Part 31 (2/2)
The treatment of Atahuallpa, from first to last, forms undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial history. There may have been ma.s.sacres perpetrated on a more extended scale, and executions accompanied with a greater refinement of cruelty. But the blood-stained annals of the Conquest afford no such example of cold-hearted and systematic persecution, not of an enemy, but of one whose whole deportment had been that of a friend and a benefactor.
From the hour that Pizarro and his followers had entered within the sphere of Atahuallpa's influence, the hand of friends.h.i.+p had been extended to them by the natives. Their first act, on crossing the mountains, was to kidnap the monarch and ma.s.sacre his people. The seizure of his person might be vindicated, by those who considered the end as justifying the means, on the ground that it was indispensable to secure the triumphs of the Cross. But no such apology can be urged for the ma.s.sacre of the unarmed and helpless population, - as wanton as it was wicked.
The long confinement of the Inca had been used by the Conquerors to wring from him his treasures with the hard gripe of avarice.
During the whole of this dismal period, he had conducted himself with singular generosity and good faith. He had opened a free pa.s.sage to the Spaniards through every part of his empire; and had furnished every facility for the execution of their plans.
When these were accomplished, and he remained an enc.u.mbrance on their hands, notwithstanding their engagement, expressed or implied, to release him, - and Pizarro, as we have seen, by a formal act acquitted his captive of any further obligation on the score of the ransom, - he was arraigned before a mock tribunal, and, under pretences equally false and frivolous, was condemned to an excruciating death. From first to last, the policy of the Spanish conquerors towards their unhappy victim is stamped with barbarity and fraud.
It is not easy to acquit Pizarro of being in a great degree responsible for this policy. His partisans have labored to show, that it was forced on him by the necessity of the case, and that in the death of the Inca, especially, he yielded reluctantly to the importunities of others. *42 But weak as is this apology, the historian who has the means of comparing the various testimony of the period will come to a different conclusion. To him it will appear, that Pizarro had probably long felt the removal of Atahuallpa as essential to the success of his enterprise. He foresaw the odium that would be incurred by the death of his royal captive without sufficient grounds; while he labored to establish these, he still shrunk from the responsibility of the deed, and preferred to perpetrate it in obedience to the suggestions of others, rather than his own. Like many an unprincipled politician, he wished to reap the benefit of a bad act, and let others take the blame of it.
[Footnote 42: ”Contra su voluntad sentencio a muerte a Atabalipa.” (Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms.) ”Contra voluntad del dicho Gobernador.” (Relacion del Primer. Descub., Ms.) ”Ancora che molto li dispiacesse di venir a questo atto.”
(Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. III. fol. 399.) Even Oviedo seems willing to admit it possible that Pizarro may have been somewhat deceived by others. ”Que tambien se puede creer que era enganado.” Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 22.]
Almagro and his followers are reported by Pizarro's secretaries to have first insisted on the Inca's death. They were loudly supported by the treasurer and the royal officers, who considered it as indispensable to the interests of the Crown; and, finally, the rumors of a conspiracy raised the same cry among the soldiers, and Pizarro, with all his tenderness for his prisoner, could not refuse to bring him to trial. - The form of a trial was necessary to give an appearance of fairness to the proceedings.
That it was only form is evident from the indecent haste with which it was conducted, - the examination of evidence, the sentence, and the execution, being all on the same day. The multiplication of the charges, designed to place the guilt of the accused on the strongest ground, had, from their very number, the opposite effect, proving only the determination to convict him.
If Pizarro had felt the reluctance to his conviction which he pretended, why did he send De Soto, Atahuallpa's best friend, away, when the inquiry was to be inst.i.tuted? Why was the sentence so summarily executed, as not to afford opportunity, by that cavalier's return, of disproving the truth of the princ.i.p.al charge, - the only one, in fact, with which the Spaniards had any concern? The solemn farce of mourning and deep sorrow affected by Pizarro, who by these honors to the dead would intimate the sincere regard he had entertained for the living, was too thin a veil to impose on the most credulous.
It is not intended by these reflections to exculpate the rest of the army, and especially its officers, from their share in the infamy of the transaction. But Pizarro, as commander of the army, was mainly responsible for its measures. For he was not a man to allow his own authority to be wrested from his grasp, or to yield timidly to the impulses of others. He did not even yield to his own. His whole career shows him, whether for good or for evil, to have acted with a cool and calculating policy.
A story has been often repeated, which refers the motives of Pizarro's conduct, in some degree at least, to personal resentment. The Inca had requested one of the Spanish soldiers to write the name of G.o.d on his nail. This the monarch showed to several of his guards successively, and, as they read it, and each p.r.o.nounced the same word, the sagacious mind of the barbarian was delighted with what seemed to him little short of a miracle, - to which the science of his own nation afforded no a.n.a.logy. On showing the writing to Pizarro, that chief remained silent; and the Inca, finding he could not read, conceived a contempt for the commander who was even less informed than his soldiers. This he did not wholly conceal, and Pizarro, aware of the cause of it, neither forgot nor forgave it. *43 The anecdote is reported not on the highest authority. It may be true; but it is unnecessary to look for the motives of Pizarro's conduct in personal pique, when so many proofs are to be discerned of a dark and deliberate policy.
[Footnote 43: The story is to be found in Garcila.s.so de la Vega, (Com. Real., Parte 2, cap. 38,) and in no other writer of the period, so far as I am aware.]
Yet the arts of the Spanish chieftain failed to reconcile his countrymen to the atrocity of his proceedings. It is singular to observe the difference between the tone a.s.sumed by the first chroniclers of the transaction, while it was yet fresh, and that of those who wrote when the lapse of a few years had shown the tendency of public opinion. The first boldly avow the deed as demanded by expediency, if not necessity; while they deal in no measured terms of reproach with the character of their unfortunate victim. *44 The latter, on the other hand, while they extenuate the errors of the Inca, and do justice to his good faith, are unreserved in their condemnation of the Conquerors, on whose conduct, they say, Heaven set the seal of its own reprobation, by bringing them all to an untimely and miserable end. *45 The sentence of contemporaries has been fully ratified by that of posterity; *46 and the persecution of Atahuallpa is regarded with justice as having left a stain, never to be effaced, on the Spanish arms in the New World.
[Footnote 44: I have already noticed the lavish epithets heaped by Xerez on the Inca's cruelty. This account was printed in Spain, in 1534, the year after the execution. ”The proud tyrant,” says the other secretary, Sancho, ”would have repaid the kindness and good treatment he had received from the governor and every one of us with the same coin with which he usually paid his own followers, without any fault on their part, - by putting them to death.” (Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. III. fol. 399.) ”He deserved to die,” says the old Spanish Conqueror before quoted, ”and all the country was rejoiced that he was put out of the way.” Rel. d'un Capitano Spagn., ap. Ramusio, tom. III. fol.
377.]
[Footnote 45: ”Las demostraciones que despues se vieron bien manifiestan lo mui injusta que fue, . . . . puesto que todos quantos entendieron en ella tuvieron despues mui desastradas muertes.” (Naharro, Relacion Sumaria, Ms.) Gomara uses nearly the same language. ”No ai que reprehender a los que le mataron, pues el tiempo, i sus pecados los castigaron despues; ca todos ellos acabaron mal.” (Hist. de las Ind., cap. 118.) According to the former writer, Felipillo paid the forfeit of his crimes sometime afterwards, - being hanged by Almagro on the expedition to Chili, - when, as ”some say, he confessed having perverted testimony given in favor of Atahuallpa's innocence, directly against that monarch.” Oviedo, usually ready enough to excuse the excesses of his countrymen, is unqualified in his condemnation of this whole proceeding, (see Appendix, No. 10,) which, says another contemporary, ”fills every one with pity who has a spark of humanity in his bosom.” Conq. i Pob. del Piru, Ms.]
[Footnote 46: The most eminent example of this is given by Quintana in his memoir of Pizarro, (Espanoles Celebres, tom.
II.,) throughout which the writer, rising above the mists of national prejudice, which too often blind the eyes of his countrymen, holds the scale of historic criticism with an impartial hand, and deals a full measure of reprobation to the actors in these dismal scenes.]
Chapter VIII
Disorders In Peru. - March To Cuzco. - Encounter With The Natives. - Challcuchima Burnt. - Arrival In Cuzco. - Description Of The City. - Treasure Found There.
1533-1534.
The Inca of Peru was its sovereign in a peculiar sense. He received an obedience from his va.s.sals more implicit than that of any despot; for his authority reached to the most secret conduct, - to the thoughts of the individual. He was reverenced as more than human. *1 He was not merely the head of the state, but the point to which all its inst.i.tutions converged, as to a common centre, - the keystone of the political fabric, which must fall to pieces by its own weight when that was withdrawn. So it fared on the death of Atahuallpa. *2 His death not only left the throne vacant, without any certain successor, but the manner of it announced to the Peruvian people that a hand stronger than that of their Incas had now seized the sceptre, and that the dynasty of the Children of the Sun had pa.s.sed away for ever.
[Footnote 1: ”Such was the awe in which the Inca was held,” says Pizarro, ”that it was only necessary for him to intimate his commands to that effect, and a Peruvian would at once jump down a precipice, hang himself, or put an end to his life in any way that was prescribed.” Descub. y Conq., Ms.]
[Footnote 2: Oviedo tells us, that the Inca's right name was Atabaliva, and that the Spaniards usually misspelt it, because they thought much more of getting treasure for themselves, than they did of the name of the person who owned it. (Hist. de las Indias, Ms., Parte 3, lib. 8, cap. 16.) Nevertheless, I have preferred the authority of Garcila.s.so, who, a Peruvian himself, and a near kinsman of the Inca, must be supposed to have been well informed. His countrymen, he says, pretended that the c.o.c.ks imported into Peru by the Spaniards, when they crowed, uttered the name of Atahuallpa; ”and I and the other Indian boys,” adds the historian, ”when we were at school, used to mimic them.” Com.
Real., Parte 1, lib. 9, cap. 23.]
The natural consequences of such a conviction followed. The beautiful order of the ancient inst.i.tutions was broken up, as the authority which controlled it was withdrawn. The Indians broke out into greater excesses from the uncommon restraint to which they had been before subjected. Villages were burnt, temples and palaces were plundered, and the gold they contained was scattered or secreted. Gold and silver acquired an importance in the eyes of the Peruvian, when he saw the importance attached to them by his conquerors. The precious metals, which before served only for purposes of state or religious decoration, were now h.o.a.rded up and buried in caves and forests. The gold and silver concealed by the natives were affirmed greatly to exceed in quant.i.ty that which fell into the hands of the Spaniards. *3 The remote provinces now shook off their allegiance to the Incas.
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