History Of The Conquest Of Peru

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Crossing the stream without much difficulty, the Spanish commander
advanced up the smooth glacis with as little noise as possible. The
morning light had hardly broken on the mountains; and Pizarro, as he
drew near the outer defences, which, as in the fortress of Cuzco,
consisted of a stone parapet of great strength drawn round the inclosure,
moved quickly forward, confident that the garrison were still buried in
sleep. But thousands of eyes were upon him; and as the Spaniards came
within bowshot, a multitude of dark forms suddenly rose above the
rampart, while the Inca, with his lance in hand, was seen on horseback in
the inclosure, directing the operations of his troops.33 At the same
moment the air was darkened with innumerable missiles, stones, javelins,
and arrows, which fell like a hurricane on the troops, and the mountains
rang to the wild war-whoop of the enemy. The Spaniards, taken by
surprise, and many of them sorely wounded, were staggered; and, though
they quickly rallied, and made two attempts to renew the assault, they
were at length obliged to fall back, unable to endure the violence of the
storm. To add to their confusion, the lower level in their rear was
flooded by the waters, which the natives, by opening the sluices, had
diverted from the bed of the river, so that their position was no longer
tenable.34 A council of war was then held, and it was decided to
abandon the attack as desperate, and to retreat in as good order as
possible.

The day had been consumed in these ineffectual operations; and
Hernando, under cover of the friendly darkness, sent forward his infantry
and baggage, taking command of the centre himself, and trusting the rear
to his brother Gonzalo. The river was happily recrossed without
accident, although the enemy, now confident in their strength, rushed out
of their defences, and followed up the retreating Spaniards, whom they
annoyed with repeated discharges of arrows. More than once they
pressed so closely on the fugitives, that Gonzalo and his chivalry were
compelled to turn and make one of those desperate charges that
effectually punished their audacity, and stayed the tide of pursuit. Yet
the victorious foe still hung on the rear of the discomfited cavaliers, till
they had emerged from the mountain passes, and come within sight of
the blackened walls of the capital. It was the last triumph of the Inca.35

Among the manuscripts for which I am indebted to the liberality of that
illustrious Spanish scholar, the lamented Navarrete, the most remarkable,
in connection with this history, is the work of Pedro Pizarro; Relaciones
del Descubrimiento y Conquista de los Reynos del Peru. But a single
copy of this important document appears to have been preserved, the
existence of which was but little known till it came into the hands of
Senior de Navarrete; though it did not escape the indefatigable
researches of Herrera, as is evident from the mention of several
incidents, some of them having personal relation to Pedro Pizarro
himself, which the historian of the Indies could have derived through no
other channel. The manuscript has lately been given to the public as part
of the inestimable collection of historical documents now in process of
publication at Madrid, under auspices which, we may trust, will insure its
success. As the printed work did not reach me till my present labors
were far advanced, I have preferred to rely on the manuscript copy for
the brief remainder of my narrative, as I had been compelled to do for
the previous portion of it.

Nothing, that I am aware of, is known respecting the author, but what is
to be gleaned from incidental notices of himself in his own history. He
was born at Toledo in Estremadura, the fruitful province of adventurers
to the New World, whence the family of Francis Pizarro, to which Pedro
was allied, also emigrated. When that chief came over to undertake the
conquest of Peru, after receiving his commission from the emperor in
1529, Pedro Pizarro, then only fifteen years of age, accompanied him in
quality of page. For three years he remained attached to the house hold
of his commander, and afterwards continued to follow his banner as a
soldier of fortune. He was present at most of the memorable events of
the Conquest, and seems to have possessed in a great degree the
confidence of his leader, who employed him on some difficult missions,
in which he displayed coolness and gallantry. It is true, we must take the
author's own word for all this. But he tells his exploits with an air of
honesty, and without any extraordinary effort to set them off in undue
relief. He speaks of himself in the third person, and, as his manuscript
was not intended solely for posterity, he would hardly have ventured
on great misrepresentation, where fraud could so easily have been
exposed.

After the Conquest, our author still remained attached to the fortunes of
his commander, and stood by him through all the troubles which ensued;
and on the assassination of that chief, he withdrew to Arequipa, to enjoy
in quiet the repartimiento of lands and Indians, which had been bestowed
on him as the recompense of his services. He was there on the breaking
out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro. But he was true to his
allegiance, and chose rather, as he tells us, to be false to his name and his
lineage than to his loyalty. Gonzalo, in retaliation, seized his estates, and
would have proceeded to still further extremities against him, when
Pedro Pizarro had fallen into his hands at Lima, but for the interposition
of his lieutenant, the famous Francisco de Carbajal, to whom the
chronicler had once the good fortune to render an important service.
This, Carbajal requited by sparing his life on two occasions,--but on the
second coolly remarked, "No man has a right to a brace of lives; and if
you fall into my hands a third time, God only can grant you another."
Happily, Pizarro did not find occasion to put this menace to the test.
After the pacification of the country, he again retired to Arequipa; but,
from the querulous tone of his remarks, it would seem he was not fully
reinstated in the possessions he had sacrificed by his loyal devotion to
government. The last we hear of him is in 1571, the date which he
assigns as that of the completion of his history.

Pedro Pizarro's narrative covers the whole ground of the Conquest, from
the date of the first expedition that sallied out from Panama, to the
troubles that ensued on the departure of President Gasca. The first part
of the work was gathered from the testimony of others, and, of course,
cannot claim the distinction of rising to the highest class of evidence.
But all that follows the return of Francis Pizarro from Castile, all, in
short, which constitutes the conquest of the country, may be said to be
reported on his own observation, as an eyewitness and an actor. This
gives to his narrative a value to which it could have no pretensions on the
score of its literary execution. Pizarro was a soldier, with as little
education, probably, as usually falls to those who have been trained from
youth in this rough school,--the most unpropitious in the world to both
mental and moral progress. He had the good sense, moreover, not to
aspire to an excellence which he could not reach. There is no ambition
of fine writing in his chronicle; there are none of those affectations of
ornament which only make more glaring the beggarly condition of him
who assumes them. His object was simply to tell the story of the
Conquest, as he had seen it. He was to deal with facts, not with words,
which he wisely left to those who came into the field after the laborers
had quilted it, to garner up what they could at second hand.

Pizarro's situation may be thought to have necessarily exposed him to
party influences, and thus given an undue bias to his narrative. It is not
difficult, indeed, to determine under whose banner he had enlisted. He
writes like a partisan, and yet like an honest one, who is no further
warped from a correct judgment of passing affairs than must necessarily
come from preconceived opinions. There is no management to work a
conviction in his reader on this side or the other, still less any obvious
perversion of fact. He evidently believes what he says, and this is the
great point to be desired. We can make allowance for the natural
influences of his position. Were he more impartial than this, the critic of
the present day, by making allowance for a greater amount of prejudice
and partiality, might only be led into error.

Pizarro is not only independent, but occasionally caustic in his
condemnation of those under whom he acted. This is particularly the
case where their measures bear too unfavorably on his own interests, or
those of the army. As to the unfortunate natives, he no more regards
their sufferings than the Jews of old did those of the Philistines, whom
they considered as delivered up to their swords, and whose lands they
regarded as their lawful heritage. There is no mercy shown by the hard
Conqueror in his treatment of the infidel.

Pizarro was the representative of the age in which he lived. Yet it is too
much to cast such obloquy on the age. He represented more truly the
spirit of the fierce warriors who overturned the dynasty of the Incas. He
was not merely a crusader, fighting to extend the empire of the Cross
over the darkened heathen. Gold was his great object; the estimate by
which he judged of the value of the Conquest; the recompense that he
asked for a life of toil and danger. It was with these golden visions, far
more than with visions of glory, above all, of celestial glory, that the
Peruvian adventurer fed his gross and worldly imagination. Pizarro did
not rise above his caste. Neither did he rise above it in a mental view,
any more than in a moral. His history displays no great penetration, or
vigor and comprehension of thought. It is the work of a soldier, telling
simply his tale of blood. Its value is, that it is told by him who acted it.
And this, to the modern compiler, renders it of higher worth than far
abler productions at second hand. It is the rude ore, which, submitted to
the regular process of purification and refinement, may receive the
current stamp that fits it for general circulation.

Another authority, to whom I have occasionally referred, and whose
writings still slumber in manuscript, is the Licentiate Fernando
Montesinos. He is, in every respect, the opposite of the military
chronicler who has just come under our notice. He flourished about a
century after the Conquest. Of course, the value of his writings as an
authority for historical facts must depend on his superior opportunities
for consulting original documents. For this his advantages were great.
He was twice sent in an official capacity to Peru, which required him to
visit the different parts of the country. These two missions occupied
fifteen years; so that, while his position gave him access to the colonial
archives and literary repositories, he was enabled to verify his
researches, to some extent, by actual observation of the country.

The result was his two historical works, Memorias Antiguas Historiales
del Peru, and his Annales, sometimes cited in these pages. The former is
taken up with the early history of the country,--very early, it must be
admitted, since it goes back to the deluge. The first part of this treatise is
chiefly occupied with an argument to show the identity of Peru with the
golden Ophir of Solomon's time! This hypothesis, by no means original
with the author, may give no unfair notion of the character of his mind.
In the progress of his work he follows down the line of Inca princes,
whose exploits, and names even, by no means coincide with Garcilasso's
catalogue; a circumstance, however, far from establishing their
inaccuracy. But one will have little doubt of the writer's title to this
reproach, that reads the absurd legends told in the grave tone of reliance
by Montesinos, who shared largely in the credulity and the love of the
marvellous which belong to an earlier and less enlightened age.

These same traits are visible in his Annals, which are devoted
exclusively to the Conquest. Here, indeed, the author, after his cloudy
flight, has descended on firm ground, where gross violations of truth, or,
at least, of probability, are not to be expected. But any one who has
occasion to compare his narrative with that of contemporary writers will
find frequent cause to distrust it. Yet Montesinos has one merit. In his
extensive researches, he became acquainted with original instruments,
which he has occasionally transferred to his own pages, and which it
would be now difficult to meet elsewhere.

His writings have been commended by some of his learned countrymen,
as showing diligent research and information. My own experience
would not assign them a high rank as historical vouchers. They seem to
me entitled to little praise, either for the accuracy of their statements, or
the sagacity of their reflections. The spirit of cold indifference which
they manifest to the sufferings of the natives is an odious feature, for
which there is less apology in a writer of the seventeenth century than in
one of the primitive Conquerors, whose passions had been inflamed by
longprotracted hostility. M. Ternaux-Compans has translated the
Memorias Antiguas with his usual elegance and precision, for his
collection of original documents relating to the New World. He speaks
in the Preface of doing the same kind office to the Annales, at a future
time. I am not aware that he has done this; and I cannot but think that
the excellent translator may find a better subject for his labors in some of
the rich collection of the Munoz manuscripts in his possession.

History of the Conquest of Peru

by William Hickling Prescott

Book 4

Civil Wars Of The Conquerors

Chapter 1

Almagro's March To Chili--Suffering Of The Troops-
He Returns And Seizes Cuzco--Action Of Abancay-
Gaspar De Espinosa--Almagro Leaves Cuzco-
Negotiations With Pizarro

1535--1537

While the events recorded in the preceding chapter were passing, the
Marshal Almagro was engaged in his memorable expedition to Chili. He
had set out, as we have seen, with only part of his forces, leaving his
lieutenant to follow him with the remainder. During the first part of the
way, he profited by the great military road of the Incas, which stretched
across the table-land far towards the south. But as he drew near to Chili,
the Spanish commander became entangled in the defiles of the
mountains, where no vestige of a road was to be discerned. Here his
progress was impeded by all the obstacles which belong to the wild
scenery of the Cordilleras; deep and ragged ravines, round whose sides a
slender sheep-path wound up to a dizzy height over the precipices below;
rivers rushing in fury down the slopes of the mountains, and throwing
themselves in stupendous cataracts into the yawning abyss; dark forests
of pine that seemed to have no end, and then again long reaches of
desolate tableland, without so much as a bush or shrub to shelter the
shivering traveller from the blast that swept down from the frozen
summits of the sierra.

The cold was so intense, that many lost the nails of their fingers, their
fingers themselves, and sometimes their limbs. Others were blinded by
the dazzling waste of snow, reflecting the rays of a sun made intolerably
brilliant in the thin atmosphere of these elevated regions. Hunger came,
as usual, in the train of woes; for in these dismal solitudes no vegetation
that would suffice for the food of man was visible, and no living thing,
except only the great bird of the Andes, hovering over their heads in
expectation of his banquet. This was too frequently afforded by the
number of wretched Indians, who, unable, from the scantiness of their
clothing, to encounter the severity of the climate, perished by the way.
Such was the pressure of hunger, that the miserable survivors fed on the
dead bodies of their countrymen, and the Spaniards forced a similar
sustenance from the carcasses of their horses, literally frozen to death in
the mountain passes.1--Such were the terrible penalties which Nature
imposed on those who rashly intruded on these her solitary and most
savage haunts.

Yet their own sufferings do not seem to have touched the hearts of the
Spaniards with any feeling of compassion for the weaker natives. Their
path was everywhere marked by burnt and desolated hamlets, the
inhabitants of which were compelled to do them service as beasts of
burden. They were chained together in gangs of ten or twelve, and no
infirmity or feebleness of body excused the unfortunate captive from his
full share of the common toil, till he sometimes dropped dead, in his very
chains, from mere exhaustion! 2 Alvarado's company are accused of
having been more cruel than Pizarro's; and many of Almagro's men, it
may be remembered, were recruited from that source. The commander
looked with displeasure, it is said, on these enormities, and did what he
could to repress them. Yet he did not set a good example in his own
conduct, if it be true that he caused no less than thirty Indian chiefs to be
burnt alive, for the massacre of three of his followers! 3 The heart
sickens at the recital of such atrocities perpetrated on an unoffending
people, or, at least, guilty of no other crime than that of defending their
own soil too well.

There is something in the possession of superior strength most
dangerous, in a moral view, to its possessor. Brought in contact with
semicivilized man, the European, with his endowments and effective
force so immeasurably superior, holds him as little higher than the brute,
and as born equally for his service. He feels that he has a natural right,
as it were, to his obedience, and that this obedience is to be measured,
not by the powers of the barbarian, but by the will of his conqueror.
Resistance becomes a crime to he washed out only in the blood of the
victim. The tale of such atrocities is not confined to the Spaniard.
Wherever the civilized man and the savage have come in contact, in the
East or in the West, the story has been too often written in blood.

From the wild chaos of mountain scenery the Spaniards emerged on the
green vale of Coquimbo, about the thirtieth degree of south latitude.
Here they halted to refresh themselves in its abundant plains, after their
unexampled sufferings and fatigues. Meanwhile Almagro despatched an
officer with a strong party in advance, to ascertain the character of the
country towards the south. Not long after, he was cheered by the arrival
of the remainder of his forces under his lieutenant Rodrigo de Orgonez.
This was a remarkable person, and intimately connected with the
subsequent fortunes of Almagro.

He was a native of Oropesa, had been trained in the Italian wars, and
held the rank of ensign in the army of the Constable of Bourbon at the
famous sack of Rome. It was a good school in which to learn his iron
trade, and to steel the heart against any too ready sensibility to human
suffering. Orgonez was an excellent soldier; true to his commander,
prompt, fearless, and unflinching in the execution of his orders. His
services attracted the notice of the Crown, and, shortly after this period,
he was raised to the rank of Marshal of New Toledo. Yet it may be
doubted whether his character did not qualify him for an executive and
subordinate station rather than for one of higher responsibility.

Almagro received also the royal warrant, conferring on him his new
powers and territorial jurisdiction. The instrument had been detained by
the Pizarros to the very last moment. His troops, long since disgusted
with their toilsome and unprofitable march, were now clamorous to
return. Cuzco, they said, undoubtedly fell within the limits of his
government, and it was better to take possession of its comfortable
quarters than to wander like outcasts in this dreary wilderness. They
reminded their commander that thus only could he provide for the
interests of his son Diego. This was an illegitimate son of Almagro, on
whom his father doated with extravagant fondness, justified more than
usual by the promising character of the youth.

After an absence of about two months, the officer sent on the exploring
expedition returned, bringing unpromising accounts of the southern
regions of Chili. The only land of promise for the Castilian was one that
teemed with gold.4 He had penetrated to the distance of a hundred
leagues, to the limits, probably, of the conquests of the Incas on the river
Maule.5 The Spaniards had fortunately stopped short of the land of
Arauco, where the blood of their countrymen was soon after to be poured
out like water, and which still maintains a proud independence amidst
the general humiliation of the Indian races around it.

Almagro now yielded, with little reluctance, to the renewed importunities
of the soldiers, and turned his face towards the North. It is unnecessary
to follow his march in detail. Disheartened by the difficulty of the
mountain passage, he took the road along the coast, which led him across
the great desert of Atacama. In crossing this dreary waste, which
stretches for nearly a hundred leagues to the northern borders of Chili,
with hardly a green spot in its expanse to relieve the fainting traveller,
Almagro and his men experienced as great sufferings, though not of the
same kind, as those which they had encountered in the passes of the
Cordilleras. Indeed, the captain would not easily be found at this day,
who would venture to lead his army across this dreary region. But the
Spaniard of the sixteenth century had a strength of limb and a buoyancy
of spirit which raised him to a contempt of obstacles, almost justifying
the boast of the historian, that "he contended indifferently, at the same
time, with man, with the elements, and with famine!" 6

After traversing the terrible desert, Almagro reached the ancient town of
Arequipa, about sixty leagues from Cuzco. Here he learned with
astonishment the insurrection of the Peruvians, and further, that the
young Inca Manco still lay with a formidable force at no great distance
from the capital. He had once been on friendly terms with the Peruvian
prince, and he now resolved, before proceeding farther, to send an
embassy to his camp, and arrange an interview with him in the
neighborhood of Cuzco.

Almagro's emissaries were well received by the Inca, who alleged his
grounds of complaint against the Pizarros, and named the vale of Yucay
as the place where he would confer with the marshal. The Spanish
commander accordingly resumed his march, and, taking one half of his
force, whose whole number fell somewhat short of five hundred men, he
repaired in person to the place of rendezvous; while the remainder of his
army established their quarters at Urcos, about six leagues from the
capital.7

The Spaniards in Cuzco, startled by the appearance of this fresh body of
troops in their neighborhood, doubted, when they learned the quarter
whence they came, whether it betided them good or evil. Hernando
Pizarro marched out of the city with a small force, and, drawing near to
Urcos, heard with no little uneasiness of Almagro's purpose to insist on
his pretensions to Cuzco. Though much inferior in strength to his rival,
he determined to resist him.

Meanwhile, the Peruvians, who had witnessed the conference between
the soldiers of the opposite camps, suspected some secret understanding
between the parties, which would compromise the safety of the Inca.
They communicated their distrust to Manco, and the latter, adopting the
same sentiments, or perhaps, from the first, meditating a surprise of the
Spaniards, suddenly fell upon the latter in the valley of Yucay with a
body of fifteen thousand men. But the veterans of Chili were too
familiar with Indian tactics to be taken by surprise. And though a sharp
engagement ensued, which lasted more than an hour, in which Orgonez
had a horse killed under him, the natives were finally driven back with
great slaughter, and the Inca was so far crippled by the blow, that he was
not likely for the present to give further molestation.8

Almagro, now joining the division left at Urcos, saw no further
impediment to his operations on Cuzco. He sent, at once, an embassy to
the municipality of the place, requiring the recognition of him as its
lawful governor, and presenting at the same time a copy of his
credentials from the Crown. But the question of jurisdiction was not one
easy to be settled, depending, as it did, on a knowledge of the true
parallels of latitude, not very likely to be possessed by the rude followers
of Pizarro. The royal grant had placed under his jurisdiction all the
country extending two hundred and seventy leagues south of the river at
Santiago, situated one degree and twenty minutes north of the equator.
Two hundred and seventy leagues on the meridian, by our measurement,
would fall more than a degree short of Cuzco, and, indeed, would barely
include the city of Lima itself. But the Spanish leagues, of only
seventeen and a half to a degree,9 would remove the southern boundary
to nearly half a degree beyond the capital of the Incas, which would thus
fall within the jurisdiction of Pizarro.10 Yet the division-line ran so
close to the disputed ground, that the true result might reasonably be
doubted, where no careful scientific observations had been made to
obtain it; and each party was prompt to assert, as they always are in such
cases, that its own claim was clear and unquestionable.11