Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 1 of 2

by Robert Grant Watson

But before he could obtain possession of that city he had to encounter yet another foe. It was too important a prize to be yielded up without a struggle. Negotiations, it is true, took place between Almagro and the brothers of Pizarro who were in command; but in the end recourse was had to arms, with the result that the former remained master of the city of the Incas, whilst Hernando Pizarro and his brother were his prisoners.

1537.

These successes of Almagro did not fail to rouse the jealousy of Pizarro, but in the end mediation between them was listened to, and Hernando was liberated on a solemn agreement that there should be no more strife between them. Scarcely, however, had Hernando reached his brother’s camp than they at once set on foot a hostile expedition against Almagro, of which Hernando Pizarro was to take command. Almagro was too weak to place himself at the head of his own troops, the command of whom he deputed to Orgoñez. A fierce engagement took place between them and those of his rival within sight of Cuzco. Pizarro was victorious, and after the battle, in which Orgoñez, after performing prodigies of valour, fell, Almagro himself became a prisoner. He had injured too deeply the pride of Hernando Pizarro to be forgiven; the same farce of a mock trial which had been played in the case of Atahualpa now took place upon Pizarro’s confederate. The trial was a waste of time, as the sentence was a foregone conclusion, and the veteran Almagro had to submit to the same traitor’s death which had been inflicted on the Inca. But he was not to be unavenged. His position had been too prominent to make it possible that the circumstances of his fate should escape inquiry, and Hernando Pizarro, who took an abrupt departure for Spain, where his riches might avail him, had to undergo an imprisonment of twenty years.

1541.

The civil war which had occurred in Peru drew the attention of the Spanish Government to that country, and a member of the Royal Audience of Valladolid was sent out in the capacity of a royal judge, holding certain co-ordinate powers with Pizarro, and with a warrant to assume the government in the case of his death. He reached Peru at the close of 1541. The affairs of the colony urgently demanded his presence, for the Inca Manco meanwhile kept up a desultory war from the fastnesses of the Cordilleras, from which the Spaniards found it impossible to dislodge him, whilst the natives throughout the country, seeing the Spaniards engaged in war amongst themselves, were more unsettled than ever. The governor now attempted to remedy this state of things by establishing provincial settlements. One of these sprang up at Guamanga and another in the mining district of Charcas, called the Villa de la Plata, whilst the city of Arequipa was founded by the sea. Pizarro continued to display his wonted energy as a governor, encouraging commerce with the colonies north of Peru, and facilitating measures for internal intercourse. Husbandry was stimulated by the importation of European grains, which he had the satisfaction to see thrive in a country whose soil and climate were so productive and varied. But the chief object of attention was the development of the mines, the produce of which very soon attracted European immigrants in numbers. Their arrival enabled Pizarro to send out two important expeditions in opposite directions—the one to Chili under Valdivia, the other under his brother Gonzalo, from his government of Quito, which region had been conquered by Benalcazar, towards the unknown country to the east. The latter expedition was destined to lead to results which those who sent it out were far from foreseeing.

1540.

Gonzalo Pizarro proceeded on his mission with ardour, and in a short time mustered three hundred and fifty Spaniards and four thousand Indians, one hundred and fifty of the former being mounted. At the commencement few difficulties presented themselves, but they had no sooner become involved in the ranges of the Andes than dearth, hunger, intense cold, and hardships and incessant toil awaited them at every stage. As they descended the eastern slopes the cold of the mountains was exchanged for tropical heat and a deluge of tropical rains. Some months of this depressing labour brought them at length to the land of cinnamon-trees (Canelas), of which they were in search. The precious bark lay before them covering forests of trees; but in the absence of the means of transport it was useless. They were lured onwards by fabulous accounts of a land of gold before them; but the rumours proved illusive, and they found themselves at every step still further entangled in primeval forests of stupendous growth, the exuberance of the vegetation being such as to defy the imagination of any but those who have witnessed it. Their condition was now pitiable in the extreme. Their provisions and livestock were consumed, and they were reduced to feed upon the carcases of the thousand dogs which they had brought with them, many of them destined for hunting the natives. When this source of food too was gone, they had to content themselves with such herbs and roots as the forest afforded.

If anything can mitigate the horror with which we look on the cruelties exercised by the Spanish conquerors of America, it is the fact that if they never spared others, they were equally unsparing of themselves. They shrank from no exposure, fatigue, or danger, and were as enterprising as they were remorseless.

Gonzalo Pizarro, setting out once more from a valley where he had halted, came to a deep river, the Napo, which it was necessary for him to cross. Its narrowest breadth was twenty feet, and the banks were precipitous, and some two hundred fathoms in height. His men succeeded in laying a beam across, and in traversing this bridge of Al Sirath, one soldier fell into the hell beneath. The others proceeded, through marshes and by swamps and lakes, until their provisions were expended. On the river’s banks they determined to construct a raft which might support the sick and convey the whole party from the one bank to the other as occasion might seem to render prudent. The bits and stirrups of the horses’ harness supplied nails for the raft; the forest furnished gum in place of pitch, and the garments of the soldiers were used instead of oakum. The vessel thus constructed conveyed the sick and the stores, while the main body of the expedition followed on foot the course of the stream, through thickets, caves, plantations, and inundated fields. Gonzalo Pizarro would have belied his name had he not strewed his track with mementoes of his cruelty. Whether or not the chiefs of the tribes by which he passed received him well, their inevitable fate was to be carried along with him, although he observed a distinction between such as had given him a friendly welcome and such as had not, by placing only the latter in chains. But one day these caciques—the chained as well as the unchained—took the opportunity of leaping into the river, thinking the risk of death preferable to the tender mercies of a Pizarro. By this time more than one thousand Peruvians of the party had perished, and as by the native accounts they were not more than eighty leagues from the junction between the stream and a great river, Orellana was ordered to proceed in the vessel to the point of meeting, taking with him fifty men. In the course of three days Orellana reached the point where the Coca joins the Napo, where, finding no provisions, he urged upon his men the necessity of proceeding down the river, leaving Pizarro to his fate. A youthful knight of Badajoz, whose chivalrous ideas revolted against this act of treachery, was left alone by the water’s side, to subsist as best he might until the arrival of Pizarro.

1541.