_The Invasion of Peru._
The Kingdom of Peru.--Its Metropolis.--The Desperate
Condition of Pizarro.--Arrival of De Soto.--Character of the
Spaniards.--Exploring tour of De Soto.--The Colony at San
Miguel.--The General Advance.--Second Exploration of De
Soto.--Infamous Conduct of the Pizarros.
The kingdom of Peru, skirting the western coast of South America,
between the majestic peaks of the Andes and the mirrored waters of the
Pacific Ocean, was one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
This kingdom, diversified with every variety of scenery, both of the
sublime and the beautiful, and enjoying a delicious climate, was about
eighteen hundred miles in length and one hundred and fifty in breadth.
The natives had attained a high degree of civilization. Though
gunpowder, steel armor, war horses, and bloodhounds gave the barbarian
Spaniards the supremacy on fields of blood, the leading men, among the
Peruvians, seem to have been in intelligence, humanity and every
virtue, far superior to the savage leaders of the Spaniards, who so
ruthlessly invaded their peaceful realms.
The metropolis of the empire was the city of Cuzo, which was situated
in a soft and luxuriant valley traversing some table-lands which were
about twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea. The government
of the country was an absolute monarchy. But its sovereign, called the
Inca, seems to have been truly a good man, the father of his people;
wisely and successfully seeking their welfare. The Peruvians had
attained a degree of excellence in many of the arts unsurpassed by the
Spaniards. Their houses were generally built of stone; their massive
temples, though devoid of architectural beauty, were constructed of
hewn blocks of granite, so admirably joined together that the seams
could be with difficulty discerned.
Humbolt found, among the ruins of these temples, blocks of hewn stone
thirty-six feet long, nine feet wide, and six feet in thickness. Their
great highways, spanning the gulfs, clinging to the precipitous cliffs
and climbing the mountains, were wonderful works of mechanical skill.
De Soto was thoroughly acquainted with the cruel, faithless, and
treacherous character of Pizarro. A stigma must ever rest upon his
name, for consenting to enter into any expedition under the leadership
of such a man. It may however be said, in reply, that he had no
intention of obeying Pizarro in any thing that was wrong; that his
love of adventure was roused by the desire to explore one of the most
magnificent empires in the New World, which rumor had invested with
wealth and splendor surpassing the dreams of romance. And perhaps,
most important of all, he hoped _honestly_ to be able to gather from
the fabled mines of gold, with which Peru was said to be filled, that
wealth with which he would be enabled to return to Spain and claim the
hand, as he had already won the heart, of the fair and faithful
Isabella.
Pizarro had entered upon his enterprise with an army of one hundred
and eighty men, twenty-seven of whom were mounted. It seems to be the
uncontradicted testimony of contemporary historians, that this army
was composed of as worthless a set of vagabonds as ever disgraced
humanity. There was no crime or cruelty from which these fiends in
human form would recoil.
Pizarro, following down the western coast of South America five or six
hundred miles, had reached the island of Puna, in the extreme northern
part of Peru. It was separated from the mainland by a narrow strait.
The inhabitants received him cordially, but the murders, rapine and
other nameless atrocities, perpetrated by the Spaniards upon the
friendly natives, soon so aroused their resentment that a conspiracy
was formed for the entire extermination of the invaders. The
expedition had become so weakened and demoralized that even Pizarro
saw that it would be the height of imprudence for him to venture, with
his vile crew, upon the mainland, before reinforcements under some
degree of military discipline should arrive. He was in this precarious
condition, and on the eve of extermination, when De Soto and his
select and well-ordered troops reached the island.
They came in two vessels, bringing with them an abundant supply of
arms and ammunition. The party consisted of fifty men, thoroughly
equipped. Thirty of them were steel-clad cavaliers, well mounted. De
Soto had been offered the rank of second in command. But when he
arrived at Puna, he found that Pizarro's brother--Hernando--occupied
this post, and that he had no intention of relinquishing it. De Soto
reproached Pizarro in very plain terms for this wrong and insult. He
however did not allow it long to trouble him. Surrounded by his own
brave and devoted followers, he felt quite independent of the
authority of Pizarro, and had no intention of obeying him any farther
than might be in accordance with his own wishes.
On the other hand, Pizarro had but little confidence in his brother,
and was fully conscious that the success of his enterprise would be
mainly dependent upon the energy and skill of De Soto.
Pizarro, now finding himself at the head of really a formidable force,
prepared to pass over to the mainland. There was quite a large town
there called Tumbez, surrounded by a rich and densely populated
country. The Peruvians had gold in abundance, and weapons and utensils
of copper. With iron and steel, they were entirely unacquainted. As
when fighting at a distance, the bullet of the Spaniard was
immeasurably superior to the arrow of the native, so in a hand to hand
fight, the keen and glittering sabre of steel, especially in the hands
of steel-clad cavaliers left the poorly armed Peruvians almost
entirely at their mercy.
Arrangements were made to cross the strait and make a descent upon
Tumbez. Pizarro had already visited the place, where he had been
kindly received by the inhabitants, and where he had seen with his own
eyes that the houses and temples were decorated with golden ornaments,
often massive in weight, and of almost priceless value. He floated his
little band across the narrow strait on rafts.
The inhabitants of Tumbez and its vicinity had been disposed to
receive their Spanish visitors as guests, and to treat them with the
utmost courtesy and kindness. But the tidings had reached them of the
terrible outrages which they had inflicted upon the inhabitants of
Puna. They therefore attacked the Spaniards as they approached the
shore on their rafts and endeavored to prevent their landing. But the
invaders, with musketry and a cannon which they had with them,
speedily drove off their assailants, and with horses and hounds
planted their banners upon the shore. They then marched directly upon
Tumbez, confident of gathering, from the decorations of her palaces
and her temples, abounding wealth. Bitter was their disappointment.
The Peruvians, conscious of their probable inability to resist the
invaders, had generally abandoned the city, carrying with them, far
away into the mountains, all their treasures.
The Spaniards, who had entered the city with hideous yells of triumph,
being thus frustrated in the main object of their expedition, found,
by inquiry, that at the distance of several leagues easterly from the
sea-coast, among the pleasant valleys of the mountains, there were
populous cities, where abundance of booty might be found.
The whole number of Spaniards, then invading Peru, did not exceed two
hundred and fifty. The Peruvians were daily becoming more deeply
exasperated. With such a number of men, and no fortified base to fall
back upon, Pizarro did not deem it safe to enter upon a plundering
tour into the interior. Keeping therefore about one hundred and
thirty men with him, and strongly fortifying himself at Tumbez, he
sent De Soto, at the head of eighty men, sixty of whom were mounted,
back into the mountains, to search for gold, and to report respecting
the condition of the country, in preparation for future expeditions.
The bad fame of Pizarro was spreading far and wide. And though De Soto
enjoined it strictly upon his men, not to be guilty of any act of
injustice, still he was an invading Spaniard, and the Peruvians
regarded them all as the shepherd regards the wolf. De Soto had passed
but a few leagues from the seashore, ere he entered upon the hilly
country. As he was ascending one of the gentle eminences, a band of
two thousand Indians, who had met there to arrest his progress, rushed
down upon him. His sixty horsemen instantly formed in column and
impetuously charged into their crowded ranks. These Peruvians had
never seen a horse before. Their arrows glanced harmless from the
impenetrable armor, and they were mercilessly cut down and trampled
beneath iron hoofs. The Spaniards galloped through and through their
ranks, strewing the ground with the dead. The carnage was of short
duration. The panic-stricken Peruvians fled wherever there was a
possibility of escape. The trumpets of the conquerors pealed forth
their triumphant strains. The silken banners waved proudly in the
breeze, and the victors exultingly continued their march through one
of the defiles of the mountains.
Whatever excuses De Soto may make for himself, humanity will never
forgive him for the carnage of that day. Having thus fairly embarked
upon this enterprise, where he was surely gaining military renown,
infamous as it was, and where there was the prospect before him of
plunder of incalculable worth, De Soto seems to have assumed to act
upon his own responsibility, and to have paid very little regard to
the authority of Pizarro, whom he had left behind. He had already
penetrated the country much farther than he had been authorized to do
by the orders of his superior. One of the men, whom Pizarro had sent
with him, very probably as a spy upon his movements, deserted, and
returned to Tumbez with the report that De Soto was already
practically in revolt, and had renounced all dependence on Pizarro.
For this alleged insubordination, Pizarro did not venture to call his
energetic lieutenant to account.
In the mean time, Pizarro was exploring the country in the vicinity of
Tumbez, for the site of the colony he wished to establish. He selected
a position about ninety miles south of that city, in a rich and
well-watered valley which opened upon the placid surface of the
Pacific. His troops were transported to the spot by the two vessels.
Here he laid the foundations of a town, which he called San Miguel.
With timber from the mountains, and stone from the quarries, and the
labor of a large number of natives, who were driven to daily toil,
not as servants, by the stimulus of well-paid labor, but as slaves,
goaded by the sabres of their task masters, quite a large and
strongly-fortified town rapidly arose.
De Soto continued his explorations in the interior for some time, and
discovered a very magnificent highway, leading to the capital of the
empire. It was smoothly paved with flat blocks of stone, or with
cement harder than stone. He returned to San Miguel with the report of
his discoveries, and quite richly laden with the gold which he had
received as a present from the natives, or which he had seized as what
he considered the lawful spoils of war. The sight of the gold inspired
all the Spaniards at San Miguel with the intense desire to press
forward into a field which promised so rich a harvest.
It was ascertained that the Inca had command of an army of over fifty
thousand men. Pizarro, leaving sixty men in garrison at San Miguel,
set out with one hundred and ninety men to visit the Inca in his
capital. De Soto accompanied him. It was not ostensibly a military
expedition, seeking the conquest of the country, or moving with any
hostile intent whatever. De Soto had a conscience; Pizarro had none.
Whatever reproaches might arise in the mind of De Soto in reference to
the course he was pursuing, he silenced them by the very plausible
assumption that he was an ambassador from the king of Spain,
commissioned to make a friendly visit to the monarch of another
newly-discovered empire; that he was the messenger of peace seeking to
unite the two kingdoms in friendly relations with each other for their
mutual benefit. This was probably the real feeling of De Soto. The
expedition was commissioned by the king of Spain. The armed retinue
was only such as became the ambassadors of a great monarch. Such an
expedition was in every respect desirable. The fault--perhaps we ought
in candor to say the calamity--of De Soto was in allowing himself to
be attached to an expedition under a man so thoroughly reckless and
unprincipled as he knew Pizarro to have been. Perhaps he hoped to
control the actions of his ignorant and fanatic superior officer. It
is quite manifest that De Soto did exert a very powerful influence in
giving shape to the expedition.
An Indian courier was sent forward to Cuzco, one of the capitals of
the Peruvian monarch, with a friendly and almost an obsequious message
to the Inca, whose name was Attahuallapa. The courier bore the
communication that Pizarro was an ambassador commissioned by the king
of Spain to visit the king of Peru, and to kiss his hand in token of
peace and fraternity. He therefore solicited that protection in
passing through the country which every monarch is bound to render to
the representatives of a foreign and friendly power.
Pizarro, as it will be remembered, was a rough and illiterate soldier,
unable either to read or write. In this sagacious diplomatic
arrangement, we undoubtedly see the movement of De Soto's reflective
and cultivated mind. The expedition moved slowly along, awaiting the
return of the courier. He soon came back with a very indefinite
response, and with a present of two curiously carved stone cups, and
some perfumery. The guarded reply and the meagre present excited some
alarm in the Spanish camp. It was very evident that the expedition was
not to anticipate a very cordial reception at the Peruvian court.
Pizarro was much alarmed. He was quite confident that the Inca was
trying to lure them on to their ruin. Having called a council of war,
he urged that they should proceed no farther until he had sent some
faithful Indian spies to ascertain the intentions of Attahuallapa.
But De Soto, whose youthful energies were inspired by love and
ambition, was eager to press forward.
"It is not necessary," said he, "for the Inca to use treachery with
us. He could easily overpower us with numbers were he so disposed. We
have also heard that he is a just and merciful prince; and the
courtesy he has already shown us, is some token at least of his good
will. But why should we hesitate? We have no longer any choice but to
go forward. If we now retreat, it will prove our professions to be
false; and when the suspicions of the Inca are once aroused, we shall
find it impossible to escape from his country."
Pizarro's brother--Hernando--was a man of ignoble birth, of ruffianly
manners, of low and brutal character. Tauntingly he inquired of De
Soto, if he were ready to give proof of his confidence in the faith of
the Peruvian monarch, by going forward to his court, as an envoy from
the embassy.
De Soto turned his keen and flashing eye upon the man, whom he
despised, and said in slow and measured words:
"Don Hernando, I may yet convince you that it is neither civil nor
safe to call my sincerity in question. I have as much confidence in
the honor of the Inca as I have in the integrity of any man in this
company, not excepting the commander or yourself. I perceive that you
are disposed to go backward. You may all return, when and how you
please, or remain where you are. But I have made up my mind to present
myself to Attahuallapa. And I shall certainly do so, without asking
the assistance or permission of any of your party."
This was certainly a very defiant speech. It asserted his entire
rejection of the authority of Pizarro. De Soto could not have dared
thus to have spoken, unless he had felt strong in the support of his
own dragoons.
Hernando Pizarro was silent, indulging only in a malignant smile. It
was not safe for him to provoke De Soto to a personal rencontre.
Francisco Pizarro smothered his chagrin and very adroitly availed
himself of this statement, to commission De Soto to take twenty-four
horsemen, such as he might select, and accompanied by an Indian guide
called Filipillo, go forward to the Peruvian court.
Both of the Pizarros seemed quite relieved when the sound of the
departing squadron of brave cavaliers died away in the distance. De
Soto, during the whole of his adventurous life, seems to have been
entirely unconscious of the emotion of fear. During his residence in
the camp of the Pizarros, he had exerted a powerful restraint upon
their ferocious natures. He had very earnestly endeavored to impress
their minds with the conviction that they could not pass through the
populous empire of Peru, or even remain in it, if their followers were
allowed to trample upon the rights of the natives. So earnestly and
persistently did he urge these views, that Pizarro at length
acknowledged their truth, and in the presence of De Soto, commanded
his men to abstain from every act of aggression.
But now that De Soto was gone, the Pizarros and their rabble rout of
vagabonds breathed more freely. Scarcely had the plumed helmets of the
cavaliers disappeared in the distance, when Hernando Pizarro set out
on a plundering expedition into the villages of the Peruvians. The
natives fled in terror before the Spaniards. Pizarro caught one of the
leading men and questioned him very closely respecting the designs of
Attahuallapa. The captive honestly and earnestly declared, that he
knew nothing about the plans of his sovereign.
This demoniac Hernando endeavored to extort a confession from him by
torture. He tied his victim to a tree, enveloped his feet in cotton
thoroughly saturated with oil and applied the torch. The wretched
sufferer in unendurable agony, said "yes" to anything and everything.
Two days after, it was proved that he could not have known anything
respecting the intended operations of the Inca. It is a satisfaction
to one's sense of justice to remember that there is a God who will not
allow such crimes to go unpunished.
De Soto, with his bold cavaliers, pressed rapidly on towards the
Peruvian camp. Very carefully he guarded against every act of
hostility or injustice. Everywhere the natives were treated with the
utmost courtesy. In the rapid advance of the Spaniards through the
country, crowds flocked to the highway attracted by the novel
spectacle. And a wonderful spectacle it must have been! These
cavaliers, with their nodding plumes, their burnished armor, their
gleaming sabres, their silken banners, mounted on magnificent war
horses and rushing along over the hills and through the valleys in
meteoric splendor, must have presented an aspect more imposing to
their minds than we can well imagine.
De Soto, who had not his superior as a horseman in the Spanish army,
was mounted on a milk white steed of extraordinary size and grace of
figure, and wore a complete suit of the most costly and showy armor.
It is said that on one occasion his path was crossed by a brook twenty
feet wide. The noble animal disdained to wade through, but cleared it
at a single bound.
The crowds who lined the highways seemed to understand and appreciate
the friendly feelings De Soto manifested in gracefully bowing to them
and smiling as he passed along. He soon ascertained, though his guide
Filipillo, that the headquarters of the Peruvian camp was at a place
now called Caxamarca, among the mountains, about eighty miles
northeast of the present seaport of Truxillo.
After a rapid ride of about six hours, the expedition approached quite
a flourishing little town called Caxas. Several hundred Peruvian
soldiers were drawn up in battle array in the outskirts, to arrest the
progress of the Spaniards. De Soto halted his dragoons, and sent
forward Filipillo to assure the commandant that he was traversing the
country not with any hostile intent, and that he bore a friendly
message from his own sovereign to the king of Peru.
The kindly disposed Peruvians immediately laid aside their arms,
welcomed the strangers, and entertained them with a sumptuous feast.
Thus refreshed, they pressed on several leagues farther, until they
reached a much larger city called Guancabama. From all the accounts
given it would seem that the inhabitants of this region had reached a
degree of civilization, so far as the comforts of life are concerned,
fully equal to that then to be found in Spain. This city was on the
magnificent highway which traversed fifteen hundred miles through the
very heart of the empire. The houses, which were built of hewn stone,
admirably jointed, consisted of several rooms, and were distinguished
for cleanliness, order, and domestic comfort.
The men seemed intelligent, the women modest, and various arts of
industry occupied their time. De Soto testified that the great highway
which passed through this place far surpassed in grandeur and utility
any public work which had ever been attempted in Spain. Happy and
prosperous as were the Peruvians, compared with the inhabitants of
most other countries, it is quite evident that the ravages of the Fall
were not unknown there.
Just before entering the town, De Soto passed a high gibbet upon which
three malefactors were hung in chains, swaying in the breeze. That
revolting spectacle revealed the sad truth that in Peru, as well as
elsewhere, man's fallen nature developed itself in crime and woe. The
Emperor had also a large standing army, and the country had just been
ravaged by the horrors of civil war.
De Soto was kindly received at Guancabama. Just as he was about to
leave for Caxamarca, an envoy from the Inca reached the city on its
way to the Spanish camp. The ambassador was a man of high rank.
Several servants accompanied him, laden with presents for Pizarro. He
entreated De Soto to return with him to the headquarters of the
Spaniards. As these presents and this embassy would probably convince
Pizarro of the friendly feeling of the Peruvian monarch, De Soto
judged it wise to comply with his request. Thus he turned back, and
the united party soon reached Pizarro's encampment.