From the trial to which they immediately became subject it turned out that the surrender was cowardly and the articles set down with regard to it ignominious, and that the count of Superunda, the principal cause of the disaster, deserved to be condemned to the loss of honors and offices, with the added sentence, in no way satisfactory, of two years’ imprisonment in the fortress of Montjuich.
Don José Manso, a man of exemplary charity, did not, certainly, make a fortune from his prolonged rule in Peru. It is said that having been asked one day for alms by a beggar, he answered by giving him the hilt of his sword, of solid silver, and he is famous for the benefits he showered on the multitude of families that suffered the consequences of the horrible earthquake that ruined Lima in 1746.
VII
In Which His Reverence’s Star Grows Brighter
Spring of the year 1770 was beginning when, strolling one afternoon in La Vega, the archbishop encountered an army of youngsters who, with childish larkishness, were frolicking about in the alleys of trees. We can explain the fondness for children that old people feel if we recall that old age and childhood, “the coffin and the cradle,” are both very close to God.
His Reverence halted and looked with a fatherly smile at that happy crowd of young scholars enjoying the day off from school that the preceptors of those days gave their pupils. The dominy was seated on a bench on the lawn, absorbed in reading a book, until a servant of the archbishop’s came to rouse him from his reading, summoning him in the name of His Reverence.
The dominy was a venerable old man with bold and noble features who, despite his poverty, wore his threadbare gown with a certain air of distinction. Having settled in Granada a short time before, he was head of a school, going under the name of Master Velazco, with nothing of his life story being known.
The Archbishop had scarcely set eyes on him when he recognized him to be the count of Superunda and embraced him. Once his initial transport was over, it was followed by confidences shared, and finally Barroeta made him promise to live at his side and accept his favors and protection. Manso obstinately refused, until His Reverence said to him:
“It seems to me, sen˜or count, that Your Excellency still holds a grudge against me, leading me to believe that he is refusing my support, or that he is offending me by presuming that I am endeavoring to humiliate him in his adversity.”
“Power, glory, wealth are no more than vanity of vanities! And if you imagine, sen˜or archbishop, that I do not accept your protection out of hauteur, I shall abandon the school and come live with you this very day.”
The archbishop embraced him once again and invited him to climb into his carriage.
“Fair enough,” the count added. “Your ministry obliged you to cure me of my mad hauteur. Down with the proud!”
VIII
From that day on, though he had been embittered by the memory of his misfortunes and the ingratitude of the king, who in the end gave him back his status and honors, the days of the unfortunate Superunda were more bearable and peaceful.
1A play on Viceroy Manso’s name. Gentle is manso in Spanish.
2Lobo Guerrero (1546–1622) was Archbishop when he organized a synod that resulted in new regulations for the Archdiocesis of Lima.—Ed.
3Guía política, eclesiástica y militar del virreynato del Perú para 1793 y 1794 (2 vols., 17931797) by Hipólito Unanue (1755–1833).—Ed.
4The archbishop is punning on the name of the town, since Mala suggests bad, malo
5Amid sand dunes / for one to indulge himself / Mala has nothing to offer / save its good water.
6By no means [Latin].
The Corregidor1 of Tinta
A Chronicle of the Era of the Thirty–third Viceroy
Ahorcaban a un delincuente
Y decía su mujer:
No tengas pena, pariente
todavía puede ser
que la soga se reviente.2
ANONYMOUS
I
It was November 4, 1780, and the parish priest of Tungasuca, in order to celebrate his saint’s day, which was also that of His Majesty Charles III, had gathered together for a splendid lunch the most important members of the parish as well as friends from nearby towns, who had been arriving since daybreak to congratulate him.
The priest, don Carlos Rodríguez, was a good–natured cleric, charitable, and not very demanding when it came to collecting taxes and other parish benefict due him as a parish priest, qualities worthy of an apostle that made him the idol of his parishioners. He was seated at the head of the table that morning, with a descendant of the Incas, don José Gabriel Tupac–Amaru, on his left, and on his right don˜a Micaela Bastidas, the wife of the cacique.3The wine flowed freely and as a result the most exuberant good cheer reigned. Suddenly the sound of a horse galloping up to the door was heard, and the horseman, without removing his spurs, strode into the dining room.
The new arrival was don Antonio de Arriaga, the corregidor of the province of Tinta, a Spanish hidalgo who was inordinately proud of his lineage going back generations, and who lorded it over Europeans and Creoles as befitted, as he saw it, those of less noble birth. Coarse of speech, overbearing in manner, cruel to Indians conscripted for forced labor, and so miserly that had he been born a clock, he wouldn’t have told anyone what time it was: such was His Lordship. And as a crowning touch to his disrepute, the vicar general and the canons of Cuzco had solemnly excommunicated him for certain infringements upon the authority of the Church.
All the guests stood up as the corregidor came in. Paying no attention to the cacique, the corregidor thereupon sat himself down in the seat that the latter had been occupying, and the noble Indian went to sit down at the other end of the table, disregarding the lack of courtesy on the part of the vainglorious Spaniard. After a few trite phrases, and once he had filled his stomach and wet his whistle, His Lordship said to the priest:
“Don’t get the idea, Your Reverence, that I’ve ridden at a gallop all the way from Yanaoca simply to congratulate you on your saint’s day.”
“Your Lordship knows that whatever it is that brings you here you are always welcome in this, my humble dwelling,” the good curate replied.
“I am pleased that Your Reverence personally convinced me that a message I received yesterday was false, for had I found it to be true I give you my word that I would have taken no notice of your cassock or your tonsure and would have seized Your Reverence so as to give you a thrashing you would have remembered for all your days. So long as I hold the staff of authority, no cassock–wearing Sunday sermonizer is going to threaten me.”
“As God is my witness I don’t know the reason for Your Lordship’s wrathful words,” the priest murmured, overawed by Arriaga’s insolent remarks.
“I know my reasons better than anyone else, don Carlos. A fine impression I’d make if I were to tolerate in my district the public reading of those reprimands or those confounded notices of my excommunication that that old crackpot of a vicar general in Cuzco is sending around under my very nose, so to speak. And I swear by the soul of my father, may he rest in peace, that I will deal harshly with the first priest that gets out of line in my district! And be forewarned that if I get hot under the collar, I’ll plant my feet in Cuzco, to put it baldly, and turn those pot–bellied, womanizing sots of canons into liver and lung stew!”
And absorbed as he was in his rude boasting, which he interrupted only to gulp down big swallows of wine, the corregidor did not notice that don Gabriel and other of the guests were stealing out of the dining room.
II
At six that afternoon the insolent hidalgo was galloping toward the town where he lived when his horse was lassoed, and don Antonio found himself in the midst of five armed men, whom he recognized as guests of the priest. “Give yourself up, Your Grace,” said Tupac–Amaru, who was leading the men.
And without giving the wretched corregidor time to put up the slightest resistance, they clapped a pair of irons on him and took him to Tung
asuca. Indian couriers left immediately with messages for Upper Peru and other locations, and Tupac raised his colors in rebellion against Spain.
A few days later, on November 10, a gallows could be seen in front of the chapel of Tungasuca, and the haughty Spaniard, in his uniform and accompanied by a priest who was exhorting him to die a Christian death, heard the town crier proclaim:
“This is the justice that don José Gabriel I, by the grace of God Inca, king of Peru, Santa Fe, Chile, Buenos Aires, and the continent of the Southern Seas, duke and lord of the Amazons and of the great Paititi, has ordered carried out against the person of Antonio de Arriaga as a tyrant, a traitor, an enemy of God and His ministers, and a corrupter and liar.”
The executioner, a black slave of the hapless corregidor, stripped him of his uniform as a sign of his disgrace, dressed him in a shroud, and put a rope around his neck. But as the corregidor’s body hung suspended a few inches from the ground, the rope broke. Taking advantage of the natural surprise that this incident caused the Indian onlookers, Arriaga began to run toward the chapel, shouting: “I am saved! Give me sanctuary!”
The hidalgo was about to enter the church when the Inca Tupac-Amaru blocked his path, and grabbing him by the neck, said to him:
“The Church is of no use to a blackguard like you! The Church will not give sanctuary to a scoundrel who has been excommunicated!”
And the executioner again laid hands on the condemned man and soon his gruesome mission was accomplished.
III
Our Tradition should end here, but the plan for our work requires that we devote a few lines by way of an epilogue to the viceroy under whose rule this incident took place.
His Excellency don Agustín de Jáuregui, a native of Navarre and of the family of the counts of Miranda and of Teba, knight commander of the order to Santiago and lieutenant general of the royal armies, was acting as governor of Chile when Charles appointed him to replace the viceroy of Peru, don Manuel Guirior, whom he had unjustly and summarily removed from his post. The knight commander arrived in Lima on June 21, 1780, and to be frank, none of his predecessors took command under less favorable omens than he.
On the one hand, the savages of Chanchamayo had just razed and sacked a number of civilized settlements, and on the other, the increased taxes and the steps taken by the tyrannical royal inspector Areche had given rise to serious disturbances, in which many corregidors and tax collectors fell victim to the wrath of the people. It may be said the entire country had been set afire, despite the fact that Guirior had suspended the levying of the hateful and exorbitant taxes until such time as the monarch reflected on the matter.
Moreover, war between Spain and England had been declared, and repeated dispatches from Europe informed the new viceroy that the queen of the seas was readying a fleet that was to be sent to the Pacific.
Jáuregui (a name that means “too gentlemanly” in Basque), in preparation for pirate attacks, was to fortify the coast and arm it with artillery, organize militias, and enlarge the battle fleet, all of these measures that required great expenditures, thereby further increasing the public debt.
Don Agustín de Jáuregui had occupied the viceroy’s palace for barely four months when news came of the execution of the corregidor Arriaga, and along with it the news that the cacique Tupac–Amaru had been proclaimed Inca and sovereign of Peru, ruling over an area of more than 300 square leagues.
This is not the place to give an account of this tremendous revolution that, as is well known, put the colonial government in grave danger. Independence came close to being achieved at that point.
On April 6, Good Friday of the year 1781, the Inca and his principal vassals were taken prisoner and the most barbarous atrocities practiced on them. There were tongues cut off and hands severed, bodies quartered, the gallows, and the garrote, for Areche permitted every sort of savagery imaginable.
With the execution of the Inca, of his wife don˜a Micaela, of his children and his brothers, the revolutionaries were left without a rallying point. Nonetheless the spark of revolt was not put out until July of 1783, when there took place in Lima the execution of don Felipe Tupac, the brother of the unfortunate Inca and chieftain of the Indians of Huarochiri. “Thus there ended this revolution, and history would find it difficult to find another more justified or less favored by fortune,” Dean Funes writes.4
The arms of the house of Jáuregui were: a shield mantled, the first quarter in gold with a crested oak and a boar passant, the second in gules and a castle with a pennon, the third in azure with three fleursde–lis.
It is said that on April 26, 1748, the viceroy don Agustín de Jáuregui received as a gift a little basket of cherries, a fruit that His Excellency was very fond of. He had barely eaten two or three of the cherries when he fell senseless to the floor. Thirty hours later the great door of the reception hall swung open, and there in an armchair, under a canopy, was Jáuregui, in his dress uniform. In keeping with the ceremony for such an occasion, the palace notary, followed by the judges of the Royal Tribunal, advanced to within a few steps of the canopy, and said three times in a loud voice:
“Most Excellent sen˜or don Agustín de Jáuregui!”
And then, turning to address those present, he uttered this ritual phrase: “Sires, he does not answer. He has died! He has died! He has died!”
He immediately produced a document testifying to this fact, and the members of the tribunal signed it.
Thus did the Indians avenge the death of Tupac–Amaru.
1A corregidor is a chief administrative officer or mayor whose jurisdiction is called a corregimiento. The corregidor’sresponsibilities included the collection of tribute, the maintenance of roads, and the administration of justice.—Ed.
2A felon was about to be hanged / and his spouse said: / don’t worry, good husband, / there’s always a chance / that the rope will break.
3An Indian leader.—Ed.
4Gregorio Funes (1540–1830), an Argentinian cleric and orator who authored the Ensayo de la historia civil del Paraguay, Buenos Aires y Tucumán (1816).—Ed.
Third Series
The Inca’s Achirana
(To Teodorico Olachea)
In 1412 the Inca Pachacutec, accompanied by his son the imperial prince Yupanqui and his brother Capac–Yupanqui, undertook the Conquest of the Valley of Ica, whose inhabitants, though peace loving by nature, lacked neither the resources nor the army to wage war. That was the wise monarch’s understanding, and before resorting to arms he proposed to the Iqueños that they submit to his paternal government. The latter willingly agreed, and the Inca and his 40,000 warriors were cordially and splendidly received by the Icans.
As Pachacutec was visiting the unruly territory that he had just subjected to his domination, he stopped for a week in the pago1 called Tate. The owner of Tate was an elderly woman who lived with beautiful young girl, her daughter.
The conqueror of peoples believed that it was equally easy to win the damsel’s heart. But she loved a handsome young man of the region and had the strength, which only true love inspires, to resist the lovesmitten pleas of the prestigious and all–powerful sovereign.
Finally Pachacutec lost all hope of his love being returned, and taking the girl’s hand in his, told her, not without first breathing a sigh:
“Set your mind at ease, dove of this valley, and may the mist of sorrow never spread its veil over the sky of your soul. Ask a favor of me that will make you and yours remember forever the love that you inspired in me.”
“Your Lordship,” the young girl answered him, kneeling and kissing the hem of the royal mantle, “you are great and nothing is impossible for you. Your nobility would have won my heart had my soul not already been the slave of another master. I shall ask you for nothing, since the one who receives gifts is placed under an obligation. But if the gratitude of my people satisfies you, I beg you to bring water to this region. Sow benefits and you will reap blessings. Reign, Your Lordship, over grateful hear
ts rather than over men who timidly bow before you, dazzled by your splendor.”
“You are modest, damsel with the black hair, hence you captivate me with your words as with the fire of your gaze. Farewell, illusory dream of my life! Wait ten days, and you will see that what you seek has come about. Farewell, and do not forget your king!”
And the chivalrous monarch, climbing into the litter adorned with gold that the nobles of the kingdom carried on their shoulders, continued his triumphal progress.
For ten days the 40,000 men of the army were occupied in opening the bed of the river that takes its rise on the estates of El Molino and El Trapiche and ends at Tate, the country property on which there lived the beautiful young lady with whom Pachacutec had fallen passionately in love.
The Inca’s irrigation system supplied abundant water to the haciendas that today are known by the names of Chabalina, Belén, San Jerónimo, Tacama, San Martín, Mercedes, Santa Bárbara, Chanchajaya, Santa Elena, Vista–Alegre, Sáenz, Parcona, Tayamana, Pongo, Pueblo Nuevo, Sonumpe, and, finally, Tate.
Such, according to tradition, is the origin of Achirana, a word that means “what flows purely toward what is beautiful.”
1Country property or estate.
A Letter Sings
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century we see the phrase “letters speak” used by the purest of Spanish prose writers, meaning that such and such a fact is referred to in letters. But all of a sudden letters weren’t content to speak, but broke into song; and even today, in order to put an end to a dispute, we are in the habit of putting a hand in our pocket and taking out a missive as we say: “Well, sir, a letter sings.” And we read in public the truths or lies that it contains, and the battleground is ours. Creoles don’t refer to letters as either speaking or singing, and confine themselves to saying: “a bit of paper speaks.”
Peruvian Traditions Page 13
