The old and the new Peru

by Marie Robinson Wright

THE ANDENES, OR ARTIFICIAL TERRACES, CULTIVATED UNDER THE INCAS.

When Pizarro arrived in Panamá, he found the governor not at all disposed to help him; but, with the aid of his faithful comrades, Almagro and Father Luque, he was provided with funds to go to Spain and plead his cause with the king, it being understood that if he succeeded in getting the royal authorization and protection, he would secure the office of Adelantado for Almagro and that of Bishop of Tumbes for Father Luque. Pizarro was well received at the Court of Spain, where Cortés had recently arrived to present the empire of Mexico to his royal master. The Council of the Indies, which had charge of all matters relating to Spain’s possessions in the New World, gave him a grant authorizing him to make discoveries and conquests in Peru for two hundred leagues southward from the river Santiago, near the northern border of the present republic of Ecuador. Pizarro received the rank and titles of Governor and Captain-general of the province, and the offices of Adelantado and Chief Magistrate for life with a large salary; he was also made a Knight of Santiago and was given permission to use his father’s coat-of-arms with symbols of his own conquest added. Upon his return to Panamá, he tried to explain to Almagro the reason why he had accepted all the high offices for himself, but his comrade found it hard to forgive what he considered an injury done to him by a friend he had trusted, and an estrangement followed, which was never overcome, especially as Pizarro’s brothers, Hernando and Gonzalo, who accompanied him back from Spain, did everything to widen the breach.

SEATS CUT IN SOLID STONE, AT KENKO, NEAR CUZCO.

In January, 1531, Pizarro and his followers embarked again for Peru. Before leaving Panamá, the banners of the company and the royal standard of Spain were consecrated in the Cathedral, mass was performed, and the sacrament was administered to every soldier. The expedition consisted of only two hundred men and twenty-seven horses, a small force for so ambitious an undertaking; but the courageous adventurer had come to believe so thoroughly in the destiny which held in store for him the glory of conquering that great kingdom, of whose extent and riches he had already been permitted the first glimpse, that no power on earth could have discouraged him in his enterprise; he was full of eager enthusiasm when his ships sailed out of the harbor, bound for Tumbes, which he considered the gateway to the Peruvian empire. On his way, he made brief landings at various points, including the island of Puná in the Guayaquil River, a few leagues north of the port of Tumbes on the southern shore of the Gulf of Guayaquil. At Puná the soldiers of Spain won a hard-fought battle over the fierce natives, during which, the Spanish chronicler says: “St. Michael was seen to vanquish Satan in mid-air.” Here the expedition awaited reinforcements, which soon afterward arrived in two ships commanded by Hernando de Soto, and consisted of a hundred volunteers as well as a number of cavalry horses; with this added force, Pizarro proceeded southward to Tumbes, though he found that recently flourishing city entirely depopulated and demolished—by their enemies of Puná it was said—and he was obliged to look for another site for his colony. He sent De Soto with troops to explore the foothills of the Andes while he himself marched southward along the plain for about thirty leagues, until he came to a rich valley watered by several streams, which offered such advantages for settlement that he sent for his troops to come on from Tumbes; here he founded the first Spanish colony in Peru, calling it San Miguel in honor of his victory at Puná; the settlement was removed later to the banks of the Piura River, where the foundation of the present flourishing city of Piura took place. During his march, Pizarro had passed thriving Indian settlements, had been hospitably entertained by the natives and had learned that the great ruler, in whose dominions he was travelling, was at that moment only ten days’ journey from Piura. He was told the story of the quarrel between Atahuallpa and Huascar and was informed that Atahuallpa’s army had successfully invaded Cuzco and taken Huascar prisoner; on that very day the victorious Inca was celebrating his triumph in his camp at Cajamarca, whither he had gone to take the baths. From the same source, Pizarro learned that the vanquished brother had been imprisoned at Jauja, where one of the strongest fortresses of the country was located. All this information was welcome to the Spanish invader, who saw that the disunion of the empire was a condition greatly in his favor in the proposed conquest; but he hoped, with all his heart, that reinforcements would come from Panamá, as his army appeared ridiculously small to attempt the subjugation of a rich and powerful monarch, whose bodyguard was composed of the best and bravest of his warriors, and numbered thousands. It is well said by the author of The Conquest of Peru that “if Pizarro had stopped to calculate chances, he must inevitably have failed, as the odds were too great to be combated reason.” But sober reason is very apt to lack the element of faith, which is so powerful an agency in the conquest of empires—whether national, social, or personal. Pizarro believed that he was destined by heaven to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, and he adopted ways and means which cautious reason would have condemned, in view of the almost certain and disastrous consequences. Probably he was inspired by Cortés’s capture of Montezuma when he planned his attack on Atahuallpa; but, to one of his spirit and temperament, the means to the end could hardly have failed, even without the Mexican Conqueror’s example, which, by the way, he did not worthily imitate, as Cortés would have scorned to use the unsoldierly tactics that Pizarro employed in the capture and subsequent murder of the Inca.

ANCIENT BRIDGE OF SANTA TERESA, CUZCO.

The prospect of getting reinforcements from Panamá appeared less and less hopeful as the months passed, until finally Pizarro decided to start on his daring enterprise with only the limited force then at his command. Leaving fifty soldiers to guard the colony, he set out with one hundred and eighty men, including sixty-seven cavalry troops, to attempt a conquest which a more cautious commander would have undertaken only at the head of a large army.

After journeying for several days without coming within sight of Cajamarca, Pizarro sent Hernando de Soto to reconnoitre, and, a week later, was delighted to see his comrade approaching the camp in company with a personage of evident rank, who was attended by a considerable retinue, and whom De Soto presented as an ambassador from the Inca Atahuallpa. This distinguished messenger had come with his royal master’s greeting to the strangers, and an invitation for them to visit the Emperor’s camp at Cajamarca. Pizarro, through his interpreter, Felipillo, made known to the ambassador his appreciation of the Inca’s fine courtesy; at the same time, he gave strict orders that as long as the ambassador remained in the Spanish camp he was to be treated with all the respect due to the representative of a great and powerful sovereign. When the Peruvian departed, he was charged to convey the compliments of Pizarro to his royal master and to tell him that the Spaniards were the subjects of a powerful prince, who ruled beyond the sea; that they had heard of Atahuallpa’s prowess and had come to pay their respects to His Majesty and to offer the service of their army against the Inca’s enemies; and that they would wait upon the great monarch with the least possible delay.

Having dismissed the Inca’s messenger, Pizarro resumed his march, choosing the route which he had been advised to take in order to reach Cajamarca as soon as possible. Embassies from the Inca continued to arrive with presents of gold, silver and rich vicuña cloths, the Spaniards sending in return ornaments of glass and other articles brought from Europe for the purpose. As they ascended the slopes of the great Andes, they observed that, instead of buildings of sun-dried bricks, such as were seen in the coast valleys, the temples and palaces were constructed of huge stones, taken from the solid rock, and so wonderfully adjusted that not a knife blade could be inserted between them, though no mortar was used in setting them.