by Hugh Thomas
The first months after Almagro left for Chile were relatively calm. Francisco Pizarro believed that he could safely leave Lima to found another Spanish city, to be called Trujillo, between Piura and Lima, about 250 miles to the north of the latter city.
Hernando de Soto meantime decided to return to Spain to seek a new, independent field of action for himself. He had been disappointed not to have been at least second-in-command on Almagro’s journey to Chile, and indeed he would have liked the command itself. He is said to have offered Almagro 200,000 pesos for the post. But, thwarted, he packed up and returned to Seville, leaving behind his beautiful Peruvian mistress, Tocto Chimpu, daughter of Huascar, with her daughter by him, Leonor the mestiza.12
In these circumstances, the affairs of Cuzco were ruled by Juan Pizarro and his younger brother Gonzalo. Juan Pizarro had many qualities; Cieza, we remember, called him “the flower of all the Pizarros.” Pedro Pizarro, the page, said of him that “he was valiant and very courageous, a good fellow, magnanimous and affable.”13
Gonzalo Pizarro also began for the first time to make an impact on his fellow Spanish conquerors. The youngest of the Pizarro brothers, he was, as we have said, graceful, handsome, and well proportioned. He could read and write. He had a great capacity for camaraderie and for friendships. Garcilaso said of him, “His nature was so noble that he endeared himself to strangers.”14 But López de Gómara, Cortés’s biographer and confessor, who did not know him personally, said that he was rather dull of understanding.15 He did in these months achieve a new personality, and his magnetism played a major part in events. People were prepared to put all their hopes in him and look on him as their new start.
Late in 1535, Manco Capac began to be more restless under Spanish control. Perhaps things would have been different had he been looked after by men older than the young Pizarro brothers. But these Spaniards subjected him sometimes to mocking rudeness even though they permitted such gatherings as the eight days’ festival of the sun—a great ceremony in which all the major figures of the Inca nobility were concerned. Fray Bartolomé de Segovia, an emissary of Alvarado to Pizarro, who was present, described how “they brought out all the effigies from the temples of Cuzco onto a plain just outside it, in the direction of where the sun came up. The richest effigies were put under finely worked feather canopies. When the sun rose, the Inca began to chant, there were offerings of meat which were consumed in a great fire, much chicha and coca were offered in sacrifice, llamas were let loose, and Manco broke the earth with a foot plow, so inaugurating the plowing season.”16
Manco had decided on a radical uprising. He summoned a secret meeting of all Peruvian leaders, among them the chiefs of southern Callao. To them, Manco described the indignities that he had had to suffer. He determined to leave Cuzco immediately. But it was hard to keep a secret in old Peru. Servants (yanaconas) were present and informed Juan Pizarro of what was being planned. Manco Capac, it seemed, had already left in a litter. Riding hard, Juan and Gonzalo Pizarro caught up with him at night, and in the morning, they found him hiding in reeds near Lake Muyna. They took him back to Cuzco in chains. Manco later accused some of the Spaniards of urinating on him, burning his eyelashes, and sleeping with his wives. All the accused men were strong supporters of the Pizarros and had been with the expedition from the beginning—indeed, all had been recruited by the governor in Spain in 1529. Probably they had been drunk when they were at their most offensive.17
This behavior, or the rumor of it, had its consequences. The only general of the Inca who remained was Tiso. He went to Riquelme’s encomienda at Jauja, and to Bombón, and encouraged revolts by promises of advancement.
Hernando Pizarro had now returned to Peru after his journey to Spain. Apart from visiting Trujillo to see his family, he had done little after presenting his treasure, and himself, to the Emperor in 1534. He came back with two ships full of Spanish goods for profitable sale to his friends and his brother’s men. He assumed, justifiably, the airs of a great general. In Cuzco, relations between the two peoples improved after his return as corregidor. He not only released Manco but showed him every possible kindness, partly because he had been asked to do so by the emperor Charles.18 But all the same, the conduct of Spaniards toward Indian women continued to cause intense resentment among the male Indians, who saw the most attractive of their girls disappearing into Spanish households.
During Holy Week 1536, Indian resentment came to a head. On Holy Wednesday, Hernando Pizarro gave Manco Capac permission to accompany his best-known priest, Villac Umu, to perform religious ceremonies in the nearby Yucay valley. Manco promised to return with a large golden statue of Huayna Capac. In fact, he had gone for a final meeting to coordinate attacks by his followers against the Spaniards. He made what Murúa described as a “general appeal” to all the provinces of the Inca empire.19 Perhaps he chose this moment knowing that both Francisco Pizarro and Soto were away.
On Easter Saturday, April 21, 1536, Hernando Pizarro was informed that a major revolt of Indians was now inevitable. He recognized his misjudgment in releasing Manco Capac and dispatched his brother Juan with seventy horsemen to disperse the Indians. Hernando rode out with his usual energy and found himself on top of the Yucay valley looking down on a colossal assembly of Indian warriors. Some chroniclers, Mena among them, speak of one hundred thousand Indians in the encampment.20 Below, Villac Umu, a real warrior priest, was pressing for an immediate attack. But Manco wanted to wait till all his Indians had gathered. This did not prevent the latter doing whatever they could to murder any Spaniards whom they encountered on their way to or from their encomiendas. About thirty such were killed. They included Martín de Moguer, one of the first three Europeans to have seen Cuzco.
At the same time, Villac Umu occupied the fortress of Sacsahuamán overlooking the city and also destroyed Cuzco’s irrigation canal. That action flooded the fields near the city as well as denied water to those in the city, including the Spaniards.
Faced with the likelihood of an immediate attack, Hernando prepared his defense as well as he could. He divided his cavalry into three bands of twenty-five men each, one commanded by his brother Gonzalo, one by Hernán Ponce de León, and another by Gabriel de Rojas—an Extremeño, a Sevillano, and a Castilian from Cuéllar. Hernando Pizarro himself, Juan Pizarro (taking the formal rank of corregidor), and the treasurer, Riquelme, remained at the center of the defense in the heart of Cuzco. In addition to approximately seventy-five horse, Spain had nearly two hundred foot. All withdrew to the main square of Cuzco, where, “owing to its great size, they could more easily dominate the enemy than in the [smaller side] streets … the infantry were in the middle and the cavalry stayed on each side.”21 But this must have seemed a tiny force in comparison with the vast horde of Indians. The infantry were under the direction of Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán, a new arrival from Spain, an experienced soldier though not as experienced as he made himself out to be in his engaging memoir. Thus a regular siege began, the Spaniards numbering a little fewer than two hundred, about half mounted.
The Indians, wrote Pedro Pizarro, held the Spaniards in the main square. The latter “obtained water from the stream which ran through that square and gained maize from the adjacent houses which they cheerfully sacked. Some Indians returned to their Indian masters by day but at night brought food to the Spaniards.” The besiegers, however, “began to set fire to all parts of Cuzco, by which they gained many parts of the town [for] we Spaniards could not go out through them. We gathered … in the plaza and in the houses adjoining it such as the Hatun Cancha. Here we were all collected, some [sleeping] in tents … To burn down the houses where we were, [the Peruvians] took stones and threw them into a fire where they became red-hot. They wrapped these up in cotton and threw them by means of slings into houses which they could not reach … Thus they burned our houses without us knowing before we understood how … at other times they shot flaming arrows at the houses which soon took fire.”22 Another report was even more
vivid: “It looked as if a black cloth had been spread over the ground for half a league round Cuzco … At night there were so many fires that the scene looked like a very serene sky full of stars … [with] much shouting and the din of voices.”23
An early mounted counterattack was organized by the Castilian Gabriel de Rojas. Though many Indians were killed, their numbers prevented any continuing thrust, and several groups of cavalrymen were surrounded, one such having to leave behind Francisco Mejía, another Extremeño, to be killed with his horse.
The main Indian attack was on May 6. The Indians moved down the narrow streets to occupy that part of Cuzco known as Cora Cora, which overlooked the north corner of the main square, making a withering fire of hot stones on two places held by the Spaniards: the hall of Subur Huasi, the onetime palace of the Inca Viracocha and already the main church of the city; and the Hatun Cancha, where many Spaniards had plots for their town houses. But the Indians failed to burn the Spaniards’ houses despite their being roofed with straw. This failure they attributed to a decision of the gods.
Garcilaso reported that the Spaniards were saved on this occasion by Santiago himself on his usual white horse, but the chronicler Murúa insisted that that knight was the Basque Mancio Sierra de Leguizamón. He reported, though, that the Virgin Mary did appear on this day in the sky, dressed in a blue cloak.24
Despite this setback, the Indians captured nearly the entire city. The Spaniards were left with little more than the main square and the houses around it. The Indians were protecting themselves effectively by the pits that they devised against the horses. They also used slings to good effect. There were also ayllus, three stones tied to the ends of llamas’ tendons, which entangled horses’ legs. Hernando Pizarro was advised by some of his men to escape in the direction of Arequipa but he held on, partly persuaded that he had a chance of victory by using the Cañari Indians, the old enemies of the Incas. Their assistance was essential in a night attack on the wicker palisades behind which the Indians sheltered as they advanced.25
Comforted by this limited success, Hernando Pizarro instructed his brother Juan to lead an attack on the fortress on Sacsahuamán, which, with its polygonal masonry, dominated the city. Juan Pizarro advanced with fifty horse, among them his brother Gonzalo, and about a hundred friendly (Cañari) Indians. They decided to move on a night of full moon, when they suspected that the Inca and his men would be celebrating. They faced a fierce onslaught by stones from above as they went forward. Juan Pizarro was wounded in the head, which made him unable to wear a helmet. He then led a successful frontal attack. But he died in the effort, being again hit on the head by a stone. Many were wounded. Hernando led a force scaling up ladders at night, with Hernán Sánchez of Badajoz becoming the hero of the battle, since he climbed steadily up a steep ascent. Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán argued that 1,500 Indians were killed in this onslaught, including one brave orejón who threw himself off the tower rather than surrender. With fifty Spanish foot and a hundred Cañari Indians, Hernando Pizarro garrisoned Sacsahuamán.
That commander wanted now to send fifteen cavalrymen to tell his brother Francisco that the resistance was continuing in Cuzco. But those horsemen requested that they not be sent since they considered that the Spanish position could not be sustained without them. Thwarted of that venture, Hernando decided to strike at Manco Capac’s headquarters at Ollantaytambo in a fertile valley some fifty miles away. It had been an Inca property of importance. It consisted of a series of residential structures and a temple complex built round a large carved rock. It was surrounded by terraces. There were canals.26
The Spaniards found this place well fortified and the Indians there well supplied with stones to throw down at them, or to send down by sling. Manco also had jungle bowmen from the other side of the Andes as allies. Some Indians had learned by now how to use captured Castilian swords, shields, even lances, culverins, and arquebuses. It was not that knowledge that caused Hernando Pizarro to withdraw but the diversion by the Indians of the river Patacancha to flood the valley.27 A smaller Spanish contingent, headed by Gonzalo Pizarro, routed another army of Indians, and Pedro Pizarro recalled rounding up two thousand llamas.
Still the fighting in Cuzco continued brutally, and the two sides were surprisingly unyielding. Alonso Enríquez de Guzmán commented: “This was the most dreadful and cruel war … Between Christians and Moors, there is usually some fellow feeling and it is in the interests of both sides to spare those whom they take alive, because of the ransom. But in this Indian war there is no such fellow feeling. We give each other the most cruel deaths we can imagine.”28 The Peruvian historian José Antonio Busto informs us that in this fighting about a thousand Spaniards died.29
In Lima, Francisco Pizarro learned quickly, through Indians, of the fighting in Cuzco, and he organized several relief expeditions: Thirty men were dispatched under Francisco Mogroviejo de Quiñones, seventy horse under Gonzalo de Tapia, a relation of the Pizarros, and sixty men under Diego Pizarro, another kinsman. He also recalled some of his captains from new expeditions. Pizarro also sent his half brother Francisco Martín de Alcántara to warn the Spanish settlers along the coast of the Indians’ campaign. About 1,500 Spaniards altogether were isolated at different points in the vast territory of Ecuador-Peru. But all these cautions took time to be effective. In the meantime, the few Spaniards left in Jauja after the foundation of Lima had mostly been killed by Quizo Yupanqui, a new Peruvian commander. Smaller forces of Spanish fighters met similar ends: Thus the seventy horse under Gonzalo de Tapia were destroyed in a gorge on the upper river Pampas; Diego Pizarro was killed with sixty followers near the river Parcas; sixty horse led by Alonso de Gaeta and Francisco de Godoy y Aldana, an Extremeño from Cáceres, were defeated and nearly all killed. These were extremely difficult times for the Pizarro mission, comparable to the moment when Cortés had been forced in 1520 to withdraw at night in disorder from the Mexicas capital of Tenochtitlan.
Manco Capac wanted his new general Quizo to go on from Cuzco to Lima, not only to kill the Spaniards but to burn all their buildings. Only Francisco Pizarro would be spared, for Manco wanted him as a prisoner, for what disagreeable purpose one can only guess.
But the tide had turned. Quizo took his army to San Cristóbal, a hill overlooking Lima, where he was held by good Spanish cavalry tactics. Some Indians opposed to the Incas, not just the Cañari, fought well for Spain. Quizo inspired a general attack, promising his men that the fourteen or so women inside the city would be given to them—Indians all. But the Spanish cavalry killed that resilient commander, and the mountain Indians who had accompanied him felt ill at ease in the close climate of the coast. In any case, the coastal Indians could not make common cause with their comrades from the mountains. Divisions among the indigenous people were—as usual in the Americas—partly responsible for the natives’ defeat.
Further assistance came to the Spaniards in Peru in late 1536 from an unexpected quarter. First Diego de Ayala of Toledo took a letter from Pizarro to Alvarado, of all people, appealing for his help. Hernán Cortés dispatched Rodrigo de Grijalva—probably a son of Grijalva, the second conquistador of New Spain—with a quantity of weapons, to Peru. Gaspar de Espinosa, the persistent governor of Panama, also sent supplies. Cortés himself would have liked to have gone to Peru, and he did what he could to arrange it.30 The new president of the supreme court in Santo Domingo, Alonso de Fuentemayor, bishop, too, of that city, sent his brother Diego with a hundred cavalry and four hundred foot, following that with two hundred Spanish-speaking black Africans. The governor of Nicaragua sent his brother Pedro de los Ríos, with men, arms, and horses on a big ship. Juan de Berrio sent four shiploads in February 1537.31 All this help was, however, slow to arrive and slower still to make any impact on events. Nor should we be in any doubt that the willingness of so many from elsewhere in the Americas to assist the Spanish mission in Peru derived from an expectation of gold as well as glory.
More significant perhaps than the p
romised reinforcements from abroad was the gathering of a new Spanish army led by Alonso de Alvarado, who had come back easily enough from his campaign against the Chachapoyas. Alonso de Alvarado had been among the many Alvarados who had arrived in Peru with his cousin Pedro in 1534 and who remained there when Pedro was bought off. His army probably amounted to 350 men, including one hundred horse and forty crossbowmen. He was challenged by a small Indian force led by Illa Tupac, of whom one hundred were captured. Alvarado had some of them killed, others mutilated. Two Indian chiefs who hated the Inca were with him throughout, and they relished these cruelties. Gómez de Tordoya of Badajoz brought two hundred men to help him. They moved on slowly to Cuzco.
By the time they arrived, the situation had been transformed: Almagro was about to arrive on his return from Chile.
24
Almagro
Your lordship has let the bull loose. He will attack and kill you without respect for his word or his oath.
RODRIGO DE ORGOÑO, ON ALMAGRO’S RELEASE OF HERNANDO PIZARRO, GARCILASO DE LA VEGA
Bitter and resentful at his failure to find precious metals in the south, Almagro arrived back in the vicinity of Cuzco in March 1537. He had found “New Toledo” fertile but poor. Potosí, on the way, had not yet been discovered as the wonderful mountain of silver that it came soon to be known as. Almagro’s failure had been marked by brutalities to Indians, who in consequence tried to avoid working for him. Gangs of Spanish horsemen would hunt down these reluctant serfs as if they were game, kidnapping their wives and children as if they were toys. Any Spaniard who stood up for Indians was mocked.1
