Silver, Sword, and Stone

by Marie Arana

  After six months of unimaginable starvation, Pizarro’s crew counted fifty scrawny men—half the original complement—and, for all the fine words Pizarro could summon about the gold and silver that lay ahead, it was clear the expedition was in grave peril. The worm-eaten ships had begun to take on water; they would not carry them much farther. The Spaniards ventured inland, in desperation, to raid Indian villages for food, but this was dangerous work with meager results, and, ultimately, suicidal. The Indians, naturally, defended their turf. Naked, flesh eating, painted for war and armed with poison arrows, they tracked the intruders as they moved overland or down the coast, engaging them in hostilities. Pizarro was wounded critically in one foray. Almagro, in a separate attack, lost an eye. Eventually Pizarro and Almagro understood that, for all the humiliation of admitting defeat, they had no choice but to return to Panama, repair their ships, and start all over again.

  * * *

  In 1526, even as the great Inca Huayna Capac moved across his vast empire with a retinue of thousands—and even as the Holy Roman emperor King Carlos I consolidated his power as the ruler of the Catholic world, inviting a flurry of wars and provoking the Protestant Reformation—Pizarro launched a second voyage to Pirú. It was almost as shabby as the first and had not been easy to mount, but, at the very end, after enormous sacrifices, it offered a glint of promise.

  By then, Governor Pedrarias had lost all faith in the enterprise. His own grandiose plans for the conquest of Nicaragua had run aground, and he had no time for Pizarro’s folly. Exploratory ventures such as Pizarro’s represented a potentially calamitous drain on a newly established settlement. All of Panama counted only four hundred Spaniards and a limited quantity of food and supplies. For Pizarro to make off with a quarter of the Spanish population, not to mention precious stores of maize, horses, and ammunition—all in the midst of an occupying effort, all in the name of treasures he might never find—was a formidable risk for any governor. Pizarro found himself cobbling together a fleet as best he could, defending it on all sides, and encountering more hazards than he thought possible.

  From the moment it set sail in January 1526, the expedition seemed doomed to failure. Pedrarias’s parting act had been to promote Almagro to second captain, dealing a stinging insult to Pizarro’s authority and sorely wounding his vanity. Nothing would be quite right between Pizarro and Almagro after that. The voyage was arduous, and months would go by as they engaged indigenous Americans in one skirmish after another, moving ever south, raiding villages along the coast for food, scouring their huts for any trace of precious metals. The natives seemed to have expected them this time, and they defended their camps fiercely. But there were alligators, too, and strange fevers, and an inescapable hunger that honed Spanish desperation as they lumbered in heavy armor through the impossible green. Near the San Juan River, where Andagoya had proclaimed himself governor five years before, Pizarro managed to invade and crush an entire hamlet, making off with gold that was worth fifteen thousand ducats and a herd of captives for the slave markets in Panama. There were reasons to move on.

  Soon, however, his men were too wretched to do so. Every week, three or four were expiring of disease or starvation. Pizarro decided to send his own ship south to search for gold and silver, and Almagro’s ship north to secure reinforcements from Panama. He would remain on the desolate island of Gallo, marooned with his little band of raggedy men. Fighting off snakes, foraging among roots, suffering thunderbolts that split the night skies, they remained on that island for another hellish seven months. A few of the more desperate men had managed to slip a note to Governor Diego de los Ríos in the shipment that had gone off with Almagro. Pleading to be released from Pizarro’s ruthless charge, they wrote: “Ah, mister Governor! See this for what it is! There, with you, goes the trapper [Almagro]; here, with us, sits the butcher [Pizarro].” When the governor received it, he ordered a full-scale inquiry of Pizarro’s mission.

  But as months slipped by, the ship Pizarro had sent south under captain Bartolomé Ruiz returned with some startling news. Five hundred miles away, just off the coast of what is now Ecuador, Ruiz had chanced upon a fleet of merchants’ rafts so immense and sophisticated as to suggest a far greater civilization than he had ever encountered in the New World. The captain had no way to know this, but the natives on those rafts were subjects of the Lord Inca Huayna Capac, who, at that moment, was 150 miles inland, in the bucolic comforts of his palace in Tumipampa. What Ruiz did know for certain—and had concrete proof of in hand—was that these were a people who made and traded metal.

  “They were carrying many pieces of silver and gold for adorning the body . . . crowns and diadems, belts and bracelets, armor for the legs and breastplates . . . mirrors decorated with silver, and cups and other drinking vessels. They carried many wool and cotton mantles, shirts and tunics. . . . They had some small weights to weigh gold, resembling Roman workmanship.”

  The Indians seemed refined, worldly, more friendly than any he had met before. And they were also ferrying emeralds, ceramics, and luxuriously soft textiles the likes of which he had never seen in Spain. Knowing he needed validation of this discovery, Ruiz and his men seized the ship and captured three of the natives to train as translators for Pizarro—the rest jumped overboard and swam desperately for shore.

  Ironically enough, as Pizarro listened raptly to Ruiz’s account—a thrilling affirmation of what he had believed all along—very different news was heading his way from the North. Panama’s governor De los Ríos, deeply alarmed by the desperate message from the crew, had dispatched a detail, commandeered by Captain Juan Tafur, to round up Pizarro’s men and force them to return. Whether the governor had been moved by the malcontents or by other disgruntled members of Almagro’s crew, he was adamant that those seeking rescue should be brought back to Panama. But if as many as twenty wanted to persevere under Pizarro, he would approve an expeditionary ship. When Captain Tafur’s detachment arrived at the island of Gallo, none of the men wanted to carry on Pizarro’s mission. They were in tatters, unshod, emaciated, and they wept for joy to see Tafur’s ships approach—virtual prisoners freed from bondage. Pizarro strode out to greet Tafur only to be handed the governor’s orders along with the news that his entire crew had elected to return. He was devastated but kept his emotions in check. He had always been an austere man, taciturn, more given to rudeness than urbanity. Calmly, soberly, he drew his sword from its sheath, walked toward his crew, and made a horizontal gash in the sand. “On that side,” he said, gesturing toward the waiting ship, “is Panama, where you will be poor. On this side is Peru, where you will be rich. Let the good Spaniard choose his course.”

  A long silence descended over his men. Eventually Ruiz, who had witnessed with his own eyes the promise of Huayna Capac’s empire, crossed slowly to Pizarro’s side. One by one, twelve more followed. With such scant numbers, Tafur insisted that the expedition be terminated there and then, as the governor had decreed, but Pizarro knew that to return to Panama now would be to lose face as well as foothold. After Cortés’s victories, the appetite for conquest was at a frenzied high, and any conquistador who got wind of the White King’s riches would surely rush to claim them. Pizarro decided that Ruiz would return with the others, reunite with Almagro, find another ship, and rejoin the expedition as soon as he could manage. Pizarro would stay where he was. It was a strikingly defiant choice, given that he and the remaining twelve would wait seven more punishing months before they would see relief. Unable to convince Pizarro otherwise, an irked Tafur transported Pizarro and his die-hards to an uninhabited island safe from potential attack, dumped their allotment of maize on the sand to rot, and sailed away.

  * * *

  Governor de los Ríos was furious to learn that Pizarro had countermanded his orders and stayed in the field with so few men. At first, he refused to send a ship with reinforcements. But Almagro, who was still in Panama trying to amass arms and provisions to bolster the expedition, pleaded passionately that it w
ould be barbaric for the governor to condemn Spaniards to a sure death. A ship was finally granted, with the stipulation that Pizarro had six months to make his way back to Panama. Pizarro and his men rejoiced to see it approach, having been castaways for more than a year in those remote waters. They had suffered crippling bouts of dysentery, malaria, heat stroke, and malnutrition, but sheer force of will and an abundance of fresh fish had ensured their survival. With them on that wild little patch of green, and seldom noted by history, was a band of slaves: African blacks as well as the young indigenous merchants Ruiz had abducted on his southern foray. The natives on that island would be invaluable: they had learned enough Spanish to serve as translators. They would prove crucial to the conquest of legendary Pirú.

  Pizarro’s tenacity was eventually rewarded. Sailing south with enough supplies, but no weapons of war, they crossed into the Gulf of Guayaquil and saw their first Incan city, Tumbes. These were the lands that had been conquered by Tupac Inca a generation before and defended ferociously by Huayna Capac since. Like the merchants Ruiz had encountered earlier, the people of Tumbes received the Spaniards cordially. They flocked to the shore, intensely curious about their ships, their beards, their peculiar, baffling behavior. It was clear to the Spaniards who had sailed this coast before that the intervening year had brought significant changes. A sense of instability was afoot; a civil war was being fought. Surveying the coast from his ship, Pizarro sent two men ashore to scout the city and see if there was any material wealth to be found. Both men returned with separate but arresting reports: there was a fortress, said the first, filled with breathtaking metal treasures and fortified by six walls. The second told him that when the natives had asked about his arquebus, a weapon the likes of which they had never seen, he’d demonstrated its use by splitting a thick beam of wood with a single shot. The Indians had been astounded by the gun’s power, falling to the ground in abject terror when the lead ball roared to its mark.

  Here was the intelligence Pizarro needed. He and his men were literally on the verge of a great civilization, “the product of centuries of development in complete isolation from the rest of mankind,” as one observer put it. Here, too, were the glittering metals Ruiz had seen: the silver and gold so coveted by the Spanish Crown. And yet, for all the sophistication of this new culture, the sound of a single gunshot had brought the people of Pirú to their knees.

  History raveled quickly after that. Pizarro’s six-month franchise would soon be over, and he needed to return to Panama in great haste. He knew all too well that, like Cortés, he had defied his governor and could no longer rely on his support. Sailing back, filled with conviction, he made plans to take his project directly to Seville. Within months of arrival, he boarded another ship for Hispaniola and, from there, sped on to Spain to seek the higher blessings of the Crown. He arrived in Seville in the summer of 1528, accompanied by a throng of Indians and llamas, bearing treasures he had accumulated along the coast. As illiterate as he was, Pizarro was eloquent, persuasive—a natural dream weaver—and he succeeded in holding the court spellbound with tales of his brave adventures and the glittering prizes that lay in store.

  King Carlos was won over by the stern conquistador and said so to his court. A year later, the queen, acting for her husband, made Pizarro a nobleman by granting him a marquisate and favoring him with the famed Capitulación de Toledo. In it, he was made governor for life of that distant territory, with power to explore, conquer, and forcibly settle more than six hundred miles of shoreline, from what is now the northernmost border of Ecuador to the southern reaches of Peru. Almagro and Luque were granted substantially less—Almagro was made the commandant of the town of Tumbes; Luque, its bishop—slights that would fester to fatal proportions in time. But fundamental to the Capitulación were its stipulations about the gold: whatever precious metals were found in faraway Peru would not be subject to the Crown’s royal fifth, as was customary, but taxed by a mere 10 percent. The incentive to seek gold in that land, then, would be far greater than anywhere else in the Indies. The lure of even more gains would come to define the spirit of the conquest of the Incas, and the future of the Americas for generations to come.

  PIZARRO’S LAST SHOT

  Castrate the Sun! That’s what those strangers came to do.

  —Chilám Balám

  Pizarro’s decision to appeal directly to the throne was joined by a singular stroke of good fortune: Hernán Cortés happened to be in Toledo at the same time. Cortés, with his natural charisma and engaging swagger, had deeply impressed the king and queen, who listened to his colorful accounts with enormous gusto. A decade into his governorship, the conquistador of Mexico had not been having an easy time of it in the New World, beset as he was by accusations of greed, cruelty, and rank abuse of power. But here, in the salons of Toledo, he mingled easily and charmed the ladies of the court with gifts of Mexican treasures. By then, a formidable river of silver had begun to flow from Mexico’s mines to the king’s coffers, inspiring a general forbearance of Cortés’s alleged transgressions. It also inspired the envy of France, which openly encouraged French privateers on the high seas to raid it. Cortés was not shy to flaunt his spoils of conquest and, prostrating himself before Carlos for theatrical effect, dedicated the vast expanse of Mexico and all its material wealth to the young monarch. The gesture wasn’t lost on the king: Mexico represented more territory than all Europe under his rule, from the Canary Islands to the River Danube. Awarded many honors, a hero at the very zenith of his fame, Cortés had set the stage for any conquistador poised to vanquish a great civilization. It was only natural that he and Pizarro would meet in Toledo’s gilded halls.

  Cortés’s mother was a Pizarro, surely disposing the two distant cousins to an amicable encounter. Moreover, they had both served in the expedition led by Nicolás de Ovando. They saw each other at least once in Toledo, if not a number of times. Cortés, like any other Spaniard deployed to the Indies, had heard about the fabled kingdom of Pirú. He wanted to hear more about Pizarro’s adventures directly. The meetings between them went well, despite their stark differences: Pizarro was taciturn, unlettered, uncomfortable in his skin; Cortés was magnetic, sunny, a practiced and graceful writer. All the same, Cortés inspired the older man with his confidence and counsel. There was much to learn from the conquest of the Aztecs: the details of his strategy, the collaboration with enemies, the initial overtures to Montezuma, the sudden capture, the extortion of gold and silver, the cleverly constructed illusion that the people’s emperor still ruled. It stands to reason, then, that Pizarro’s conquest would resemble Cortés’s victory to the letter. What is more difficult to fathom is why two great civilizations separated by so much distance and history succumbed to the same strategies in the same way.

  In truth, for all the seeming similarities, the Mexicas and Incas were as different from each other as Egypt is from Rome. Despite Montezuma’s efforts to tamp down freedoms, his empire had evolved into a largely urban, highly entrepreneurial society. Mesoamerica was a buzzing network of competing enclaves and markets, with a monetary system based on copper and cacao. Huayna Capac’s empire, on the other hand, was rural, nestled in a mountain aerie, highly centralized, and its currency—if you could say it had one—was slave labor. The Mexica confederation traded freely, bought and sold metals, and allowed for a certain social mobility. The Inca’s Empire of the Sun, however, arrogated all metal and power to its ruling class—its literal and figurative umbilical in Cuzco—and maintained a firm hand on all goods.

  Pizarro’s great luck was that, for at least one brief moment in time, Cortés’s strategy was actually viable in the lands where Pizarro had been granted unfettered power. For an unprecedented window of a dozen years, from 1518 to 1530, Spain had a distinct advantage. Inca and Aztec rulers were beset by a common dilemma: their territories had grown unwieldy, rebellious, torn asunder by too many loyalties. This social disorder was joined by a silent weapon the conquistadors didn’t even know they had. Smallpox
, the scourge a Spaniard carried with him in his person, had coiled down that virgin hemisphere like a swift snake, spreading from tribe to tribe, decimating the Indian population. It had been a deadly, agile incursion, preceding the first footfall of a Spanish boot on those southern sands.

  There were, all the same, enormous challenges. Pizarro may have seen Tumbes from a distance, even held Incan treasures in his hand, but he had no real understanding of the people who inhabited the continent, aside from the vivid picture Cortés had re-created for him about a place a continent and a half away. Pizarro didn’t know the name of the capital, Cuzco, or the fact that it sat one thousand miles inland, cradled by a range of majestic mountains. He didn’t know that the civilization didn’t have an array of deities—as Aztecs did—but one supreme being; that its emperor was worshipped as a direct descendant of the Sun. Nor did he know the name Huayna Capac, the Lord Inca who had presided over that realm—a vast territory three thousand miles long and several hundred miles wide, which reached from the southernmost part of Colombia to the heart of Chile, and from the Amazon jungle to the sea. But by the time Pizarro sailed for those lands at the end of 1531—this time with four more Pizarros, an army of two hundred men, warhorses, battle dogs, and a full complement of ammunition—the Incas were indeed in disarray, just as the Aztecs had been when Cortés had encountered them.