DIEGO TUPAC AMARU--FATE OF THE INCA'S FAMILY--INSURRECTION OF PUMACAGUA.
WHILE the events occurred in the valley of Vilcamayu which ended in the
capture of the Inca Tupac Amaru and his family, the whole of the Collao
was in a state of insurrection, and all Spaniards had to escape for
their lives to Puno, La Paz, or Arequipa.
Don Joaquim Antonio de Orellana,[240] Governor of Puno, made a
most gallant defence of that town, with a force consisting of 180
musketeers, 647 pikemen, 44 artillerymen with 4 guns, and 254 cavalry.
He retreated behind his entrenchments when the Inca advanced as far
as Lampa, in December 1780; but in February 1781, in spite of the
heavy rains, he marched to Lampa, where he flogged an Indian until
he confessed that his rebel countrymen were on an adjacent mountain
called Catacora. Orellana found the rebel army drawn up in an almost
inaccessible position, with colours flying; and, while seeking for a
place where his troops might ascend, they suffered from a storm of
hail and snow. The Spaniards were divided into two assaulting parties,
but the showers of stones which the Indians hurled from their slings
obliged them to retreat, and Orellana himself was wounded in the jaw.
He found it prudent to fall back towards Puno, and, on the 16th,
encamped on the banks of the river of Juliaca, near a place called
Mananchili. The Indian army followed the Spaniards and offered them
battle--the chiefs sending a message to Orellana to tell him that they
acknowledged no king but their Inca Tupac Amaru. They formed their
forces in a semicircle--the right being led by the Cacique Andres
Ingaricona, the left by Mamani, and the centre by a chief of Caravaya
named Alejandro Calisaya. The battle began at four P.M., and, after
a sharp fight, Mamani's division fled to the adjacent heights, and
Ingaricona was also routed. The Indians left 370 killed on the field;
among whom there were many women who came to fight by the sides of
their husbands and brothers, armed with bones sharpened at one end.
Notwithstanding this success, Orellana made a rapid retreat to his
entrenched position at Puno, collected provisions, and sent messengers
to Arequipa for reinforcements.[241]
On the 18th of March the Indian army came in sight, extending for
three miles along the heights round Puno, with colours flying and a
great noise of drums and clarions, entirely surrounding the town,
except on the side of the lake. It was commanded by the Caciques Andres
Ingaricona and Pedro Vargas. The dismal news of the capture of Tupac
Amaru reached the besieging Indians on April 12th, when they retreated,
followed by a Spanish force under Nicolas de Mendiosala of Chucuito.
He overtook them posted on a hill called Condorcuyo, to the left of
the road to Cuzco, when a furious struggle commenced; but the Indians
fought most gallantly, and defeated Mendiosala, who retreated in
disorder. This success encouraged the rebels as much as it disheartened
the Spaniards, and Chucuito and the other towns on the western
banks of the lake of Titicaca fell into their hands. They committed
indiscriminate slaughter in revenge for the cruel death of the Inca,
and only a few Spaniards escaped to Puno. The governor Orellana sent
balsas to rescue some fugitives who were concealed in the rushes on the
shores of the lake, he himself being confined to his house[242] by a
wound in his foot. Meanwhile the Indians of Azangaro, by capturing the
town and peninsula of Capachica, completed the conquest of the province
of Chucuito, and the rebel chiefs prepared for a second siege of Puno.
Diego Cristoval Tupac Amaru the Inca's cousin, with his nephew Andres
Mendagure, Mariano the young son of the Inca, and Miguel Bastidas a
nephew of the Inca's wife, escaped when the rest of their family were
betrayed and captured at Lanqui. They now joined the rebel army in the
Collao, Diego took the command, and on the 9th of May he invested Puno
on all sides, and commenced the second siege.
The Indians were formed in a semicircle on the sides of the surrounding
hills; while Orellana had deepened his entrenchments, and occupied a
very strong position on the Huassa-pata hill, above Puno: he also built
two forts, one called Santa Barbara, where the triumphal arch now is,
and the other called Horca-pata, on the descent from the heights of
Cacharani. The corners of the plaza and of the streets were barricaded.
On the 10th there were skirmishes all day, and on the 11th the Indians
carried the forts of Santa Barbara and Horca-pata by assault, and
penetrated into the streets, but failed in their attack on the rocky
height of the Huassa-pata.[243] On the 12th the besiegers suddenly
retreated, at the approach of the army advancing from Cuzco.
General del Valle, after defeating the Indians at Combapata, continued
his march up the valley of the Vilcamayu, crossed the pass of Ayaviri,
and, entering the Collao, advanced towards Puno, where he arrived in
the middle of May. But the Indians of his army were disgusted at the
excessive rigour with which the rebels were treated; they deserted in
great numbers,[244] and assisted the troops of Diego Tupac Amaru in
harassing the Spaniards, and cutting of all supplies. The army of del
Valle had been shamefully neglected by the visitador Areche, who was
too busy in torturing his prisoners to attend to the commissariat.
The troops were wretchedly clad, unpaid, without medical stores,
or biscuit, or fresh meat. Under these circumstances the General
reluctantly determined to retreat to Cuzco, taking with him the
garrison and inhabitants of Puno, which place was evacuated by Orellana
on the 26th of May. The army which had left Cuzco in March 15,000
strong was now reduced, by desertions and sickness, to 1443 men, with
which force General del Valle commenced the retreat, closely followed
and constantly harassed by the Indians. He reached Cuzco on the 4th
of July, when a paper war ensued between him and Areche, the latter
blaming him for evacuating Puno, while the General retorted that Areche
had shamefully neglected the wants of his army, and failed to make any
attempt to subdue the country round Cuzco.[245]
The Viceroy seems to have taken the part of the General in this
controversy; and the foul vulture Areche, with his companion Matta
Linares, was recalled. He reached Lima on August 23rd, 1781, and
embarked for Spain with the poor little Fernando, son of Tupac Amaru,
who was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
The Indians still remained in arms round Cuzco, especially in the
heights above Urubamba and Calca, and at Lauramarca and Ocungate. Those
near Calca fortified themselves in a place called Chayña-ccasa, against
whom the General sent a force of 400 men under Don José de Barela,
and the Indians were defeated with great slaughter; while Don Joaquim
Balcarcel kept the insurgents in check, who continued to threaten
Paucartambo.
After the retreat of General del Valle from Puno, Diego Tupac Amaru
established his head-quarters at the town of Azangaro, while Andres
Mendagure and Miguel Bastidas overran the provinces on the eastern
shore of lake Titicaca, captured the town of Sorata, and placed
themselves in communication with the insurgent forces in Upper Peru.
It is said that fifteen mule-loads of treasure, consisting of spoils
from the provinces of Omasuyos and Larecaja, were brought into Azangaro
at this time and buried. Diego Tupac Amaru occupied a house near
the plaza, where he gave audience in a long sala; and he went from
this house to the church every night, wrapped in a large cloak. This
story made people believe that he was concealing treasure, and many a
fruitless search has since been made for it.[246]
The hopes of the Indians were now beginning to wane. Diego, though a
man of considerable talent, was not possessed of the same influence
over the people as his unfortunate cousin; and the Spanish officials
were rapidly receiving reinforcements from Buenos Ayres, while the
slaughter of the Indians had been prodigious. In August, 1781, Diego
issued a decree, ordering that all women, children, and priests,
should be respected during the war;[247] and on the 18th of October he
promulgated a manifesto setting forth the numerous violations of law
habitually committed by the corregidors, the exactions of the curas,
and the extortionate duties imposed by the aduaneros.[248] This is a
very able and telling document, and, together with the more detailed
writings of the unfortunate Inca, forms a most complete vindication of
this memorable insurrection.[249]
On September 12th, 1781, the viceroy of Peru, Don Augustin de Jauregui,
had issued a proclamation offering pardon, on submission, to Diego
Tupac Amaru and all his followers.[250] It would swell this short
narrative to an undue length if I attempted to give any account of the
events in Upper Peru during this period;[251] but the final suppression
of the revolt in that part of the country by the Spanish commanders
Flores, Reseguin, and Segurola, induced Diego Tupac Amaru to accept the
Viceroy's offer of pardon, give up the cause, and place himself in the
power of a faithless enemy. Dr. Antonio Valdez, cura of Sicuani, the
friend of the Inca, and author of the Quichua play of 'Ollantay,' was
sent to Azangaro by the Spanish authorities to persuade Diego to adopt
this course. They held their conferences on the subject while walking
up and down on the banks of the river; and there is a tradition that
Pedro Vilca Apasa, one of Diego's bravest officers, overheard one of
these conversations, and remonstrated violently against the madness of
trusting to the word of a Spaniard. But the advice of Valdez prevailed,
Diego sent young Miguel Bastidas to open a negotiation with the Spanish
Colonel Reseguin in November; and on December 11th he gave himself up
to Don Ramon de Arias, commandant of the column of Arequipa. At the
same time Mariano Tupac Amaru, the son of the Inca, Andres Mendagure,
and Miguel Bastidas, surrendered to Don Sebastian de Segurola at La
Paz. Bastidas was sent to Buenos Ayres.
Diego Tupac Amaru received his pardon at Sicuani, from General del
Valle in the name of the viceroy, on January 26th, 1782; and on the
same day the Bishop of Cuzco[252] solemnly absolved him in the church.
But Vilca Apasa, Alejandro Calisaya, and other chiefs of Diego's army,
refused to submit, and continued in arms in the provinces of Caravaya
and Azangaro. General del Valle marched against them in March 1782, and
took most of them prisoners. Vilca Apasa was captured in his native
village of Tapa-tapa, eighteen miles east of Azangaro, where his
descendants still live. He was torn to pieces by horses in the plaza of
Azangaro, and his limbs were stuck on poles by the road-side.[253] An
old lady told me that she could remember seeing one of his arms on a
pole near her father's house. Calisaya, and many others, were hung. The
Spanish General had the cruelty to force Diego Tupac Amaru to accompany
him, and to witness the execution of his old friends. Del Valle then
marched over the cordilleras of Lauramarca and Ausangate, where the
Indians had been in rebellion, taking Diego with him in a sort of
triumph, and returned to Cuzco in August. The old general was taken ill
soon afterwards, and died at Cuzco on the 4th of September, leaving the
command of the troops to Don Gabriel de Aviles.
Diego Tupac Amaru was permitted to retire to Tungasuca; and young
Mariano Tupac Amaru, with his cousin Andres Mendegure, lived at
Sicuani. But it would appear that the Spanish authorities had no
intention of keeping their faith with these unfortunate Indians, and
it was soon seen that the distrust of Vilca Apasa was but too well
founded. The Spaniards were only waiting for an excuse before they
completed the extirpation of the whole family of the Incas. This was
soon found in a rebellion of the Indians of Marcapata and Lauramarca,
who, on the approach of a force under the Corregidor Necochea in
January 1783, retired to the lofty and almost impenetrable heights
of Hapo and Ampatuni. In February their leader, Santos Huayhua, was
captured with his family, and torn to pieces by horses.[254]
Thus the desired excuse for treachery and faithlessness was furnished.
All the surviving members of the family of the Inca Tupac Amaru were
arrested, by order of the viceroy of Peru.[255] The accusations against
them were frivolous, and, so far as appears in the sentences, without
a shadow of proof to support them. Diego was accused of calling the
Indians his sons, of living in a way unbefitting a pardoned rebel, and
of performing funeral rites for his cousin the Inca; young Mariano
Tupac Amaru of rescuing his lady-love on September 9th, who had been
forced to become a novice in the monastery of Santa Catalina in Cuzco;
Andres Mendagure of conducting himself in a suspicious way; Manuela
Castro, the mother of Diego, of keeping up disaffection amongst the
Indians; and Lorenzo and Simon Condori, the brothers-in-law of Diego,
of assisting the rebels in Marcapata. The rest of the family were
accused of being relations.
Diego was imprisoned with his kindred on the 15th of April, 1783,
by Don Raymundo Necochea, Corregidor of Quispicanchi;[256] while
Mariano Tupac Amaru and Andres Mendagure were sent to Lima, put on
board a ship, butchered at sea, and their bodies thrown overboard.
The vulture Matta Linares, who was still an Oidor of the Audienica at
Lima, scented carrion from afar, and arrived at Cuzco on April 20th,
with the same extraordinary judicial powers as had previously been
given by the viceroy to Areche. On the 17th of July he sentenced Diego
Tupac Amaru to be dragged at the tail of a mule, with a rope round his
neck, to the place of execution in the plaza of Cuzco, there to be
hung and quartered, his body and limbs to be distributed amongst the
towns of Tungasuca, Lauramarca, Paucartambo, and Calca, his goods to be
confiscated, and his houses destroyed; his mother, Marcela Castro, to
be hung and quartered, and her body to be burnt in the plaza; Lorenzo
and Simon Condori to be hung; and Manuela Titu Condori, the wife of
Diego, to be banished for life.[257] These sentences were executed
on the 19th of July 1783; and Matta Linares obliged the good cura of
Sicuani, Dr. Valdez, by whose persuasion, as the ancient friend of the
Inca Tupac Amaru, Diego had been induced to accept the treacherous
pardon, to witness the executions.[258] Matta Linares is still
remembered in Cuzco for his barbarous, immoral, and sneaking conduct.
He died in Spain in about 1818, having been one of the first among the
unworthy Spaniards who declared in favour of Joseph Buonaparte.
At about the time of Diego's execution, the last spark of insurrection
was trampled out in Huarochiri, a province in the Andes near Lima.
The Indians of the villages near Caramporna had risen under one Felipe
Velasco Tupac Inca Yupanqui, who declared that the Inca was not dead,
but that he was alive and crowned in the "Gran Paytiti."[259] Don
Felipe Carrera, who had been appointed Corregidor of Parinacochas, was
sent to Huarochiri, and by a rapid march succeeded in capturing the
chief. Towards evening, however, he was surrounded by a large body of
Indians armed with slings and poles, in a narrow and dangerous part
of the road. He retreated to an eminence with his prisoner, where he
defended himself until dark against the storm of stones, and then
escaped to Lima. After daily fights with the Indians the rebellion was
put down in June, 1783. Felipe Velasco, and his lieutenant Ciriaco
Flores, were hung in the great square of Lima on July 7th, 1783.[260]
Having, after two years and a half, succeeded in quelling the
insurrection, it remained for the viceroy to extirpate all the
innocent members of the family of the Incas, and all who were
connected with them by marriage. Ninety members of the family were
sent to Lima in chains, among whom were Bartolomé Tupac Amaru, the
venerable great-uncle of the Inca; Marcela Pallocahua, the mother of
the Inca's wife Micaela Bastidas; and Manuela Condori, the wife of
Diego. Soon after his arrival at Lima Bartolomé Tupac Amaru died at
the extraordinary age of 125. A life of temperance had given this aged
prince the strength to endure months of solitary confinement at Cuzco,
to sustain blows from muskets and staves in the plaza, to undergo a
cruel journey on foot and in chains of 400 miles, but the horrors of
the Lima prison at length killed him. The unhappy survivors were
shipped off at Callao, in two ships, the 'Peruana' and the 'San Pedro,'
and thrown into cells in Cadiz for three years, when Charles III.
caused them to be distributed, apart from each other, in prisons in
the interior of Spain, until their sufferings were relieved by death.
Once during the voyage they were allowed by the brutal captain of the
transport 'Peruana,' named José Cordova, to wash their tattered clothes
at Rio; but their fetters were never removed, and, though the captain
gave his word of honour to a Frenchman who mended his damaged rudder,
that he would take them off, he unblushingly perjured himself; and the
horrors which were suffered by these innocent persons, many of them
aged women and young children, were never relaxed until they arrived at
Cadiz.[261]
Fernando, the youngest child of the Inca, "whose shrill cry smote every
heart with electric sympathy"[262] when he beheld the cruel tortures
of his parents, was taken to Spain by the visitador Areche in 1781.
He was then only ten years of age. In 1783 one Don Luis Ocampo, a
citizen of Cuzco, went to Spain, and heard that young Fernando was a
close prisoner in the castle of San Sebastian at Cadiz. Through the
aid of an Irish gentleman, who was intimately acquainted with the
town major, Ocampo applied for a pass to visit him, but was refused.
He, nevertheless, made his way into the fort, and, looking round at
the iron gratings of the cells, at length caught sight of a youth
whose countenance bespoke his origin. He addressed him in Quichua,
and found that he was speaking to Fernando Tupac Amaru. While talking
to him Ocampo received a blow from the butt end of the musket of a
Swiss sentry, whom, however, he induced to permit him to continue the
conversation. It appeared that the government allowed Fernando six
rials a day, but that the soldiers of the guard cheated him of half.
Ocampo gave him two or three dollars a week during his stay in Cadiz;
and this is the last we know, for a certainty, of the last surviving
child of the unfortunate Inca.[263]
The fate of these poor Indians, the remaining descendants of those
Incas of Peru whose remarkable civilization, and great power and
wealth, became a proverb during the sixteenth century, will not
fail to be interesting to those who have become acquainted, through
the pages of Robertson, Prescott, or Helps, with the history of the
Spanish conquest of Peru. The sufferings and death of Tupac Amaru and
his family form a very sad story, yet they did not suffer and die in
vain: and it must be recorded of them that, unlike other dispossessed
families, they sacrificed themselves, not for their own selfish ends,
but in the hope of serving their people. They did not die in vain,
for in their fall they shook the colonial power of Spain to its
foundation. Not only was the system of _repartos_ at once abolished,
and the _mitas_ considerably modified, but in 1795 the hated office of
corregidors was replaced by that of intendentes, and from the cruel
death of the last of the Incas may be dated the rise of that feeling
which ended in the expulsion of the Spaniards from Peru.
The rebellion which broke out in Cuzco, thirty-four years after the
death of Tupac Amaru, is historically important, not on account of
the patriotism of its leaders, for they were almost all men of small
weight and selfish ends, but because the great body of the Indians rose
as one man at the first signal, in the hope of freeing their country
from a foreign yoke. In 1809 the people of Upper Peru had formed an
independent government, which they called an "Institucion de Gobierno,"
and the viceroy sent General Goyeneche against them with 5000 men from
Cuzco. The rebels, ill-provided with arms, were defeated at Huaqui,
near lake Titicaca, and slaughtered without mercy;[264] but General
Pezuela, who succeeded Goyeneche in the command, had to face a patriot
army from Buenos Ayres under Belgrano, which kept him fully employed.
Then it was that the opportunity was seized of commencing a rebellion
at Cuzco; and this enemy in the rear of the royal army placed Pezuela
in a most critical position.
The leader of the rebellion was Mateo Garcia Pumacagua, Cacique of
Chinchero near Cuzco, then a very old men. In January 1781, when Tupac
Amaru occupied the heights of Picchu above Cuzco, he had marched from
Chinchero with Indians to join him, but, hearing that a large Spanish
army was advancing from Lima, he changed his mind, and took part
against his countrymen with such zeal, that the viceroy created him
a brigadier in the Spanish service. On August 3rd, 1814, this Indian
Cacique Pumacagua, with the three brothers Vicente, Mariano, and José
Angulo, Don Gabriel Bejar, Hurtado de Mendoza, Astete, Pinelo, Prado,
and others, raised the cry of independence in Cuzco; and so unanimous
was the feeling against Spanish rule, that the whole population of
that city joined heart and soul in the insurrection.[265] The brothers
Angulo were men of low birth, and vulgar both in their language and
their persons;[266] but Astete and Prado were gentlemen of good family
and position. It is possible that they made use of Pumacagua, as an
Indian cacique, that his countrymen might more readily be induced to
join their cause.
Having occupied Cuzco, the insurgents divided their forces into three
divisions, which separated in different directions, to excite the
other provinces to revolt. Mariano Angulo, Bejar, and Mendoza, who
was nicknamed Santafecino, marched to Guamanga, assaulted the house
in which several Spaniards had taken refuge, and hung two officers
in the plaza. Colonel Vicente Gonzalez was sent against them from
Lima, and attacked the insurgents, who had been joined by a body of
Morochuco Indians, near Guanta, in September. The rebels were defeated,
and several Morochuco Indians were shot at Guamanga, but the country
continued in a disordered state until Santafecino was finally routed at
Matara in April 1815.
Pinelo, and the cura of Munecas in Upper Peru, entered Puno without
resistance with another division on August 29th, advanced to La Paz,
and took it by assault after a siege of two days, on September 24th.
The main division, led by Pumacagua in person, and Vicente Angulo,
marched on Arequipa.
The position of the royalist army under Pezuela, with the Buenos Ayrean
army of independence in front, and this formidable insurrection in the
rear, was most critical: for the Indians, believing that the rule of
their Incas was to be restored, and that Pumacagua would succeed where
Tupac Amaru had failed, were flocking in thousands to the standard of
the old cacique. Pezuela organized a division of his army, 1200 strong,
commanded by General Don Juan Ramirez, who marched from Oruro in
October, and fell upon the rebels, numbering 4000 men, 500 armed with
muskets, and the rest with slings, who were encamped on the heights
above La Paz. The rebels retired in good order to Puno, and Ramirez
entered La Paz, and, having extorted 63,000 dollars from the citizens,
continued his march to Puno, which he occupied on November 23rd, and
pressed on towards Arequipa on the 26th.[267]
In the mean while Pumacagua and Angulo had been joined by many caciques
with their _ayllus_ or tribes, and he organized his army at Cavanilla,
giving the rank of generals and colonels to the Indian chiefs.[268]
From Cavanilla the rebel forces marched along the road from Puno to
Arequipa, descended the "alto de los huesos," and encountered the
Spanish troops under Brigadier Picoaga in the plain of Cangallo.
Picoaga was defeated and taken prisoner, and the Indians entered
Arequipa in triumph, where the greatest enthusiasm prevailed for the
cause of independence. Picoaga and Moscoso, the Intendente of Arequipa,
were shot by order of the Angulos, who, early in December, issued a
proclamation, declaring that Peru was free; that there had been a
revolution in Lima; and that the viceroy Don José de Abascal was in
prison. These falsehoods were intended to excite the Spanish Americans
to revolt; but, indeed, they required no such stimulus, for the people
of all races and classes were burning to throw off the yoke of Spain.
It was at this time that Melgar, the enthusiastic young poet of
Arequipa, joined the national army, and became secretary to Vicente
Angulo.
On the approach of Ramirez, Pumacagua evacuated Arequipa, and manœuvred
for some days on the lofty plains between Apo and the post-house of
Pati. Ramirez steadily advanced, and came in sight of the Indian army
at a little hut called Chillihua, near the head of the "alto de los
huesos;" but Pumacagua, avoiding a battle, retreated hastily into the
interior, and Ramirez entered Arequipa without opposition on December
9th. His first act was to shoot Don José Astete, and other patriots who
had compromised themselves during the time that Pumacagua was in the
city.
The enthusiasm of the Indians was so great that, notwithstanding the
affair at Chillihua, which one authority describes as a retreat,[269]
and another as a disastrous defeat,[270] they again flocked to the
standard of the old cacique at Pucara, where he soon had another
undisciplined half-armed force around him, numbering 40,000 men.
Ramirez organized a force at Arequipa of 1200 men armed with muskets,
and fifty dragoons; and, commencing his march on February 11th, 1815,
he encamped round the town of Lampa on March 1st. On that day he
received a letter from Vicente Angulo, protesting against the war
being carried on in a savage and relentless spirit, representing that,
when a whole people rises in arms, the insurgents ought to be granted
belligerent rights; and urging the duty of concluding the war by
negotiation, and not by bloodshed. "It is not fear," Angulo continues,
"that induces me to write thus, but a feeling of humanity."[271]
Ramirez answered that he would accept nothing but unconditional
surrender. On March 4th he advanced to Ayaviri, on the Vilcañota range,
which separates the Collao from the valley of the Vilcamayu. Here
he received a letter from Pumacagua. The cacique asked the Spanish
general for whom he was fighting, seeing that Ferdinand VII. had been
sold to the French, and that no man knew where he had been taken to; he
declared that there was now no other king but the caprice of Europeans,
and that, therefore, he desired to establish a national Government; and
he told him that he was ready to meet the Spanish army on the field of
battle.[272] Ramirez replied that a general of the king's army would
not waste words with vile and insolent rebels, and that his bayonets
would soon make them alter their tone.[273]
From the 6th to the 10th of March both armies marched in parallel
lines, separated by the rivers Umachiri and Ayaviri. On the 10th
Pumacagua drew up his army behind the river Cupi, which was much
swollen by the rains. He had 30,000 men, of whom 800 only were armed
with muskets, and forty field-pieces, said to have been cast at Cuzco
by an Englishman named George ----,[274] some of them of very large
calibre, with which he annoyed the Spaniards during the night before
the battle. Ramirez had only 1300 men; but they were all disciplined
and well-armed soldiers. He crossed the river Cupi, near Umachiri,
in spite of opposition; charged and dispersed the Indians, killing a
thousand men, and captured all their cannon. The rout was complete, and
the chiefs of the patriot army sought safety in flight.[275]
The poet Mariano Melgar was taken prisoner, and immediately shot on
the field of battle. The fate of this young man was very melancholy:
an unrequited passion led him to join the desperate cause of the
insurgents, and he is now chiefly remembered by his melancholy
love-songs and _despedidas_.[276]
Ramirez, immediately after the battle of Umachiri, marched to Cuzco,
where he arrived on the 25th; but he detached a portion of his troops
in pursuit of the Indians, who were again defeated close to the town
of Azangaro. The Spaniards cut off the ears of all their prisoners,
flogged them cruelly, and sent them to tell their comrades that they
would be treated in the same way unless they instantly laid down their
arms. The Indians fled over the hills, followed by the Spaniards, who
again defeated them on a hill near Asillo, six leagues to the north.
Amongst the prisoners at Asillo were the mutilated Indians who had been
sent to terrify the rest, still bravely fighting against their tyrants.
Of such heroism is the usually meek and docile Indian capable.[277]
After the battle of Umachiri, Pumacagua had escaped to the heights of
Marangani; but he was betrayed by an Indian whom he had sent down to
buy some food, and brought a prisoner into Sicuani. After a sort of
confession had been extorted from him, he was hung, not even with a
respectable halter, but with a lasso, being seventy-seven years of age.
José, Mariano, and Vicente Angulo, Gabriel Bejar, and many others were
shot at Cuzco by Ramirez, who, in the following June, again united his
forces with those of General Pezuela, in Upper Peru. Thus ended the
last great rising of the Indians under one of their own chiefs, after a
campaign which lasted ten months.
Ten years after the death of Pumacagua every Spanish soldier had
been driven out of the country. Peru was independent, and the Indians
received equal rights with citizens of Spanish descent in the new
Republic, at least so far, and only so far, as the law could give them.
The _mita_ or forced labour was entirely abolished in 1825; but the
tribute or capitation-tax continued to be exacted until 1854 in Peru,
and is still the principal source of revenue in Bolivia, the Upper
Peru of Spanish times. It is not, however, quite exact to suppose that
this tribute was a capitation-tax; it was practically at least a rent
or tax on the produce of the land, and more resembled the land-tax
of India. The tribute was levied on every male between the ages of
eighteen and fifty; but, in point of fact, nearly every individual
between those ages cultivated his own piece of land, or shared the
produce of a larger piece with several others. Latterly the tribute
paid by each Indian generally amounted to five dollars a year; but,
in some villages, the Indians paid double that amount, the exact rule
being handed down by tradition, and known to the caciques. Those who
paid most enjoyed a more dignified position. The department of Puno
yielded 300,000 dollars; that of Cuzco, 400,000. The entire abolition
of the tribute by General Castilla in 1854 is a portion of that mad
and reckless system of finance by which the revenue of Peru is made
to depend almost exclusively on the yield of guano from the Chincha
Islands.
In Bolivia the tribute is still paid by men between the ages of
eighteen and fifty: the amount being six to ten dollars a year for
proprietors of land, and five dollars for strangers. The revenue from
this source amounted, in 1850, to 4,595,000 dollars.
But though the _mita_, the _reparto_, and the tribute have all been
abolished by law in Peru, the deplorable civil wars, and the system of
keeping up a large standing army, which is not only unnecessary, but
most mischievous, have entailed much oppression on the Indians in the
shape of impressment for the army. Villages are frequently surrounded
by a party of soldiers, and all the able-bodied men that can be caught
are driven away to serve in the ranks. This deplorable waste of human
life is rapidly reducing the already scanty population; and the system
is more oppressive and cruel because it is done in defiance of the
law, by the military presidents and generals who have hitherto been
able to set the laws enacted by civilians at defiance, when it suits
their purpose.[278] Yet on the whole the condition of the Indians is
immeasurably more endurable under the Republic than it was when they
groaned under the _mitas_ of the Spanish corregidors.
The history of these Peruvian Indians has been a very melancholy one.
The early accounts which the Spanish chroniclers gave of the great
empire of the Incas represented the Indians as a people ruled by laws
and usages which provided for almost every action of their lives;
neither a thief nor a vicious man was known amongst them; and they
lived in happiness and contentment, but under a most rigid system of
tutelage and subjection. Then came the Spanish conquerors, and, after
a quarter of a century of bloodshed and rapine, the people found
themselves bowed down by a grievous yoke. While the most beneficent
laws were enacted by the Council of the Indies, their humane provisions
continued to be either entirely evaded, or converted into pretexts
for additional modes of oppression. From upwards of thirty millions
the population was reduced to three millions within the space of
two centuries; and all that can be said of the much-lauded colonial
legislation of Spain is that it prevented the Indians from being
actually exterminated; and that, when Peru gained her independence,
there were a few million survivors, scattered in villages at wide
intervals over a region once thickly peopled by their ancestors. The
Council-room at Seville was, like another place, thickly paved with
good intentions.
I was thrown a great deal amongst the Indians, and at one time I had
the most excellent opportunities of judging of their character, and
I was certainly most favourably impressed. They now have many vices
engendered by centuries of oppression and evil example, from which
their ancestors were probably free: they are fond of chicha and
aguardiente, and are very suspicious; but I found that this latter
feeling disappears when the occasion for it is found not to exist. They
have had but too good reason for their suspicion generally. On the
other hand, they are intelligent, patient, obedient, loving amongst
each other, and particularly kind to animals. Crimes of any magnitude
are hardly ever heard of amongst them; and I am sure that there is
no safer region in the world for the traveller, than the plateaux
of the Peruvian cordilleras. That the Indians are not cowardly or
mean-spirited when once roused was proved in the battles which they
fought under the banner of Tupac Amaru in 1781; and a people who could
produce men capable of such heroic constancy as was displayed by the
mutilated heroes of Asillo should not lightly be accused of want of
courage. When well led they make excellent soldiers.
Although there is so large a proportion of _mestizos_, or half-castes,
in Peru, it is very remarkable how isolated the Indians still remain.
They have their separate language, and traditions, and feelings, apart
from their neighbours of Spanish origin; and it is even said that
there are secret modes of intercourse, and even secret designs amongst
them, the knowledge of which is guarded with jealous care. In 1841,
when General Gamarra was at Pucara, on his way to invade Bolivia, it
was reported that certain influential Indians, from all parts of the
country, were about to assemble in the hills near Azangaro, for the
discussion of some grave business; and that they were in the habit
of assembling in the same way, though in different localities, every
five years. The object of these assemblies was unknown--it may have
been merely to converse over their ancient traditions--but it was
feared, at the time, that it was for some far deeper and more momentous
purpose. It is believed that similar meetings have since taken place
near Chayanta[279] in Bolivia, near Quito, and in other parts, but the
strictest secrecy is preserved by the Indians themselves. The abolition
of the tribute has probably had the effect of separating the Indians
still more from the white and mixed races, for they used to have
constant intercourse connected with the payments to the authorities,
which brought them into the towns, while now they live apart in their
solitary huts in the mountain fastnesses, or in distant villages.
It may be that this unhappy people, descendants of the once mighty
race which, in the glorious days of the Incas, conquered and civilised
half a continent, is marching slowly down the gloomy and dark road to
extinction; "the fading remains of a society sinking amidst storms,
overthrown and shattered by overwhelming catastrophes."[280] But I
trust that this may not be so, and that a fate less sad is still
reserved for the long-suffering gentle children of the Sun.