THE SPANISH CONQUISTADORES
The pioneer _conquistadores_ of South America afford an interesting
study. Such men as those who took their lives in their hands and sailed
out into the unknown were actuated by two motives--the love of adventure
and the desire of gain. There is no doubt that the second consideration
by far outweighed the first. A man of the period left Spain or Portugal
for the New World for one cogent reason only, to seek his fortune. If he
won fame in the achievement of this, so much the better. Indeed, as a
matter of fact, it was generally impossible to achieve the one without
the other, although this fame might frequently have its shield sullied
and blackened by a number of wild and terrible acts; for circumstances
tended to make the _conquistador_ what he almost invariably became, a
daring being who let the lives of no others stand in the way of his own
interests.
He was not, as was the case with corresponding officials of a later
epoch, sent out on an accurately defined mission for which his
emoluments were definitely fixed and guaranteed by the Home Government.
The _conquistador_ nearly always risked much of his own before he set
sail from his native land. A man was seldom given a Governorship, even
of an unknown region in the New World, unless he showed himself prepared
to finance in part an expedition which should be of sufficient
importance to furnish the new territory with men and live-stock, and
everything else of the kind.
The _conquistador_, in fact, was generally the active partner in an
enterprise which was largely commercial. Sometimes his sleeping partners
were the merchants of Spain; sometimes it was the King himself who
joined in the venture; at others it was both King and merchants who
jointly assisted the pioneer. But it was very seldom that an adventurer
of the kind succeeded in obtaining an important concession unless he
were prepared to subsidize it heavily from his own pocket.
We may instance Pedro de Mendoza. It was the part he had played in the
sack of Rome which enabled this wealthy adventurer to organize the great
expedition which set sail for the Provinces of the River Plate. Here we
have the curious anomaly of the Church being robbed by a mercenary, and
the money obtained by the loot employed in an object which was
ostensibly in the interests of the Church in the New World. In order to
satisfy the public nearer home, it is true that the _conquistadores_
were almost invariably accompanied by priests; but once well without the
jurisdiction of Rome, Spain, and Portugal, they took very good care that
the priests should not interfere in their concerns. Having been accepted
as a guarantee of good faith, their sphere of utility had ended with the
arrival in the New World so far as the _conquistadores_ were concerned.
Many of them became active participants in the wild deeds of the
_conquistadores_. Did they, on the other hand, show themselves desirous
of protesting, the more reckless pioneers made strenuous attempts to
muzzle their eloquence.
When the spirit of the age and the circumstances in which these
adventurers sailed to the South-West are considered, many of the
atrocities committed are less to be wondered at than would otherwise be
the case. It may be taken for granted, in the first place, that the
temperament of these men was sufficiently wild and reckless to cause
them to embark in any extraordinarily perilous enterprise of the kind.
With all they had in the world sunk in the venture, they would move
heaven and earth, and squander countless human beings, before admitting
defeat. The failure of Indian labour meant financial ruin; this was
frequently staved off at the cost of thousands and tens of thousands of
lives. Such characteristics as these were by no means confined to the
Spaniards and Portuguese. We have some terribly vivid examples of it on
the part of the Welzers, the German merchant princes who contracted with
Charles V. to subdue and settle Venezuela. Sir Clements Markham relates
that the first Governor of the new colony, an official of the name of
Alfinger, came out with a strong force in 1530. On his marches he would
employ many hundreds of native porters; these men were chained together
in long lines, each slave having a ring round his neck made fast to the
chain. When one of the slaves was too ill or too exhausted to proceed
any farther, Alfinger had the unfortunate wretch's head severed from his
body, so that the body dropped away from the chain without the march
being hindered. It is difficult to imagine a more callous or atrocious
proceeding than this, but undoubtedly financial considerations lay at
the bottom of it. The thing was done, perhaps, _pour encourager les
autres_, and certainly many a poor staggering wretch marched on mile
after mile, when under ordinary circumstances he would have dropped
exhausted at an earlier stage. Thus the last atom of physical energy was
wrenched by terror from the slaves--a species of economy which, if
worked out wholesale, may have proved sufficiently profitable from their
owner's point of view!
Long even after the passing of the pioneer _conquistadores_ the methods
of the Spanish Court encouraged abuses of authority and many acts of
tyranny. Officials, such as Governors and even Viceroys, were wont to
pay certain sums down for the transference of the tenure of office, and
it was then their task to wring as much from the governed territory as
possible in order that they might retire from the New World to the Old
the owners of vast fortunes.
To expect fair government under conditions such as these was to conceive
human beings on a higher plane than that on which they are wont to be
planned. Indeed, notwithstanding the atrocities and financial iniquities
which were rife throughout Spanish and Portuguese Colonies, to imagine
the various officials as necessarily inhuman and criminal is, of course,
absurd. Many of these were men of talent, and of merciful and gentle
disposition; but in many even of these cases the altogether
extraordinary influence and atmosphere of the Southern Continent ended
by driving them to acts from which in Europe they would have shrunk
whole-heartedly. The dispositions of the men were not invariably at
fault; but the system under which they worked was never anything else.
It is time, however, to forsake generalization, and to return to the
Spanish pioneers who first colonized Haiti, and then set foot on the
mainland itself. In the ill-fated island the drama, begun with the
advent of the Spaniards, was being continued in deeper and bloodier
shades. The royal edicts came pompously out from Spain, commanding that
the welfare of the Indians should be the first consideration on the part
of the Colonial Government; but the thunder of such edicts, worn out by
the voyage, died away ere they reached the island. Ovando, it is true,
made some endeavours to act up to the spirit of these enactments; but in
view of the condition of the labour market and the clamourings of the
settlers it was, humanly speaking, impossible to carry this out.
As time went on both settlers and Governors accustomed themselves to
treat the aborigines rather as beasts of burden than as men, and they
were hunted, slain, or driven to labour with as little compunction as if
they had been pack-mules. The slightest sign of revolt was wont to be
punished by an outlet of blood which left the unfortunate folk cowering
in deeper terror and despair than before. The utter misery of the
Indians may be imagined when the measures they took to free themselves
are taken into consideration, for in the end they adopted the plan of
committing suicide as the only means of cheating the rapacity of their
white oppressors. Native families, and even entire villages, found
gloomy consolation in a self-sought death. Even in this they were not
invariably successful. Perhaps never has the irony of fate been more
strongly illustrated than in the tale that is told of one large
slave-owner and his human chattels.
These latter, having come to the end of their endurance, had determined
to follow the example of so many in the neighbourhood, and to do away
with themselves in a body. The Spaniard, however, received notice of the
intention of these people in time. Hastening to the spot, he came upon
them just as they were preparing to effect their end. He was undoubtedly
a crafty being, this. Proceeding into the midst of the distraught folk,
he called for a rope. This, he explained, was in order that he, too,
might hang himself and thus accompany the Indians to the next world,
where they would thus still remain his slaves. The ruse proved entirely
successful. The credulous Indians became, as it were, horrified back to
life at the idea; they abandoned the attempt upon their lives, and
continued in sorrowful despair to serve their Spanish owner.
In 1509 Ovando sailed back to Spain, and some return was made to
Columbus's family for the part he had played in the discovery of the new
Colonies. His son, Diego, came out, having been endowed with the titles
of Viceroy and Admiral. Thus the Court of Spain had at last conceded
some of the privileges which had been so effectually won by his father.
It is certain enough that the experiences of Diego's generation were
very different from those of his father's. The new Commander took up his
residence in state in Haiti, where he lived with great pomp and style.
The Indians, however, it is said, suffered more under his Governorship
than had been their lot under that of his predecessor.
The tide of conquest was flowing past the islands, and beginning to
spend itself on the continent. In 1508 began the actual colonization of
the Spanish Main. The first territories to which the Spaniards made
their way were those which gave on the Gulf of Darien. Here a companion
of Columbus in his second voyage, Alonso de Ojeda, was given the
district extending from the Cape de la Vela to the Gulf of Uraba, and
this territory was termed the Land of New Andalusia. Another adventurer,
Nicuesa, came as his neighbour, holding the Governorship of the coast
from the Gulf of Uraba to the Cape Gracias a Dios. These two
_conquistadores_, although as jealous of each other as was usual with
almost all these pioneer explorers, joined forces against the Indians,
whom they attempted to subdue by means of an iron hand rather than by a
silk glove. The Indians, however, proved themselves of a very warlike
disposition, and the joint forces of the Spaniards were unable to crush
the power of the aborigines. After a while the leaders were obliged to
withdraw their forces from the district they had occupied.
Some while afterwards Nunez de Balboa took charge of Uraba. On his
arrival he found that matters on the Gulf of Darien had reached a
desperate pitch. As the fortunes of the Spaniards had waned, the
confidence of the Indians had increased. There is no doubt that the
majority of men would have recoiled from the task which faced Balboa
when he found himself at the head of a number of starving Spaniards,
scarcely able to maintain their precarious foothold in a hostile
country.
Balboa gathered together the despairing remnants, and contrived to put
fresh heart into his men. He then turned to the Indians, and won their
esteem by his considerate treatment. He proved himself, in fact, in
every respect an able and successful leader. It was in 1512 that he set
out on his famous expedition across the Isthmus, and won his way to the
shores of the Pacific Ocean. It was certainly not the least dramatic
moment in the history of early America when Balboa, in a frenzy of joy,
seized the flag of Castile, and, holding it aloft, plunged his body into
the waters of the ocean, claiming it for his King. As was the fate of so
many able men of that period, it was not long before Balboa was
superseded. The fine governmental structure he had built up was very
soon wrecked by his successor and superior, Pedrarias. Friendly
communication with the Indians was ruthlessly broken off. The natives
were chased unmercifully by bloodhounds, and numbers slain.
Balboa, chafing beneath a situation which must have been keenly
distressing to him, was suspected by Pedrarias, and arrested. The
Bishop, Quevado, however, intervened in favour of the single-minded
ex-Governor; a reconciliation of a kind was patched up, and, in order to
strengthen this, Balboa was officially betrothed to the daughter of
Pedrarias--a purely political move this, since Balboa was already united
to the dusky daughter of Careta, an aboriginal chief. There is matter
for the novelist here and to spare; few situations can be found which
hold more possibilities. In this case they led to the death of Balboa,
which would probably have happened irrespective of the strange situation
in which he found himself. The cause, however, was merely renewed
jealousy on the part of the Governor. Balboa had prepared a further
expedition of discovery, so thoroughly, indeed, that the suspicions of
Pedrarias were again needlessly aroused. A mock trial brought about a
real catastrophe, which ended in the beheading of Balboa in 1547, at the
age of forty-two.
In the meanwhile much had been happening in the neighbourhood. Charles
V. found himself in some danger of running short of men in the face of
these tremendous additions to his empire. He farmed out a portion of
these new Colonies, contracting with the Welzers, merchant princes of
Augsberg, in Germany, to take charge of and to extend the settlements in
that part of the continent which is now known as Venezuela.
An official of the name of Alfinger was appointed as the first Governor
of this new settlement. He is said to have practised the most barbarous
cruelties on the unfortunate Indians, some of which have already been
referred to. Alfinger was succeeded by other officials of his
nationality, who are said to have proved themselves somewhat less cruel
rulers. But, on the whole, this colonizing scheme of the Welzers proved
a dreary failure; they had little interest in the permanent occupation
of the country, and sought merely for the gold and precious metals.
Thus, with the knowledge that their occupation would be shortlived, they
forced the Indians to ever more strenuous labours than those to which
they were accustomed even at the hands of the Spaniards. In the end the
country became depopulated. The Welzers shrugged their shoulders, and
admitted that their utility was at an end in that district. With this
the Spaniards took possession of the country once again.
Gonzalo Jimines de Quesada now became prominent as a _conquistador_ in
the territory to the north of Peru, known then as New Granada. Quesada
himself, although he lacked nothing of the courage and determination
(frequently of a merciless order) of the average _conquistador_, was
undoubtedly endowed with certain attributes which were possessed by very
few of these hardy pioneers. For one thing he was scholarly; he had been
given an elaborate education, and knew well how to put it to the best
purposes. Quesada led an expedition up the Magdalena River. He had for
companion Benalcazar. They approached the country from the south,
occupied Popagan and Pasto, and founded Guayaquil. They also penetrated
the Valley of Curacua and Bogota, and thus traversed the whole Province.
This brought them into contact with the Chibcha Indians. In the end
these unfortunate beings were completely subdued, their civilization
destroyed, and they themselves divided as slaves among the Spaniards.
Quesada, accompanied by a band of mercenary Indians, started on his
journey in order to seek for gold. He was, in the first place, received
in a friendly way by the natives; but in the end these, dreading the
greed which the invaders took no trouble to conceal, attacked them. The
warfare between the Spaniards and the natives commenced, with the
conquest of the natives as the result, as given above. It has already
been explained that many of the characteristics of the Incas and of the
Chibchas were curiously alike. In history this extended even to the fate
of the respective Royal Families. Pizarro slew Atahualpa; Quesada was
even more thorough. For not only did he destroy the Prince of the
Chibchas, but the whole of the Royal Family as well.
These acts do not appear to have lain very heavily on the conscience of
Quesada, if fruitful years be any test. The tough old _conquistador_
lived to the age of eighty, expiring in the year 1579. In 1597 it is
said that his body was taken to Bogota Cathedral.