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DOCUMENTS AND NARRATIVES
CONCERNING THE
DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST
OF LATIN AMERICA
PUBLISHED BY
THE CORTES SOCIETY
NEW YORK
NUMBER TWO
_Edition limited to 250 copies
of which ten are on Kelmscott paper_
_This copy is Number_
85
AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
CONQUEST OF PERU
WRITTEN BY
PEDRO SANCHO
SECRETARY TO PIZARRO
AND SCRIVENER TO HIS ARMY
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH AND ANNOTATED
BY
PHILIP AINSWORTH MEANS
THE CORTES SOCIETY
NEW YORK
1917
COCKAYNE, BOSTON
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The work of Pedro Sancho is one of the most valuable accounts of the
Spanish conquest of Peru that we possess. Nor is its value purely
historical. The "Relacion" of Sancho gives much interesting ethnological
information relative to the Inca dominion at the time of its demolition.
Errors Pedro Sancho has in plenty; but the editor has striven to
counteract them by footnotes.
In every instance the translator has preserved Pedro Sancho's spelling
of proper names, calling attention to the modern equivalent on the first
occurrence of each name. In a few instances, where the text was
unusually obscure, close translation has not been adhered to.
The virtues, as well as the shortcomings of this account, are so obvious
that an extended reference to them here is superfluous. It must always
be borne in mind that this document partook of the nature of an
"_apologia pro vita sua_" and that it was directly inspired by Pizarro
himself with the purpose of restoring himself to the Emperor's favor.
Its main purpose was to nullify whatever charges Pizarro's enemies may
have been making to the sovereign. Consequently there are numerous
violations of the truth, all of which are, for us, easy to recognize.
A word as to the previous editions of Pedro Sancho may not be out of
place here. The original manuscript is lost. An Italian translation of
it appears in the "Viaggi" of Giovanni Battista or Giambattista Ramusio,
published in Venice about 1550. The numerous editions of Ramusio's great
work do not need to be listed here. Occasionally the translator has
referred to that of 1563, a copy of which is in his possession. The
edition which has served as a text for the present translation is that
issued and edited by Don Joaquin Garcia Icazbalceta, Mexico, 1849. This
edition, like all of Icazbalceta's work, is painstaking. Professor
Marshall Saville has been good enough to lend me his copy of this
edition, which is very rare, in order that I might have it to work with.
Finally, a small portion of Pedro Sancho's narrative was issued by the
Hakluyt Society of London. The editor, Sir Clements Markham, included it
in the same volume with the reports of Xeres, Miguel de Estete, Hernando
Pizarro. The volume, entitled "Reports on the Discovery of Peru," was
issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1872.
PHILIP AINSWORTH MEANS
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
October 9, 1916
RELATION
Of the events that took place during the conquest and pacification of
these provinces of New Castile, and of the quality of the land, and of
the manner in which the Captain Hernando Pizarro afterward departed to
bear to His Majesty the account of the victory of Caxamalca[1] and of
the capture of the Cacique Atabalipa.[2]
CHAPTER I
Concerning the great quantity of silver and gold which was brought
from Cuzco, and of the portion thereof which was sent to H. M. the
emperor as the royal fifth: How the imprisoned Cacique Atabalipa
declared himself free of his promise which he had made to the
Spaniards to fill a house with gold for ransom: And of the treason
which the said Atabalipa meditated against the Spaniards, for which
betrayal they made him die.
The Captain Hernando Pizarro had departed with the hundred thousand
pesos of gold and the five thousand marks of silver which were sent to
His Majesty as his royal fifth; after that event, some ten or twelve
days, the two Spaniards who were bringing gold from Cuzco arrived, and
part of the gold was melted at once because it was in very small pieces;
it equalled the sum of[3] ... five hundred-odd plates of gold torn from
some house-walls in Cuzco; and even the smallest plates weighed four or
five pounds apiece; other, larger ones, weighed ten or twelve pounds,
and with plates of this sort all the walls of that temple were covered.
They brought also a seat of very fine gold, worked into the form of a
foot-stool, which weighed eighteen thousand _pesos_.[4] Likewise, they
brought a fountain all of gold and very subtilely worked which was very
fair to see as much for the skill of the work as for the shape which it
had been given; and there were many other pieces such as vases, jars,
and plates which they also brought. All this gold gave a quantity which
came to two millions and a half [_pesos_], which, on being refined to
pure gold, came to one million, three hundred and twenty-odd thousand
pesos, from which was subtracted the fifth of His Majesty, or, two
hundred and seventy-odd thousand pesos. Fifty thousand marks of silver
were found, of which ten thousand were set aside for H. M. One hundred
and seventy thousand pesos and five thousand marks were handed over to
the treasurer of H. M. The remaining hundred thousand pesos and five
marks were taken, as has been said, by Hernando Pizarro to help meet
the expenses which His Caesarian Majesty was encountering in the war
against the Turks, enemies of our Holy Faith, as they say. All that
remained, beyond the royal fifth, was divided among the soldiers and
companions of the Governor. He gave to each one what he conscientiously
thought he justly merited, taking into consideration the trials each man
had passed through and the quality of his person, all of which he did
with the greatest diligence and speed possible in order that they might
set out from that place and go to the city of Xauxa.[5]
And because there were among those soldiers some who were old and more
fit for rest than for fatigues, and who in that war had fought and
served much, he gave them leave to return to Spain. He procured their
good will so that, on returning, these men would give fairer accounts of
the greatness and wealth of that land so that a sufficient number of
people would come thither to populate and advance it. For, in truth,
the land being very large and very full of natives, the Spaniards who
were in it then were all too few for conquering it, holding it and
settling it, and, although they had already done great things in
conquering it, it was owing more to the aid of God who, in every place
and occasion, gave them the victory, than to any strength and means
which they had for succeeding, with that further aid they were confident
He would sustain them in the future.
That melting of the metals completed, the Governor commanded the notary
to draw up a document in which it said that the cacique Atabalipa was
free and absolved from the promise and word which he had given to the
Spaniards, who were to take the house full of gold in ransom for
himself. This document the Governor caused to be proclaimed publicly and
to the sound of trumpets in the plaza of that city of Caxamalca, making
it known, at the same time, to the said Atabalipa by means of an
interpreter, and also he [the Governor] declared in the same
proclamation, that, because it suited the service of H. M. and the
security of the land, he wished to maintain the cacique as a prisoner
with good guard, until more Spaniards should arrive who should give
added security; for, the cacique being free, he being so great a lord
and having so many soldiers who feared and obeyed him, prisoner though
he was, and three hundred leagues [from his capital], he could not well
do less in order to free himself from all suspicion; all the more so
because many times it had been thought almost certain that he had given
orders for warriors to assemble to attack the Spaniards. This, as a
matter of fact, had been ordered by him, and the men were all in
readiness with their captains, and the cacique only delayed the attack
because of the lack of freedom in his own person and in that of his
general Chilichuchima,[6] who was also a prisoner. After some days had
passed, and when the Spaniards were on the point of embarking in order
to return to Spain, and the Governor was making the rest ready for
setting out for Xauxa, God Our Lord, who with his infinite goodness was
guiding affairs toward all that was best for his service, as will be
[seen], having already in this land Spaniards who were to inhabit it and
bring to the knowledge of _the true God_ the natives of the said land so
that Our Lord might always be praised and known by these barbarians and
so that his Holy Faith might be extolled, permitted the discovery and
chastisement of the evil plans which this proud tyrant had in mind as a
return for the many good works and kind treatment which he had always
received from the governor and from each one of the Spaniards of his
company; which recompense, according to his intention, was to have been
of the sort he was wont to give to the caciques and lords of the land,
ordering [his men] to kill without let or cause whatever. For it chanced
that our discharged soldiers [were] returning to Spain, he, seeing that
they were taking with them the gold that had been got from his land,
and mindful of the fact that but a short while ago he had been so great
a lord that he held all those provinces with their riches without
dispute or question, and without considering the just causes for which
they had despoiled him of them, had given orders that certain troops
who, by his command, had been assembled in the land of Quito, should
come, on a certain night at an hour agreed upon, to attack the Spaniards
who were at Caxamalca, assaulting them from five directions as they were
in their quarters, and setting fire wherever possible. Thirty or more
Spanish soldiers were marching outside of Caxamalca, having been to the
city of San Miguel in order to place the gold for H. M. on board ship,
and [the Inca] believed that as they were so few he would be able easily
to kill them before they could join forces with those in Caxamalca[7]
... of which there was much information from many caciques and from
their chiefs themselves, that all, without fear of torments or menaces,
voluntarily confessed this plot: [telling] how fifty thousand men of
Quito and many Caribes[8] came to the land, and that all the confines
contained armed men in great numbers; that, not finding supplies for
them all thus united, he had divided them into three or four divisions,
and that, though scattered in this fashion, there were still so many
that not finding enough to sustain themselves, they had cut down the
still green maize and dried it so that they might not lack for food. All
this having been learned, and being now a public matter to all, and as
it was clear that they were saying in his [the Inca's] army that they
were coming to kill all the Christians, and the governor seeing in how
much peril the government and all the Spaniards were, in order to
furnish a remedy, although it grieved him much, nevertheless, after
seeing the information and process drawn up, assembled the officials of
H. M. and the captains of his company and a Doctor who was then in this
army, and the padre Fray Vicente de Valverde, a religious of the order
of Santo Domingo sent by the Emperor our Lord for the conversion and
instruction of the people of these realms; after there had been much
debate and discussion over the harm and the profit that might follow
upon the continued life or the death of Atabalipa, it was resolved that
justice should be done upon him. And because the officials of H. M.
asked for it and the doctor regarded the information as sufficient, he
was finally taken from the prison in which he was, and, to the sound of
a trumpet, his treason and perfidy were published, and he was borne to
the middle of the plaza of the city and tied to a stake, while the
religious was consoling him and teaching him, by means of an
interpreter, the things of our christian faith, telling him that God
wished him to die for the sins which he had committed in the world, and
that he must repent of them, and that God would pardon him if he did so
and was baptised at once. He, [the Inca] moved by this discourse, asked
for baptism. It was at once given to him by that reverend padre who
aided him so much with his exhortation that although he was sentenced to
be burned alive, he was given a twist of rope around his neck, by means
of which he was throttled instead[9] but when he saw that they were
preparing for his death, he said that he recommended to the governor his
little sons, so that he might take them with him, and with these last
words, and while the Spaniards who stood around him said the creed for
his soul, he was quickly throttled. May God take him to his holy glory,
for he died repentant of his sins with the true faith of a Christian.
After he was thus hung, in fulfilment of the sentence, fire was cast
upon him so that a part of his clothes and flesh was burnt. That night
[because he had died in the late afternoon] his body remained in the
plaza in order that all might learn of his death, and on the next day
the Governor ordered that all the Spaniards should be present at his
interment, and, with the cross and other religious paraphernalia, he
was borne to the church and buried with as much solemnity as if he had
been the chief Spaniard of our camp. Because of this all the principal
lords and caciques who served him received great pleasure, considering
as great the honour which was done them, and knowing that, because he
was a christian, he was not burned alive, and he was interred in church
as if he were a Spaniard.