The History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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[Footnote 17: "No se olvidaron de buscar a Antonio Picado, i
iendo en casa del Tesorero Alonso Riquelme, el mismo iba
diciendo: No se adonde esta el Senor Picado, i con los ojos le
mostraba, i le hallaron debaxo de la cama." Herrera, Hist.
General, dec. 6, lib. 10, cap. 7.

We find Riquelme's name, soon after this, enrolled among the
municipality of Lima, showing that he found it convenient to give
in his temporary adhesion, at least, to Almagro. Carta de la
Justicia y Regimiento de la Ciudad de los Reyes, Ms.]

But no other violence was offered by Rada and his followers than
to apprehend a few suspected persons, and to seize upon horses
and arms wherever they were to be found. The municipality was
then summoned to recognize the authority of Almagro; the
refractory were ejected without ceremony from their offices, and
others of the Chili faction were substituted. The claims of the
new aspirant were fully recognized; and young Almagro, parading
the streets on horseback, and escorted by a well-armed body of
cavaliers, was proclaimed by sound of trumpet governor and
captain-general of Peru.

Meanwhile, the mangled bodies of Pizarro and his faithful
adherents were left weltering in their blood. Some were for
dragging forth the governor's corpse to the market-place, and
fixing his head upon a gibbet. But Almagro was secretly prevailed
on to grant the entreaties of Pizarro's friends, and allow his
interment. This was stealthily and hastily performed, in the
fear of momentary interruption. A faithful attendant and his
wife, with a few black domestics, wrapped the body in a cotton
cloth and removed it to the cathedral. A grave was hastily dug
in an obscure corner, the services were hurried through, and, in
secrecy, and in darkness dispelled only by the feeble glimmering
of a few tapers furnished by these humble menials, the remains of
Pizarro, rolled in their bloody shroud, were consigned to their
kindred dust. Such was the miserable end of the Conqueror of
Peru, - of the man who but a few hours before had lorded it over
the land with as absolute a sway as was possessed by its
hereditary Incas. Cut off in the broad light of day, in the
heart of his own capital, in the very midst of those who had been
his companions in arms and shared with him his triumphs and his
spoils, he perished like a wretched outcast. "There was none
even," in the expressive language of the chronicler "to say, God
forgive him!" *18

[Footnote 18: "Murio pidiendo confesion, i haciendo la Cruz, sin
que nadie lijese, Dios te perdone." Gomara, Hist de las Ind.,
cap. 144.
Ms. de Caravantes. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 8. -
Carta del Maestro, Martin de Arauco, Ms. - Carta de Fray Vicente
Valverde, desde Tumbez, Ms.]

A few years later, when tranquillity was restored to the country,
Pizarro's remains were placed in a sumptuous coffin and deposited
under a monument in a conspicuous part of the cathedral. And in
1607, when time had thrown its friendly mantle over the past, and
the memory of his errors and his crimes was merged in the
consideration of the great services he had rendered to the Crown
by the extension of her colonial empire, his bones were removed
to the new cathedral, and allowed to repose side by side with
those of Mendoza, the wise and good viceroy of Peru. *19
[Footnote 19: "Sus huesos encerrados en una caxa guarnecida de
terciopelo morado con passamanos de oro que yo he visto." Ms. de
Caravantes.]
Pizarro was, probably, not far from sixty-five years of age at
the time of his death; though this, it must be added, is but
loose conjecture, since there exists no authentic record of the
date of his birth. *20 He was never married; but by an Indian
princess of the Inca blood, daughter of Atahuallpa and
granddaughter of the great Huayna Capac, he had two children, a
son and a daughter. Both survived him; but the son did not live
to manhood. Their mother, after Pizarro's death, wedded a
Spanish cavalier, named Ampuero, and removed with him to Spain.
Her daughter Francisca accompanied her, and was there
subsequently married to her uncle Hernando Pizarro, then a
prisoner in the Mota del Medina. Neither the title nor estates
of the Marquess Francisco descended to his illegitimate
offspring. But in the third generation, in the reign of Philip
the Fourth, the title was revived in favor of Don Juan Hernando
Pizarro, who, out of gratitude for the services of his ancestor,
was created Marquess of the Conquest, Marques de la Conquista,
with a liberal pension from government. His descendants, bearing
the same title of nobility, are still to be found, it is said, at
Truxillo, in the ancient province of Estremadura, the original
birthplace of the Pizarros. *21

[Footnote 20: Ante, Book 2, chap. 2, note 1.]

[Footnote 21: Ms. de Caravantes. - Quintana, Espanoles Celebres,
tom. II., p. 417.

See also the Discurso, Legal y Politico, annexed by Pizarro y
Orellana to his bulky tome, in which that cavalier urges the
claims of Pizarro. It is in the nature of a memorial to Philip
IV in behalf of Pizarro's descendants, in which the writer, after
setting forth the manifold services of the Conqueror, shows how
little his posterity had profited by the magnificent grants
conferred on him by the Crown. The argument of the Royal
Counsellor was not without its effect.]
Pizarro's person has been already described. He was tall in
stature, well-proportioned, and with a countenance not
unpleasing. Bred in camps, with nothing of the polish of a
court, he had a soldier-like bearing, and the air of one
accustomed to command. But though not polished, there was no
embarrassment or rusticity in his address, which, where it served
his purpose, could be plausible and even insinuating. The proof
of it is the favorable impression made by him, on presenting
himself, after his second expedition - stranger as he was to all
its forms and usages - at the punctilious court of Castile.

Unlike many of his countrymen, he had no passion for ostentatious
dress, which he regarded as an incumbrance. The costume which he
most affected on public occasions was a black cloak, with a white
hat, and shoes of the same color; the last, it is said, being in
imitation of the Great Captain, whose character he had early
learned to admire in Italy, but to which his own, certainly, bore
very faint resemblance. *22
[Footnote 22: Gomara, Hist. de las Ind., cap. 144. - Zarate,
Conq. del Peru. lib. 4, cap. 9.

The portrait of Pizarro, in the viceregal palace at Lima,
represents him in a citizen's dress, with a sable cloak, - the
capa y espada of a Spanish gentleman. Each panel in the spacious
sala de los Vireyes was reserved for the portrait of a viceroy.
The long file is complete, from Pizarro to Pezuela; and it is a
curious fact, noticed by Stevenson, that the last panel was
exactly filled when the reign of the viceroys was abruptly
terminated by the Revolution. (Residence in South America, vol.
I. p. 228.) It is a singular coincidence that the same thing
should have occurred at Venice, where, if my memory serves me,
the last niche reserved for the effigies of its doges was just
filled, when the ancient aristocracy was overturned.]
He was temperate in eating, drank sparingly, and usually rose an
hour before dawn. He was punctual in attendance to business, and
shrunk from no toil. He had, indeed, great powers of patient
endurance. Like most of his nation, he was fond of play, and
cared little for the quality of those with whom he played;
though, when his antagonist could not afford to lose, he would
allow himself, it is said, to be the loser; a mode of conferring
an obligation much commended by a Castilian writer, for its
delicacy. *23
[Footnote 23: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 3, cap. 9.]
Though avaricious, it was in order to spend and not to hoard.
His ample treasures, more ample than those, probably, that ever
before fell to the lot of an adventurer, *24 were mostly
dissipated in his enterprises, his architectural works, and
schemes of public improvement, which, in a country where gold and
silver might be said to have lost their value from their
abundance, absorbed an incredible amount of money. While he
regarded the whole country, in a manner, as his own, and
distributed it freely among his captains, it is certain that the
princely grant of a territory with twenty thousand vassals, made
to him by the Crown, was never carried into effect; nor did his
heirs ever reap the benefit of it. *25

[Footnote 24: "Hallo, i tuvo mas Oro, i Plata, que otro ningun
Espanol de quantos han pasado a Indias, ni que ninguno de quantos
Capitanes han sido por el Mundo." Gomara Hist. de las Ind., cap.
144.]

[Footnote 25: Ms. de Caravantes. - Pizarro y Orellana, Discurso
Leg. y Pol., ap. Varones Ilust. Gonzalo Pizarro, when taken
prisoner by President Gasca, challenged him to point out any
quarter of the country in which the royal grant had been carried
into effect by a specific assignment of land to his brother. See
Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 36.]
To a man possessed of the active energies of Pizarro, sloth was
the greatest evil. The excitement of play was in a manner
necessary to a spirit accustomed to the habitual stimulants of
war and adventure. His uneducated mind had no relish for more
refined, intellectual recreation. The deserted foundling had
neither been taught to read nor write. This has been disputed by
some, but it is attested by unexceptionable authorities. *26
Montesinos says, indeed, that Pizarro, on his first voyage, tried
to learn to read; but the impatience of his temper prevented it,
and he contented himself with learning to sign his name. *27 But
Montesinos was not a contemporary historian. Pedro Pizarro, his
companion in arms, expressly tells us he could neither read nor
write; *28 and Zarate, another contemporary, well acquainted with
the Conquerors, confirms this statement, and adds, that Pizarro
could not so much as sign his name. *29 This was done by his
secretary - Picado, in his latter years - while the governor
merely made the customary rubrica or flourish at the sides of his
name. This is the case with the instruments I have examined, in
which his signature, written probably by his secretary, or his
title of Marques, in later life substituted for his name, is
garnished with a flourish at the ends, executed in as bungling a
manner as if done by the hand of a ploughman. Yet we must not
estimate this deficiency as we should in this period of general
illumination, - general, at least, in our own fortunate country.
Reading and writing, so universal now, in the beginning of the
sixteenth century might be regarded in the light of
accomplishments; and all who have occasion to consult the
autograph memorials of that time will find the execution of them,
even by persons of the highest rank, too often such as would do
little credit to a schoolboy of the present day.

[Footnote 26: Even so experienced a person as Munoz seems to have
fallen into this error. On one of Pizarro's letters I find the
following copy of an autograph memorandum by this eminent
scholar: - Carta de Francisco Pizarro, su letra i buena letra.]

[Footnote 27: "En este viage trato Pizarro de aprender a leer; no
le dio su viveza lugar a ello; contentose solo con saber firmar,
de lo que se veia Almagro, y decia, que firmar sin saber leer era
lo mismo que recibir herida, sin poder darla. En adelante firmo
siempre Pizarro por si, y por Almagro su Secretario." Montesinos,
Annales, Ms., ano 1525.]
[Footnote 28: "Porque el marquez don Francisco Picarro como no
savia ler ni escrivir." Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms]

[Footnote 29: "Siendo personas," says the author, speaking both
of Pizarro and Almagro, "no solamente, no leidas, pero que de
todo punto no sabian leer, ni aun firmar, que en ellos fue cosa
de gran defecto. . . . . . Fue el Marques tan confiado de sus
Criados, i Amigos, que todos los Despachos, que hacia, asi de
Governacion, como de Repartimientos de Indios, libraba ha ciendo
el dos senales, en medio de las quales Antonio Picado, su
Secretario, firmaba el nombre de Francisco Picarro." Zarate,
Conq. del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 9.]

Though bold in action and not easily turned from his purpose,
Pizarro was slow in arriving at a decision. This gave him an
appearance of irresolution foreign to his character. *30 Perhaps
the consciousness of this led him to adopt the custom of saying
'No," at first, to applicants for favor; and afterwards, at
leisure, to revise his judgment, and grant what seemed to him
expedient. He took the opposite course from his comrade Almagro,
who, it was observed, generally said "Yes," but too often failed
to keep his promise. This was characteristic of the careless and
easy nature of the latter, governed by impulse rather than
principle. *31
[Footnote 30: This tardiness of resolve has even led Herrera to
doubt his resolution altogether; a judgment certainly
contradicted by the whole tenor of his history. "Porque aunque
era astuto, i recatado, por la maior parte fue de animo suspenso,
i no mui resoluto." Hist. General, dec. 5, lib. 7, cap. 13.]

[Footnote 31: "Tenia por costumbre de quando algo le pedian dezir
siempre de no. esto dezia el que hazia por no faltar su palabra,
y no obstante que dezia no, correspondia con hazer lo que le
pedian no aviendo inconvenimente. . . . . . Don Diego de Almagro
hera a la contra que a todos dezia si, y con pocos lo cumplia."
Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]

It is hardly necessary to speak of the courage of a man pledged
to such a career as that of Pizarro. Courage, indeed, was a
cheap quality among the Spanish adventurers, for danger was their
element. But he possessed something higher than mere animal
courage, in that constancy of purpose which was rooted too deeply
in his nature to be shaken by the wildest storms of fortune. It
was this inflexible constancy which formed the key to his
character, and constituted the secret of his success. A
remarkable evidence of it was given in his first expedition,
among the mangroves and dreary marshes of Choco. He saw his
followers pining around him under the blighting malaria, wasting
before an invisible enemy, and unable to strike a stroke in their
own defence. Yet his spirit did not yield, nor did he falter in
his enterprise.

There is something oppressive to the imagination in this war
against nature. In the struggle of man against man, the spirits
are raised by a contest conducted on equal terms; but in a war
with the elements, we feel, that, however bravely we may contend,
we can have no power to control. Nor are we cheered on by the
prospect of glory in such a contest; for, in the capricious
estimate of human glory, the silent endurance of privations,
however painful, is little, in comparison with the ostentatious
trophies of victory. The laurel of the hero - alas for humanity
that it should be so! - grows best on the battle-field.
This inflexible spirit of Pizarro was shown still more strongly,
when, in the little island of Gallo, he drew the line on the
sand, which was to separate him and his handful of followers from
their country and from civilized man. He trusted that his own
constancy would give strength to the feeble, and rally brave
hearts around him for the prosecution of his enterprise. He
looked with confidence to the future, and he did not
miscalculate. This was heroic, and wanted only a nobler motive
for its object to constitute the true moral sublime.

Yet the same feature in his character was displayed in a manner
scarcely less remarkable, when, landing on the coast and
ascertaining the real strength and civilization of the Incas, he
persisted in marching into the interior at the head of a force of
less than two hundred men. In this he undoubtedly proposed to
himself the example of Cortes, so contagious to the adventurous
spirits of that day, and especially to Pizarro, engaged, as he
was, in a similar enterprise. Yet the hazard assumed by Pizarro
was far greater than that of the Conqueror of Mexico, whose force
was nearly three times as large, while the terrors of the Inca
name - however justified by the result - were as widely spread as
those of the Aztecs.
It was doubtless in imitation of the same captivating model, that
Pizarro planned the seizure of Atahuallpa. But the situations of
the two Spanish captains were as dissimilar as the manner in
which their acts of violence were conducted. The wanton massacre
of the Peruvians resembled that perpetrated by Alvarado in
Mexico, and might have been attended with consequences as
disastrous, if the Peruvian character had been as fierce as that
of the Aztecs. *32 But the blow which roused the latter to
madness broke the tamer spirits of the Peruvians. It was a bold
stroke, which left so much to chance, that it scarcely merits the
name of policy.
[Footnote 32: See Conquest of Mexico, Book 4, chap 8.]

When Pizarro landed in the country, he found it distracted by a
contest for the crown. It would seem to have been for his
interest to play off one party against the other, throwing his
own weight into the scale that suited him. Instead of this, he
resorted to an act of audacious violence which crushed them both
at a blow. His subsequent career afforded no scope for the
profound policy displayed by Cortes, when he gathered conflicting
nations under his banner, and directed them against a common foe.
Still less did he have the opportunity of displaying the tactics
and admirable strategy of his rival. Cortes conducted his
military operations on the scientific principles of a great
captain at the head of a powerful host. Pizarro appears only as
an adventurer, a fortunate knight-errant. By one bold stroke, he
broke the spell which had so long held the land under the
dominion of the Incas. The spell was broken, and the airy fabric
of their empire, built on the superstition of ages, vanished at a
touch. This was good fortune, rather than the result of policy.

Pizarro was eminently perfidious. Yet nothing is more opposed to
sound policy. One act of perfidy fully established becomes the
ruin of its author. The man who relinquishes confidence in his
good faith gives up the best basis for future operations. Who
will knowingly build on a quicksand? By his perfidious treatment
of Almagro, Pizarro alienated the minds of the Spaniards. By his
perfidious treatment of Atahuallpa, and subsequently of the Inca
Manco, he disgusted the Peruvians. The name of Pizarro became a
by-word for perfidy. Almagro took his revenge in a civil war;
Manco in an insurrection which nearly cost Pizarro his dominion.
The civil war terminated in a conspiracy which cost him his life.
Such were the fruits of his policy. Pizarro may be regarded as a
cunning man; but not, as he has been often eulogized by his
countrymen, as a politic one.
When Pizarro obtained possession of Cuzco, he found a country
well advanced in the arts of civilization; institutions under
which the people lived in tranquillity and personal safety; the
mountains and the uplands whitened with flocks; the valleys
teeming with the fruits of a scientific husbandry; the granaries
and warehouses filled to overflowing; the whole land rejoicing in
its abundance; and the character of the nation, softened under
the influence of the mildest and most innocent form of
superstition, well prepared for the reception of a higher and a
Christian civilization. But, far from introducing this, Pizarro
delivered up the conquered races to his brutal soldiery; the
sacred cloisters were abandoned to their lust; the towns and
villages were given up to pillage; the wretched natives were
parcelled out like slaves, to toil for their conquerors in the
mines; the flocks were scattered, and wantonly destroyed; the
granaries were dissipated; the beautiful contrivances for the
more perfect culture of the soil were suffered to fall into
decay; the paradise was converted into a desert. Instead of
profiting by the ancient forms of civilization, Pizarro preferred
to efface every vestige of them from the land, and on their ruin
to erect the institutions of his own country. Yet these
institutions did little for the poor Indian, held in iron
bondage. It was little to him that the shores of the Pacific
were studded with rising communities and cities, the marts of a
flourishing commerce. He had no share in the goodly heritage.
He was an alien in the land of his fathers.
The religion of the Peruvian, which directed him to the worship
of that glorious luminary which is the best representative of the
might and beneficence of the Creator, is perhaps the purest form
of superstition that has existed among men. Yet it was much,
that, under the new order of things, and through the benevolent
zeal of the missionaries, some glimmerings of a nobler faith were
permitted to dawn on his darkened soul. Pizarro, himself, cannot
be charged with manifesting any overweening solicitude for the
propagation of the Faith. He was no bigot, like Cortes. Bigotry
is the perversion of the religious principle; but the principle
itself was wanting in Pizarro. The conversion of the heathen was
a predominant motive with Cortes in his expedition. It was not a
vain boast. He would have sacrificed his life for it at any
time; and more than once, by his indiscreet zeal, he actually did
place his life and the success of his enterprise in jeopardy. It
was his great purpose to purify the land from the brutish
abominations of the Aztecs, by substituting the religion of
Jesus. This gave to his expedition the character of a crusade.
It furnished the best apology for the Conquest, and does more
than all other considerations towards enlisting our sympathies on
the side of the conquerors.

But Pizarro's ruling motives, so far as they can be scanned by
human judgment, were avarice and ambition. The good
missionaries, indeed, followed in his train to scatter the seeds
of spiritual truth, and the Spanish government, as usual,
directed its beneficent legislation to the conversion of the
natives. But the moving power with Pizarro and his followers was
the lust of gold. This was the real stimulus to their toil, the
price of perfidy, the true guerdon of their victories. This gave
a base and mercenary character to their enterprise; and when we
contrast the ferocious cupidity of the conquerors with the mild
and inoffensive manners of the conquered, our sympathies, the
sympathies even of the Spaniard, are necessarily thrown into the
scale of the Indian. *33

[Footnote 33: The following vigorous lines of Southey condense,
in a small compass, the most remarkable traits of Pizarro. The
poet's epitaph may certainly be acquitted of the imputation,
generally well deserved, of flattery towards the subject of it.

"For A Column At Truxillo.

"Pizarro here was born; a greater name
The list of Glory boasts not. Toil and Pain,
Famine, and hostile Elements, and Hosts
Embattled, failed to check him in his course,
Not to be wearied, not to be deterred,
Not to be overcome. A mighty realm
He overran, and with relentless arm
Slew or enslaved its unoffending sons,
And wealth and power and fame were his rewards.
There is another world, beyond the grave,
According to their deeds where men are judged.
O Reader! if thy daily bread be earned
By daily labor, - yea, however low,
However wretched, be thy lot assigned,
Thank thou, with deepest gratitude, the God
Who made thee, that thou art not such as he."]

But as no picture is without its lights, we must not, in justice
to Pizarro, dwell exclusively on the darker features of his
portrait. There was no one of her sons to whom Spain was under
larger obligations for extent of empire; for his hand won for her
the richest of the Indian jewels that once sparkled in her
imperial diadem. When we contemplate the perils he braved, the
sufferings he patiently endured, the incredible obstacles he
overcame, the magnificent results he effected with his single
arm, as it were, unaided by the government, - though neither a
good, nor a great man in the highest sense of that term, it is
impossible not to regard him as a very extraordinary one.

Nor can we fairly omit to notice, in extenuation of his errors,
the circumstances of his early life; for, like Almagro, he was
the son of sin and sorrow, early cast upon the world to seek his
fortunes as he might. In his young and tender age he was to take
the impression of those into whose society he was thrown. And
when was it the lot of the needy outcast to fall into that of the
wise and the virtuous? His lot was cast among the licentious
inmates of a camp, the school of rapine, whose only law was the
sword, and who looked on the wretched Indian and his heritage as
their rightful spoil.

Who does not shudder at the thought of what his own fate might
have been, trained in such a school? The amount of crime does
not necessarily show the criminality of the agent. History,
indeed, is concerned with the former, that it may be recorded as
a warning to mankind; but it is He alone who knoweth the heart,
the strength of the temptation, and the means of resisting it,
that can determine the measure of the guilt