A DESCENDANT OF THE CONQUERED INCA.
Meantime the young Inca Manco had been laying plans for revolt, goaded to desperation by the insults which he and his people suffered from the Spaniards. Not only were the temples robbed, the practice of his religion being forbidden, but gross treatment was shown to the priests and all manner of outrages were committed. The women of the convents were turned into the streets to become the prey of a vicious soldiery. Twice the Inca made his escape, and the second time he succeeded in collecting a large army, but their arrows and sling-stones made little impression on the Spanish coat of mail, and only their copper-tipped lances and battle-axes of the same material served in the fight; these weapons they used so dexterously that the enemy was forced to retreat to Cuzco, which the Indians promptly surrounded and set on fire, preferring to burn their holy city to the ground to seeing it in possession of the hated conquerors. Their revolt was so determined and persistent that Pizarro became alarmed and sent reinforcements and supplies to his countrymen, who were in dire straits for several weeks, shut up in the half-demolished city, while the Indians held possession of the fortress of Sacsahuaman and all the mountain passes around. Manco himself occupied the fortress of Ollantaytambo, which the Spaniards attacked unsuccessfully, being forced to retreat to Cuzco without effecting his capture. Although the Spanish arms finally prevailed and the Inca’s forces were scattered, this proud and heroic prince continued to harass the usurpers of his kingdom for years, so that his name was held in terror by the colonists, until he was at last assassinated by a party of Spaniards to whom he had given shelter in his camp.
Almagro’s expedition to Chile having proved a failure, the adventurer returned to establish his claim to Cuzco. He was met by Pizarro’s brother, Hernando, his old enemy, and was defeated near Cuzco, imprisoned and put to death by the Conqueror’s orders. To his son he bequeathed the province of New Toledo. But Pizarro saw in the death of his old comrade an opportunity to unite the two provinces under one government, and he refused to recognize the claim of the younger Almagro, which so incensed the veteran followers of Pizarro’s latest victim that they swore a terrible vengeance on the usurping governor. Driven to desperation by the apparent hopelessness of their cause, and eager to avenge the death of their beloved leader—for Almagro had been the idol of his soldiers, whose devotion he held by unfailing kindness and generosity—“those of Chile,” as they were contemptuously called by Pizarro’s men, were ready to commit any crime that would rid them of the domination of the hated Conqueror. Under the leadership of Juan de Rada, who, on the death of the senior Almagro, constituted himself the guardian and champion of the son, affectionately known among Almagro’s men as El Mozo, the conspirators laid their plans against the life of the governor with consummate skill and daring. Pizarro was warned of their purpose, which had been revealed in the confessional; but he paid no heed to danger, and was entertaining a number of friends at breakfast when the fatal hour arrived.
Whatever may be said of Pizarro’s character, he was no coward, and when the assassins rushed into his house with the shout “Long live the King! Death to the tyrant!” they were met by the Conqueror, who, not having time to buckle on his armor, threw his capa, or cloak, over his shoulder and faced his enemies, sword in hand. After a brave resistance, he sank down with a fatal wound in the throat. Wetting his finger in his own blood, he traced a cross on the floor, and was bending to kiss the sacred symbol, when the coup de grâce put an end to his life. Thus, in the last moment, the heart of the Crusader triumphed over the instincts of the gold-seeker!
The burial of Pizarro was attended by none of the pomp and ceremony usually observed in the obsequies of a great hero; on the contrary, the interment was hasty and stealthy, performed in fear and trembling lest it should be interrupted and the corpse dragged to the market place. Not until more than half a century later were the bones of the discoverer and conqueror of Peru removed to their present resting place in the Cathedral of Lima. With the death of Francisco Pizarro the period of the Conquest ends, as the pretensions of the younger Almagro, who caused himself to be proclaimed Governor and Captain-General of Peru after the assassination of the Conqueror, were not recognized by the King of Spain, who sent Vaca de Castro to coöperate with Pizarro in establishing peace in Peru, with authorization to take the reins of government in his own hands in case of Pizarro’s death. As soon as Vaca de Castro arrived, he assumed the position of governor and captain-general, and, gathering under his command the soldiers who remained loyal to the king, he at once marched against Almagro, whom he defeated on the plains of Chupas, near Ayacucho, in September, 1542. Almagro escaped from the battlefield and fled to Cuzco, where he was taken prisoner and, by the governor’s order, was beheaded. About the same time, Bishop Valverde was assassinated by the Indians of Puná while on his way to Panamá. Thus the leading spirits in the invasion and conquest of Peru met with a violent death; Hernando Pizarro languished in a Spanish prison for twenty years, and Hernando de Soto died in the wilds of the Mississippi forests.
COAT-OF-ARMS GRANTED PIZARRO BY CHARLES V. AFTER THE CONQUEST OF CUZCO.
FAÇADE OF SAN AGUSTIN CHURCH, LIMA, SHOWING ELABORATE CARVING OF COLONIAL DAYS.