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

by Robert Grant Watson

1526.

Bogotá was attacked, from the south, by Benalcazar, the governor of Quito; whilst Ximenes de Quesada, who had disembarked at Santa Marta, marched against it from the north. They did not fail to meet resistance, which, however, was no match for Spanish discipline, arms, and valour; and the above-named leaders had the renown of adding another grand possession to the South-American dominions of their sovereigns. In the course of time the more distant provinces, of which Bogotá was the centre, became subject to its government. There were, however, a number of the inhabitants of this vast and varied mountainous region who either retained, throughout, their barbarous independence or who regained it from time to time.

1535.

Ximenes de Quesada came to America about the year 1535, in the suite of the Governor of Santa Marta, by whom he was selected to lead an expedition against the Chibchas, who dwelt on the plain of Bogotá and around the head waters of the Magdalena. Setting out in April 1536 with eight hundred men, he succeeded in pushing his way through the forest and across innumerable streams. He contrived to subsist for eight months, during which he traversed four hundred and fifty miles, enduring meanwhile the very utmost exertions and privations that human nature could support. It was not given to this leader to meet with an adversary sufficiently powerful or wealthy to confer upon him by his capture the splendour which has attached itself to the names of the conquerors of Montazuma and of Atahualpa; but it may be doubted whether, in so far as may be judged by reading the accounts of their several exploits, one or the other of those adventurers had more difficulties to surmount than had Ximenes de Quesada.

When he and his men had at length reached Barranca, they were arrested by a downpour of rain, which literally covered the country; but, in face of such discouraging circumstances, Ximenes persisted in proceeding. Sending on a party of twelve men, under Captain San Martin, he remained with the rest of his detachment, sleeping at night in the tops of trees, and subsisting on a small allowance of maize and horse-flesh daily.

On the return of San Martin with a favourable report of a cultivated country beyond, Ximenes boldly determined to pass over the mountains of Opon, in which attempt he lost twenty-one men in gaining a height of five thousand five hundred feet above the sea. He had recourse to ropes for pulling his horses up. On the summit a land of abundance awaited him; and as, like other Spanish conquerors of the New World, he held the convenient creed that the heathen had been given to him for his inheritance, he felt no scruple at all from the fact that the region which he and his followers meant to appropriate afforded the means of subsistence to a numerous population, which it would be necessary to dispossess.

When he had surmounted the natural difficulties in his path, his remaining force consisted of but one hundred and sixty-six men, with sixty horses. On March 2nd, 1537, he resumed his advance; and, as usually happened, the mere sight of his horsemen terrified the Indians into submission. At Tunja, according to the Spanish historians, he was treacherously attacked whilst resting in the palace of one of his chiefs. That he may have been so is of course possible; but the fact would commend itself the more readily to our belief had it been narrated by a Chibcha writer. In any case, the chief was taken, and, after much slaughter, Ximenes found himself the absolute possessor of immense riches, one golden lantern alone being valued at six thousand ducats.

From Tunja Ximenes marched upon the sacred city of Iraca, where two Spanish soldiers accidentally set fire to the great Temple of the Sun. The result was that, after a conflagration which lasted for several days, both the city and the temple were utterly destroyed.

But the inhabitants of this new region of the votaries of the Sun were not yet fully subdued; and, on his return towards Tunja, Ximenes had to encounter the force of twelve thousand desperate natives. His arms and his horses were again successful; and, after his victory at Borja, he received the submission of several caciques, and was enabled to divide among his soldiers no less a booty than forty thousand pounds in gold and eighteen hundred emeralds.

Ximenes de Quesada was neither more nor less particular than was Cortez or Pizarro in the means which he employed in order to gain his end. His object at present was to obtain information as to the retreat of a chief, whose property it was his intention to appropriate. With this view he seized upon two youths, whom he ordered to be tortured. One of them died under the operation; but by the other, who was either stronger or less courageous, Ximenes was conducted to the retreat of the chief, who was killed in the skirmish which ensued. His people fought desperately for their independence, but were overcome by the invaders, by the aid of an alliance with a pretender to the succession.