History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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The person selected was Pedro de Candia, the Greek cavalier mentioned
as one of the first who intimated his intention to share the fortunes of his
commander. He was sent on shore, dressed in complete mail as became
a good knight, with his sword by his side, and his arquebuse on his
shoulder. The Indians were even more dazzled by his appearance than
by Molina's, as the sun fell brightly on his polished armour, and glanced
from his military weapons. They had heard much of the formidable
arquebuse from their townsmen who had come in the vessel, and they
besought Candia "to let it speak to them." He accordingly set up a
wooden board as a target, and, taking deliberate aim, fired off the
musket. The flash of the powder and the startling report of the piece, as
the board, struck by the ball, was shivered into splinters, filled the
nativeswith dismay. Some fell on the ground, covering their faces with
their hands, and others approached the cavalier with feelings of awe,
which were gradually dispelled by the assurance they received from the
smiling expression of his countenance.17

They then showed him the same hospitable attentions which they had
paid to Molina; and his description of the marvels of the place, on his
return, fell nothing short of his predecessor's. The fortress, which was
surrounded by a triple row of wall, was strongly garrisoned. The temple
he described as literally tapestried with plates of gold and silver.
Adjoining this structure was a sort of convent appropriated to the Inca's
destined brides, who manifested great curiosity to see him. Whether this
was gratified is not clear; but Candia described the gardens of the
convent, which he entered, as glowing with imitations of fruits and
vegetables all in pure gold and silver!18 He had seen a number of
artisans at work, whose sole business seemed to be to furnish these
gorgeous decorations for the religious houses.

The reports of the cavalier may have been somewhat over-colored.19 It
was natural that men coming from the dreary wilderness, in which they
had been buried the last six months, should have been vividly impressed
by the tokens of civilization which met them on the Peruvian coast. But
Tumbez was a favorite city of the Peruvian princes. It was the most
important place on the northern borders of the empire, contiguous to the
recent acquisition of Quito. The great Tupac Yupanqui had established a
strong fortress there, and peopled it with a colony of mitimaes. The
temple, and the house occupied by the Virgins of the Sun, had been
erected by Huayna Capac, and were liberally endowed by that Inca, after
the sumptuous fashion of the religious establishments of Peru. The town
was well supplied with water by numerous aqueducts, and the fruitful
valley in which it was embosomed, and the ocean which bathed its
shores, supplied ample means of subsistence to a considerable
population. But the cupidity of the Spaniards, after the Conquest, was
not stow in despoiling the place of its glories; and the site of its proud
towers and temples, in less than half a century after that fatal period, was
to be traced only by the huge mass of ruins that encumbered the
ground.20

The Spaniards were nearly mad with joy, says an old writer, at receiving
these brilliant tidings of the Peruvian city. All their fond dreams were
now to be realized, and they had at length reached the realm which had
so long flitted in visionary splendor before them. Pizarro expressed his
gratitude to Heaven for having crowned his labors with so glorious a
result; but he bitterly lamented the hard fate which, by depriving him of
his followers, denied him, at such a moment, the means of availing
himself of his success. Yet he had no cause for lamentation; and the
devout Catholic saw in this very circumstance a providential
interposition which prevented the attempt at conquest, while such
attempts would have been premature. Peru was not yet torn asunder by
the dissensions of rival candidates for the throne; and, united and strong
under the sceptre of a warlike monarch, she might well have bid defiance
to all the forces that Pizarro could muster. "It was manifestly the work
of Heaven," exclaims a devout son of the Church, "that the natives of the
country should have received him in so kind and loving a spirit, as best
fitted to facilitate the conquest; for it was the Lord's hand which led him
and his followers to this remote region for the extension of the holy faith,
and for the salvation of souls." 21

Having now collected all the information essential to his object, Pizarro,
after taking leave of the natives of Tumbez, and promising a speedy
return, weighed anchor, and again turned his prow towards the south.
Still keeping as near as possible to the coast, that no place of importance
might escape his observation, he passed Cape Blanco, and, after sailing
about a degree and a half, made the port of Payta. The inhabitants, who
had notice of his approach, came out in their balsas to get sight of the
wonderful strangers, bringing with them stores of fruits, fish, and
vegetables, with the same hospitable spirit shown by their countrymen at
Tumbez.

After staying here a short time, and interchanging presents of trifling
value with the natives, Pizarro continued his cruise; and, sailing by the
sandy plains of Sechura for an extent of near a hundred miles, he
doubled the Punta de Aguja, and swept down the coast as it fell off
towards the east, still carried forward by light and somewhat variable
breezes. The weather now became unfavorable, and the voyagers
encountered a succession of heavy gales, which drove them some
distance out to sea, and tossed them about for many days. But they did
not lose sight of the mighty ranges of the Andes, which, as they
proceeded towards the south, were still seen, at nearly the same distance
from the shore, rolling onwards, peak after peak, with their stupendous
surges of ice, like some vast ocean, that had been suddenly arrested and
frozen up in the midst of its wild and tumultuous career. With this
landmark always in view, the navigator had little need of star or compass
to guide his bark on her course.

As soon as the tempest had subsided, Pizarro stood in again for the
continent, touching at the principal points as he coasted along.
Everywhere he was received with the same spirit of generous hospitality;
the natives coming out in their balsas to welcome him, laden with their
little cargoes of fruits and vegetables, of all the luscious varieties that
grow in the tierra caliente. All were eager to have a glimpse of the
strangers, the "Children of the Sun," as the Spaniards began already to be
called, from their fair complexions, brilliant armour, and the
thunderbolts which they bore in their hands.22 The most favorable
reports, too, had preceded them, of the urbanity and gentleness of their
manners, thus unlocking the hearts of the simple natives, and disposing
them to confidence and kindness. The iron-hearted soldier had not yet
disclosed the darker side of his character. He was too weak to do so.
The hour of Conquest had not yet come.

In every place Pizarro received the same accounts of a powerful monarch
who ruled over the land, and held his court on the mountain plains of the
interior, where his capital was depicted as blazing with gold and silver,
and displaying all the profusion of an Oriental satrap. The Spaniards,
except at Tumbez, seem to have met with little of the precious metals
among the natives on the coast. More than one writer asserts that they
did not covet them, or, at least, by Pizarro's orders, affected not to do so.
He would not have them betray their appetite for gold, and actually
refused gifts when they were proffered!23 It is more probable that they
saw little display of wealth, except in the embellishments of the temples
and other sacred buildings, which they did not dare to violate. The
precious metals, reserved for the uses of religion and for persons of high
degree, were not likely to abound in the remote towns and hamlets on the
coast.

Yet the Spaniards met with sufficient evidence of general civilization
and power to convince them that there was much foundation for the
reports of the natives. Repeatedly they saw structures of stone and
plaster, and occasionally showing architectural skill in the execution, if
not elegance of design. Wherever they cast anchor, they beheld green
patches of cultivated country redeemed from the sterility of nature, and
blooming with the variegated vegetation of the tropics; while a refined
system of irrigation, by means of aqueducts and canals, seemed to be
spread like a net-work over the surface of the country, making even the
desert to blossom as the rose. At many places where they landed they
saw the great road of the Incas which traversed the sea-coast, often,
indeed, lost in the volatile sands, where no road could be maintained, but
rising into a broad and substantial causeway, as it emerged on a firmer
soil. Such a provision for internal communication was in itself no slight
monument of power and civilization.

Still beating to the south, Pizarro passed the site of the future flourishing
city of Truxillo, founded by himself some years later, and pressed on till
he rode off the port of Santa. It stood on the banks of a broad and
beautiful stream; but the surrounding country was so exceedingly arid
that it was frequently selected as a burial-place by the Peruvians, who
found the soil most favorable for the preservation of their mummies. So
numerous, indeed, were the Indian guacas, that the place might rather be
called the abode of the dead than of the living.24

Having reached this point, about the ninth degree of southern latitude,
Pizarro's followers besought him not to prosecute the voyage farther.
Enough and more than enough had been done, they said, to prove the
existence and actual position of the great Indian empire of which they
had so long been in search. Yet, with their slender force, they had no
power to profit by the discovery. All that remained, therefore, was to
return and report the success of their enterprise to the governor at
Panama. Pizarro acquiesced in the reasonableness of this demand. He
had now penetrated nine degrees farther than any former navigator in
these southern seas, and, instead of the blight which, up to this hour, had
seemed to hang over his fortunes, he could now return in triumph to his
countrymen. Without hesitation, therefore, he prepared to retrace his
course, and stood again towards the north.

On his way, he touched at several places where he had before landed. At
one of these, called by the Spaniards Santa Cruz, he had been invited on
shore by an Indian woman of rank, and had promised to visit her on his
return. No sooner did his vessel cast anchor off the village where she
lived, than she came on board, followed by a numerous train of
attendants. Pizarro received her with every mark of respect, and on her
departure presented her with some trinkets which had a real value in the
eyes of an Indian princess. She urged the Spanish commander and his
companions to return the visit, engaging to send a number of hostages on
board, as security for their good treatment. Pizarro assured her that the
frank confidence she had shown towards them proved that this was
unnecessary. Yet, no sooner did he put off in his boat, the following day,
to go on shore, than several of the principal persons in the place came
alongside of the ship to be received as hostages during the absence of the
Spaniards,--a singular proof of consideration for the sensitive
apprehensions of her guests.

Pizarro found that preparations had been made for his reception in a style
of simple hospitality that evinced some degree of taste. Arbours were
formed of luxuriant and wide-spreading branches, interwoven with
fragrant flowers and shrubs that diffused a delicious perfume through the
air. A banquet was provided, teeming with viands prepared in the style
of the Peruvian cookery, and with fruits and vegetables of tempting hue
and luscious to the taste, though their names and nature were unknown to
the Spaniards. After the collation was ended, the guests were entertained
with music and dancing by a troop of young men and maidens simply
attired, who exhibited in their favorite national amusement all the agility
and grace which the supple limbs of the Peruvian Indians so well
qualified them to display. Before his departure, Pizarro stated to his
kind host the motives of his visit to the country, in the same manner as he
had done on other occasions, and he concluded by unfurling the royal
banner of Castile, which he had brought on shore, requesting her and her
attendants to raise it in token of their allegiance to his sovereign. This
they did with great good-humor, laughing all the while, says the
chronicler, and making it clear that they had a very imperfect conception
of the serious nature of the ceremony. Pizarro was contented with this
outward display of loyalty, and returned to his vessel well satisfied with
the entertainment he had received, and meditating, it may be, on the best
mode of repaying it, hereafter, by the subjugation and conversion of the
country.

The Spanish commander did not omit to touch also at Tumbez, on his
homeward voyage. Here some of his followers, won by the comfortable
aspect of the place and the manners of the people, intimated a wish to
remain, conceiving, no doubt, that it would be better to live where they
would be persons of consequence than to return to an obscure condition
in the community of Panama. One of these men was Alonso de Molina,
the same who had first gone on shore at this place, and been captivated
by the charms of the Indian beauties. Pizarro complied with their
wishes, thinking it would not be amiss to find, on his return, some of his
own followers who would be instructed in the language and usages of the
natives. He was also allowed to carry back in his vessel two or three
Peruvians, for the similar purpose of instructing them in the Castilian.
One of them, a youth named by the Spaniards Felipillo, plays a part of
some importance in the history of subsequent events.

On leaving Tumbez, the adventurers steered directly for Panama,
touching only, on their way, at the ill-fated island of Gorgona to take on
board their two companions who were left there too ill to proceed with
them. One had died, and, receiving the other, Pizarro and his gallant
little band continued their voyage; and, after an absence of at least
eighteen months, found themselves once more safely riding at anchor in
the harbor of Panama.25

The sensation caused by their arrival was great, as might have been
expected. For there were few, even among the most sanguine of their
friends, who did not imagine that they had long since paid for their
temerity, and fallen victims to the climate or the natives, or miserably
perished in a watery grave. Their joy was proportionably great,
therefore, as they saw the wanderers now returned, not only in health and
safety, but with certain tidings of the fair countries which had so long
eluded their grasp. It was a moment of proud satisfaction to the three
associates, who, in spite of obloquy, derision, and every impediment
which the distrust of friends or the coldness of government could throw
in their way, had persevered in their great enterprise until they had
established the truth of what had been so generally denounced as a
chimera. It is the misfortune of those daring spirits who conceive an idea
too vast for their own generation to comprehend, or, at least, to attempt
to carry out, that they pass for visionary dreamers. Such had been the
fate of Luque and his associates. The existence of a rich Indian empire
at the south, which, in their minds, dwelling long on the same idea and
alive to all the arguments in its favor, had risen to the certainty of
conviction, had been derided by the rest of their countrymen as a mere
mirage of the fancy, which, on nearer approach, would melt into air;
while the projectors, who staked their fortunes on the adventure, were
denounced as madmen. But their hour of triumph, their slow and
hardearned triumph, had now arrived.

Yet the governor, Pedro de los Rios, did not seem, even at this moment,
to be possessed with a conviction of the magnitude of the discovery,--or,
perhaps, he was discouraged by its very magnitude. When the
associates, now with more confidence, applied to him for patronage in an
undertaking too vast for their individual resources, he coldly replied, "He
had no desire to build up other states at the expense of his own; nor
would he be led to throw away more lives than had already been
sacrificed by the cheap display of gold and silver toys and a few Indian
sheep!" 26

Sorely disheartened by this repulse from the only quarter whence
effectual aid could be expected, the confederates, without funds, and
with credit nearly exhausted by their past efforts, were perplexed in the
extreme. Yet to stop now,--what was it but to abandon the rich mine
which their own industry and perseverance had laid open, for others to
work at pleasure? In this extremity the fruitful mind of Luque suggested
the only expedient by which they could hope for success. This was to
apply to the Crown itself. No one was so much interested in the result of
the expedition. It was for the government, indeed, that discoveries were
to be made, that the country was to be conquered. The government alone
was competent to provide the requisite means, and was likely to take a
much broader and more liberal view of the matter than a petty colonial
officer.

But who was there qualified to take charge of this delicate mission?
Luque was chained by his professional duties to Panama; and his
associates, unlettered soldiers, were much better fitted for the business of
the camp than of the court. Almagro, blunt, though somewhat swelling
and ostentatious in his address, with a diminutive stature and a
countenance naturally plain, now much disfigured by the loss of an eye,
was not so well qualified for the mission as his companion in arms, who,
possessing a good person and altogether a commanding presence, was
plausible, and, with all his defects of education, could, where deeply
interested, be even eloquent in discourse. The ecclesiastic, however,
suggested that the negotiation should be committed to the Licentiate
Corral, a respectable functionary, then about to return on some public
business to the mother country. But to this Almagro strongly objected.
No one, he said, could conduct the affair so well as the party interested
in it. He had a high opinion of Pizarro's prudence, his discernment of
character, and his cool, deliberate policy.27 He knew enough of his
comrade to have confidence that his presence of mind would not desert
him, even in the new, and therefore embarrassing, circumstances in
which he would be placed at court. No one, he said, could tell the story
of their adventures with such effect, as the man who had been the chief
actor in them. No one could so well paint the unparalleled sufferings and
sacrifices which they had encountered; no other could tell so forcibly
what had been done, what yet remained to do, and what assistance would
be necessary to carry it into execution. He concluded, with characteristic
frankness, by strongly urging his confederate to undertake the mission.

Pizarro felt the force of Almagro's reasoning, and, though with
undisguised reluctance, acquiesced in a measure which was less to his
taste than an expedition to the wilderness. But Luque came into the
arrangement with more difficulty. "God grant, my children," exclaimed
the ecclesiastic, "that one of you may not defraud the other of his
blessing!" 28 Pizarro engaged to consult the interests of his associates
equally with his own. But Luque, it is clear, did not trust Pizarro.

There was some difficulty in raising the funds necessary for putting the
envoy in condition to make a suitable appearance at court; so low had the
credit of the confederates fallen, and so little confidence was yet placed
in the result of their splendid discoveries. Fifteen hundred ducats were at
length raised; and Pizarro, in the spring of 1528, bade adieu to Panama,
accompanied by Pedro de Candia.29 He took with him, also, some of
the natives, as well as two or three llamas, various nice fabrics of cloth,
with many ornaments and vases of gold and silver, as specimens of the
civilization of the country, and vouchers for his wonderful story.

Of all the writers on ancient Peruvian history, no one has acquired so
wide celebrity, or been so largely referred to by later compilers, as the
Inca Garcilasso de la Vega. He was born at Cuzco, in 1540; and was a
mestizo, that is of mixed descent, his father being European, and his
mother Indian. His father, Garcilasso de la Vega, was one of that
illustrious family whose achievements, both in arms and letters, shed
such lustre over the proudest period of the Castilian annals. He came to
Peru, in the suite of Pedro de Alvarado, soon after the country had been
gained by Pizarro. Garcilasso attached himself to the fortunes of this
chief, and, after his death, to those of his brother Gonzalo,--remaining.
constant to the latter, through his rebellion, up to the hour of his rout at
Xaquixaguana, when Garcilasso took the same course with most of his
faction, and passed over to the enemy. But this demonstration of loyalty,
though it saved his life, was too late to redeem his credit with the
victorious party; and the obloquy which he incurred by his share in the
rebellion threw a cloud over his subsequent fortunes, and even over
those of his son, as it appears, in after years.

The historian's mother was of the Peruvian blood royal. She was niece
of Huayna Capac, and granddaughter of the renowned Tupac Inca
Yupanqui. Garcilasso, while he betrays obvious satisfaction that the
blood of the civilized European flows in his veins shows himself not a
little proud of his descent from the royal dynasty of Peru; and this he
intimated by combining with his patronymic the distinguishing title of
the Peruvian princes,---subscribing himself always Garcilasso Inca de la
Vega.

His early years were passed in his native land, where he was reared in the
Roman Catholic faith, and received the benefit of as good an education
as could be obtained, amidst the incessant din of arms and civil
commotion. In 1560, when twenty years of age, he left America, and
from that time took up his residence in Spain. Here he entered the
military service, and held a captain's commission in the war against the
Moriscos, and, afterwards, under Don John of Austria. Though he
acquitted himself honorably in his adventurous career, he does not seem
to have been satisfied with the manner in which his services were
requited by the government. The old reproach of the father's disloyalty
still clung to the son and Garcilasso assures us that this circumstance
defeated all his efforts to recover the large inheritance of landed property
belonging to his mother, which had escheated to the Crown. "Such were
the prejudices against me," says he, "that I could not urge my ancient
claims or expectations; and I left the army so poor and so much in debt,
that I did not care to show myself again at court; but was obliged to
withdraw into an obscure solitudes where I lead a tranquil life for the
brief space that remains to me, no longer deluded by the world or its
vanities."

The scene of this obscure retreat was not, however, as the reader might
imagine from this tone of philosophic resignation, in the depths of some
rural wilderness, but in Cordova, once the gay capital of Moslem
science, and still the busy haunt of men. Here our philosopher occupied
himself with literary labors, the more sweet and soothing to his wounded
spirit, that they tended to illustrate the faded glories of his native land,
and exhibit them in their primitive splendor to the eyes of his adopted
countrymen. "And I have no reason to regret," he says in his Preface to
his account of Florida, "that Fortune has not smiled on me, since this
circumstance has opened a literary career which, I trust, will secure to
me a wider and more enduring fame than could flow from any worldly
prosperity."

In 1609, he gave to the world the First Part of his great work, the
Commentarios Reales, devoted to the history of the country under the
Incas; and in 1616, a few months before his death, he finished the
Second Part, embracing the story of the Conquest, which was published
at Cordova the following year. The chronicler, who thus closed his
labors with his life, died at the ripe old age of seventy-six. He left a
considerabe sum for the purchase of masses for his soul, showing that the
complaints of his poverty are not to be taken literally. His remains were
interred in the cathedral church of Cordova, in a chapel which bears the
name of Garcilasso; and an inscription was placed on his monument,
intimating the high respect in which the historian was held both for his
moral worth and his literary attainments.