The Golden Empire: Spain, Charles V, and the Creation of America

by Hugh Thomas

  The coronation of Manco Capac was the signal for the establishment of large encomiendas for the conquistadors in or attached to Cuzco. The conquistadors of Cajamarca—“first conquerors,” as they were known—occupied all the municipal offices. Sometimes they received huge benefits. In Cuzco, where there were to be over eighty encomiendas in a few years, no one received fewer than five thousand vassals; one received forty thousand.32

  These dispositions affected Jauja as well as Cuzco. But the former was threatened by Quizquiz and his alarmingly itinerant army. So Soto and Almagro went back to save that staging point, as well as the lives of the treasurer Riquelme and his eighty or so men. This relief traveled slowly because Quizquiz had cut many essential bridges. But before Soto and Almagro arrived, Jauja and Riquelme were relieved by two thousand Huanca Indians who were hostile to Atahualpa and the men of Quito. Still, one Spaniard was killed and almost all the others were wounded, Riquelme included.

  Other unexpected help was afforded by Gabriel de Rojas, an old hand in Pedrarias’s Nicaragua. Rojas also brought the news, both alarming and encouraging, to Pizarro’s expedition that Pedro de Alvarado, with his large army, had landed at Puerto Viejo, in what is now Ecuador, and was striking up toward Quito.33

  Benalcázar, at San Miguel, was the most disturbed of Pizarro’s men at this news since he was the commander closest to Alvarado. He had his own plans for the conquest of Quito, which—quite without foundation—was assumed to be very rich. Benalcázar made his own decision and set out from San Miguel for Quito with two hundred experienced foot and sixty-two horse. The Indians were far from quiescent, however, and Atahualpa’s general Rumiñavi headed a powerful army against Benalcázar.34 Once again, Indian allies—in this case, Cañari Indians—made a major contribution to the Spanish cause.35 Benalcázar skillfully forced Rumiñavi to a pitched battle at Teocajas on May 3, 1534, in open land where his well-led cavalry could act much as it wished. Rumiñavi had upset what remained of the Inca upper class by drugging them and then killing their children. He had women in Quito burned alive for laughing when he described the Spaniards’ codpieces.36 Oviedo reported that fifty thousand Indians took part in the many efforts to trick the Spanish horses—traps for horses to fall into, for example. Despite such attacks, Benalcázar’s Spaniards reached Quito on June 22. He was disappointed since Rumiñavi had already seized such treasure as there was in the city. He had kidnapped surviving members of Atahualpa’s family and what was said to have been several thousand other women. He sought to set fire to Quito after he had left it.

  Benalcázar conducted himself with his usual ruthlessness. He killed all the women at the village of Quinche, where the men of military age were with Rumiñavi. He was also joined by Almagro, who, though he criticized Benalcázar for leaving San Miguel, was pleased that he had conquered Quito and had done so in his, Almagro’s, name, as well as that of Pizarro.

  Shortly after, Benalcázar was joined by yet a third conquistador army, that of Alvarado, which had passed through jungle and across mountains with great difficulty, due to a shortage of food and because of the cold in the high Andes. The coastal Indians whom Alvarado had assembled died in great numbers. Alvarado’s cruelty to the Indians whom he encountered was legendary, for they “repeatedly tortured Indians in order to be informed of the route.”37

  Alvarado was eventually faced by Almagro. For a time, there was a risk of a battle between the two Spanish armies at Riobamba. But a prolonged discussion convinced Alvarado that he would be unable to prosper, much less emerge as a leading captain, in Peru, which was so much better known by Almagro, the Pizarros, and Benalcázar. Much to the surprise of his fellow Spaniards, Alvarado agreed to sell his ships and artillery to the Pizarros for 100,000 castellanos. He would himself go back to Guatemala, but his men would remain in Peru under the command of Almagro and Pizarro. An agreement to this end was reached on August 26, 1534. The two captains then went to Quito, where with Benalcázar they founded a new Spanish city.

  Almagro and Alvarado thereupon left to see Pizarro. On the way, they encountered Quizquiz, the morale of whose army collapsed when he heard that Quito was lost. There was a mutiny, and Quizquiz was killed by one of his own captains. Benalcázar forced Quizquiz’s ex-rival Rumiñavi to take up a fortified position near Pillaro. There the Indians soon dispersed after they had exhausted their supply of missiles. Rumiñavi was betrayed to Benalcázar, whose captains captured him. A third Peruvian commander was captured on the mountainside and executed in Quito’s main square with Rumiñavi.

  Alvarado met Pizarro at Pachacamac. After friendly embraces, Pizarro gave Alvarado the promised 100,000 castellanos for his ships and his guns, and offered places to Alvarado’s men in his army. Several of Alvarado’s relations remained with Pizarro. These included his brother, Gómez de Alvarado, who had fought all the way through the campaign in New Spain, and García and Alonso, his nephews. Alonso would play a large part in the politics and combats of Peru in the future. Alvarado then returned to Guatemala after confessing a failure of the first magnitude. It was not something to which the “Son of the Sun” was accustomed. “What a disgrace for the Alvarados!” commented his cousin Diego, who had been his camp master.

  In Peru, the allocation of gold and silver continued. Many poor conquistadors became newly rich entrepreneurs overnight. Thus, in Cuzco in March 1534, a quantity of silver estimated to be four times what had been distributed in Cajamarca was allocated by Pizarro with the help of Valverde, according to their judgment of each soldier’s merits, extra shares being given to those who seemed to deserve it. Those who had remained in Jauja and who had returned with Benalcázar to San Miguel were included. These decisions were generally accepted as fair by the conquistadors: Francisco Pizarro was even recognized as being just by the Spaniards.

  Pizarro also went ahead in March 1534 with a ceremony refounding Cuzco as a Spanish city. He divided it among eighty-eight of his soldiers, naming two of them magistrates and eight councillors. Each soldier would have the ample provision of a length of two hundred feet of housing in a street of the city. The founding documents insisted that the Indians should be treated as “brothers” because they were descended from “our first ancestors.”38 Manco Capac was to be recognized as the leader of the Indians. Pizarro went through the motions of building a city wall and a church from existing material taken from unoccupied palaces and warehouses. At the same time, he ordered the Spaniards to stop asking the Indians anymore for gold and silver, for he now believed that, if they were continually refused, they could be tempted to rebel.

  Pizarro and Manco Capac set off back to Jauja, on the way to Cajamarca. The former had the idea to found another Spanish city there. He left his brother Juan Pizarro, then twenty-four years of age, as the acting governor in Cuzco. The Indians would have Paullu Inca as their leader in Manco Capac’s absence; he was a member of the royal family, who had decided almost immediately that collaboration with the conquerors was not only desirable but essential.

  Francisco Pizarro did establish Jauja as a Spanish city on April 25, 1534. He distributed the property among fifty-three Spaniards who had been there a year by the chance of having been left in the place by Pizarro on his first outward journey to Cuzco.

  Pizarro went on in August 1534 to the ancient site of Pachacamac to seek the Indian treasure said to have been hidden there. On his way back, he saw Indian porters struggling to carry European supplies up to the conquistadors in Cuzco. There and then he decided to move the capital to the coast. It was a decision of genius. He discussed the idea in Jauja and selected a point named Lima, at the mouth of the river Rímac. To begin with, it was known as Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings), because it was founded soon after Epiphany, January 6, 1535.

  At the same time, the governor gave a general license to Spaniards to leave Peru. About sixty conquistadors availed themselves of the opportunity to return: They did so as rich men, for some went back with 40,000 pesos, none with less than 20,000.39 Their return journ
ey was in some cases a triumphal progress, for some stopped in the isthmus or at one or other of the Caribbean islands. With their golden jars and figurines, they dazzled those whom they met, and their stones filled many in those places “with [a desire for] fame and wealth.”40 Admittedly, their money was usually held by the Casa de la Contratación in Seville for a time, and the returning millionaire would be allocated an annuity (juro), which would give an income. The negotiation of that might oblige the returning adventurer to spend several months in Seville. He would probably obtain a coat of arms. Then he would return to his old home, where he might live very well. Take the case of Juan Ruiz de Arce in Alburquerque. Twelve squires served him at his table, and he had also pages, lackeys, black slaves, and horses. He had splendid tableware. When he went hunting, he took many horsemen and gave them dogs, falcons, hawks.41 Ruiz de Arce reported after meeting the Empress: “She received us very well, thanking us for the services we had rendered, and offering to reward us; and so great was her kindness that anything we wished was given to us and there was not one disappointed man among us.… There were twelve of us conquistadors in Madrid and we spent a great deal of money.”42 This was a major change from all other fortunes made in the New World. Few had returned rich from New Spain. Indeed, nearly all of Cortés’s followers remained in the country that they had conquered.

  Pizarro now considered that his conquest of the Inca empire was complete. He had contrived an excellent friendship with Manco Capac. The surviving Indian noblemen and the conquistadors who had decided to remain in Peru shared a great hunt in honor of Pizarro: Ten thousand Indians took part as beaters or hunt advisers, and eleven thousand animals (vicuña, guanaco, roe deer, fox, puma) were killed.43

  The Spaniards who had taken part in this extraordinary conquest were amazed at what they had done. They could not imagine how they could still be alive or how they had survived such hardships as they had suffered. How could they have survived such long periods of hunger?

  The Inca world was never integrated into the political theory of Europe. The Inca was definitely a monarch, but he was not seen as such by the officials or philosophers of the Old World. The only person to see the Inca in imperial terms seems to have been Charles V, who did make a comparison between monarchs of the Old World and those of the new one. There are, however, no allusions to the emperors of the Mexica or to the Inca in European theoretical discussions of monarchy.

  23

  The Battle for Cuzco

  My sons and brothers! We are going to ask whom we regard as children of our god Viracocha for justice, for they entered our country declaring that their main purpose was to dispense justice all over the world.

  GARCILASO DE LA VEGA

  The conquest of Peru was complete. But the ambitions of the conquerors had not all, by any means, been resolved. Almagro in particular had to be satisfied. That was one of the matters that Hernando Pizarro tried to settle in Spain. On May 21, 1534, a contract (capitulacíon) signed by the Council of the Indies granted Almagro the right to assume the government of two hundred leagues (six hundred miles) of territory to the south of Pizarro’s Peru. He would have the titles of governor and adelantado of those lands as well as chief magistrate, and he would be captain-general there—not only himself, but his heirs.1

  This contract, in effect, made Almagro the conquistador of Chile. Chile was believed at that time likely to be as rich as Peru, if not richer. But the geographical boundary of the grant was unclear. How far inland did it stretch? Where exactly did the two hundred leagues begin? The contract spoke of the lands and provinces that were on the coast of the Southern Sea to the south, “those 200 leagues beginning from the limits of the government which had been entrusted to Francisco Pizarro.” Hernando Pizarro figured in the contract as the representative of Almagro. This must have seemed inappropriate to anyone who knew them both, since Hernando always spoke critically of Almagro.2

  There was one particular uncertainty in the contract of Almagro, and that was the place of Cuzco in Spanish official thinking. It was so far to the south that it could be argued, as Almagro would, that it was in his zone. But Pizarro had conquered it. So it surely was his to exploit.

  In the meantime, Almagro, who had been a difficult ally in Cuzco, set off for Chile in July 1535. He took with him nearly six hundred Spanish foot, one thousand Indian auxiliaries, and one hundred black slaves.3 Pizarro gave financial backing, perhaps made possible because he had reopened the furnaces in Cuzco to enable him to accumulate more gold and silver. Almagro also took with him Paullu Inca, the representative of the Inca collaborators in Cuzco and a high priest of the Peruvians, whom the Spaniards called Villac Umu. The Spaniards included most of those whom Almagro had himself brought to Peru, such as the converso Rodrigo Orgóñez, a fine horseman who had fought in Italy, perhaps even at the battle of Pavia, before coming to the Indies in the 1520s. Soto had offered himself in that place, but Almagro preferred Orgóñez, who was more of a friend. There were also most of the better-known men in Alvarado’s expedition who had stayed on in Peru, such as Juan de Saavedra of Seville and Alvarado’s brother Gómez, that other conquistador of New Spain.

  This army made heavy weather of the long journey to central Chile, but eventually Almagro established himself in the fertile valley of Aconcagua. Thence Almagro sent off several secondary expeditions, such as that of Saavedra, who went to the bay of Valparaíso, where he laid the foundations of a city, and that of Gómez de Alvarado, who went even farther south, to the valley of the Maipo. How wonderful it was for Spain to discover such fertile agricultural land, and so beautiful, too! But these conquistadors had eyes only for precious metals, of which Paullu Inca alone knew the whereabouts.

  Some months after he had reached Aconcagua, Almagro was reinforced by Ruy Díaz and Juan Herrada, accompanied by about a hundred Spaniards and a large number of Indian bearers. Díaz had come to Peru with Almagro, and Herrada was a Navarrese who had been with Cortés in Higueras. He had been so much in Cortés’s confidence that he had gone on his behalf to Rome in 1529 to present the pope with gifts from the New World.4 Then he went to Panama and to Peru with Almagro, to whom he became majordomo.

  Herrada brought more than just much needed reinforcement. He brought a document, which was the contract (capitulación) between the Crown and Almagro about his territory to the south of Pizarro’s realm. Almagro and his friends studied this carefully—though since the former could not read, he had to rely on the reading aloud of Ruy Díaz and others. These conquistadors, none of them men favored by Pizarro, were ambitious and wanted much more wealth than they had obtained. They painfully read through the twenty-five paragraphs of the document, which they believed gave Almagro control not just over the happy valleys of Chile, where anyone could see that good wine could be produced, but over Cuzco, too, where gold and silver could be found in such quantity.5 Almagro’s advisers urged Almagro to return to Cuzco “and govern.” That is precisely what he decided to do.6

  Francisco Pizarro passed much of early 1535 planning his new capital, Lima, La Ciudad de los Reyes. The city was beautifully laid out, with a large square in the center surrounded by fine cool houses, but it had a hot, damp climate, which made it more unhealthy than distant Cuzco, about three hundred miles away, where Soto, Pizarro’s man of all work, had been dispatched as lieutenant governor. Pizarro himself gave the impression now of being a retired peaceful proconsul concerned with urban planning.7 He had a well-established household, his mistress, Doña Inés Yupanqui, previously known as Quispe Sisa, a half sister of Atahualpa, having given him in late 1534 a daughter, Francisca. He was, naturally, busy apportioning encomiendas.

  About one thousand miles to the north, a great church of San Francisco, in Quito, would soon be built as a focal point for northern Peru, in the grounds of the palace of Huayna Capac. It was intended to be what it still is, a magnificent commemoration of a great religion. The architect was Fray Jodoko Ricke, the Peruvian counterpart of Pedro de Gante in New Spain. He was th
e counterpart in every sense for, like Pedro de Gante, he was also supposed to have Habsburg blood.

  San Francisco would be Italianate in style. The exterior staircase was inspired by the palace of Nicholas V in the Vatican. It was one more sign that the Renaissance had reached Spanish America.

  The construction of this building would take many years: The main cloister, in a very Andalusian style, was still being built in 1573; the church was only finished in 1575. Its elaborate façade would be the model for many others.8 The towers were not complete till the eighteenth century. Like many Franciscan foundations, it was to be a place of education as well as prayer—a center of training for artisans as well as one of worship.

  That autumn, Bishop Tomás de Berlanga noted these things in a detailed report as to how the Pizarros were coping with their mission.9 Francisco Pizarro also faced several accusations of corruption and arrogance made by some of his collaborators.

  Pizarro was visited by an old ally, Gaspar de Espinosa, who came down to Peru from Panama, age seventy, with his daughter and two hundred men.10 He tried to act as peacemaker between Pizarro and Almagro.

  The absence of Almagro did not bring Cuzco the peace that Pizarro might have expected. That was partly because Manco Capac had been flattered by Almagro, partly because of intrigues within the Inca family. Was Manco Capac really the right man for Peru in this perilous moment? Manco apparently persuaded a resourceful Basque, Martín Cote, to lead a Spanish gang to murder a cousin of his, Atoc-Sopa, who, some thought, had a good claim to Manco’s position. Afterwards, Manco Capac hid in Almagro’s house. Spanish followers of Pizarro are then supposed to have robbed Manco’s own empty palace. Almagro complained, but Pizarro took no action. Cote then joined Almagro. Apparently, Almagro the commander asked him to guard Paullu Inca, who seemed now to be a dangerous element among Almagro’s followers.11