The Columbiad: A Poem

by Joel Barlow

These are the outlines of a government the most simple and energetic, and at least as capable as any monarchy within our knowledge of reducing great and populous countries under one jurisdiction; at the same time, accommodating its principle of action to every stage of improvement, by a singular and happy application to the passions of the human mind, it encouraged the advancement of knowledge without being endangered by success.

In the traits of character which distinguish this institution we may discern all the great principles of each of the legislators above mentioned. The pretensions of Capac to divine authority were as artfully contrived and as effectual in their consequences as those of Mahomet; his exploding the worship of evil beings and objects of terror, forbidding human sacrifices and accommodating the rites of worship to a god of justice and benevolence, produced a greater change in the national character of his people than the laws of Moses did in his; like Peter he provided for the future improvement of society, while his actions were never measured on the contracted scale which limited the genius of Lycurgus.

Thus far we find that altho the political system of Capac did not embrace that extensive scope of human nature which is necessary in forming republican institutions, and which can be drawn only from long and well recorded experience of the passions and tendencies of social man, yet it must be pronounced at least equal to those of the most celebrated monarchical law-givers, whether ancient or modern. But in some things his mind seems to have attained an elevation with which few of theirs will bear a comparison; I mean in his religious institutions, and the exalted ideas he had formed of the agency and attributes of supernatural beings.

From what source he could have drawn these ideas it is difficult to form a satisfactory conjecture. The worship of the sun is so natural to an early state of society, in a mild climate with a clear atmosphere, that it may be as reasonable to suppose it would originate in Peru as in Egypt or Persia; where we find that a similar worship did originate and was wrought into a splendid system; whence it was probably extended, with various modifications, over most of the ancient world.

Or if we reject this theory, and suppose that only one nation, from some circumstance peculiar to itself, could create the materials of such a system, and has consequently had the privilege of giving its religion to the human race; we may in this case imagine that the Phenicians (who colonized Cadiz and other places in the west of Europe, at the time when they possessed the solar worship in all its glory) must have had a vessel driven across the Atlantic; and thus conveyed a stock of inhabitants, with their own religious ideas, to the western continent.

The first theory is doubtless the most plausible. And the mild regions of Peru, for the reasons mentioned in a former note, became, like Egypt, the seat of an institution so congenial to its climate. But in more boisterous climates, where storms and other violent agents prevail, many different fables have wrought themselves into the system, as remarked in the same note; and the solar religion in such countries has generally lost its name and the more beneficent parts of its influence. Being thus corrupted, religion in almost every part of the earth assumed a gloomy and sanguinary character.

Savage nations create their gods from such materials as they have at hand, the most striking to their senses. And these are in general an assemblage of destructive attributes. They usually form no idea of a general superintending providence; they consider not their god as the author of their beings, the creator of the world and the dispenser of the happiness they enjoy; they discern him not in the usual course of nature, in the sunshine and in the shower, the productions of the earth and the blessing of society; they find a deity only in the storm, the earthquake and the whirlwind, or ascribe to him the evils of pestilence and famine; they consider him as interposing in wrath to change the course of nature and exercise the attributes of rage and revenge. They adore him with rites suited to these attributes, with horror, with penance and with sacrifice; they imagine him pleased with the severity of their mortifications, with the oblations of blood and the cries of human victims; and they hope to compound for greater judgments by voluntary sufferings and horrid sacrifices, suited to the relish of his taste.

Perhaps no single criterion can be given which will determine more accurately the state of society in any age or nation than their general ideas concerning the nature and attributes of deity. In the most enlightened periods of antiquity, only a few of their philosophers, a Socrates, Tully or Confucius, ever formed a rational idea on the subject, or described a god of purity, justice and benevolence. But Capac, erecting his institutions in a country where the visible agents of nature inspired more satisfactory feelings, adopted a milder system. As the sun, with its undisturbed influence, seemed to point itself out as the supreme controller and vital principle of nature, he formed the idea, as the Egyptians had done before, of constituting that luminary the chief object of adoration. He taught the nation to consider the sun as the parent of the universe, the god of order and regularity; ascribing to his influence the rotation of the seasons, the productions of the earth and the blessings of health; especially attributing to his inspiration the wisdom of their laws, and that happy constitution which was the delight and veneration of the people.

A system so just and benevolent, as might be expected, was attended with success. In about four centuries the dominion of the Incas had extended fifteen hundred miles in length, and had introduced peace and prosperity thro the whole region. The arts of society had been carried to a considerable degree of improvement, and the authority of the Incan race universally acknowledged, when an event happened which disturbed the tranquillity of the empire. Huana Capac, the twelfth monarch, had reduced the powerful kingdom of Quito and annexed it to his dominions. To conciliate the affections of his new subjects, he married a daughter of the ancient king of Quito, who was not of the race of Incas. Thus, by violating a fundamental law of the empire, he left at his death a disputed succession to the throne. Atabalipa, the son of Huana by the heiress of Quito, being in possession of the principal force of the Peruvian armies, left at that place on the death of his father, gave battle to his brother Huascar, who was the elder son of Huana by a lawful wife, and legal heir to the crown.

After a long and destructive civil war the former was victorious; and thus was that flourishing kingdom left a prey to regal dissensions and to the few soldiers of Pizarro, who happened at that juncture to make a descent upon the coast. In this manner he effected an easy conquest and an utter destruction of a numerous, brave, unfortunate people.