"parties" were set side by side--one signing boldly _Yo la Reina_ ("I
the Queen"), and the other following with "Francisco [X] Pizarro, his
mark"--was the basis of Pizarro's fortunes. The man who had been sneered
at and neglected by narrow minds that had constantly hindered his one
great hope, now had won the interest and support of his sovereigns and
their promise of a magnificent reward,--of which latter we may be sure a
man of his calibre thought less than of the chance to realize his dream
of discovery. Followers he had to bait with golden hopes; and for that
matter it was but natural and right that after more than fifty years of
poverty and deprivation he should also think somewhat of comfort and
wealth for himself. But no man ever did or ever will do from mere
sordidness such a feat as Pizarro's. Such successes can be won only by
higher minds with higher aims; and it is certain that Pizarro's chief
ambition was for a nobler and more enduring thing than gold.
[Illustration: Autograph of Francisco Pizarro.]
The contract with the Crown gave to Francisco Pizarro the right to find
and make a Spanish empire of the country of New Castile, which was the
name given to Peru. He had leave "to explore, conquer, pacify, and
colonize" the land from Santiago to a point two hundred leagues south;
and of this vast and unknown new province he was to be governor and
captain-general,--the highest military rank. He was also to bear the
titles of adelantado and alguacil-mayor for life, with a salary of
seven hundred and twenty-five thousand _maravedis_ (about $2,000) a
year. Almagro was to be commander of Tumbez, with an annual rental of
three hundred thousand _maravedis_ and the rank of hidalgo. Good Father
Luque was made Bishop of Tumbez and Protector of the Indians, with one
thousand ducats a year. Ruiz was made Grand Pilot of the South Seas;
Candia, commander of the artillery; and the eleven others who had stood
so bravely by Pizarro on the lonely isle were all made hidalgos.
In return, Pizarro was required to pledge himself to observe the noble
Spanish laws for the government, protection, and education of the
Indians, and to take with him priests expressly to convert the savages
to Christianity. He was also to raise a force of two hundred and fifty
men in six months, and equip them well, the Crown giving a little help;
and within six months after reaching Panama, he must get his expedition
started for Peru. He was also invested with the Order of Santiago; and
thus suddenly raised to the proud knighthood of Spain he was allowed to
add the royal arms to those of the Pizarros, with other emblems
commemorative of his exploits,--an Indian town, with a vessel in the
bay, and the little camel of Peru. This was a startling and significant
array of honors, hard to be comprehended by those used only to
republican institutions. It swept away forever the disgrace of Pizarro's
birth, and gave him an unsullied place among the noblest. It is doubly
important in that it shows that the Spanish Crown thus recognized the
rank of Pizarro in American conquest. Cortez never earned and never
received such distinction.
This division of the honors led to very serious trouble. Almagro never
forgave Pizarro for coming out a greater man than he, and charged him
with selfishly and treacherously seeking the best for himself. Some
historians have sided with Almagro; but we have every reason to believe
that Pizarro acted straightforwardly and with truth. As he explained, he
made every effort to induce the Crown to give equal honors to Almagro;
but the Crown refused. Pizarro's word aside, it was merely political
common-sense for the Crown to refuse such a request. Two leaders
anywhere are a danger; and Spain already had had too bitter experience
with this same thing in America to care to repeat it. It was willing to
give all honor and encouragement to the arms; but there must be only one
head, and that head, of course, could be none but Pizarro. And certainly
any one who looks at the mental and moral difference between the two
men, and what were their actions and results both before and after the
royal grant, will concede that the Spanish Crown made a most liberal
estimate for Almagro, and gave him certainly quite as much as he was
worth. In the whole contract there is circumstantial evidence that
Pizarro did his best in behalf of his associate,--the ungrateful and
afterward traitorous Almagro,--an evidence mightily corroborated by
Pizarro's long patience and clemency toward his vulgar, ignoble, and
constantly deteriorating comrade. Pizarro had the head that fate could
not turn. He was neither crushed by adversity, nor, rarer yet, spoiled
by the most dazzling success,--wherein he rose superior to the greater
genius, but less noble man, Napoleon. When raised from lifelong, abject
poverty to the highest pinnacle of wealth and fame, Pizarro remained the
same quiet, modest, God-fearing and God-thanking, prudent, heroic man.
Success only intensified Almagro's base nature, and his end was
ignominious.
Having secured his contract with the Crown, Pizarro felt a longing to
see the scenes of his boyhood. Unhappy as they had been, there was a
manly satisfaction in going back to look upon these places. So the
ragged boy who had left his pigs at Truxillo, came back now a knighted
hero with gray hair and undying fame. I do not believe it was for the
sake of vain display before those who might remember him. That was
nowhere in the nature of Pizarro. He never exhibited vanity or pride. He
was of the same broad, modest, noble gauge as gallant Crook, the
greatest and best of our Indian conquerors, who was never so content as
when he could move about among his troops without a mark in dress or
manner to show that he was a major-general of the United States army
rather than some poor scout or hunter. No; it was the man in him that
took Pizarro back to Truxillo,--or perhaps a touch of the boy that is
always left in such great hearts. Of course the people were glad to
honor the hero of such a fairy tale as his sober story makes; but I am
sure that the brilliant general was glad to escape sometimes from the
visitors, and get out among the hillsides where he had driven his pigs
so many years before, and see the same old trees and brooklets, and
even, no doubt, the same ragged, ignorant boy still herding the noisy
porkers. He might well have pinched himself to see if he were really
awake; whether that were not the real Francisco Pizarro over yonder,
still in his rags tending the same old swine, and this gray, famous,
travelled, honored knight only a dream like the years between them. And
he was the very man who, finding himself awake, would have gone over to
the ragged herder and sat down beside him upon the sward with a gentle
_Como lo va, amigo?_--"How goes it, friend?" And when the wondering and
frightened lad stammered or tried to run away from the first great
personage that had ever spoken to him, Pizarro would talk so kindly and
of such wonderful things that the poor herder would look upon him with
that hero-worship which is one of the purest and most helpful impulses
in all our nature, and wonder if he too might not sometime be somewhat
like this splendid, quiet man who said, "Yes, my boy, I used to herd
pigs right here." The more I think of it, from what we know of Pizarro,
the surer I am that he really did look up the old pastures and the swine
and their ignorant keepers, and talked with them simply and gently, and
left in them the resolve to try for better things.
[Illustration: Autograph of Hernando Pizarro.]
[Illustration: Autograph of Juan Pizarro.]
But the interest which everywhere centred upon Pizarro did not bring in
recruits to his banner as fast as could be desired. Most people would
much rather admire the hero than become heroes at the cost of similar
suffering. Among those who joined him were his brothers, Hernando,
Gonzalo, and Juan, who were to figure prominently in the New World,
though until now they had never been heard of. Hernando, the eldest of
brothers, was the only legitimate son, and was much better educated. But
he was also the worst; and being without the strict principles of
Francisco made a sorry mark in the end. Juan was a sympathetic figure,
and distinguished himself by his great manliness and courage before he
came to an untimely end. Gonzalo was a genuine knight-errant, fearless,
generous, and chivalric, beloved alike in the New World by the soldiers
he led and the Indians he conquered. He made one of the most incredible
marches in all history, and would have won a great name, probably, had
not the death of his guide-brother Francisco thrown him into the power
of evil counsellors like the scoundrel Carabajal and others, who led and
pushed him to ruin. But while none of the brothers were wicked men, nor
cowards, nor fools, there was none like Francisco. He was one of the
rare types of whom but a few have been scattered, far apart, up and down
the world's path. He had not only the qualities which make heroes and
which are very common, fortunately for us, but with them the insight and
the unfaltering aim of genius. Less than Napoleon in insight, because
less learned, fully as great in resolve and greater in principle, he was
one of the prominent men of all time.
But the six months were up, and he still lacked something of the
necessary two hundred and fifty recruits. The Council was about to
inspect his expedition, and Pizarro, fearing that the strict letter of
the law might now prevent the consummation of his great plans just for
the want of a few men, and growing desperate at the thought of further
delay, waited no longer for official leave, but slipped his cable and
put to sea secretly in January, 1530. It was not exactly the handsomest
course to take, but he felt that too much was at stake to be risked on a
mere technicality, and that he was keeping the spirit if not the letter
of the law. The Crown evidently looked upon the matter in the same
light, for he was neither brought back nor punished. After a tedious
voyage he got safely to Santa Marta. Here his new soldiers were aghast
at hearing of the great snakes and alligators to be encountered, and a
considerable number of the weaker spirits deserted. Almagro, too, began
an uproar, declaring that Pizarro had robbed him of his rightful honors;
but De Luque and Espinosa pacified the quarrel, helped by the generous
spirit of Pizarro. He agreed to make Almagro the adelantado, and to ask
the Crown to confirm the appointment. He also promised to provide for
him before he did for his own brothers.
Early in January, 1531, Francisco Pizarro sailed from Panama on his
third and last voyage to the south. He had in his three vessels one
hundred and eighty men and twenty-seven horses. That was not an imposing
army, truly, to explore and conquer a great country; but it was all he
could get, and Pizarro was bound to try. He made the real conquest of
Peru with a handful of rough heroes; indeed, he would certainly have
tried, and very possibly would have succeeded in the vast undertaking,
if he had had but fifty soldiers; for it was very much more the one man
who conquered Peru than his one hundred and eighty followers. Almagro
was again left behind at Panama to try to drum up recruits.
Pizarro intended to sail straight to Tumbez, and there effect his
landing; but storms beat back the weak ships, so that he was obliged to
change his plan. After thirteen days he landed in the Bay of San Mateo
(St. Matthew), and led his men by land, while the vessels coasted along
southward. It was an enormously difficult tramp on that inhospitable
shore, and the men could scarcely stagger on. But Pizarro acted as
guide, and cheered them up by words and example. It was the old story
with him. Everywhere he had fairly to _carry_ his company. Their legs
no doubt were as strong as his, though he must have had a very wonderful
constitution; but there is a mental muscle which is harder and more
enduring, and has held up many a tottering body,--the muscle of pluck.
And that pluck of Pizarro was never surpassed on earth. You might almost
say it had to carry his army pick-a-back.
Wild as the region was, it had some mineral wealth. Pizarro collected
(so Pedro Pizarro[25] says) two hundred thousand _castellanos_ (each
weighing a dollar) of gold. This he sent back to Panama by his vessels
to speak for him. _It_ was the kind of argument the rude adventurers on
the Isthmus could understand, and he trusted to its yellow logic to
bring him recruits. But while the vessels had gone on this important
errand, the little army, trudging down the coast, was suffering greatly.
The deep sands, the tropic heat, the weight of their arms and armor were
almost unendurable. A strange and horrible pestilence broke out, and
many perished. The country grew more forbidding, and again the suffering
soldiers lost hope. At Puerto Viejo they were joined by thirty men under
Sebastian de Belalcazar, who afterward distinguished himself in a brave
chase of that golden butterfly which so many pursued to their death, and
none ever captured,--the myth of the Dorado.
Pushing on, Pizarro finally crossed to the island of Puna, to rest his
gaunt men, and get them in trim for the conquest. The Indians of the
island attempted treachery; and when their ringleaders were captured and
punished, the whole swarm of savages fell desperately on the Spanish
camp. It was a most unequal contest; but at last courage and discipline
prevailed over mere brute force, and the Indians were routed. Many
Spaniards were wounded, and among them Hernando Pizarro, who got an ugly
javelin-wound in the leg. But the Indians gave them no rest, and were
constantly harassing them, cutting off stragglers, and keeping the camp
in endless alarm. Then fortunately came a reinforcement of one hundred
men with a few horses, under command of Hernando de Soto, the heroic but
unfortunate man who later explored the Mississippi.
Thus strengthened, Pizarro crossed back to the mainland on rafts. The
Indians disputed his passage, killed three men on one raft, and cut off
another raft, whose soldiers were overpowered. Hernando Pizarro had
already landed; and though a dangerous mud-flat lay between, he spurred
his floundering horse through belly-deep mire, with a few companions,
and rescued the imperilled men.
Entering Tumbez, the Spaniards found the pretty town stripped and
deserted. Alonso de Molina and his companion had disappeared, and their
fate was never learned. Pizarro left a small force there, and in May,
1532, marched inland, sending De Soto with a small detachment to scout
the base of the giant Andes. From his very first landing, Pizarro
enforced the strictest discipline. His soldiers must treat the Indians
well, under the severest penalties. They must not even enter an Indian
dwelling; and if they dared disobey this command they were sternly
punished. It was a liberal and gentle policy toward the Indians which
Pizarro adopted at the very start, and maintained inflexibly.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS, CAXAMARCA.
_See page 268._]
After three or four weeks spent in exploring, Pizarro picked out a site
in the valley of Tangara, and founded there the town of San Miguel (St.
Michael). He built a church, storehouse, hall of justice, fort and
dwellings, and organized a government. The gold they had collected he
sent back to Panama, and waited several weeks hoping for recruits. But
none came, and it was evident that he must give up the conquest of Peru,
or undertake it with the handful of men he already had. It did not take
a Pizarro long to choose between such alternatives. Leaving fifty
soldiers under Antonio Navarro to garrison San Miguel, and with strict
laws for the protection of the Indians, Pizarro marched Sept. 24, 1532,
toward the vast and unknown interior.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] A Spanish historian of the sixteenth century, a relative of
Francisco Pizarro.
IV.
PERU AS IT WAS.
Now that we have followed Pizarro to Peru, and he is about to conquer
the wonderful land to find which he has gone through such unparalleled
discouragements and sufferings, we must stop for a moment to get an
understanding of the country. This is the more necessary because such
false and foolish tales of "the Empire of Peru" and "the reign of the
Incas," and all that sort of trash, have been so widely circulated. To
comprehend the Conquest at all, we must understand what there was to
conquer; and that makes it necessary that I should sketch in a few words
the picture of Peru that was so long accepted on the authority of
grotesquely mistaken historians, and also Peru as it really was, and as
more scholarly history has fully proved it to have been.
We were told that Peru was a great, rich, populous, civilized empire,
ruled by a long line of kings who were called Incas; that it had
dynasties and noblemen, throne and crown and court; that its kings
conquered vast territories, and civilized their conquered savage
neighbors by wonderful laws and schools and other tools of the highest
political economy; that they had military roads finer than those built
by the Romans, and a thousand miles in length, with wonderful pavement
and bridges; that this wonderful race believed in one Supreme Being;
that the king and all of the royal blood were immeasurably above the
common people, but mild, just, paternal, and enlightened; that there
were royal palaces everywhere; that they had canals four or five hundred
miles long, and county fairs, and theatrical representations of tragedy
and comedy; that they carved emeralds with bronze tools the making of
which is now a lost art; that the government took the census, and had
the populace educated; and that while the policy of the remarkable
aborigines of Mexico was the policy of hate, that of the Inca kings was
the policy of love and mildness. Above all, we were told much of the
long line of Inca monarchs, the royal family, whose last great king,
Huayna Capac, had died not a great while before the coming of the
Spaniards. He was represented as dividing the throne between his sons
Atahualpa and Huascar, who soon quarrelled and began a wicked and
merciless fratricidal war with armies and other civilized arrangements.
Then, we were told, came Pizarro and took advantage of this unfraternal
war, arrayed one brother against the other, and thus was enabled at last
to conquer the empire.
All this, with a thousand other things as ridiculous, as untrue, and as
impossible, is part of one of the most fascinating but misleading
historical romances ever written. It never could have been written if
the beautiful and accurate science of ethnology had then been known. The
whole idea of Peru so long prevalent was based upon utter ignorance of
the country, and, above all, of Indians everywhere. For you must
remember that these wonderful beings, whose pictured government puts to
shame any civilized nation now on earth, were _nothing but Indians_. I
do not mean that Indians are not men, with all the emotions and feelings
and rights of men,--rights which I only wish we had protected with as
honorable care as Spain did. But the North and South American Indians
are very like each other in their social, religious, and political
organization, and very unlike us. The Peruvians had indeed advanced
somewhat further than any other Indians in America, but they were still
Indians. They had no adequate idea of a Supreme Being, but worshipped a
bewildering multitude of gods and idols. There was no king, no throne,
no dynasty, no royal blood, nor anything else royal. Anything of that
sort was even more impossible among the Indians than it would be now in
our own republic. There was not, and could not be, even a nation. Indian
life is essentially tribal. Not only can there be no king nor anything
resembling a king, but there is no such thing as heredity,--except as
something to be guarded against. The chief (and there cannot be even one
supreme chief) cannot hand down his authority to his son, nor to any one
else. The successor is elected by the council of officials who have such
things in charge. Where there are no kings there can be no
palaces,--and there were neither in Peru. As for fairs and schools and
all those things, they were as untrue as impossible. There was no court,
nor crown, nor nobility, nor census, nor theatres, nor anything remotely
suggesting any of them; and as for the Incas, they were not kings nor
even rulers, but _a tribe of Indians_. They were the only Indians in the
Americas who had the smelter; and that enabled them to make rude gold
and silver ornaments and images; so their country was the richest in the
New World, and they certainly had a remarkable though barbaric splendor.
The temples of their blind gods were bright with gold, and the Indians
wore precious metals in profusion, just as our own Navajos and Pueblos
in New Mexico and Arizona wear pounds and pounds of silver ornaments
to-day. They made bronze tools too, some of which had a very good
temper; but it was not an art, only an accident. Two of those tools were
never found of the same alloy; the Indian smith simply guessed at it,
and had to throw away many a tool for every one he accidentally made.
The Incas were one of the Peruvian tribes, at first weak and sadly
mauled about by their neighbors. At last, driven from their old home,
they stumbled upon a valley which was a natural fortress. Here they
built their town of Cuzco,--for they built towns as did our Pueblos, but
better. Then when they had fortified the two or three passes by which
alone that pocket in the Andes can be reached, they were safe. Their
neighbors could no longer get in to kill and rob them. In time they
grew to be numerous and confident, and like all other Indians (and some
white peoples) at once began to sally out to kill and rob their
neighbors. In this they succeeded very well, because they had a safe
place to retreat to; and, above all, because they had their little
camels, and could carry food enough to be gone long from home. They had
domesticated the llama, which none of the neighbor tribes, except the
Aymaros, had done; and this gave the Incas an enormous advantage. They
could steal out from their safe valley in a large force, with provisions
for a month or more, and surprise some village. If they were beaten off,
they merely skulked in the mountains, living by their pack-train,
constantly harassing and cutting off the villagers until the latter were
simply worn out. We see what the little camel did for the Incas: it
enabled them to make war in a manner no other Indians in America had
then ever used. With this advantage and in this manner this warrior
tribe had made what might be called a "conquest" over an enormous
country. The tribes found it cheaper at last to yield, and pay the Incas
to let them alone. The robbers built storehouses in each place, and put
there an official to receive the tribute exacted from the conquered
tribe. These tribes were never assimilated. They could not enter Cuzco,
nor did Incas come to live among them. It was not a nation, but a
country of Indian tribes held down together by fear of the one stronger
tribe.
The organization of the Incas was, broadly speaking, the same as that of
any other Indian tribe. The most prominent official in such a tribe of
land-pirates was naturally the official who had charge of the business
of fighting,--the war-captain. He was the commander in war; but in the
other branches of government he was far from being the only or the
highest man! And that is simply what Huayna Capac and all the other
fabulous Inca kings were,--Indian war-captains of the same influence as
several Indian war-captains I know in New Mexico.
Huayna Capac's sons were also Indian war-captains, and nothing
more,--moreover, war-captains of different tribes, rivals and enemies.
Atahualpa moved down from Quito with his savage warriors, and had
several fights, and finally captured Huascar and shut him up in the
Indian fort at Xauxa.[26]