The Spanish Pioneers

by Charles Fletcher Lummis

VII.

ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH.

But in the midst of their happiness at this realization of their golden dreams,—and we may half imagine how they felt, after a life of poverty and great suffering, at now finding themselves rich men,—the Spaniards were rudely interrupted by less pleasant realities. The plots of the Indians, always suspected, now seemed unmistakable. News of an uprising came in from every hand. It was reported that two hundred thousand warriors from Quito and thirty thousand of the cannibal Caribs were on their way to fall upon the little Spanish force. Such rumors are always exaggerated; but this was probably founded on fact. Nothing else was to be expected by any one even half so familiar with the Indian character as the Spaniards were. At all events, our judgment of what followed must be guided not merely by what was true, but even more by what the Spaniards believed to be true. They had reason to believe, and there can be no question whatever that they did believe, that Atahualpa's machinations were bringing a vastly superior force down upon them, and that they were in imminent peril of their lives. Their newly acquired wealth only made them the more nervous. It is a curious but common phase of human nature that we do not realize half so much the many hidden dangers to our lives until we have acquired something which makes life seem better worth the living. One may often see how a fearless man suddenly becomes cautious, and even laughably fearful, when he gets a dear wife or child to think of and protect; and I doubt if any stirring boy has come to twenty years without suddenly being reminded, by the possession of some little treasure, how many things might happen to rob him of the chance to enjoy it. He sees and feels dangers that he had never thought of before.

The Spaniards certainly had cause enough to be alarmed for their lives, without any other consideration; but the sudden treasure which gave those lives such promise of new and hard-earned brightness undoubtedly made their apprehensions more acute, and spurred them to more desperate efforts to escape.

There is not the remotest evidence of any sort that Pizarro ever meditated any treachery to Atahualpa; and there is very strong circumstantial evidence to the contrary. But now his followers began to demand what seemed necessary for their protection. Atahualpa, they believed, had betrayed them. He had caused the murder of his brother Huascar, who was disposed to make friends with them, for the sake of being put by this alliance above the power of his merciless rival. He had baited them with a golden ransom, and by delaying it had gained time to have his forces organized to crush the Spaniards,—and now they demanded that he must not only be punished, but be put past further plotting. Their logic was unanswerable by any one in the same circumstances; nor can I now bring myself to quarrel with it. Not only did they believe their accusation just,—it probably was just; at all events, they acted justly by the light they had. So serious was the alarm that the guards were doubled, the horses were kept constantly under saddle and bridle, and the men slept on their arms; while Pizarro in person went the rounds every night to see that everything was ready to meet the attack, which was expected to take place at any moment.

Yet in this crisis the Spanish leader showed a manly unwillingness even to seem treacherous. He was a man of his word, as well as a humane man; and it was hard for him to break his promise to set Atahualpa free, even when he was fully absolved by Atahualpa's own utter violation of the spirit of the contract. But it was impossible to withstand the demands of his followers; he was responsible for their lives as well as his own, and when it came to a question between them and Atahualpa there could be but one decision. Pizarro opposed, but the army insisted, and at last he had to yield. Yet even then, when the enemy might come at any moment, he insisted upon a full and formal trial for his prisoner, and saw that it was given. The court found Atahualpa proven guilty of causing his brother's murder, and of conspiring against the Spaniards, and condemned him to be executed that very night. If there were any delay, the Indian army might arrive in time to rescue their war-captain, and that would greatly increase the odds against the Spaniards. That night, therefore, in the plaza of Caxamarca, Atahualpa was executed by the garrote; and the next day he was buried from the Church of St. Francis with the highest honors.

Again the Peruvians were taken by surprise, this time by the death of Atahualpa. Without the direction of their war-captain and the hope of rescuing him, they found themselves hesitating at a direct attack upon the Spaniards. They stayed at a safe distance, burning villages and hiding gold and other articles which might "give comfort to the enemy;" and upon the whole, though the immediate danger had been averted by the execution of the war-captain, the outlook was still extremely ominous. Pizarro, who did not understand the Peruvian titles better than some of our own historians have done, and in hope of bringing about a more peaceful feeling, appointed Toparca, another son of Huayna Capac, to be war-captain; but this appointment did not have the desired effect.

It was now decided to undertake the long and arduous march to Cuzco, the home and chief town of the Inca tribe, of which they had heard such golden stories. Early in September, 1533, Pizarro and his army—now swelled by Almagro's force to some four hundred men—set out from Caxamarca. It was a journey of great difficulty and danger. The narrow, steep trails led along dizzy cliffs, across bridges almost as difficult to walk as a hammock would be, and up rocky heights where there were only foot-holes for the agile llama. At Xauxa a great number of Indians were drawn up to oppose them, intrenched on the farther side of a freshet-swollen stream. But the Spaniards dashed through the torrent, and fell upon the savages so vigorously that they presently gave way.

In this pretty valley Pizarro had a notion to found a colony; and here he made a brief halt, sending De Soto ahead with a scouting-party of sixty men. De Soto began to find ominous signs at once. Villages had been burned and bridges destroyed, so that the crossing of those awful quebradas was most difficult. Wherever possible, too, the road had been blocked with logs and rocks, so that the passage of the cavalry was greatly impeded. Near Bilcas he had a sharp brush with the Indians; and though the Spaniards were victorious, they lost several men. De Soto, however, resolutely pushed on. Just as the wearied little troop was toiling up the steep and winding defile of the Vilcaconga, the wild whoop of the Indians rang out, and a host of warriors sprang from their hiding-places behind rock and tree, and fell with fury upon the Spaniards. The trail was steep and narrow, the horses could barely keep their footing; and under the crash of this dusky avalanche rider and horse went rolling down the steep. The Indians fairly swarmed upon the Spaniards like bees, trying to drag the soldiers from their saddles, even clinging desperately to the horses' legs, and dealing blows with agile strength. Farther up the rocky pathway was a level space; and De Soto saw that unless he could gain this, all was lost. By a supreme effort of muscle and will, he brought his little band to the top against such heavy odds; and after a brief rest, he made a charge upon the Indians, but could not break that grim, dark mass. Night came on, and the worn and bleeding Spaniards—for few men or horses had escaped without wounds from that desperate mêlée, and several of both had been killed—rested as best they might with weapons in their hands. The Indians were fully confident of finishing them on the morrow, and the Spaniards themselves had little room for hope to the contrary. But far in the night they suddenly heard Spanish bugles in the pass below, and a little later were embracing their unexpected countrymen, and thanking God for their deliverance. Pizarro, learning of the earlier dangers of their march, had hurriedly despatched Almagro with a considerable force of cavalry to help De Soto; and the reinforcement by forced marches arrived just in the nick of time. The Peruvians, seeing in the morning that the enemy was reinforced, pressed the fight no further, and retreated into the mountains. The Spaniards, moving on to a securer place, camped to await Pizarro.

He soon came up, having left the treasure at Xauxa, with forty men to guard it. But he was greatly troubled by the aspect of affairs. These organized and audacious attacks by the enemy, and the sudden death of Toparca under suspicious circumstances, led him to believe that Chalicuchima, the second war-captain, was acting treacherously,—as he very probably was. After rejoining Almagro, Pizarro had Chalicuchima tried; and being found guilty of treason, he was promptly executed. We cannot help being horrified at the manner of the execution, which was by fire; but we must not be too hasty in calling the responsible individual a cruel man for all that. All such things must be measured by comparison, and by the general spirit of the age. The world did not then deem the stake a cruelty; and more than a hundred years later, when the world was much more enlightened, Christians in England and France and New England saw no harm in that sort of an execution for certain offences,—and surely we shall not say that our Puritan forefathers were wicked and cruel men. They hanged witches and whipped infidels, not from cruelty, but from the blind superstition of their time. It seems a hideous thing now, but it was not thought so then; and we must not expect that Pizarro should be wiser and better than the men who had so many advantages that he had not. I certainly wish that he had not allowed Chalicuchima to be burned; but I also wish that the shocking pages of Salem and slavery could be blotted from our own story. In neither case, however, would I brand Pizarro as a monster, nor the Puritans as a cruel people.