Peru At The Time Of The Conquest. - Reign Of Huayna Capac. - The
Inca Brothers. - Contest For The Empire. - Triumph And Cruelties
Of Atahuallpa.
Before accompanying the march of Pizarro and his followers into
the country of the Incas, it is necessary to make the reader
acquainted with the critical situation of the kingdom at that
time. For the Spaniards arrived just at the consummation of an
important revolution, - at a crisis most favorable to their views
of conquest, and but for which, indeed, the conquest, with such a
handful of soldiers, could never have been achieved.
In the latter part of the fifteenth century died Tupac Inca
Yupanqui, one of the most renowned of the "Children of the Sun,"
who, carrying the Peruvian arms across the burning sands of
Atacama, penetrated to the remote borders of Chili, while in the
opposite direction he enlarged the limits of the empire by the
acquisition of the southern provinces of Quito. The war in this
quarter was conducted by his son Huayna Capac, who succeeded his
father on the throne, and fully equalled him in military daring
and in capacity for government.
Under this prince, the whole of the powerful state of Quito,
which rivalled that of Peru itself in wealth and refinement, was
brought under the sceptre of the Incas; whose empire received, by
this conquest, the most important accession yet made to it since
the foundation of the dynasty of Manco Capac. The remaining days
of the victorious monarch were passed in reducing the independent
tribes on the remote limits of his territory, and, still more, in
cementing his conquests by the introduction of the Peruvian
polity. He was actively engaged in completing the great works of
his father, especially the high-roads which led from Quito to the
capital. He perfected the establishment of posts, took great
pains to introduce the Quichua dialect throughout the empire,
promoted a better system of agriculture, and in fine, encouraged
the different branches of domestic industry and the various
enlightened plans of his predecessors for the improvement of his
people. Under his sway, the Peruvian monarchy reached its most
palmy state; and under both him and his illustrious father it was
advancing with such rapid strides in the march of civilization as
would soon have carried it to a level with the more refined
despotisms of Asia, furnishing the world, perhaps, with higher
evidence of the capabilities of the American Indian than is
elsewhere to be found on the great western continent. - But other
and gloomier destinies were in reserve for the Indian races.
The first arrival of the white men on the South American shores
of the Pacific was about ten years before the death of Huayna
Capac, when Balboa crossed the Gulf of St. Michael, and obtained
the first clear report of the empire of the Incas. Whether
tidings of these adventurers reached the Indian monarch's ears is
doubtful. There is no doubt, however, that he obtained the news
of the first expedition under Pizarro and Almagro, when the
latter commander penetrated as far as the Rio de San Juan, about
the fourth degree north. The accounts which he received made a
strong impression on the mind of Huayna Capac. He discerned in
the formidable prowess and weapons of the invaders proofs of a
civilization far superior to that of his own people. He intimated
his apprehension that they would return, and that at some day,
not far distant, perhaps, the throne of the Incas might be shaken
by these strangers, endowed with such incomprehensible powers. *1
To the vulgar eye, it was a little speck on the verge of the
horizon; but that of the sagacious monarch seemed to descry in it
the dark thunder-cloud, that was to spread wider and wider till
it burst in fury on his nation!
[Footnote 1: Sarmiento, an honest authority, tells us he had this
from some of the Inca lords who heard it, Relacion, Ms., cap.
65.]
There is some ground for believing thus much. But other
accounts, which have obtained a popular currency, not content
with this, connect the first tidings of the white men with
predictions long extant in the country, and with supernatural
appearances, which filled the hearts of the whole nation with
dismay. Comets were seen flaming athwart the heavens.
Earthquakes shook the land; the moon was girdled with rings of
fire of many colors; a thunderbolt fell on one of the royal
palaces and consumed it to ashes; and an eagle, chased by several
hawks, was seen, screaming in the air, to hover above the great
square of Cuzco, when, pierced by the talons of his tormentors,
the king of birds fell lifeless in the presence of many of the
Inca nobles, who read in this an augury of their own destruction!
Huayna Capac himself, calling his great officers around him, as
he found he was drawing near his end, announced the subversion of
his empire by the race of white and bearded strangers, as the
consummation predicted by the oracles after the reign of the
twelfth Inca, and he enjoined it on his vassals not to resist the
decrees of Heaven, but to yield obedience to its messengers. *2
[Footnote 2: A minute relation of these supernatural occurrences
is given by the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, (Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 9, cap. 14,) whose situation opened to him the very best
sources of information, which is more than counterbalanced by the
defects in his own character as an historian, - his childish
credulity, and his desire to magnify and mystify every thing
relating to his own order, and, indeed, his nation. His work is
the source of most of the facts - and the falsehoods - that have
obtained circulation in respect to the ancient Peruvians.
Unfortunately, at this distance of time, it is not always easy to
distinguish the one from the other.]
Such is the report of the impressions made by the appearance of
the Spaniards in the country, reminding one of the similar
feelings of superstitious terror occasioned by their appearance
in Mexico. But the traditions of the latter land rest on much
higher authority than those of the Peruvians, which, unsupported
by contemporary testimony, rest almost wholly on the naked
assertion of one of their own nation, who thought to find,
doubtless, in the inevitable decrees of Heaven, the best apology
for the supineness of his countrymen.
It is not improbable that rumors of the advent of a strange and
mysterious race should have spread gradually among the Indian
tribes along the great table-land of the Cordilleras, and should
have shaken the hearts of the stoutest warriors with feelings of
undefined dread, as of some impending calamity. In this state of
mind, it was natural that physical convulsions, to which that
volcanic country is peculiarly subject, should have made an
unwonted impression on their minds; and that the phenomena, which
might have been regarded only as extraordinary, in the usual
seasons of political security, should now be interpreted by the
superstitious soothsayer as the handwriting on the heavens, by
which the God of the Incas proclaimed the approaching downfall of
their empire.
Huayna Capac had, as usual with the Peruvian princes, a multitude
of concubines, by whom he left a numerous posterity. The heir to
the crown, the son of his lawful wife and sister, was named
Huascar. *3 At the period of the history at which we are now
arrived, he was about thirty years of age. Next to the
heir-apparent, by another wife, a cousin of the monarch's, came
Manco Capac, a young prince who will occupy an important place in
our subsequent story. But the best-beloved of the Inca's
children was Atahuallpa. His mother was the daughter of the last
Scyri of Quito, who had died of grief, it was said, not long
after the subversion of his kingdom by Huayna Capac. The princess
was beautiful, and the Inca, whether to gratify his passion, or,
as the Peruvians say, willing to make amends for the ruin of her
parents, received her among his concubines. The historians of
Quito assert that she was his lawful wife; but this dignity,
according to the usages of the empire, was reserved for maidens
of the Inca blood.
[Footnote 3: Huascar, in the Quichua dialect, signifies "a
cable." The reason of its being given to the heir apparent is
remarkable. Huayna Capac celebrated the birth of the prince by a
festival, in which he introduced a massive gold chain for the
nobles to hold in their hands as they performed their national
dances. The chain was seven hundred feet in length, and the
links nearly as big round as a man's wrist! (See Zarate, Conq.
del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 14. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1,
lib. 9, cap. 1.) The latter writer had the particulars, he tells
us, from his old Inca uncle, - who seems to have dealt largely in
the marvellous; not too largely for his audience, however, as the
story has been greedily circulated by most of the Castilian
writers, both of that and of the succeeding age.]
The latter years of Huayna Capac were passed in his new kingdom
of Quito. Atahuallpa was accordingly brought up under his own
eye, accompanied him, while in his tender years, in his
campaigns, slept in the same tent with his royal father, and ate
from the same plate. *4 The vivacity of the boy, his courage and
generous nature, won the affections of the old monarch to such a
degree, that he resolved to depart from the established usages of
the realm, and divide his empire between him and his elder
brother Huascar. On his death-bed, he called the great officers
of the crown around him, and declared it to be his will that the
ancient kingdom of Quito should pass to Atahuallpa, who might be
considered as having a natural claim on it, as the dominion of
his ancestors. The rest of the empire he settled on Huascar; and
he enjoined it on the two brothers to acquiesce in this
arrangement, and to live in amity with each other. This was the
last act of the heroic monarch; doubtless, the most impolitic of
his whole life. With his dying breath he subverted the
fundamental laws of the empire; and, while he recommended harmony
between the successors to his authority, he left in this very
division of it the seeds of inevitable discord. *5
[Footnote 4: "Atabalipa era bien quisto de los Capitanes viejos
de su Padre y de los Soldados, porque andubo en la guerra en su
ninez y porque andubo en la guerra en su niez porque el en vida
le mostro tanto amor que no le dejaba comer otra cosa que lo que
el le daba de su plato." Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 66.]
[Footnote 5: Oviedo, Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 1, lib. 8,
cap. 9. - Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 1, cap. 12. - Sarmiento,
Relacion, Ms., cap. 65. - Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom.
III. p. 201.]
His death took place, as seems probable, at the close of 1525,
not quite seven years before Pizarro's arrival at Puna. *6 The
tidings of his decease spread sorrow and consternation throughout
the land; for, though stern and even inexorable to the rebel and
the long-resisting foe, he was a brave and magnanimous monarch,
and legislated with the enlarged views of a prince who regarded
every part of his dominions as equally his concern. The people
of Quito, flattered by the proofs which he had given of
preference for them by his permanent residence in that country,
and his embellishment of their capital, manifested unfeigned
sorrow at his loss; and his subjects at Cuzco, proud of the glory
which his arms and his abilities had secured for his native land,
held him in no less admiration; *7 while the more thoughtful and
the more timid, in both countries, looked with apprehension to
the future, when the sceptre of the vast empire, instead of being
swayed by an old and experienced hand, was to be consigned to
rival princes, naturally jealous of one another, and, from their
age, necessarily exposed to the unwholesome influence of crafty
and ambitious counsellors. The people testified their regret by
the unwonted honors paid to the memory of the deceased Inca. His
heart was retained in Quinto, and his body, embalmed after the
fashion of the country, was transported to Cuzco, to take its
place in the great temple of the Sun, by the side of the remains
of his royal ancestors. His obsequies were celebrated with
sanguinary splendor in both the capitals of his far-extended
empire; and several thousand of the imperial concubines, with
numerous pages and officers of the palace, are said to have
proved their sorrow, or their superstition, by offering up their
own lives, that they might accompany their departed lord to the
bright mansions of the Sun. *8.
[Footnote 6: The precise date of this event, though so near the
time of the Conquest, is matter of doubt. Balboa, a contemporary
with the Conquerors, and who wrote at Quito, where the Inca died,
fixes it at 1525. (Hist. du Perou, chap. 14.) Velasco, another
inhabitant of the same place, after an investigation of the
different accounts, comes to the like conclusion. (Hist. de
Quito, tom. I. p. 232.) Dr. Robertson, after telling us that
Huayna Capac died in 1529, speaks again of this event as having
happened in 1527. (Conf. America, vol. III. pp. 25, 381.) Any
one, who has been bewildered by the chronological snarl of the
ancient chronicles, will not be surprised at meeting occasionally
with such inconsistencies in a writer who is obliged to take them
as his guides.]
[Footnote 7: One cannot doubt this monarch's popularity with the
female part of his subjects, at least, if, as the historian of
the Incas tells us, "he was never known to refuse a woman, of
whatever age or degree she might be, any favor that she asked of
him"! Com. Real. Parte 1, lib. 8, cap. 7.]
[Footnote 8: Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 65. - Herrera, Hist.
General dec. 5, lib. 3, cap. 17.]
For nearly five years after the death of Huayna Capac, the royal
brothers reigned, each over his allotted portion of the empire,
without distrust of one another, or, at least, without collision.
It seemed as if the wish of their father was to be completely
realized, and that the two states were to maintain their
respective integrity and independence as much as if they had
never been united into one. But, with the manifold causes for
jealousy and discontent, and the swarms of courtly sycophants,
who would find their account in fomenting these feelings, it was
easy to see that this tranquil state of things could not long
endure. Nor would it have endured so long, bur for the more
gentle temper of Huascar, the only party who had ground for
complaint. He was four or five years older than his brother, and
was possessed of courage not to be doubted; but he was a prince
of a generous and easy nature, and perhaps, if left to himself,
might have acquiesced in an arrangement which, however
unpalatable, was the will of his deified father. But Atahuallpa
was of a different temper. Warlike, ambitious, and daring, he
was constantly engaged in enterprises for the enlargement of his
own territory, though his crafty policy was scrupulous not to aim
at extending his acquisitions in the direction of his royal
brother. His restless spirit, however, excited some alarm at the
court of Cuzco, and Huascar, at length, sent an envoy to
Atahuallpa, to remonstrate with him on his ambitious enterprises,
and to require him to render him homage for his kingdom of Quito.
This is one statement. Other accounts pretend that the immediate
cause of rupture was a claim instituted by Huascar for the
territory of Tumebamba, held by his brother as part of his
patrimonial inheritance. It matters little what was the
ostensible ground of collision between persons placed by
circumstances in so false a position in regard to one another,
that collision must, at some time or other, inevitably occur.
The commencement, and, indeed, the whole course, of hostilities
which soon broke out between the rival brothers are stated with
irreconcilable, and, considering the period was so near to that
of the Spanish invasion, with unaccountable discrepancy. By some
it is said, that, in Atahuallpa's first encounter with the troops
of Cuzco, he was defeated and made prisoner near Tumebamba, a
favorite residence of his father in the ancient territory of
Quito, and in the district of Canaris. From this disaster he
recovered by a fortunate escape from confinement, when, regaining
his capital, he soon found himself at the head of a numerous
army, led by the most able and experienced captains in the
empire. The liberal manners of the young Atahuallpa had endeared
him to the soldiers, with whom, as we have seen, he served more
than one campaign in his father's lifetime. These troops were
the flower of the great army of the Inca, and some of them had
grown gray in his long military career, which had left them at
the north, where they readily transferred their allegiance to the
young sovereign of Quito. They were commanded by two officers of
great consideration, both possessed of large experience in
military affairs, and high in the confidence of the late Inca.
One of them was named Quizquiz; the other, who was the maternal
uncle of Atahuallpa, was called Chalicuchima.
With these practised warriors to guide him, the young monarch put
himself at the head of his martial array, and directed his march
towards the south. He had not advanced farther than Ambato,
about sixty miles distant from his capital, when he fell in with
a numerous host, which had been sent against him by his brother,
under the command of a distinguished chieftain, of the Inca
family. A bloody battle followed, which lasted the greater part
of the day; and the theatre of combat was the skirts of the
mighty Chimborazo. *9
[Footnote 9: Garcilasso denies that anything but insignificant
skirmishes took place before the decisive action fought on the
plains of Cusco, But the Licentiate Sarmiento, who gathered his
accounts of these events, as he tells us, from the actors in
them, walked over the field of battle at Ambato, when the ground
was still covered with the bones of the slain. "Yo he pasado por
este Pueblo y he visto el Lugar donde dicen que esta Batalla se
dio y cierto segun hay la osamenta devienon aun de morir mas
gente de la que cuentan." Relacion, Ms., cap. 69.]
The battle ended favorably for Atahuallpa, and the Peruvians were
routed with great slaughter, and the loss of their commander.
The prince of Quito availed himself of his advantage to push
forward his march until he arrived before the gates of Tumebamba,
which city, as well as the whole district of Canaris, though an
ancient dependency of Quito, had sided with his rival in the
contest. Entering the captive city like a conqueror, he put the
inhabitants to the sword, and razed it with all its stately
edifices, some of which had been reared by his own father, to the
ground. He carried on the same war of extermination, as he
marched through the offending district of Canaris. In some
places, it is said, the women and children came out, with green
branches in their hands, in melancholy procession, to deprecate
his wrath; but the vindictive conqueror, deaf to their
entreaties, laid the country waste with fire and sword, sparing
no man capable of bearing arms who fell into his hands. *10
[Footnote 10: "Cuentan muchos Indios a quien yo lo oi, que por
amansar su ira, mandaron a un escuadron grande de ninos y a otro
de hombres de toda edad, que saliesen hasta las ricas andas donde
venia con gran pompa, llevando en las manos ramos verdes y ojas
de palma, y que le pidiesen la gracia y amistad suya para el
pueblo, sin mirar la injuria pasada, y que en tantos clamores se
lo suplicaron, y con tanta humildad, que bastara quebrantar
corazones de piedra, mas poca impresion hicieron en el cruel de
Atabalipa, porque dicen que mando a sus capitanes y gentes que
matasen a todos aquellos que habian venido, lo cual fue hecho, no
perdonando sino a algunos ninos y a las mugeres sagradas del
Templo." Sarmiento, Relacion Ms. cap. 70.]
The fate of Canaris struck terror into the hearts of his enemies,
and one place after another opened its gates to the victor, who
held on his triumphant march towards the Peruvian capital. His
arms experienced a temporary check before the island of Puna,
whose bold warriors maintained the cause of his brother. After
some days lost before this place, Atahuallpa left the contest to
their old enemies, the people of Tumbez, who had early given in
their adhesion to him, while he resumed his march and advanced as
far as Caxamalca, about seven degrees south. Here he halted with
a detachment of the army, sending forward the main body under the
command of his two generals, with orders to move straight upon
Cuzco. He preferred not to trust himself farther in the enemy's
country, where a defeat might be fatal. By establishing his
quarters at Caxamalca, he would be able to support his generals,
in case of a reverse, or, at worst, to secure his retreat on
Quito, until he was again in condition to renew hostilities.
The two commanders, advancing by rapid marches, at length crossed
the Apurimac river, and arrived within a short distance of the
Peruvian capital. - Meanwhile, Huascar had not been idle. On
receiving tidings of the discomfiture of his army at Ambato, he
made every exertion to raise levies throughout the country. By
the advice, it is said, of his priests - the most incompetent
advisers in times of danger - he chose to await the approach of
the enemy in his own capital; and it was not till the latter had
arrived within a few leagues of Cuzco, that the Inca, taking
counsel of the same ghostly monitors, sallied forth to give him
battle.
The two armies met on the plains of Quipaypan, in the
neighbourhood of the Indian metropolis. Their numbers are stated
with the usual discrepancy; but Atahuallpa's troops had
considerably the advantage in discipline and experience, for many
of Huascar's levies had been drawn hastily together from the
surrounding country. Both fought, however, with the desperation
of men who felt that everything was at stake. It was no longer a
contest for a province, but for the possession of an empire.
Atahuallpa's troops, flushed with recent success, fought with the
confidence of those who relied on their superior prowess; while
the loyal vassals of the Inca displayed all the self-devotion of
men who held their own lives cheap in the service of their
master.
The fight raged with the greatest obstinacy from sunrise to
sunset; and the ground was covered with heaps of the dying and
the dead, whose bones lay bleaching on the battle-field long
after the conquest by the Spaniards. At length, fortune declared
in favor of Atahuallpa; or rather, the usual result of superior
discipline and military practice followed. The ranks of the Inca
were thrown into irretrievable disorder, and gave way in all
directions. The conquerors followed close on the heels of the
flying. Huascar himself, among the latter, endeavoured to make
his escape with about a thousand men who remained round his
person. But the royal fugitive was discovered before he had left
the field; his little party was enveloped by clouds of the enemy,
and nearly every one of the devoted band perished in defence of
their Inca. Huascar was made prisoner, and the victorious chiefs
marched at once on his capital, which they occupied in the name
of their sovereign. *11
[Footnote 11: Cieza de Leon, Cronica, cap. 77. - Oviedo, Hist. de
las Indias, Ms., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 9. - Xerez, Conq. del
Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p. 202. - Zarate. Conq. del Peru,
lib. 1, cap. 12. - Sarmiento, Relacion, Ms., cap. 70. - Pedro
Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
These events occurred in the spring of 1532, a few months before
the landing of the Spaniards. The tidings of the success of his
arms and the capture of his unfortunate brother reached
Atahuallpa at Caxamalca. He instantly gave orders that Huascar
should be treated with the respect due to his rank, but that he
should be removed to the strong fortress of Xauxa, and held there
in strict confinement. His orders did not stop here, - if we are
to receive the accounts of Garcilasso de la Vega, himself of the
Inca race, and by his mother's side nephew of the great Huayna
Capac.
According to this authority, Atahuallpa invited the Inca nobles
throughout the country to assemble at Cuzco, in order to
deliberate on the best means of partitioning the empire between
him and his brother. When they had met in the capital, they were
surrounded by the soldiery of Quito, and butchered without mercy.
The motive for this perfidious act was to exterminate the whole
of the royal family, who might each one of them show a better
title to the crown than the illegitimate Atahuallpa. But the
massacre did not end here. The illegitimate offspring, like
himself, half-brothers of the monster, ali, in short, who had any
of the Inca blood in their veins, were involved in it; and with
an appetite for carnage unparalleled in the annals of the Roman
Empire or of the French Republic, Atahuallpa ordered all the
females of the blood royal, his aunts, nieces, and cousins, to be
put to death, and that, too, with the most refined and lingering
tortures. To give greater zest to his revenge, many of the
executions took place in the presence of Huascar himself, who was
thus compelled to witness the butchery of his own wives and
sisters, while, in the extremity of anguish, they in vain called
on him to protect them! *12
[Footnote 12: Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 9, cap. 35 -
39.
"A las Mugeres, Hermanas, Tias, Sobrinas, Primas Hermanas, y
Madrastras de Atahuallpa, colgavan de los Arboles, y de muchas
Horcas mui altas que hicieron: a unas colgaron de los cabellos, a
otras por debajo de los bracos, y a otras de otras maneras feas,
que por la honestidad se callan: davanles sus hijuelos, que los
tuviesen en bracos, tenianlos hasta que se les caian, y se
aporreavan" (Ibid., cap. 37.) The variety of torture shows some
invention in the writer, or, more probably, in the writer's
uncle, the ancient Inca, the raconteur of these Blue beard
butcheries.]
Such is the tale told by the historian of the Incas, and received
by him, as he assures us, from his mother and uncle, who, being
children at the time, were so fortunate as to be among the few
that escaped the massacre of their house. *13 And such is the
account repeated by many a Castilian writer since, without any
symptom of distrust. But a tissue of unprovoked atrocities like
these is too repugnant to the principles of human nature, - and,
indeed, to common sense, to warrant our belief in them on
ordinary testimony.
[Footnote 13: "Las crueldades, que Atahuallpa en los de la Sangre
Real hico, dire de Relacion de mi Madre, y de un Hermano suio,
que se llamo Don Fernando Huallpa Tupac Inca Yupanqui, que
entonces eran Ninos de menos de diez Anos." Ibid., Parte 1, lib.
9, cap. 14.]
The annals of semi-civilized nations unhappily show that there
have been instances of similar attempts to extinguish the whole
of a noxious race, which had become the object of a tyrant's
jealousy; though such an attempt is about as chimerical as it
would be to extirpate any particular species of plant, the seeds
of which had been borne on every wind over the country. But, if
the attempt to exterminate the Inca race was actually made by
Atahuallpa, how comes it that so many of the pure descendants of
the blood royal - nearly six hundred in number - are admitted by
the historian to have been in existence seventy years after the
imputed massacre? *14 Why was the massacre, instead of being
limited to the legitimate members of the royal stock, who could
show a better title to the crown than the usurper, extended to
all, however remotely, or in whatever way, connected with the
race? Why were aged women and young maidens involved in the
proscription, and why were they subjected to such refined and
superfluous tortures, when it is obvious that beings so impotent
could have done nothing to provoke the jealousy of the tyrant?
Why, when so many were sacrificed from some vague apprehension of
distant danger, was his rival Huascar, together with his younger
brother Manco Capac, the two men from whom the conqueror had most
to fear, suffered to live? Why, in short, is the wonderful tale
not recorded by others before the time of Garcilasso, and nearer
by half a century to the events themselves? *15
[Footnote 14: This appears from a petition for certain
immunities, forwarded to Spain in 1603, and signed by five
hundred and sixty-seven Indians of the royal Inca race. (Ibid.,
Parte 3, lib. 9, cap. 40.) Oviedo says that Huayna Capac left a
hundred sons and daughters, and that most of them were alive at
the time of his writing. "Tubo cien hijos y hijas, y la mayor
parte de ellos son vivos." Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3,
lib. 8, cap. 9.]
[Footnote 15: I have looked in vain for some confirmation of this
story in Oviedo, Sarmiento, Xerez, Cieza de Leon, Zarate, Pedro
Pizarro, Gomara, - all living at the time, and having access to
the best sources of information; and all, it may be added,
disposed to do stern justice to the evil qualities of the Indian
monarch.]
That Atahuallpa may have been guilty of excesses, and abused the
rights of conquest by some gratuitous acts of cruelty, may be
readily believed; for no one, who calls to mind his treatment of
the Canaris, - which his own apologists do not affect to deny,
*16 - will doubt that he had a full measure of the vindictive
temper which belongs to
'Those souls of fire, and Children of the Sun,
With whom revenge was virtue."
But there is a wide difference between this and the monstrous and
most unprovoked atrocities imputed to him; implying a diabolical
nature not to be admitted on the evidence of an Indian partisan,
the sworn foe of his house, and repeated by Castilian
chroniclers, who may naturally seek, by blazoning the enormities
of Atahuallpa, to find some apology for the cruelty of their
countrymen towards him.
[Footnote 16: No one of the apologists of Atahuallpa goes quite
so far as Father Velasco, who, in the over-flowings of his
loyalty for a Quito monarch, regards his massacre of the Canares
as a very fair retribution for their offences. "Si les auteurs
dont je viens de parler sietaient trouves dans les memes
circonstances qu'Atahuallpa et avaient eprouve autant d'offenses
graves et de trahisons, je ne croirai jamais qu'ils eussent agi
autrement"! Hist. de Quito, tom. I p. 253.]
The news of the great victory was borne on the wings of the wind
to Caxamalca; and loud and long was the rejoicing, not only in
the camp of Atahuallpa, but in the town and surrounding country;
for all now came in, eager to offer their congratulations to the
victor, and do him homage. The prince of Quito no longer
hesitated to assume the scarlet borla, the diadem of the Incas.
His triumph was complete. He had beaten his enemies on their own
ground; had taken their capital; had set his foot on the neck of
his rival, and won for himself the ancient sceptre of the
Children of the Sun. But the hour of triumph was destined to be
that of his deepest humiliation. Atahuallpa was not one of those
to whom, in the language of the Grecian bard, "the Gods are
willing to reveal themselves." *17 He had not read the
handwriting on the heavens. The small speck, which the
clear-sighted eye of his father had discerned on the distant
verge of the horizon, though little noticed by Atahuallpa, intent
on the deadly strife with his brother, had now risen high towards
the zenith, spreading wider and wider, till it wrapped the skies
in darkness, and was ready to burst in thunders on the devoted
nation.
[Footnote 17: v. 161.]