Other
valleys or plateaus in this vast group of mountains reach a still
higher elevation.]

The source of this civilization is traced to the valley of Cuzco,
the central region of Peru, as its name implies. *7 The origin of
the Peruvian empire, like the origin of all nations, except the
very few which, like our own, have had the good fortune to date
from a civilized period and people, is lost in the mists of
fable, which, in fact, have settled as darkly round its history
as round that of any nation, ancient or modern, in the Old World.
According to the tradition most familiar to the European scholar,
the time was, when the ancient races of the continent were all
plunged in deplorable barbarism; when they worshipped nearly
every object in nature indiscriminately; made war their pastime,
and feasted on the flesh of their slaughtered captives. The Sun,
the great luminary and parent of mankind, taking compassion on
their degraded condition, sent two of his children, Manco Capac
and Mama Oello Huaco, to gather the natives into communities, and
teach them the arts of civilized life. The celestial pair,
brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the high
plains in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, to about the
sixteenth degree south. They bore with them a golden wedge, and
were directed to take up their residence on the spot where the
sacred emblem should without effort sink into the ground. They
proceeded accordingly but a short distance, as far as the valley
of Cuzco, the spot indicated by the performance of the miracle,
since there the wedge speedily sank into the earth and
disappeared for ever. Here the children of the Sun established
their residence, and soon entered upon their beneficent mission
among the rude inhabitants of the country; Manco Capac teaching
the men the arts of agriculture, and Mama Oello *8 initiating her
own sex in the mysteries of weaving and spinning. The simple
people lent a willing ear to the messengers of Heaven, and,
gathering together in considerable numbers, laid the foundations
of the city of Cuzco. The same wise and benevolent maxims, which
regulated the conduct of the first Incas, *9 descended to their
successors, and under their mild sceptre a community gradually
extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, which
asserted its superiority over the surrounding tribes. Such is
the pleasing picture of the origin of the Peruvian monarchy, as
portrayed by Garcilasso de la Vega, the descendant of the Incas,
and through him made familiar to the European reader. *10

[Footnote 7: "Cuzco, in the language of the Incas," says
Garcilasso, "signifies navel." Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap.
18.]

[Footnote 8: Mama, with the Peruvians, signified "mother."
(Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 4, cap. 1.) The identity
of this term with that used by Europeans is a curious
coincidence. It is scarcely less so, however, than that of the
corresponding word, papa, which with the ancient Mexicans denoted
a priest of high rank; reminding us of the papa, "pope," of the
Italians. With both, the term seems to embrace in its most
comprehensive sense the paternal relation, in which it is more
familiarly employed by most of the nations of Europe. Nor was
the use of it limited to modern times, being applied in the same
way both by Greeks and Romans.]

[Footnote 9: Inca signified king or lord. Capac meant great or
powerful. It was applied to several of the successors of Manco,
in the same manner as the epithet Yupanqui, signifying rich in
all virtues, was added to the names of several Incas. (Cieza de
Leon, Cronica, cap. 41. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib.
2, cap. 17.) The good qualities commemorated by the cognomens of
most of the Peruvian princes afford an honorable, though not
altogether unsuspicious, tribute to the excellence of their
characters.]

[Footnote 10: Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 9 - 16.]

But this tradition is only one of several current among the
Peruvian Indians, and probably not the one most generally
received. Another legend speaks of certain white and bearded
men, who, advancing from the shores of lake Titicaca, established
an ascendency over the natives, and imparted to them the
blessings of civilization. It may remind us of the tradition
existing among the Aztecs in respect to Quetzalcoatl, the good
deity, who with a similar garb and aspect came up the great
plateau from the east on a like benevolent mission to the
natives. The analogy is the more remarkable, as there is no
trace of any communication with, or even knowledge of, each other
to be found in the two nations. *11

[Footnote 11: These several traditions, all of a very puerile
character, are to be found in Ondegardo, Relacion Segunda, Ms., -
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 1, - Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap.
105, - Conquista i Poblacion del Piru, Ms., - Declaracion de los
Presidente e Oydores de la Audiencia Reale del Peru, Ms., - all
of them authorities contemporary with the Conquest. The story of
the bearded white men finds its place in most of their legends.]

The date usually assigned for these extraordinary events was
about four hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards, or
early in the twelfth century. *12 But, however pleasing to the
imagination, and however popular, the legend of Manco Capac, it
requires but little reflection to show its improbability, even
when divested of supernatural accompaniments. On the shores of
Lake Titicaca extensive ruins exist at the present day, which the
Peruvians themselves acknowledge to be of older date than the
pretended advent of the Incas, and to have furnished them with
the models of their architecture. *13 The date of their
appearance, indeed, is manifestly irreconcilable with their
subsequent history. No account assigns to the Inca dynasty more
than thirteen princes before the Conquest. But this number is
altogether too small to have spread over four hundred years, and
would not carry back the foundations of the monarchy, on any
probable computation beyond two centuries and a half, - an
antiquity not incredible in itself, and which, it may be
remarked, does not precede by more than half a century the
alleged foundation of the capital of Mexico. The fiction of
Manco Capac and his sister-wife was devised, no doubt, at a later
period, to gratify the vanity of the Peruvian monarchs, and to
give additional sanction to their authority by deriving it from a
celestial origin.

[Footnote 12: Some writers carry back the date 500, or even 550,
years before the Spanish invasion. (Balboa, Histoire du Perou,
chap. 1. - Velasco, Histoire du Royaume de Quito, tom. I. p. 81.
- Ambo auct. ap. Relations et Memoires Originaux pour servir a
l'Histoire de la Decouverte de l'Amerique, par Ternaux-Compans,
(Paris, 1840.)) In the Report of the Royal Audience of Peru, the
epoch is more modestly fixed at 200 years before the Conquest.
Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 13: "Otras cosas ay mas que dezir deste Tiaguanaco, que
passo por no detenerme: concluyedo que yo para mi tengo esta
antigualla por la mas antigua de todo el Peru. Y assi se tiene
que antes q los Ingas reynassen con muchos tiempos estavan hechos
algunos edificios destos: porque yo he oydo afirmar a Indios, que
los Ingas hizieron los edificios grandes del Cuzco por la forma
que vieron tener la muralla o pared que se vee en este pueblo."
(Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 105.) See also Garcilasso, (Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 1,) who gives an account of these
remains, on the authority of a Spanish ecclesiastic, which might
compare, for the marvellous, with any of the legends of his
order. Other ruins of similar traditional antiquity are noticed
by Herrera, (Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en
las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano, (Madrid, 1730,) dec. 6,
lib. 6, cap. 9.) McCulloch, in some sensible reflections on the
origin of the Peruvian civilization, adduces, on the authority of
Garcilasso de la Vega, the famous temple of Pachacamac, not far
from Lima, as an example of architecture more ancient than that
of the Incas. (Researches, Philosophical and Antiquarian,
concerning the Aboriginal History of America, (Baltimore, 1829,)
p. 405.) This, if true, would do much to confirm the views in our
text. But McCulloh is led into an error by his blind guide,
Rycaut, the translator of Garcilasso, for the latter does not
speak of the temple as existing before the time of the Incas, but
before the time when the country was conquered by the Incas.
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 6, cap. 30.]

We may reasonably conclude that there existed in the country a
race advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas; and,
in conformity with nearly every tradition, we may derive this
race from the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca; *14 a conclusion
strongly confirmed by the imposing architectural remains which
still endure, after the lapse of so many years, on its borders.
Who this race were, and whence they came, may afford a tempting
theme for inquiry to the speculative antiquarian. But it is a
land of darkness that lies far beyond the domain of history. *15

[See Antiquities: Artistic handicrafts of the ancient people of
Peru]

[Footnote 14: Among other authorities for this tradition, see
Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 3, 4, - Herrera, Hist. General,
dec. 5, lib. 3, cap. 6, - Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms., - Zarate,
Historia del Descubrimiento y de la Conquista del Peru, lib. 1,
cap. 10, ap. Barcia, Historiadores Primitivos de las Indias
Occidentales, (Madrid, 1749,) tom. 3.

In most, not all, of the traditions, Manco Capac is recognized as
the name of the founder of the Peruvian monarchy, though his
history and character are related with sufficient discrepancy.]

[Footnote 15: Mr. Ranking,
"Who can deep mysteries unriddle,
As easily as thread a needle,"

finds it "highly probable that the first Inca of Peru was a son
of the Grand Khan Kublai"! (Historical Researches on the
Conquest of Peru, &c., by the Moguls, (London, 1827,) p. 170.)
The coincidences are curious, though we shall hardly jump at the
conclusion of the adventurous author. Every scholar will agree
with Humboldt, in the wish that "some learned traveller would
visit the borders of the lake of Titicaca, the district of
Callao, and the high plains of Tiahuanaco, the theatre of the
ancient American civilization." (Vues des Cordilleres, p. 199.)
And yet the architectural monuments of the aborigines, hitherto
brought to light, have furnished few materials for a bridge of
communications across the dark gulf that still separates the Old
World from the New.]

The same mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue
to settle on their subsequent annals; and, so imperfect were the
records employed by the Peruvians, and so confused and
contradictory their traditions, that the historian finds no firm
footing on which to stand till within a century of the Spanish
conquest. *16 At first, the progress of the Peruvians seems to
have been sow, and almost imperceptible. By their wise and
temperate policy, they gradually won over the neighbouring tribes
to their dominion, as these latter became more and more convinced
of the benefits of a just and well-regulated government. As they
grew stronger, they were enabled to rely more directly on force;
but, still advancing under cover of the same beneficent pretexts
employed by their predecessors, they proclaimed peace and
civilization at the point of the sword. The rude nations of the
country, without any principle of cohesion among themselves, fell
one after another before the victorious arm of the Incas. Yet it
was not till the middle of the fifteenth century that the famous
Topa Inca Yupanqui, grandfather of the monarch who occupied the
throne at the coming of the Spaniards, led his armies across the
terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern
region of Chili, fixed the permanent boundary of his dominions at
the river Maule. His son, Huayna Capac, possessed of ambition
and military talent fully equal to his father's marched along the
Cordillera towards the north, and, pushing his conquests across
the equator, added the powerful kingdom of Quito to the empire of
Peru. *17

[Footnote 16: A good deal within a century, to say truth.
Garcilasso and Sarmiento, for example, the two ancient
authorities in highest repute, have scarcely a point of contact
in their accounts of the earlier Peruvian princes; the former
representing the sceptre as gliding down in peaceful succession
from hand to hand, through an unbroken dynasty, while the latter
garnishes his tale with as many conspiracies, depositions, and
revolutions, as belong to most barbarous, and, unhappily, most
civilized communities. When to these two are added the various
writers, contemporary and of the succeeding age, who have treated
of the Peruvian annals, we shall find ourselves in such a
conflict of traditions, that criticism is lost in conjecture.
Yet this uncertainty as to historical events fortunately does not
extend to the history of arts and institutions, which were in
existence on the arrival of the Spaniards.]

[Footnote 17: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 57, 64. - Conq. i.
Pob. del Piru, Ms. - Velasco, Hist. de Quito, p. 59. - Dec. de la
Aud. Real., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
18, 19; lib. 8, cap. 5-8.

The last historian, and, indeed, some others, refer the conquest
of Chili to Yupanqui, the father of Topa Inca. The exploits of
the two monarchs are so blended together by the different
annalists, as in a manner to confound their personal identity.]

The ancient city of Cuzco, meanwhile, had been gradually
advancing in wealth and population, till it had become the worthy
metropolis of a great and flourishing monarchy. It stood in a
beautiful valley on an elevated region of the plateau, which,
among the Alps, would have been buried in eternal snows, but
which within the tropics enjoyed a genial and salubrious
temperature. Towards the north it was defended by a lofty
eminence, a spur of the great Cordillera; and the city was
traversed by a river, or rather a small stream, over which
bridges of timber, covered with heavy slabs of stone, furnished
an easy means of communication with the opposite banks. The
streets were long and narrow; the houses low, and those of the
poorer sort built of clay and reeds. But Cuzco was the royal
residence, and was adorned with the ample dwellings of the great
nobility; and the massy fragments still incorporated in many of
the modern edifices bear testimony to the size and solidity of
the ancient. *18

[Footnote 18: Garcilasso, Com. Real., lib. 7, cap. 8-11. - Cieza
de Leon, Cronica, cap. 92.

"El Cuzco tuuo gran manera y calidad, deuio ser fundada por gente
de gran ser. Auia grandes calles, saluo q era angostas, y las
casas hechas de piedra pura co tan lindas junturas, q illustra el
antiguedad del edificio, pues estauan piedras tan grades muy bien
assentadas." (Ibid., ubi supra.) Compare with this Miller's
account of the city, as existing at the present day. "The walls
of many of the houses have remained unaltered for centuries. The
great size of the stones, the variety of their shapes, and the
inimitable workmanship they display, give to the city that
interesting air of antiquity and romance, which fills the mind
with pleasing though painful veneration." Memoirs of Gen. Miller
in the Service of the Republic of Peru, (London, 1829, 2d ed.)
vol. II. p. 225.]

The health of the city was promoted by spacious openings and
squares, in which a numerous population from the capital and the
distant country assembled to celebrate the high festivals of
their religion. For Cuzco was the "Holy City"; *19 and the great
temple of the Sun, to which pilgrims resorted from the furthest
borders of the empire, was the most magnificent structure in the
New World, and unsurpassed, probably, in the costliness of its
decorations by any building in the Old.

[Footnote 19: "La Imperial Ciudad de Cozco, que la adoravan los
Indios, como a Cosa Sagrada." Garcilasso, Com. Real., parte 1,
lib. 3, cap. 20. - Also Ondegardo, Rel. Seg., Ms.]

Towards the north, on the sierra or rugged eminence already
noticed, rose a strong fortress, the remains of which at the
present day, by their vast size, excite the admiration of the
traveller. *20 It was defended by a single wall of great
thickness, and twelve hundred feet long on the side facing the
city, where the precipitous character of the ground was of itself
almost sufficient for its defence. On the other quarter, where
the approaches were less difficult, it was protected by two other
semicircular walls of the same length as the preceding. They
were separated, a considerable distance from one another and from
the fortress; and the intervening ground was raised so that the
walls afforded a breastwork for the troops stationed there in
times of assault. The fortress consisted of three towers,
detached from one another. One was appropriated to the Inca, and
was garnished with the sumptuous decorations befitting a royal
residence, rather than a military post. The other two were held
by the garrison, drawn from the Peruvian nobles, and commanded by
an officer of the blood royal; for the position was of too great
importance to be intrusted to inferior hands. The hill was
excavated below the towers, and several subterraneous galleries
communicated with the city and the palaces of the Inca. *21

[Footnote 20: See, among others, the Memoirs, above cited, of
Gen. Miller, which contain a minute and very interesting notice
of modern Cuzco. (Vol. II. p. 223, et seq.) Ulloa, who visited
the country in the middle of the last century, is unbounded in
his expressions of admiration. Voyage to South America, Eng.
trans., (London, 1806,) book VII. ch. 12.]

[Footnote 21: Betanzos, Suma y Narracion de los Yngas, Ms., cap.
12. - Garcilasso, Com Real., Parte 1, iib. 7, cap. 27-29.

The demolition of the fortress, begun immediately after the
Conquest, provoked the remonstrance of more than one enlightened
Spaniard, whose voice, however, was impotent against the spirit
of cupidity and violence. See Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap.
48.]

The fortress, the walls, and the galleries were all built of
stone, the heavy blocks of which were not laid in regular
courses, but so disposed that the small ones might fill up the
interstices between the great. They formed a sort of rustic
work, being rough-hewn except towards the edges, which were
finely wrought; and, though no cement was used, the several
blocks were adjusted with so much exactness and united so
closely, that it was impossible to introduce even the blade of
knife between them. *22 Many of these stones were of vast size;
some of them being full thirty-eight feet long, by eighteen
broad, and six feet thick. *23

[Footnote 22: Ibid., ubi supra. - Inscripciones, Medallas,
Templos, Edificios, Antiguedades, y Monumentos del Peru, Ms.
This manuscript, which formerly belonged to Dr. Robertson, and
which is now in the British Museum, is the work of some unknown
author, somewhere probably about the time of Charles III.; a
period when, as the sagacious scholar to whom I am indebted for a
copy of it remarks, a spirit of sounder criticism was visible in
the Castilian historians.]

[Footnote 23: Acosta, Naturall and Morall Historie of the East
and West Indies, Eng. trans., (London, 1604,) lib. 6, cap. 14. -
He measured the stones himself. - See also Garcilasso, Com.
Real., loc. cit.]

We are filled with astonishment, when we consider, that these
enormous masses were hewn from their native bed and fashioned
into shape, by a people ignorant of the use of iron; that they
were brought from quarries, from four to fifteen leagues distant,
*24 without the aid of beasts of burden; were transported across
rivers and ravines, raised to their elevated position on the
sierra, and finally adjusted there with the nicest accuracy,
without the knowledge of tools and machinery familiar to the
European. Twenty thousand men are said to have been employed on
this great structure, and fifty years consumed in the building.
*25 However this may be, we see in it the workings of a despotism
which had the lives and fortunes of its vassals at its absolute
disposal, and which, however mild in its general character,
esteemed these vassals, when employed in its service, as lightly
as the brute animals for which they served as a substitute.

[Footnote 24: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 93. - Ondegardo, Rel.
Seg., Ms. Many hundred blocks of granite may still be seen, it is
said, in an unfinished state, in a quarry near Cuzco.]

[Footnote 25: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 48. - Ondegardo,
Rel. Seg., Ms. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap.
27, 28.

The Spaniards, puzzled by the execution of so great a work with
such apparently inadequate means, referred it all, in their
summary way, to the Devil; an opinion which Garcilasso seems
willing to indorse. The author of the Antig y Monumentos del
Peru, Ms., rejects this notion with becoming gravity.]

The fortress of Cuzco was but part of a system of fortifications
established throughout their dominions by the Incas. This system
formed a prominent feature in their military policy; but before
entering on this latter, it will be proper to give the reader
some view of their civil institutions and scheme of government.

The sceptre of the Incas, if we may credit their historian,
descended in unbroken succession from father to son, through
their whole dynasty. Whatever we may think of this, it appears
probable that the right of inheritance might be claimed by the
eldest son of the Coya, or lawful queen, as she was styled, to
distinguish her from the host of concubines who shared the
affections of the sovereign. *26 The queen was further
distinguished, at least in later reigns, by the circumstance of
being selected from the sisters of the Inca, an arrangement
which, however revolting to the ideas of civilized nations, was
recommended to the Peruvians by its securing an heir to the crown
of the pure heaven-born race, uncontaminated by any mixture of
earthly mould. *27

[Footnote 26: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 7. - Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 1, cap. 26.

Acosta speaks of the eldest brother of the Inca as succeeding in
preference to the son. (lib. 6, cap. 12.) He may have confounded
the Peruvian with the Aztec usage. The Report of the Royal
Audience states that a brother succeeded in default of a son.
Dec. de la Aud. Real., Ms.]

[Footnote 27: "Et soror et conjux." - According to Garcilasso the
heir-apparent always married a sister. (Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 4, cap. 9.) Ondegardo notices this as an innovation at the
close of the fifteenth century. (Relacion Primera, Ms.) The
historian of the Incas, however, is confirmed in his
extra-ordinary statement by Sarmiento. Relacion, Ms., cap. 7.]
In his early years, the royal offspring was intrusted to the care
of the amautas, or "wise men," as the teachers of Peruvian
science were called, who instructed him in such elements of
knowledge as they possessed, and especially in the cumbrous
ceremonial of their religion, in which he was to take a prominent
part. Great care was also bestowed on his military education, of
the last importance in a state which, with its professions of
peace and good-will, was ever at war for the acquisition of
empire.