[Fac-simile of engraving in Herrera, iii. 235.—Ed.]
The royal army advanced to Chincha; but the archbishop quarrelled with Bravo de Saravia, and where so many commanded, and none were military men, efficient operations were impossible. Meanwhile Alvarado had assembled an army for the judges, of seven hundred men, the rendezvous being La Paz in upper Peru. With this force he entered Cusco on the 30th of March, 1554, and continued his march in search of Giron, who remained at Nasca, on the coast, until the 8th of May. On that day the rebels once more ascended the wild passes of the cordillera to Lucanas, and were soon in the neighborhood of Alvarado’s army, which now numbered eleven hundred men. The rebels encamped at Chuquinga, in the wildest part of the Andes, on a mountain terrace by the side of a deep ravine, with the river Abancay in front. The marshal Alvarado was on the other side of the ravine, and was advised not to attack, but to harass the retreat of Giron. But on the 21st of May, under every possible disadvantage, he ordered the river to be forded, and an attack to be made. The river was crossed, but the men could not form on the other side in the face of an active enemy. They fell back, and the retreat was soon converted into a rout. Alvarado was wounded, but contrived to escape with Lorenzo de Aldana and the learned Polo de Ondegardo who accompanied him, leaving seventy dead on the field, and two hundred and eighty wounded.
Giron entered Cusco in triumph. The judges, on receiving news of the disastrous battle of Chuquinga, decided that their army should advance to Xauxa, and eventually towards Cusco. The Audiencia now consisted of Dr. Melchor Bravo de Saravia, Hernando de Santillan, Diego Gonzalez Altamirano, and Martin Mercado. Altamirano was to remain in charge of the government at Lima, while the other judges marched with the army, preceded by their officer Pablo de Meneses with the royal standard. In July, 1554, the three judges, Saravia, Santillan, and Mercado reached Guamanga, and in August they entered Cusco, having met with no opposition. Giron had retreated to Pucara, near Lake Titicaca, a very strong position consisting of a lofty rock rising out of the plain. The royal army encamped in front of the rock, and the judges sent promises of pardon to all who would return to their allegiance. Giron hoped that the royal army would attack him, repeating the error at Chuquinga; but the judges had resolved to play a waiting game. A night attack led by Giron was repulsed. Then desertions began, Tomas Vasquez setting the example. The unfortunate rebel could trust no one. He feared treachery. He bade a heart-rending farewell to his noble-minded wife, Doña Mencia, leaving her to the care of the judge Saravia. He rode away in the dead of night, almost alone, and Pucara was surrendered. Meneses was sent in chase of Giron, who was captured near Xauxa. He was brought to Lima, Dec. 6, 1554, and beheaded. His head was put in an iron cage, and nailed up by the side of those of Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal. Ten years afterward a friend of his wife secretly took all three down, and they were buried in a convent. Doña Mencia, the widow of Giron, founded the first nunnery in Lima,—that of “La Encarnacion,”—and died there as abbess.
Thus the judges succeeded in putting down this formidable insurrection, and were able to hand over the country, in a state of outward tranquillity, to the great viceroy who now came out to establish order in Peru.
Don Andrea Hurtado de Mendoza, Marquis of Cañete, was nominated by Charles V., at Brussels, to be viceroy of Peru for six years. He came out with the intention of checking with a firm hand the turbulence of the military adventurers who were swarming over the country. Writing to the emperor before he sailed, May 9, 1555, he said that there were eight thousand Spaniards in Peru, of whom four hundred and eighty-nine held repartimientos, and about one thousand were employed officially or otherwise. A large portion desired to live in idleness. He proposed to employ them on expeditions into unknown regions, and he submitted that no more Spaniards ought to be allowed to come to Peru without good cause assigned. In a letter to his daughter, the governess Juana, the emperor approved the policy sketched out by the new viceroy.
The Marquis of Cañete landed at Payta, and travelling by land, entered Lima on the 29th of June, 1556. He assumed office with unprecedented state and solemnity. He was fully resolved to put down sedition once and for all. He ordered that no Spaniard should leave his town without permission of the authorities, and for good cause. As regards the Audiencia, he reported to the emperor that the judges were hostile to each other, and that they lived in such discord that all peace was hopeless. He spoke favorably of two, and requested that the others might be recalled. He also reported that the corregidors maintained quantities of idle soldiers waiting for opportunities of mischief. He estimated the number of the idlers at three thousand, and said that the peace of the country was endangered by the immorality, license, and excesses of these men. The viceroy kept all the artillery in the country under his own eye, ordering guns to be seized and brought to him wherever they could be found; and he formed a permanent guard of four hundred arquebusiers. He then sent for a number of settlers, of turbulent antecedents, who came to Lima joyfully, expecting that they were about to receive repartimientos. But he disarmed them, shipped them at Callao, and sent them out of the country. Among these banished men were included the most notorious disturbers of the peace in the late civil wars. Altogether thirty-seven were sent to Spain. Tomas Vasquez and Juan Piedrahita, the chief supporters of Giron, were beheaded, and the corregidors were authorized to seize and execute any turbulent or dangerous persons within their jurisdictions. These were very strong measures, but they were necessary. The intolerable anarchy under which Peru had groaned for so many years was thus stamped out. Moderate encomiendas were then granted to deserving officers.
While the turbulence and cruelty of the Spanish conquerors were checked with relentless severity, the policy of the Marquis of Cañete towards the people and their ancient rulers was liberal and conciliatory. In both courses of action there was wisdom. After the siege of Cusco, the Ynca Manco, with his family and chief nobles, had taken refuge in the mountain fastness of Vilcabamba, and there he met his death in 1553, after a disastrous reign of twenty years. He was succeeded by his son Sayri Tupac, who continued in his secluded hiding-place. The viceroy thought it important, for the tranquillity of the country and the peace of mind of the Indians, that the descendant of their ancient kings should be induced to reside among the Spaniards. The negotiation was intrusted to the Ynca’s aunt, a princess who had married a Spanish cavalier, and to Juan de Betanzos, an excellent Quichua scholar. It was settled that the Ynca should receive the encomienda forfeited by Giron (the valley of Yucay near Cusco, where he was to reside), together with a large pension. All was finally arranged, and on the 6th of January, 1558, the Ynca entered Lima, and was most cordially received by the viceroy. From that time he resided in the valley of Yucay, surrounded by his family and courtiers, until his death in 1560.
Several of the Spanish conquerors had married Ynca ladies of the blood royal, and a number of half-caste youths were growing up in the principal cities of Peru, who formed links between the Yncas and their conquerors. There was a school at Cusco where they were educated, and the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega records many anecdotes of his early days, and enumerates the names of most of his school-fellows. The Marquis of Cañete also founded schools at Lima and Truxillo, and took great pains to supply the Indians with parochial clergy of good conduct, who were strictly prohibited from trading. In 1558 the curacas, or native chiefs, who had proved their rights by descent before the Audiencia, were allowed to exercise jurisdiction as magistrates.
The Marquis of Cañete founded the towns of Cuenca in the province of Quito, of Santa on the coast to the north of Lima, and of Cañete in a rich and fertile valley to the south. He also established the hospital of San Andres at Lima, and built the first bridge over the Rimac. Very great activity was shown in the introduction of useful plants and domestic animals. Vines were sent out from Spain and the Canaries, and a harvest of grapes was reaped near Cusco in 1555. Wheat was first reaped in the valley of Cañete by a lady named Maria de Escobar, and olives were planted in 1560. Other fruit trees and garden vegetables soon followed.
The king, Philip II., determined to supersede this able viceroy in 1560, appointing a young nobleman named Diego Lopez de Zuñiga y Velasco, Conde de Nieva, in his place. But the Marquis of Cañete died at Lima before his successor arrived, on the 30th of March, 1561, having governed nearly five years. He was buried in the church of San Francisco, but his bones were afterwards taken to Spain and deposited with those of his ancestors at Cuenca. The Conde de Nieva entered Lima on the 27th of April,—a month after the death of the marquis. He was a handsome young cavalier, of loose morals, and fond of every sort of pleasure. There is very little doubt that he lost his life owing to a powerful husband’s jealousy. He was set upon in the street, after leaving the lady’s house, in the dead of night. He was found dead on the 20th of February, 1564, and the matter was hushed up to prevent scandal. The judges of the Audiencia took charge of the government until the arrival of a successor.