The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America
Page 31
Spain was then stirred into a new mood of enthusiasm for the Indies by the unexpected arrival in Seville of the nao María del Campo, owned by Soto and Hernán Ponce de León, with Hernando Pizarro on board. On January 9, 1534, Cieza the chronicler, still a boy, saw many pieces of gold and silver being unloaded from that ship on the Arenal, outside the city. Cobos ordered the Casa de la Contratación to impound all the gold and silver. Hernando is said to have brought 153,000 pesos of gold and 5,048 marks of silver for the King alone. Private conquistadors sent back 310,000 pesos. In fact, between the end of 1533 and the middle of 1534, ships arriving in Seville brought nearly 800,000 pesos in gold and nearly 50,000 marks in silver belonging to the Crown or to private persons.2 Hernando went to Toledo taking samples of his gold and silver jewelry, also some unusual animals such as llamas, and even nuggets of gold. He met the emperor Charles and the court, first at Calatayud. The King and Cobos ordered all the jewels to be melted down. Hernando expostulated. Charles agreed to exhibit the treasure for some weeks but no longer.3
Henceforth the magic glint of Peruvian treasure lit the imagination of King, courtiers, and common people. There was a general disposition to believe all that was said of the New World. One historian wrote that if seventy ships had arrived at Laredo with ten thousand Amazons on board, to seek fathers for their children to whom they would give 50 ducats, with the girls being sent back to the New World, the boys to stay in Spain, the tale would have been believed. Meanwhile, the treasure of the Pizarros was looked after by two faithful friends, Martín Alonso and Juan Cortés. In 1534, two new famous chivalric novels, Lidamor de Escocia, by Juan de Córdoba, and Tristan el joven, by María Luzdivina Cuesta Torre, were published in Castile. It was not easy to distinguish what was said in those books from what was reported by Hernando Pizarro, whose account was, if anything, the more unbelievable. Hernando asked the King many things for his brother, for example (an echo of what had been granted to Cortés), the service of twenty thousand Indians for himself and his descendants in perpetuity, and the title of Marquess, without it being evident of what place exactly he was to be such.4
Charles the Emperor was preparing in Barcelona for the conquest of Algiers. This expedition would not have been possible if the monarch had not received so much gold from Peru. For example, twenty-two cartloads of gold arrived in Barcelona from Seville on April 29, and twenty mules came heavily laden on May 22. The Genoese bankers who had advanced credit were also repaid in American gold. The consequence was that the expedition to Algiers was the most impressive ever mounted by the Christian powers in the western Mediterranean.
The Emperor’s brother, Ferdinand, the ruler of Austria, always interested in the Indies, was given a silver nugget worth 212 castellanos by Cobos the same year.5 The penniless courtier Enríquez de Guzmán, who set out from Sanlúcar for the Indies in September 1533, was suddenly supposed to have made for the first time a wise decision.6
Those were the years, too, when Mercator was busy sketching his idea of a new printed terrestrial globe—his intention was to “publish a globe or sphere of the whole world on which the recently discovered islands and lands will be added.”7 The cosmographers would be protected from copyists. To fulfill his charter’s instruction, Mercator had to make a sphere the likes of which nobody at court would have seen before, a globe of exquisite beauty crammed with the latest geographical data, new coastlines, hundreds of place-names, even stars.
The new enthusiasm for the Peruvian adventure was not confined to the mother country. The news shook the Caribbean, too. Antonio López wrote that Yucatán was emptying because of the news from Peru. Officials in Puerto Rico explained that the news was so extraordinary that even men of fifty who had settled down to their modest encomiendas, as if their highest lot was indeed to plant the bergamot, became suddenly restless. In Santa Marta, the governor, García de Lerma, wrote that “the greed of Peru was gripping everyone.” Greed was to be found in Spain also. Thus Hernando Pizarro was allowed by the royal officials to take some of the pieces that he had brought for Charles V to see. But the latter soon confirmed the order to smelt down almost everything.8
The Council of the Indies proclaimed that no one could leave for Peru unless he was a substantial merchant or a married man ready to take his wife with him.9 But this rule was of no avail. No one obeyed it.
Among the most restless was Pedro de Alvarado, the second-in-command of Cortés in New Spain, now the governor of Guatemala, who had been told by a friend of his, García Holguín, that the possibilities for enrichment in Peru were limitless. Alvarado was quick to take action and, by January 23, 1534, he had gathered an expedition that he hoped would share in the pleasures of the great Peruvian adventure. He left La Posesión, his estate in Guatemala, with twelve ships, on which he planned to carry five hundred Spaniards from his province, including 119 horsemen and one hundred crossbowmen, to sail down the west coast of Central America to Peru. He was also said to have carried several thousand Indians from Guatemala. His chief pilot was a typical seaman of that day, Juan Fernández, who combined low birth, illiteracy, and intelligence. He had earlier been “captain-master” to the Pizarros on their galleon the San Cristóbal.10
Alvarado also took Fray Marcos de Niza as his chief chaplain, an intelligent Franciscan who had been born in Nice and who had already interested himself in learning several native languages. He had been in Santo Domingo and Nicaragua before joining Alvarado in Guatemala. This expedition landed in Ecuador in late January 1534.
By then the condition of the old Peruvian kingdom had fundamentally changed. First, the people of Cajamarca had been the witnesses of the coronation of a new Inca, Tupac Huallpa, a younger brother of Huascar and Atahualpa, in that same main square of the town where the latter had died. Under the patronage of Francisco Pizarro and his brothers, the chiefs of the country assembled in white plumes. A great feast followed, accompanied by singing, dancing, and drinking of chicha on an epic scale. Francisco Pizarro wore a white silk shirt, the Spanish royal standard was raised, and the Requirement was read out by Fray Valverde.
Then on August 11, Pizarro had led the main body of his followers from Cajamarca on the way to Cuzco. Almagro accompanied him, the force totaling perhaps 350.11 This included most of Almagro’s men. It also included, as a captive, the Inca general Chalcuchima. A few Spaniards were left behind to maintain the royal presence in Cajamarca.
Pizarro’s journey was by Cajabamba, Huamachuco, and the valley of Huaylas where, on August 31, they crossed a gorge using one of the Incas’ best suspension bridges. Pedro Sancho de Hoz, a notary whom Pizarro had named as his secretary, described how the bridge trembled and how the horses were afraid, as indeed were some of the conquistadors. They waited a little more than a week at this bridge to ensure the passage of the entire expedition and the equipment. They then marched on to Recuay, below Mount Huascarán, and continued, via Jauja and Bombón, on Lake Chinancocha.
Pizarro divided his army. He decided himself to press ahead to Cuzco with seventy-five to a hundred horse and thirty foot, a force that included Almagro, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro, Soto, and Candía, as well as the well-guarded Chalcuchima; and he left behind the artillery with the infantry, the tents, and such treasure as they had obtained on the journey. The command of this latter reserve force would lie with the royal treasurer, Riquelme.
Pizarro was no horseman, but he survived well enough in this new venture all the same. A local Indian commander killed several of his rivals, Pedro Pizarro reported, by making these leaders put stones on their heads, which were then hit by another stone, so flattening the heads “as if they were tortillas.”12 There was a skirmish with Indians, when the Spanish advantage in weapons (swords, steel-tipped lances, armor, horses) as usual told against the Peruvians’ superiority in numbers and local knowledge backed by slings with stones, javelins, maces, and stone clubs. Just short of the settlement known as Bombón, Riquelme founded a city, at Jauja, with an initial establishment of eighty citizens from men
of his command. He had with him the new Inca, Tupac Huallpa, but that prince died there—poisoned by Chalcuchima, according to the Inca’s friends. The inhabitants there were busy hunting down the followers of Atahualpa.13
Pizarro’s journey was a remarkable one. True, he took the route to Cuzco of his brother Hernando earlier in the year, and some who had been with Hernando accompanied Francisco. They crossed magnificent wild land and came to several fine bridges. Pedro Sancho de Hoz recalled a stop at Parcos at the summit of an extraordinary mountainside. From there Pizarro divided his men yet again, sending the best horsemen ahead under the resourceful Soto. He remained in a new rearguard with Almagro, Pedro Sancho de Hoz, and Miguel de Estete. But the small Spanish force was now strung out over two hundred miles in four groups, scarcely a wise disposition.
Soto had been determined to be the first Spaniard of the new expedition to enter Cuzco. Pedro Pizarro said that he had “the evil intention” of doing this.14 But to accomplish his aim, he had to cross the canyon of the Apurímac where, at Vilcaconga, he was attacked and nearly destroyed by an Indian army under Quizquiz, who had by then learned much about Spanish tactics. The Spaniards lost five men immediately.15 They would have been in grave difficulties had it not been for the arrival of reinforcements under Almagro. His trumpeter Alconchel cheered them greatly with his horn as it resounded, like that of Roland, across the high valleys. This was the most serious battle that the Spaniards had had to fight since the death of Atahualpa. (Alconchel had been one of Pizarro’s recruits in Extremadura, though he came from La Garganta de Béjar, in the Sierra de Gredos.)
Pizarro had been encouraged by the discovery of several slabs of silver at Andahuaylas. “While I was looking for maize,” wrote his page, Pedro Pizarro, “I entered by chance a hut where I found these slabs of silver … ten in number [with] a length of 20 feet each, a width of one foot and a thickness of three fingers. These had been intended to decorate a house for an idol named Chino.”16 Afterwards, Pizarro joined Almagro and Soto, and the reconstituted Spanish force of 350 moved on to Jaquijahuana (now Anta) about twenty miles from Cuzco. Here on the Apurímac River, the Pizarros were greeted by Manco Capac, the youngest brother of Huascar and Atahualpa.17 This Prince gave Francisco Pizarro a golden shirt. He gave also a vivid, but surely inaccurate, commentary on the cruelties practiced by Atahualpa. This new friendship enabled Pizarro to enter the city of Cuzco with Manco Capac at his side. He imaginatively told Manco that he had come to Peru for no other purpose “than to free you from the slavery of the men of Quito.”
Atahualpa’s general Quizquiz remained a threat. When Pizarro saw smoke rising in the distance, he sent horsemen forward to prevent any destruction before he reached the capital. There was a brief skirmish between Quizquiz and Pizarro. The two armies rested at night on two nearby hillsides, but the Indians lost heart, for at dawn, Quizquiz had disappeared. So on November 15, 1533, the Spaniards entered Cuzco without resistance and were well received by such authorities as were there.18
Cuzco, wrote Pizarro’s page Pedro Pizarro, lay in a hollow between two ravines through which two brooks ran, though one, which passed through the central plaza, had only a very little water. The city “was dominated by a strong fortress with terraces and flat places on top of a hill with two high round towers, surrounded by walls of stone so large that it seemed impossible that human hands could have set them in place … They were so well fitted together that the point of a pin could not be inserted into a joint.” In this redoubt, ten thousand Indians could be concealed, the place being full of arms, lances, arrows, darts, and clubs, as well as helmets and shields. There were great labyrinths in this building which even Pedro Pizarro, who was there for months, never understood completely.19 Pizarro’s secretary, Sancho de Hoz, thought Cuzco “so grand and beautiful that it would be worthy of being seen even in Spain since it is filled with palaces of lords. No poor people live there … the majority of the houses are of stone. The houses are made with great symmetry.”20 Cieza de León recorded: “In all Spain I have seen nothing which can compare with these walls and the laying of their stone.”21
The journey of the Spaniards, said Murúa, had not been very interesting!22 All the same, they now quartered themselves in old Inca palaces with vast halls, central courtyards, and impressive stone walls. Francisco Pizarro, for example, established himself in the onetime Casana palace of the Inca Huayna Capac, which Garcilaso said was capable of holding three thousand people. Soto took over the palace of Amarucancha, a building of red, white, and multicolored marble, with two towers and a large, beautiful thatched hall. The young Gonzalo Pizarro took the house of the Inca Yupanqui, while Almagro selected the newest Huascar palace. Valverde, the chaplain of the expedition, installed himself in the palace of Suntur Huasi, which eventually became the site of the new Spanish cathedral. All these leaders collected a great deal of treasure in these edifices, this time more silver than gold.23 Looting and ravaging were on a large scale.24
The temple of the sun at Coricancha would eventually become the Dominican convent. But the palaces of Hatun Cancha, Hatun Rumiyoc, and Pucamara became the stables for the Spanish cavalry.
Pizarro proclaimed Cuzco a Spanish city, but he accepted Manco Inca as the ruler of the empire. He encouraged the Inca to found an army to defeat Quizquiz. After a few weeks, he had assembled what was said to have been five thousand men, who, with the troubleshooter of Spain, Hernando de Soto, soon set off to look for Quizquiz. They were actually in the wild country of Condesuyos, on the Apurímac, but the rebellious general seems to have been depressed by this third failure to defeat the Spaniards and retreated toward Quito, leaving Pizarro in control of Cuzco and its surroundings.25
The next manifestation of Spanish power was a denunciation of Chalcuchima by Pizarro, who thought him responsible for the continued restlessness of the Indians. Manco Capac supported this theory: He asserted that Chalcuchima had told Quizquiz details of Spanish planning for fighting. He had certainly told Quizquiz that the Spaniards were mortal, and that they were wont to dismount in bad passes and even to hand their lances to their servants to be carried. At such places, their horses tired. So, he said, they should be attacked there. Manco Capac handed over to Pizarro three messengers who, he alleged, had taken this news to Quizquiz. Pizarro denounced Chalcuchima, who denied any such contact. But Pizarro believed, probably rightly, that he was lying, and Chalcuchima was accordingly burned to death in the main square of Cuzco. Valverde failed to persuade him to become a Christian first and so be killed without pain.26
An early ceremony in the square at Cuzco was the coronation there of Manco Capac as Inca, at the end of December 1533. There was the usual ceremony of a parade of mummies, a feast, and much singing and dancing over thirty days, and drums were heard throughout the city at night. The Spaniards were astounded at the drinking by both men and women, that resulted in two large drains running with urine throughout the day for a week.27 This coronation was more traditional and more elaborate than that of the shortlived Inca Tupac Huallpa at Cajamarca, and it lasted much longer. Pizarro used the occasion once again by ordering Pedro Sancho de Hoz to read out the Requirement, the Inca implying that he had understood. Manco Capac drank from a golden cup with Pizarro. He also brought out all the bodies of his ancestors on litters. Once again, the Spaniards raised their now-famous standard and greeted it with trumpets. The Peruvians sang songs, which, among other things, expressed their gratitude to the Spaniards for expelling their Atahualpine enemies. Manco Capac, though he asked for the return of his empire, said that he was entirely happy to let the Spanish priests preach Christianity. Pizarro heard what Manco Capac said and implored him to wear the traditional scarlet fringe of the Inca for the ceremony in order to show that he accepted the new order of things.28
This kind of festival was a characteristic of the life of the nobility (orejones). There were sometimes festivals with fasting, which meant doing without salt, garlic, and chicha, not to speak of walks to see the god Guanaca
ure, an idol of stone, who was worshipped a mile and a half outside the city. Meantime, porters were placed on the main roads outside Cuzco to prevent thefts of gold and silver. Pedro Pizarro described how there were large storehouses for tribute above the city: “all in such vast quantities that is hard to imagine how the natives can ever have paid such tribute on so many items.”29
Diego de Trujillo, one of Pizarro’s most dedicated followers, reported that the priests at the temple of Coricancha reproached him and other Spaniards. “How dare you enter here?” they demanded. Trujillo explained: “Anyone who enters here has to fast for a year beforehand, and must enter barefoot, and bear a load; but we Spaniards paid no attention to what was said and went in.”30
Pizarro embarked on a division of the spoils of the city of Cuzco. He sought to do this in an orderly manner, as usual reserving a fifth of the treasure for the Crown, which was accumulated in a shed attached to the palace that he had seized, where it was listed by Diego Narváez.
The melting down began on December 15, 1533. Pizarro authorized new gold and silver marks. The value of the treasure seized in Cuzco was even more in aggregate than that which had been gathered for Atahualpa’s ransom at Cajamarca. The temple of the sun had lost a great deal of gold for Atahualpa’s ransom, but there was still much there. The conquistadors with Pizarro were astonished at other vast storehouses of several generations’ collections of cloaks, weapons, feathers, sandals, knives, beans, shields, and cloth. But the golden image of the sun itself that had been in that edifice was lost forever.31 Still, there was plenty of gold left, and many storehouses were found with fine clothing, coarser clothes, wheat, coca, sunflowers that looked like pure gold, very slender feathers grown on the breasts of small birds (“hardly larger than a cicada,” reported Pedro Pizarro), mantles with mother-of-pearl spangles, sandals, copper bars, golden slippers, lobsters and spiders made of gold, and pitchers of both pottery and gold.