History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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The First Part of the Commentarios Reales is occupied, as already
noticed, with the ancient history of the country, presenting a complete
picture of its civilization under the Incas,--far more complete than has
been given by any other writer. Garcilasso's mother was but ten years
old at the time of her cousin Atahuallpa's accession, or rather usurpation,
as it is called by the party of Cuzco. She had the good fortune to escape
the massacre which, according to the chroniclers befell most of her
kindred, and with her brother continued to reside in their ancient capital
after the Conquest. Their conversations naturally turned to the good old
times of the Inca rule, which, colored by their fond regrets, may be
presumed to have lost nothing as seen through the magnifying medium of
the past. The young Garcilasso Listened greedily to the stories which
recounted the magnificence and prowess of his royal ancestors, and
though he made no use of them at the time, they sunk deep into his
memory, to be treasured up for a future occasion. When he prepared,
after the lapse of many years, in his retirement at Cordova, to compose
the history of his country, he wrote to his old companions and
schoolfellows, of the Inca family, to obtain fuller information than he
could get in Spain on various matters of historical interest. He had
witnessed in his youth the ancient ceremonies and usages of his
countrymen, understood the science of their quipus, and mastered many
of their primitive traditions. With the assistance he now obtained from
his Peruvian kindred, he acquired a familiarity with the history of the
great Inca race, and of their national institutions, to an extent that no
person could have possessed, unless educated in the midst of them,
speaking the same language, and with the same Indian blood flowing in
his veins. Garcilasso, in short, was the representative of the conquered
race; and we might expect to find the lights and shadows of the picture
disposed under his pencil so as to produce an effect very different from
that which they had hitherto exhibited under the hands of the
Conquerors.

Such, to a certain extent, is the fact; and this circumstance affords a
means of comparison which would alone render his works of great value
in arriving at just historic conclusions. But Garcilasso wrote late in life,
after the story had been often told by Castilian writers. He naturally
deferred much to men, some of whom enjoyed high credit on the score
both of their scholarship and their social position. His object, he
professes, was not so much to add any thing new of his own, as to correct
their errors and the misconceptions into which they had been brought by
their ignorance of the Indian languages and the usages of his people. He
does, in fact, however, go far beyond this; and the stores of information
which he has collected have made his work a large repository, whence
later laborers in the same field have drawn copious materials. He writes
from the fulness of his heart, and illuminates every topic that he touches
with a variety and richness of illustration, that leave little to be desired
by the most importunate curiosity. The difference between reading his
Commentaries and the accounts of European writers is the difference that
exists between reading a work in the original and in a bald translation.
Garcilasso's writings are an emanation from the Indian mind.

Yet his Commentaries are open to a grave objection,--and one naturally
suggested by his position. Addressing himself to the cultivated
European, he was most desirous to display the ancient glories of his
people, and still more of the Inca race, in their most imposing form.
This, doubtless, was the great spur to his literary labors, for which
previous education, however good for the evil time on which he was
cast, had far from qualified him. Garcilasso, therefore, wrote to effect a
particular object. He stood forth as counsel for his unfortunate
countrymen, pleading the cause of that degraded race before the tribunal
of posterity. The exaggerated tone of panegyric consequent on this
becomes apparent in every page of his work. He pictures forth a state of
society such as an Utopian philosopher would hardly venture to depict.
His royal ancestors became the types of every imaginery excellence, and
the golden age is revived for a nation, which, while the war of
proselytism is raging on its borders, enjoys within all the blessings of
tranquillity and peace. Even the material splendors of the monarchy,
sufficiently great in this land of gold, become heightened, under the
glowing imagination of the Inca chronicler, into the gorgeous illusions of
a fairy tale.

Yet there is truth at the bottom of his wildest conceptions, and it would
be unfair to the Indian historian to suppose that he did not himself
believe most of the magic marvels which he describes. There is no
credulity like that of a Christian convert,---one newly converted to the
faith. From long dwelling in the darkness of paganism, his eyes, when
first opened to the light of truth, have not acquired the power of
discriminating the just proportions of objects, of distinguishing between
the real and the imaginary. Garcilasso was not a convert indeed, for he
was bred from infancy in the Roman Catholic faith. But he was
surrounded by converts and neophytes,--by those of his own blood, who,
after practising all their lives the rites of paganism, were now first
admitted into the Christian fold. He listened to the teachings of the
missionary, learned from him to give implicit credit to the marvellous
legends of the Saints, and the no less marvellous accounts of his own
victories in his spiritual warfare for the propagation of the faith. Thus
early accustomed to such large drafts on his credulity, his reason lost its
heavenly power of distinguishing truth from error, and he became so
familiar with the miraculous, that the miraculous was no longer a
miracle.

Yet, while large deductions are to be made on this account from the
chronicler's reports, there is always a germ of truth which it is not
difficult to detect, and even to disengage from the fanciful covering
which envelopes it; and after every allowance for the exaggerations of
national vanity, we shall find an abundance of genuine information in
respect to the antiquities of his country, for which we shall look in vain
in any European writer.

Garcilasso's work is the reflection of the age in which he lived. It is
addressed to the imagination, more than to sober reason. We are dazzled
by the gorgeous spectacle it perpetually exhibits, and delighted by the
variety of amusing details and animated gossip sprinkled over its pages.
The story of the action is perpetually varied by discussions on topics
illustrating its progress, so as to break up the monotony of the narrative,
and afford an agreeable relief to the reader. This is true of the First Part
of his great work. In the Second there was no longer room for such
discussion. But he has supplied the place by garrulous reminiscences,
personal anecdotes, incidental adventures, and a host of trivial details,--
trivial in the eyes of the pedant,--which historians have been too willing
to discard, as below the dignity of history. We have the actors in this
great drama in their private dress, become acquainted with their personal
habits, listen to their familiar sayings, and, in short gather up those
minutiae which in the aggregate make up so much of life and not less of
character.

It is this confusion of the great and the little, thus artlessly blended
together, that constitutes one of the charms of the old romantic
chronicle,--not the less true that, in this respect, it approaches nearer to
the usual tone of romance. It is in such writings that we may look to find
the form and pressure of the age. The wormeaten state-papers, official
correspondence, public records, are all serviceable, indispensable, to
history. They are the framework on which it is to repose; the skeleton of
facts which gives it its strength and proportions. But they are as
worthless as the dry bones of the skeleton, unless clothed with the
beautiful form and garb of humanity, and instinct with the spirit of the
age.--Our debt is large to the antiquarian, who with conscientious
precision lays broad and deep the foundations of historic truth; and no
less to the philosophic annalist who exhibits man in the dress of public
life,--man in masquerade; but our gratitude must surely not be withheld
from those, who, like Garcilasso de la Vega, and many a romancer of the
Middle Ages, have held up the mirror--distorted though it may somewhat
be-to the interior of life, reflecting every object, the great and the mean
the beautiful and the deformed, with their natural prominence and their
vivacity of coloring, to the eye of the spectator. As a work of art, such a
production may be thought to be below criticism. But, although it defy
the rules of art in its composition, it does not necessarily violate the
principles of taste; for it conforms in its spirit to the spirit of the age in
which it was written. And the critic, who coldly condemns it on the
severe principles of art, will find a charm in its very simplicity, that will
make him recur again and again to its pages, while more correct and
classical compositions are laid aside and forgotten.

I cannot dismiss this notice of Garcilasso, though already long
protracted, without some allusion to the English translation of his
Commentaries. It appeared in James the Second's reign, and is the work
of Sir Paul Rycaut, Knight. It was printed at London in 1688, in folio,
with considerable pretension in its outward dress, well garnished with
wood-cuts, and a frontispiece displaying the gaunt and rather sardonic
features, not of the author, but his translator. The version keeps pace
with the march of the original, corresponding precisely in books and
chapters, and seldom, though sometimes, using the freedom, so common
in these ancient versions, of abridgment and omission. Where it does
depart from the original, it is rather from ignorance than intention.
Indeed, as far as the plea of ignorance will avail him, the worthy knight
may urge it stoutly in his defence. No one who reads the book will doubt
his limited acquaintance with his own tongue, and no one who compares
it with the original will deny his ignorance of the Castilian. It contains as
many blunders as paragraphs, and most of them such as might shame a
schoolboy. Yet such are the rude charms of the original, that this ruder
version of it has found considerable favor with readers; and Sir Paul
Rycaut's translation, old as it is, may still be met with in many a private,
as well as public library.

History of the Conquest of Peru

by William Hickling Prescott

Book 3

Chapter 1

Pizarro's Reception At Court--His Capitulation With The Crown -
He Visits His Birthplace--Returns To The New World-
Difficulties With Almagro--His Third Expedition-
Adventures On The Coast--Battles In The Isle Of Puna

1528--1531

Pizarro and his officer, having crossed the Isthmus, embarked at Nombre
de Dios for the old country, and, after a good passage, reached Seville
early in the summer of 1528. There happened to be at that time in port a
person well known in the history of Spanish adventure as the Bachelor
Enciso. He had taken an active part in the colonization of Tierra Firme,
and had a pecuniary claim against the early colonists of Darien, of whom
Pizarro was one. Immediately on the landing of the latter, he was seized
by Enciso's orders, and held in custody for the debt. Pizarro, who had
fled from his native land as a forlorn and houseless adventurer, after an
absence of more than twenty years, passed, most of them, in
unprecedented toil and suffering, now found himself on his return the
inmate of a prison. Such was the commencement of those brilliant
fortunes which, as he had trusted, awaited him at home. The
circumstance excited general indignation; and no sooner was the Court
advised of his arrival in the country, and the great purpose of his
mission, than orders were sent for his release, with permission to proceed
at once on his journey.

Pizarro found the emperor at Toledo, which he was soon to quit, in order
to embark for Italy. Spain was not the favorite residence of Charles the
Fifth, in the earlier part of his reign. He was now at that period of it
when he was enjoying the full flush of his triumphs over his gallant rival
of France, whom he had defeated and taken prisoner at the great battle of
Pavia; and the victor was at this moment preparing to pass into Italy to
receive the imperial crown from the hands of the Roman Pontiff. Elated
by his successes and his elevation to the German throne, Charles made
little account of his hereditary kingdom, as his ambition found so
splendid a career thrown open to it on the wide field of European
politics.

He had hitherto received too inconsiderable returns from his transatlantic
possessions to give them the attention they deserved. But, as the recent
acquisition of Mexico and the brilliant anticipations in respect to the
southern continent were pressed upon his notice, he felt their importance
as likely to afford him the means of prosecuting his ambitious and most
expensive enterprises.

Pizarro, therefore, who had now come to satisfy the royal eyes, by visible
proofs, of the truth of the golden rumors which, from time to time, had
reached Castile, was graciously received by the emperor. Charles
examined the various objects which his officer exhibited to him with
great attention. He was particularly interested by the appearance of the
llama, so remarkable as the only beast of burden yet known on the new
continent; and the fine fabrics of woollen cloth, which were made from
its shaggy sides, gave it a much higher value, in the eyes of the sagacious
monarch, than what it possessed as an animal for domestic labor. But
the specimens of gold and silver manufacture, and the wonderful tale
which Pizarro had to tell of the abundance of the precious metals, must
have satisfied even the cravings of royal cupidity.

Pizarro, far from being embarrassed by the novelty of his situation,
maintained his usual self-possession, and showed that decorum and even
dignity in his address which belong to the Castilian. He spoke in a
simple and respectful style, but with the earnestness and natural
eloquence of one who had been an actor in the scenes he described, and
who was conscious that the impression he made on his audience was to
decide his future destiny. All listened with eagerness to the account of
his strange adventures by sea and land, his wanderings in the forests, or
in the dismal and pestilent swamps on the sea-coast, without food, almost
without raiment, with feet torn and bleeding at every step, with his few
companions becoming still fewer by disease and death, and yet pressing
on with unconquerable spirit to extend the empire of Castile, and the
name and power of her sovereign; but when he painted his lonely
condition on the desolate island, abandoned by the government at home,
deserted by all but a handful of devoted followers, his royal auditor,
though not easily moved, was affected to tears. On his departure from
Toledo, Charles commended the affairs of his vassal in the most
favorable terms to the consideration of the Council of the Indies.1

There was at this time another man at court, who had come there on a
similar errand from the New World, but whose splendid achievements
had already won for him a name that threw the rising reputation of
Pizarro comparatively into the shade. This man was Hernando Cortes,
the Conqueror of Mexico. He had come home to lay an empire at the
feet of his sovereign, and to demand in return the redress of his wrongs,
and the recompense of his great services. He was at the close of his
career, as Pizarro was at the commencement of his; the Conqueror of the
North and of the South; the two men appointed by Providence to
overturn the most potent of the Indian dynasties, and to open the golden
gates by which the treasures of the New World were to pass into the
coffers of Spain.

Notwithstanding the emperor's recommendation, the business of Pizarro
went forward at the tardy pace with which affairs are usually conducted
in the court of Castile. He found his limited means gradually sinking
under the expenses incurred by his present situation, and he represented,
that, unless some measures were speedily taken in reference to his suit,
however favorable they might be in the end, he should be in no condition
to profit by them. The queen, accordingly, who had charge of the
business, on her husband's departure, expedited the affair, and on the
twenty sixth of July, 1529, she executed the memorable Capitulation,
which defined the powers and privileges of Pizarro.

The instrument secured to that chief the right of discovery and conquest
in the province of Peru, or New Castile,--as the country was then
called, in the same manner as Mexico had received the name of New
Spain,--for the distance of two hundred leagues south of Santiago. He
was to receive the titles and rank of Governor and Captain-General of
the province, together with those of Adelantado, and Alguacil Mayor, for
life; and he was to have a salary of seven hundred and twenty-five
thousand maravedis, with the obligation of maintaining certain officers
and military retainers, corresponding with the dignity of his station. He
was to have the right to erect certain fortresses, with the absolute
government of them; to assign encomiendas of Indians, under the
limitations prescribed by law; and, in fine, to exercise nearly all the
prerogatives incident to the authority of a viceroy.

His associate, Almagro, was declared commander of the fortress of
Tumbez, with an annual rent of three hundred thousand maravedis, and
with the further rank and privileges of an hidalgo. The reverend Father
Luque received the reward of his services in the Bishopric of Tumbez,
and he was also declared Protector of the Indians of Peru. He was to
enjoy the yearly stipend of a thousand ducats,--to be derived, like the
other salaries and gratuities in this instrument, from the revenues of the
conquered territory.

Nor were the subordinate actors in the expedition forgotten. Ruiz
received the title of Grand Pilot of the Southern Ocean, with a liberal
provision; Candia was placed at the head of the artillery; and the
remaining eleven companions on the desolate island were created
hidalgos and cavalleros, and raised to certain municipal dignities,--in
prospect.

Several provisions of a liberal tenor were also made, to encourage
emigration to the country. The new settlers were to be exempted from
some of the most onerous, but customary taxes, as the alcabala, or to be
subject to them only in a mitigated form. The tax on the precious metals
drawn from mines was to be reduced, at first, to one tenth, instead of the
fifth imposed on the same metals when obtained by barter or by rapine.

It was expressly enjoined on Pizarro to observe the existing regulations
for the good government and protection of the natives; and he was
required to carry out with him a specified number of ecclesiastics, with
whom he was to take counsel in the conquest of the country, and whose
efforts were to be dedicated to the service and conversion of the Indians;
while lawyers and attorneys, on the other hand, whose presence was
considered as boding ill to the harmony of the new settlements, were
strictly prohibited from setting foot in them.

Pizarro, on his part, was bound, in six months from the date of the
instrument, to raise a force, well equipped for the service, of two
hundred and fifty men, of whom one hundred might be drawn from the
colonies; and the government engaged to furnish some trifling assistance
in the purchase of artillery and military stores. Finally, he was to be
prepared, in six months after his return to Panama, to leave that port and
embark on his expedition.2

Such are some of the principal provisions of this Capitulation, by which
the Castilian government, with the sagacious policy which it usually
pursued on the like occasions, stimulated the ambitious hopes of the
adventurer by high-sounding titles, and liberal promises of reward
contingent on his success, but took care to stake nothing itself on the
issue of the enterprise. It was careful to reap the fruits of his toil, but not
to pay the cost of them.

A circumstance, that could not fail to be remarked in these provisions,
was the manner in which the high and lucrative posts were accumulated
on Pizarro, to the exclusion of Almagro, who, if he had not taken as
conspicuous a part in personal toil and exposure, had, at least, divided
with him the original burden of the enterprise, and, by his labors in
another direction, had contributed quite as essentially to its success.
Almagro had willingly conceded the post of honor to his confederate; but
it had been stipulated, on Pizarro's departure for Spain, that, while he
solicited the office of Governor and Captain-General for himself, he
should secure that of Adelantado for his companion. In like manner, he
had engaged to apply for the see of Tumbez for the vicar of Panama, and
the office of Alguacil Mayor for the pilot Ruiz. The bishopric took the
direction that was concerted, for the soldier could scarcely claim the
mitre of the prelate; but the other offices, instead of their appropriate
distribution, were all concentred in himself. Yet it was in reference to
his application for his friends, that Pizarro had promised on his departure
to deal fairly and honorably by them all.3

It is stated by the military chronicler, Pedro Pizarro, that his kinsman did,
in fact, urge the suit strongly in behalf of Almagro; but that he was
refused by the government, on the ground that offices of such paramount
importance could not be committed to different individuals. The ill
effects of such an arrangement had been long since felt in more than one
of the Indian colonies, where it had led to rivalry and fatal collision.4
Pizarro, therefore, finding his remonstrances unheeded, had no
alternative but to combine the offices in his own person, or to see the
expedition fall to the ground. This explanation of the affair has not
received the sanction of other contemporary historians. The
apprehensions expressed by Luque, at the time of Pizarro's assuming the
mission, of some such result as actually occurred, founded, doubtless, on
a knowledge of his associate's character, may warrant us in distrusting
the alleged vindication of his conduct, and our distrust will not be
diminished by familiarity with his subsequent career. Pizarro's virtue
was not of a kind to withstand temptation,--though of a much weaker sort
than that now thrown in his path.

The fortunate cavalier was also honored with the habit of St. Jago;5 and
he was authorized to make an important innovation in his family
escutcheon,--for by the father's side he might claim his armorial bearings.
The black eagle and the two pillars emblazoned on the royal arms were
incorporated with those of the Pizarros; and an Indian city, with a vessel
in the distance on the waters, and the llama of Peru, revealed the theatre
and the character of his exploits; while the legend announced, that
"under the auspices of Charles, and by the industry, the genius, and the
resources of Pizarro, the country had been discovered and reduced to
tranquillity,"---thus modestly intimating both the past and prospective
services of the Conqueror.6

These arrangements having been thus completed to Pizarro's satisfaction,
he left Toledo for Truxillo, his native place, in Estremadura, where he
thought he should be most likely to meet with adherents for his new
enterprise, and where it doubtless gratified his vanity to display himself
in the palmy, or at least promising, state of his present circumstances. If
vanity be ever pardonable, it is certainly in a man who, born in an
obscure station in life, without family, interest, or friends to back him,
has carved out his own fortunes in the world, and, by his own resources,
triumphed over all the obstacles which nature and accident had thrown in
his way. Such was the condition of Pizarro, as he now revisited the place
of his nativity, where he had hitherto been known only as a poor outcast,
without a home to shelter, a father to own him, or a friend to lean upon.
But he now found both friends and followers, and some who were eager
to claim kindred with him, and take part in his future fortunes. Among
these were four brothers. Three of them, like himself, were illegitimate;
one of whom, named Francisco Martin de Alcantara, was related to him
by the mother's side; the other two, named Gonzalo and Juan Pizarro,
were descended from the father. "They were all poor, and proud as they
were poor," says Oviedo, who had seen them; "and their eagerness for
gain was in proportion to their poverty." 7