Part 34 (1/2)
[Footnote 46: Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1 lib. 3, cap. 20]
The effect of such a surfeit of the precious metals was instantly felt on prices. The most ordinary articles were only to be had for exorbitant sums. A quire of paper sold for ten pesos de oro; a bottle of wine, for sixty; a sword, for forty or fifty; a cloak, for a hundred, - sometimes more; a pair of shoes cost thirty or forty pesos de oro, and a good horse could not be had for less than twenty-five hundred. *47 Some brought a still higher price. Every article rose in value, as gold and silver, the representatives of all, declined. Gold and silver, in short, seemed to be the only things in Cuzco that were not wealth. Yet there were some few wise enough to return contented with their present gains to their native country. Here their riches brought them consideration and competence, and, while they excited the envy of their countrymen, stimulated them to seek their own fortunes in the like path of adventure.
[Footnote 47: Xerez, Conq. del Peru, ap. Barcia, tom. III. p.
233.]
Chapter IX
New Inca Crowned. - Munic.i.p.al Regulations. - Terrible March Of Alvarado. - Interview With Pizarro. - Foundation Of Lima. - Hernando Pizarro Reaches Spain. - Sensation At Court. - Feuds Of Almagro And The Pizarros.
1534-1535.
The first care of the Spanish general, after the division of the booty, was to place Manco on the throne, and to obtain for him the recognition of his countrymen. He, accordingly, presented the young prince to them as their future sovereign, the legitimate son of Huayna Capac, and the true heir of the Peruvian sceptre. The annunciation was received with enthusiasm by the people, attached to the memory of his ill.u.s.trious father, and pleased that they were still to have a monarch rule over them of the ancient line of Cuzco.
Every thing was done to maintain the illusion with the Indian population. The ceremonies of a coronation were studiously observed. The young prince kept the prescribed fasts and vigils; and on the appointed day, the n.o.bles and the people, with the whole Spanish soldiery, a.s.sembled in the great square of Cuzco to witness the concluding ceremony. Ma.s.s was publicly performed by Father Valverde, and the Inca Manco received the fringed diadem of Peru, not from the hand of the high-priest of his nation, but from his Conqueror, Pizarro. The Indian lords then tendered their obeisance in the customary form; after which the royal notary read aloud the instrument a.s.serting the supremacy of the Castilian Crown, and requiring the homage of all present to its authority. This address was explained by an interpreter, and the ceremony of homage was performed by each one of the parties waving the royal banner of Castile twice or thrice with his hands. Manco then pledged the Spanish commander in a golden goblet of the sparkling chicha; and, the latter having cordially embraced the new monarch, the trumpets announced the conclusion of the ceremony. *1 But it was not the note of triumph, but of humiliation; for it proclaimed that the armed foot of the stranger was in the halls of the Peruvian Incas; that the ceremony of coronation was a miserable pageant; that their prince himself was but a puppet in the hands of his Conqueror; and that the glory of the Children of the Sun had departed for ever!
[Footnote 1: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap Ramusio, tom. III. fol. 407.]
Yet the people readily gave in to the illusion, and seemed willing to accept this image of their ancient independence. The accession of the young monarch was greeted by all the usual fetes and rejoicings. The mummies of his royal ancestors, with such ornaments as were still left to them, were paraded in the great square. They were attended each by his own numerous retinue, who performed all the menial offices, as if the object of them were alive and could feel their import. Each ghostly form took its seat at the banquet-table - now, alas! stripped of the magnificent service with which it was wont to blaze at these high festivals - and the guests drank deep to the ill.u.s.trious dead.
Dancing succeeded the carousal, and the festivities, prolonged to a late hour, were continued night after night by the giddy population, as if their conquerors had not been intrenched in the capital! *2 - What a contrast to the Aztecs in the conquest of Mexico!
[Footnote 2: Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms
”Luego por la manana iba al enterramiento donde estaban cada uno por orden embalsamados como es dicho, y asentados en sus sillas, y con mucha veneracion y respeto, todos por orden los sacaban de alli y los trahian a la ciudad, teniendo cada uno su litera, y hombres con su librea, que le trujesen, y ansi desta manera todo el servicio y aderezos como si estubiera vivo.” Relacion del Primer. Descub, Ms.]
Pizarro's next concern was to organize a munic.i.p.al government for Cuzco, like those in the cities of the parent country. Two alcaldes were appointed, and eight regidores, among which last functionaries were his brothers Gonzalo and Juan. The oaths of office were administered with great solemnity, on the twenty-fourth of March, 1534, in presence both of Spaniards and Peruvians, in the public square; as if the general were willing by this ceremony to intimate to the latter, that, while they retained the semblance of their ancient inst.i.tutions, the real power was henceforth vested in their conquerors. *3 He invited Spaniards to settle in the place by liberal grants of land and houses, for which means were afforded by the numerous palaces and public buildings of the Incas; and many a cavalier, who had been too poor in his own country to find a place to rest in, now saw himself the proprietor of a s.p.a.cious mansion that might have entertained the retinue of a prince. *4 From this time, says an old chronicler, Pizarro, who had hitherto been distinguished by his military t.i.tle of ”Captain-General,” was addressed by that of ”Governor.” *5 Both had been bestowed on him by the royal grant.
[Footnote 3: Ped. Sancho, Rel., ap. Ramusio, tom. III. fol. 409.
- Montesinos, Annales, Ms., ano 1534. - Actto de la fundacion del Cuzco, Ms.
This instrument, which belongs to the collection of Munoz, records not only the names of the magistrates, but of the vecinos who formed the first population of the Christian capital.]
[Footnote 4: Actto de la fundacion del Cuzco, Ms. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 7, cap. 9, et seq.
When a building was of immense size, as happened with some of the temples and palaces, it was a.s.signed to two or even three of the Conquerors, who each took his share of it. Garcila.s.so, who describes the city as it was soon after the Conquest, commemorates with sufficient prolixity the names of the cavaliers among whom the buildings were distributed.]
[Footnote 5: Montesinos, Annales, ano 1534.]
Nor did the chief neglect the interests of religion. Father Valverde, whose nomination as Bishop of Cuzco not long afterwards received the Papal sanction, prepared to enter on the duties of his office. A place was selected for the cathedral of his diocese, facing the plaza. A s.p.a.cious monastery subsequently rose on the ruins of the gorgeous House of the Sun; its walls were constructed of the ancient stones; the altar was raised on the spot where shone the bright image of the Peruvian deity, and the cloisters of the Indian temple were trodden by the friars of St. Dominic. *6 To make the metamorphosis more complete, the House of the Virgins of the Sun was replaced by a Roman Catholic nunnery. *7 Christian churches and monasteries gradually supplanted the ancient edifices, and such of the latter as were suffered to remain, despoiled of their heathen insignia, were placed under the protection of the Cross.
[Footnote 6: Garcila.s.so, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 3, cap. 20; lib. 6, cap. 21. - Naharro, Relacion Sumaria, Ms.]
[Footnote 7: Ulloa, Voyage to S. America, book 7, ch. 12.
”The Indian nuns,” says the author of the Relacion del Primer.
Descub., ”lived chastely and in a holy manner.” - ”Their chast.i.ty was all a feint,” says Pedro Pizarro, ”for they had constant amours with the attendants on the temple.” (Descub. y Conq., Ms.) - What is truth? - In statements so contradictory, we may accept the most favorable to the Peruvian. The prejudices of the Conqueror certainly did not lie on that side.]
The Fathers of St. Dominic, the Brethren of the Order of Mercy, and other missionaries, now busied themselves in the good work of conversion. We have seen that Pizarro was required by the Crown to bring out a certain number of these holy men in his own vessels; and every succeeding vessel brought an additional reinforcement of ecclesiastics. They were not all like the Bishop of Cuzco, with hearts so seared by fanaticism as to be closed against sympathy with the unfortunate natives. *8 They were, many of them, men of singular humility, who followed in the track of the conqueror to scatter the seeds of spiritual truth, and, with disinterested zeal, devoted themselves to the propagation of the Gospel. Thus did their pious labors prove them the true soldiers of the Cross, and showed that the object so ostentatiously avowed of carrying its banner among the heathen nations was not an empty vaunt.
[Footnote 8: Such, however, it is but fair to Valverde to state, is not the language applied to him by the rude soldiers of the Conquest. The munic.i.p.ality of Xauxa, in a communication to the Court, extol the Dominican as an exemplary and learned divine, who had afforded much serviceable consolation to his countrymen.
”Es persona de mucho exemplo i Doctrina i con quien todos los Espanoles an tenido mucho consuelo.” (Carta de la Just. y Reg. de Xauxa, Ms.) And yet this is not incompatible with a high degree of insensibility to the natural rights of the natives.]
The effort to Christianize the heathen is an honorable characteristic of the Spanish conquests. The Puritan, with equal religious zeal, did comparatively little for the conversion of the Indian, content, as it would seem, with having secured to himself the inestimable privilege of wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d in his own way. Other adventurers who have occupied the New World have often had too little regard for religion themselves, to be very solicitous about spreading it among the savages. But the Spanish missionary, from first to last, has shown a keen interest in the spiritual welfare of the natives. Under his auspices, churches on a magnificent scale have been erected, schools for elementary instruction founded, and every rational means taken to spread the knowledge of religious truth, while he has carried his solitary mission into remote and almost inaccessible regions, or gathered his Indian disciples into communities, like the good Las Casas in c.u.mana, or the Jesuits in California and Paraguay. At all times, the courageous ecclesiastic has been ready to lift his voice against the cruelty of the conqueror, and the no less wasting cupidity of the colonist; and when his remonstrances, as was too often the case, have proved unavailing, he has still followed to bind up the broken-hearted, to teach the poor Indian resignation under his lot, and light up his dark intellect with the revelation of a holier and happier existence. - In reviewing the blood-stained records of Spanish colonial history, it is but fair, and at the same time cheering, to reflect, that the same nation which sent forth the hard-hearted conqueror from its bosom sent forth the missionary to do the work of beneficence, and spread the light of Christian civilization over the farthest regions of the New World.
While the governor, as we are henceforth to style him, lay at Cuzco, he received repeated accounts of a considerable force in the neighbourhood, under the command of Atahuallpa's officer, Quizquiz. He accordingly detached Almagro, with a small body of horse and a large Indian force under the Inca Manco to disperse the enemy, and, if possible, to capture their leader. Manco was the more ready to take part in the expedition, as the enemy were soldiers of Quito, who, with their commander, bore no good-will to himself.