Spanish America, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

This unfortunate prince was brought to trial for supposed crimes, and at the same time, all the sons of Indian women by the Spaniards, were committed to confinement, under the charge of endeavouring to assist Tupac Amaru, in overturning the Spanish government. Many of these poor people were put to the torture, others were banished, and all the males who were nearly related to the Inca, or who were capable of succeeding to the throne, were ordered to live in Lima, where the whole of them died.

Tupac Amaru was sentenced to lose his head; previous to the execution, the priests baptized him in the prison, from whence he was led on a mule to the scaffold, with his hands tied, and a halter about his neck, amid the tears of his people. Thus ended the line of the emperors of Peru; than whom, a more beneficent race of monarchs, in a barbarous state, has never been known.

The viceroy, Toledo, after continuing sixteen years in Peru, amassed a large fortune and returned to Spain, when falling under royal displeasure, he was confined to his house and his property sequestered, which preyed so much on his mind, that he died of a broken heart. Martin Garcia Loyola, who had made Tupac Amaru prisoner, married a Coya, or Peruvian princess, daughter of the former Inca Sayri Tupac, by whom he acquired a large estate; but being made governor of Chili, he was slain in that country by the natives.

After the death of Tupac Amaru, the royal authority was gradually established as firmly in Peru as in the other Spanish colonies, and that country has continued to be governed by viceroys appointed by the Spanish king, up to the present time. The only event of any particular importance, which has occurred till very lately, was the insurrection of the natives in 1781, under Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui, a descendant of, and styling himself Tupac Amaru. He was born in Tongusuca, a village of Tinta, and had been carefully educated by his family at home; on the death of his father, he petitioned the Spanish court to restore him the title of Marquess of Oropesa, which had been granted to Sayri Tupac, his ancestor; but finding his request unattended to, retired to the mountains, and giving himself out as the only and true sovereign of Peru, the Indians flocked to his standard, especially those in the neighbourhood of Cuzco, who had suffered severely from the tyranny of the corregidor Arriaga.

With every mark of the most profound submission, they bound the imperial fillet on his brow, and he was proclaimed Inca by the title of Tupac Amaru the Second: collecting an immense army he appeared before the walls of Cuzco, and in the beginning of his campaign, he protected all ecclesiastics and people born in America, vowing vengeance solely against the European Spaniards; but his followers, elevated by the success which every where attended them, began a war of extermination against all but Indians, the consequences of which were dreadful, and will ever be remembered in Peru.

His brother Diego, and his nephew Andres Condorcanqui, favoured this disposition of the Indians, and committed enormities which it was out of the power of Tupac Amaru to repress. This insurrection lasted two years, and he made himself master of the provinces or districts of Quispicanchi, Tinta, Lampa, Asangara, Caravaja and Chumbivilca; but was at last surprised and taken prisoner with all his family, and a short time after this event, they were all quartered in the city of Cuzco, excepting Diego, who had escaped.

So great was the veneration of the Peruvians for Tupac Amaru, that when he was led to execution, they prostrated themselves in the streets, though surrounded by soldiers, and uttered piercing cries and execrations as they beheld the last of the children of the sun torn to pieces.

Diego surrendered voluntarily, and a convention was signed between him and the Spanish general, at the village of Siguani, in Tinta, on the 21st of January, 1782; from which time he lived peaceably with his family, but was taken up twenty years afterwards on suspicion of being concerned in a revolt that happened at Riobamba, in Quito, in which great cruelty was exercised against the whites. His judges condemned him to lose his head, and since that period, Peru has been in a state of profound tranquillity, though now surrounded by states torn with the most dreadful convulsions.

Having now related the principal occurrences concerning the history of Peru, we shall give a concise description of the people of that kingdom; and in so doing, shall be led to the general relation of the manner in which the vast continent of Spanish America has been governed, and to a summary of the history of the present struggle.

The Peruvians, at the time they were discovered by Pizarro, had advanced to a considerable degree of civilization; they knew the arts of architecture, sculpture, mining, working the precious metals and jewels, cultivated their land, were clothed, and had a regular system of government, and a code of civil and religious laws. The lands were divided into regular allotments, one share being consecrated to the sun, and its products appropriated to the support of religious rites; the second belonged to the Incas, and was devoted to the support of the government, and the last and largest share was set aside for the people. These were cultivated in common, no person having a longer title than one year to the portion given him.