Sketches of the Manners, Customs, and History of the Indians of America.
CHAPTER V.
Peru discovered by Francisco Pizarro.—He invites the Inca to visit him.—Description of the Inca.—Rejects the Bible.—Treacherously seized by Pizarro.—The Inca proposes to ransom himself.—The ransom brought.—Pizarro seizes the gold, then murders the Inca.—Conquers Peru.
When the Spaniards first discovered the Pacific, Peru was a mighty empire. It extended from north to south more than 2000 miles. Cuzco, the capital city, was filled with great buildings, palaces, and temples, which last were ornamented, or covered, rather, with pure gold. The improvements of civilized life were far advanced; agriculture was the employment of the quiet villagers; in the cities manufactures flourished; and science and literature were in a course of improvement which would, doubtless, have resulted in the discovery of letters.
Their government was a regular hereditary monarchy; but the despotism of the emperor was restricted by known codes of law. They had splendid public roads. That from Cuzco to Quito extended a distance of 1500 miles or more. It passed over mountains, through marshes, across deserts. Along this route, at intervals, were large stone buildings, like the caravanseras of the East, large enough to contain thousands of people. In some instances these caravanseras were furnished with the means of repairing the equipments and arms of the troops or travellers.
Such was the ancient empire of Peru, when Francisco Pizarro, an obscure Spanish adventurer, with an army of only sixty-two horsemen and a hundred or two foot-soldiers, determined to invade it. He, like all the other Spaniards who went out to South America, was thirsting to obtain gold. These men, miscalled Christians, gave up their hearts and souls to the worship of mammon, and they committed every horrible crime to obtain riches. But the Christian who now cheats his neighbor in a quiet way-of-trade manner, to obtain wealth—is he better than those Spaniards? I fear not. Had he the temptation and the opportunity, he would do as they did.
At the time Pizarro invaded Peru, there was a civil war raging between Atahualpa, the reigning monarch, or Inca, as he was called, and his brother Huascar. These brothers were so engaged in their strife, that Pizarro had marched into the country without being opposed, and entered the city of Caxamala on the 15th of November, 1532. Here the army of the Inca met the Spaniards. Pizarro was sensible he could not contend with such a multitude, all well armed and disciplined, so he determined by craft to get possession of the person of the Inca.
He sent to invite the Inca to sup with him in the city of Caxamala, and promised then to give an account of his reasons for coming to Peru. The simple-hearted Inca believed the Spaniards were children of the sun. Now the Inca worshiped the sun, and thought he himself had descended from that bright luminary. He was very anxious, therefore, to see the Spaniards, and could not believe they meant to injure him; so he consented to visit Pizarro.
Atahualpa took with him twenty thousand warriors, and these were attended by a multitude of women as bearers of the luggage, when he set out to visit the Spaniards. The person of the sovereign was one blaze of jewels. He was borne on a litter plated with gold, overshadowed with plumes, and carried on the shoulders of his chief nobles. On his forehead he had the sacred tuft of scarlet, which he wore as the descendant of the sun. The whole moved to the sound of music, with the solemnity of a religious procession.
The Inca putting the Bible to his ear.
When the Inca entered the fatal gates from which he was never to return, his curiosity was his chief emotion. Forgetting the habitual Oriental gravity of the throne, he started up, and continued standing as he passed along, gazing with eagerness at every surrounding object. A friar, named Valverde, now approached, bearing a cross and a Bible. The friar commenced his harangue by declaring that the pope had given the Indies to Spain; that the Inca was bound to obey; that the book he carried contained the only true mode of worshiping Heaven.
“Where am I to find your religion?” said the Inca.
“In this book,” replied the friar.
The Inca declared that whatever might be the peaceful intentions of the Spaniards, “he well knew how they had acted on the road, how they had treated his caciques, and burned his cottages.” He then took the Bible, and turning over some of the leaves, put it eagerly to his ear.
“This book,” said he, “has no tongue; it tells me nothing.” With these words he flung it contemptuously on the ground.
The friar exclaimed at the impiety, and called on his countrymen for revenge. The Inca spoke a few words to his people, which were answered by murmurs of indignation. At this moment Pizarro gave the signal to his troops: a general discharge of cannon, musketry, and crossbows followed, and smote down the unfortunate Peruvians. The cavalry were let loose, and they broke through the Inca’s guard at the first shock. Pizarro rushed forward at the head of a chosen company of shield-bearers, to seize the Inca.
Pizarro seizing the Inca.
That sovereign was surrounded by a circle of his high officers and devoted servants. They never moved except to throw themselves upon the Spanish swords. They saw that their prince was doomed, and they gave themselves up to his fate. The circle rapidly thinned, and the Inca would soon have been slain, had not Pizarro called to his soldiers to forbear. He wished to take the Inca alive, that he might extort gold from him for his ransom.
Pizarro, therefore, rushed forward, and, seizing the Inca by the mantle, dragged him to the ground. The Peruvians, seeing his fall in the midst of the Spanish lances, thought he was slain, and instantly gave up the battle. In the force of their despair they burst through one of the walls and fled over the open country. More than two thousand were left dead within the gates, while not a single Spaniard had been killed. It was a murder rather than a battle.
The Spaniards proceeded to plunder the camp of the Inca, and he, seeing their passion for gold, offered to purchase his ransom. He offered to cover the floor of the chamber where he was confined with wedges of gold and silver. The Spaniards laughed at this, as they conceived, impossible proposal. The Inca thought they despised the small sum he had offered, and starting to his feet, he haughtily stretched his arm as high as he could reach, and told them he would give them that chamber full to the mark he then touched with his hand. The chamber was twenty-two feet long, sixteen wide, and the point he touched on the wall was nine feet high.
Pizarro accepted the proposal, and sent messengers to Cuzco to obtain the ransom. These brought back twenty-six horse loads of gold, and a thousand pounds’ weight of silver. The generals of the Inca also brought additional treasures of gold and silver vessels, and the room was filled. Pizarro grasped the treasure, and divided it among his troops, after deducting one fifth for the king, and taking a large share for himself.
Pizarro had promised to set the Inca at liberty; but it is probable he never intended it. After he had, in the name of the Inca, drawn all the gold he could from the country, he barbarously murdered the poor Indian chief!
There is a tradition that the fate of the Inca was hastened by the following circumstance. One of the soldiers on guard over him, wrote the name of God on the thumb nail of the Inca, explaining to him at the same time the meaning of the word. The Inca showed it to the first Spaniard who entered. The man read it. The Inca was delighted; and Pizarro appearing at the moment, the important nail was presented to him. But Pizarro could not read! the conqueror of Peru could not write his name; and the Inca manifested such contempt towards him for this ignorance, that Pizarro resolved he should not live.
After the Inca’s death, another long and bloody war, or, rather, ravage, commenced. The Spaniards finally took Cuzco, the royal city, plundered the temples, and desolated the land, till the Peruvians, in despair, submitted to their chains, and became the slaves of the Spaniards.
Since that time the Spanish power has always governed Peru, till the revolution in 1823, when the colonists threw off the yoke of the mother country. But, in justice to the kings of Spain, it should be remembered that they have frequently made laws to protect their Indian subjects in South America. Still the poor natives were often, indeed always, cruelly oppressed by the colonists. But now the spirit of liberality and improvement is ameliorating the condition of all the laboring classes in the independent Republic of Peru, and the Indians are entitled to the privileges of free citizens.
CHAPTER VI.
Indian tradition.—Manco Capac.—His reign.—Religion.—Property.—Agriculture.—Buildings.—Public roads.—Manufactures.—Domestic animals.—Results of the conquest of the country by the Spaniards.
The Peruvians have a tradition that the city of Cuzco was founded in this manner. The early inhabitants of the country were ignorant, and brutal as the wild beasts of the forest, till a man and woman of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments, appeared among them. They declared themselves to be children of the sun, sent to instruct and to reclaim the human race. They persuaded the savages to conform to the laws they proposed, united them, the Indians, together in a society, and taught them to build the city.
Manco Capac was the name of this wonderful man; the woman was called Marna Ocollo. Though they were the children of the sun, it seems they had been brought up very industriously; for Manco Capac taught the Indians agriculture, and other useful arts; and Marna Ocollo taught the women to spin and weave, and make feather garments.
After the people had been taught to work, and had built houses and cultivated fields, and so on, Manco Capac introduced such laws and usages as were calculated to perpetuate the good habits of the people. And thus, according to the Indian tradition, was founded the empire of the Incas.
The territory was, at first, small; but it was gradually enlarged by conquering the neighboring tribes,—merely, however, to do good by extending the blessings of their laws and arts to the barbarians,—till the dominions of the Inca Atahualpa, the twelfth in succession, extended from north to south along the Pacific Ocean above 2000 miles; its breadth from east to west was from the ocean to the Andes. The empire had continued four hundred years.
The most singular and striking circumstance in the Peruvian government, was the influence of religion upon its genius and its laws. The whole civil policy was founded on religion. The Inca appeared not only as a legislator, but as the messenger of heaven. His precepts were received as the mandates of the Deity. Any violation of his laws was punished with death; but the people were so impressed with the power and sacred character of their ruler that they seldom ventured to disobey.
Manco Capac taught the Peruvians to worship the sun, as the great source of light, of joy, and fertility. The moon and stars were entitled to secondary honors. They offered to the sun a part of those productions which his genial warmth had called forth from the bosom of the earth, and his beams had ripened. They sacrificed some of the animals which were indebted to his influence for nourishment. They presented to him choice specimens of those works of ingenuity which his light had guided the hand of man in forming. But the Incas never stained the altar of the sun with human blood.
Thus the Peruvians were formed, by the spirit of the religion which they had adopted, till they possessed a national character more gentle than that of any other people in America.
The state of property in Peru was no less singular than that of religion, and contributed, likewise, towards giving a mild turn of character to the people. All the lands capable of cultivation, were divided into three shares. One was consecrated to the sun, and the product of it was applied to the erection of the temples, and furnishing what was requisite towards celebrating the public rites of religion.
The second share belonged to the Inca, or was set apart as the provision made by the community for the support of government. The third and largest share was reserved for the maintenance of the people, among whom it was parcelled out. All such lands were cultivated by the joint industry of the community.
A state thus constituted may be considered like one great family, in which the union of the members was so complete, and the exchange of good offices so perceptible, as to create stronger attachment between man and man than subsisted under any other form of society in the new world. The Peruvians were advanced far beyond any of the nations in America, both in the necessary arts of life, and in such as have some title to be called elegant.
Agriculture was carried on by the Peruvians with a good deal of skill. They had artificial canals to water their fields; and to this day the Spaniards have preserved and use some of the canals made in the days of the Incas. They had no plough, but turned up the earth with a kind of mattock of hard wood. The men labored in the fields with the women, thus showing the advance of civilization over the rude tribes which imposed all the drudgery upon females.
The superior ingenuity of the Peruvians was also obvious in their houses and public buildings. In the extensive plains along the Pacific Ocean, where the sky is always serene and the climate mild, the houses were, of course, very slight fabrics. But in the higher regions, where rain falls and the rigor of the changing seasons is felt, houses were constructed with great solidity. They were generally of a square form, the walls about eight feet high, built of bricks hardened in the sun, without any windows, and the door strait and low. Many of these houses are still to be seen in Peru.
But it was in the temples consecrated to the sun, and in the buildings intended for the residence of their monarchs, that the Peruvians displayed the utmost extent of their art. The temple of Pachacmac, together with a palace of the Inca and a fortress, were so connected together as to form one great structure, nearly two miles in circuit.
Still this wide structure was not a very lofty affair. The Indians, being unacquainted with the use of the pulley and other mechanical powers, could not elevate the large stones and bricks which they employed in building; and the walls of this, their grandest edifice, did not rise above twelve feet from the ground. There was not a single window in any part of the building. The light was only admitted by the doors; and the largest apartments must have been illuminated by some other means.
The noblest and most useful works of the Incas, were their public roads. They had two, from Cuzco to Quito, extending, uninterruptedly, above fifteen hundred miles. These roads were not, to be sure, equal to our modern turnpikes; but at the time Peru was discovered there were no public roads in any kingdom of Europe that could be compared to the great roads of the Incas.
The Peruvians had, likewise, made considerable advances in manufactures and the arts which may be called elegant. They made cloth, and they could refine silver and gold. They manufactured earthen ware; and they had some curious instruments formed of copper, which had been made so hard as to answer the purposes of iron. This metal they had not discovered. If they had only understood the working of iron and steel as well as they did that of gold and silver, they would have been a much richer and more civilized people.
The Peruvians had tamed the duck and the llama, and rendered them domestic animals. The llama is somewhat larger than the sheep, and in appearance resembles a camel. The Indians manufactured its wool into cloth; its flesh they used for food; moreover, the animal was employed as a beast of burden, and would carry a moderate load with much patience and docility. The aid of domestic animals is essential to the improvement and civilization of human society.
In short, the Peruvians, when contrasted with the naked, indolent, and ignorant inhabitants of the West Indian Islands, seem to have been a comfortable, ingenious, and respectable nation. The conquest of their country destroyed their system of government. They were made not merely to pay tribute to their new rulers, but, far worse, they were reduced to the condition of slaves. They were compelled to leave the pleasant fields they used to cultivate, and driven in crowds to the mountains in search of gold. They were forced to labor hard, and allowed only a scanty subsistence; till, heart-broken and despairing of any change for the better, they sunk under their calamities and died!
An Indian girl feeding a duck. Llama carrying a burden on its back.
In a few years after Pizarro entered Cuzco, a great part of the ancient population of Peru had been swept away, destroyed by the avarice and cruelty of their conquerors.