A more important narrative of the civil war, which ended with the death of the viceroy Blasco Nuñez, was written by Pedro de Cieza de Leon, and has been recently published. Cieza de Leon landed in South America when he was barely fifteen, in the year 1534, and during his military service he conceived a strong desire to write an account of the strange things that were to be seen in the new world. “Oftentimes,” he wrote, “when the other soldiers were reposing, I was tiring myself by writing. Neither fatigue, nor the ruggedness of the country, nor the mountains and rivers, nor intolerable hunger and suffering have ever been sufficient to obstruct my two duties; namely, writing, and following my flag and my captain without fault.” In 1547 he joined the president Gasca, and was present at the final rout of Gonzalo Pizarro. He was many years in Peru, and he is certainly one of the most important authorities on Ynca history and civilization, whether we consider his peculiar advantages in collecting information, or his character as a conscientious historian. He lived to complete a great work, but unfortunately only a small portion of it has seen the light. The first and second parts of the Chronicle of Cieza de Leon have been published, but they relate to Ynca civilization and are discussed in a chapter in the first volume of the present work. The third part, treating of the discovery and conquest of Peru by Pizarro, is inedited, though the manuscript is believed to have been preserved. Part IV. was divided into five books relating the history of the civil wars of the conquerors. Only the third book has been published in the Biblioteca Hispano-Ultramarina. It was very ably edited by Don Márcos Jiménez de la Espada (Madrid, 1877), and is entitled La Guerra de Quito. The volume begins with the departure of the viceroy Blasco Nuñez de Vela from Spain, and consists of fifty-three chapters in the first part, the concluding portion forming a subsequent volume.[1510]
The proceedings of the president, Pedro de la Gasca, were recorded by himself in very full reports to the Council of the Indies, which almost amount to official diaries. The first, dated at Santa Marta on his way out, July 12, 1546, has been published in the official volume of Cartas de Indias (Madrid, 1877). Other published correspondence throws light on the astute proceedings of the president while he was at Panamá. His instructions to Lorenzo de Aldana, his letters to Gonzalo Pizarro, and the detailed report of his agent Paniagua have been published in the Revista de Lima, 1880. His report to the Council of the Indies, when on his way to attack Gonzalo Pizarro at Cusco (dated Andahuaylas, March 7, 1548), has not been edited. But the Chilian historian Don Diego Barros Arana has published[1511] the long despatch from Gasca to the Council, dated at Cusco, May 7, 1548, in which he describes the rout of Sacsahuana, the executions of Gonzalo Pizarro and Carbajal, and the subsequent bloody assize at Cusco. The document frequently quoted by Prescott (in book v. chap. iii. of his history)[1512] as Relacion del Licenciado Gasca MS. is an abridged and mutilated copy of this despatch of May 7, 1548, from the Muñoz Collection,[1513] and is preserved at Simancas. The sentence pronounced on Gonzalo Pizarro is published in the Revista Peruana (1880), from the original manuscript of Zarate’s Chronicle.[1514] Gasca continues his narrative in the despatches to the Council, dated at Lima, Sept. 25 and Nov. 26, 1548, which are also published by Barros Arana.[1515] There are six other despatches of the president from Lima, dated in 1549, in the Cartas de Indias. The invaluable papers of the president Gasca are not in the Archives at Seville, but have been preserved by his family.[1516]
But the best-known historian of the period during which the president Gasca was in Peru was Diego Fernandez de Palencia, usually called “el Palentino,” from the place of his birth. He went out to Peru, served in the army which was raised to put down the rebellion of Giron, and having collected materials for a history, he was appointed chronicler of Peru by the viceroy Marquis of Cañete. Fernandez first wrote the history of the rebellion of Giron, in the suppression of which he was personally engaged; and afterwards he undertook to write a similar account of the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro and the administration of Gasca. Fernandez is a very painstaking writer, and no history of the time enters so fully into detail; yet it is pleasantly written, and the graver narrative is frequently relieved by anecdotes of personal adventures, and by amusing incidents. He is however a thorough-going partisan, and can see no redeeming feature in a rebellion, nothing but evil in the acts of rebels. His book is called Primera y Secunda Parte de la Historia del Peru, que se mando escrebir á Diego Fernandez, vecino de la ciudad de Palencia. It was published at Seville in 1571 (folio; primera parte, pp. 142; segunda parte, pp. 130). This is the only edition.[1517]
The first part of the work of the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega relates to the history and civilization of the Yncas, and is discussed in the first volume of the present work. But the second part is a general history of the discovery of Peru, and of the civil wars down to the termination of the administration of the viceroy Toledo in Peru, and to the death of the governor Loyola in Chili. Like the first part, the second is rather a commentary than a history, for the Ynca quotes largely from other writers, especially from the Palentino, always carefully indicating the quotations and naming the authors. But his memory was well stored with anecdotes that he had heard when a boy; and with these he enlivens the narrative, while often a recollection of the personal appearance or of some peculiarity of the historical character whose deeds he is recording enables him to give a finishing touch to a picture. His father was a conqueror and an actor in most of the chief events of the time;[1518] his mother, an Ynca princess, and born in the city of Cusco; so the future author had special advantages for storing up information. He was born in 1539, but a few years after the conquest and one year after the death of Almagro. He passed his school days at Cusco, with many other half-caste sons of the conquerors, and went to Spain in 1560, dying at Cordova in 1616. The first part of his great work on Peru originally appeared at Lisbon in 1609, the second part at Cordova in 1617. The second and best edition of the two parts appeared at Madrid in 1723. The English translation of Sir Paul Rycaut (1688) is worthless, and there has never been a complete English version of the second part, which is entitled Historia General del Peru. The episode of the expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro to the land of cinnamon (part ii. lib. iii.) was translated by Clements R. Markham, C.B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1859.[1519]
The licentiate Fernando Montesinos is an authority of some reputation, but chiefly valuable for his studies of native lore. He was altogether upwards of fifteen years in Peru. He was there a century after the conquest. His Memorias Antiguas Historiales exclusively relate to Ynca history; but his Annales contain a history of the conquest and of subsequent events, and include some original documents, and a few anecdotes which are not to be found elsewhere.[1520]
The authorities for the final settlement of Peru, after the crushing of the spirit of revolt by the Marquis of Cañete, are a good deal scattered. A learned account of the life and administration of Andres Marquis of Cañete himself will be found in the admirable Diccionario Histórico-Biografico del Peru by General Mendiburu, published at Lima in 1880; which also contains a Life of his successor, the licentiate Lope Garcia de Castro.
The viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo has left a deeper mark on the history of Peru by his Libro de Tasas and Ordenanzas relating to mines and the treatment of Indians. The transactions with reference to the judicial murder of Tupac Amaru and the persecution of the Ynca family are briefly related by Garcilasso de la Vega; but there is a much more detailed account in the Coronica Moralizada del Orden de San Augustin en el Peru by Fray Antonio de la Calancha, published at Barcelona in 1638.[1521] Calancha also gives the remorseful will of Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo, whose life-story is fully related by Don José Rosendo Gutierrez in the Revista Peruana (tomo ii. 1880).
The story of the capture and execution of Tupac Amaru by the viceroy Toledo is told in very full detail by Baltasar d’Ocampo, who was an eye-witness. His narrative has all the charm of honest truthfulness; and yet the incidents, thus simply related, are as interesting as the most ingeniously constructed romance. Unfortunately the story, as told by Ocampo (Descripcion de la Provincia de San Francisco de Villcapampa), has never been printed. It is among the manuscripts of the British Museum.[1522]
Polo de Ondegardo, the learned lawyer, was the principal adviser of the viceroy Toledo. He arrived in Peru before the president Gasca, and held the important posts of corregidor of Potosi and of Cusco. He had a profound knowledge of the Ynca system of government, and his two Relaciones,[1523] addressed to the Marquis of Cañete and the Conde de Nieva, discuss the land tenures, colonial policy, and social legislation of the natives. His labors were all undertaken with a view to adapting the best parts of the Ynca system to the new polity to be instituted by the Spanish conquerors; and his numerous suggestions, from this standpoint, are wise and judicious. A feeling of sympathy for the Indians, and the evidence of a warm desire for their welfare pervade all his writings. There is another rough draft of a report by Polo de Ondegardo, a manuscript in the National Library at Madrid,[1524] which contains much information respecting the administrative system of the Yncas; and here, also, he occasionally points out the way in which native legislation might usefully be imitated by the conquerors. This report of Polo de Ondegardo was translated by Clements R. Markham, C.B., and printed for the Hakluyt Society in 1873 in the volume called Rites and Laws of the Incas. It is believed that Polo de Ondegardo died at Potosi in about the year 1580.
The other adviser of the viceroy Toledo was a man of a very different character, a hard, relentless politician, indifferent alike to the feelings and the physical well-being of the conquered people. Judge Matienzo wrote a work in two parts on the condition of the people, the mita, or forced labor, the tribute, the mining laws, and on the duties of the several grades of Spanish officials. The Gobierno de el Peru of Matienzo is a manuscript in the British Museum.[1525]