by Hugh Thomas
All the same, this journey was much assisted, perhaps had even been made possible, by the presence among the Spaniards of Paullu Inca, Manco Capac’s half brother, who had acted as the expedition’s guide and prepared the ground for reception by local leaders.
The difficulty now was that still no one really knew for certain if Cuzco was legally in Almagro’s jurisdiction or that of Pizarro. It was not easy to see what the royal decree of May 21, 1534, was trying to say. Perhaps it was too much to expect the letrados—clergymen and noblemen of the Council of the Indies sitting in Valladolid, who had no experience of Peru—to set this matter straight.2
As he approached Cuzco from the south, Almagro learned that his old comrade Pizarro’s Peru was at war with Manco Capac. Almagro was led to think that Manco Capac now had the advantage in the conflict. That was actually the reverse of the facts, even though Hernando Pizarro was short of food.
Almagro began to correspond with Manco. From the safety of his army at Urcos, only eighteen miles from Cuzco, he sent two emissaries to the Inca (Juan Gómez Malanes and Pedro de Oñate, both of whom had been with him from the beginning).3 Through them, Almagro assured Manco that if Manco would surrender to him, he would punish the Spaniards guilty of abuse toward him. While Oñate was with Manco, an Indian runner came with a note from Hernando Pizarro telling the latter not to trust Almagro—a somewhat bizarre message since Manco and Hernando had been fighting each other for nearly a year. Manco asked Oñate to prove his enmity toward the Pizarros by cutting off the messenger’s hand. Oñate obliged by cutting off the fingers.
Another friend of Almagro soon made his appearance. This was Ruy Díaz. Manco asked Díaz: “If I were to give the Christians a great treasure, would the King withdraw all the Christians from the land?” Ruy Díaz asked how much treasure Manco would give. Manco replied by taking a fanega of maize, holding up one grain, and saying: “As much as this grain is the quantity of the gold and silver which you have found for the Christians, and what you have not found is as this fanega from which I have taken this grain.” Ruy Díaz seems to have been defeated by this proposition and merely replied, “Even if you were to give the King all these mountain peaks made in gold and silver, he would not remove from this land the Spaniards who are now in it.” Manco answered, “Get you away, Ruy Díaz, and tell Almagro that he may go where he will, for I am bound to die and all my people too, till we have made an end of the Christians.”4 The exchange seems to have led Manco to change his mind about Almagro, and he caused one of his commanders, Paucar, to attack him. He also imprisoned Ruy Díaz, had his beard cut off, and had guavas fired at him, which may have been more disagreeable than it sounds. He did not know how bad the relations were between Almagro and the Pizarros and assumed that, in the end, Almagro’s 450 men would be a good reinforcement for Hernando Pizarro’s 200.
So he decided to call off his siege of Cuzco, attributing his setback to the gods. Pursued by Spaniards, he withdrew first from Calca, then to the fortress city of Ollantaytambo, and next to the upper Vilcabamba valley, specifically to the forest of Antis Vitcos. He took with him a golden statuette of a small boy, Punchao. Solar rays issued from the figure’s head and shoulders, and he had a royal headband, while lions and serpents projected from his body.5 The fighting was severe in Ollantaytambo, though the Indians held out effectively against Hernando Pizarro.
Paullu Inca sent a message to Manco saying that Almagro seemed in truth ready to help Manco fight the Pizarros. He suggested that they kill Francisco, Hernando, and Gonzalo Pizarro, and “afterwards the surviving Peruvians could live quietly with no one to injure them” [después vivirian quietos sin que nadie a el le injuriase]. This apparent treachery to the Spanish cause did not prevent Almagro from sending his lieutenant Orgóñez to capture Manco. Though Orgóñez succeeded in sacking the sun temple at Vitcos, Manco escaped farther into the mountains.
Almagro was approaching Cuzco. He first had to meet the reinforcement army of five hundred men under Alonso de Alvarado, which Almagro succeeded in defeating on the Abancay bridge, even capturing Alvarado himself with several of his captains. Cuzco was then at his feet. Hernando Pizarro sent a messenger to try to bring over Almagro’s troops by playing on the ambitions of Juan de Saavedra, who was now his commander. Saavedra refused.6 Next, Hernando suggested to Almagro that he should set himself up in one part of Cuzco, while he and his brothers would remain in another. But Almagro demanded that Hernando give up all Cuzco to him. A battle between Spaniards seemed inevitable, despite the serene efforts of Diego de Alvarado, a cousin of the great Pedro, “a model of good sense and discretion, an accomplished gentleman in all respects”7—and, it must be said, an unusually tolerant figure for a member of his family.
On April 18, 1537, Almagro and his men entered Cuzco by three separate gates, drums and fifes playing. Almagro’s men shouted his name when they entered the palace of Pizarro, which they set on fire. They also set fire to the roof of the house of Hernando Pizarro, who was captured with twenty of his men, including his brother Gonzalo. These prisoners were walled up in a round tower at the palace of Huayna Capac, which had only one small window, through which food could be introduced. Almagro told the Pizarros that “they, with their insolence and arrogance, were the chief reasons for the rebellion of Manco.”8 In some way, Almagro had been apprised of the news that the Pizarros would never forgive the death in action of their brother Juan.
Hearing of these events, Francisco Pizarro first sought an accommodation with Almagro. He was always inclined to compromise if he could. Licenciado Gaspar de Espinosa, the experienced ex-governor of Panama, who had come down to Peru the previous year, was asked to act as an intermediary. But unfortunately he died. Almagro set off to face Francisco Pizarro, taking with him Hernando Pizarro as a prisoner. Francisco organized his army of eight hundred with care. Two hundred of his men were horsemen, and the future conqueror of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia, renowned as a brilliant captain, was his chief commander.9
Several further efforts were made to arrange a reconciliation between the two sides. Almagro’s representatives were, however, not loyal. For example, having been asked to act for Almagro, Fray Francisco de Bobadilla, a Mercedarian, treacherously decided for the Pizarros.10 A committee was named to establish a line between Pizarro’s and Almagro’s land. But they could make no progress. Still, Diego de Alvarado skillfully negotiated the release of Hernando Pizarro. (Most realized that he would disturb the situation. It was true.) The two conquistadors met south of Lima, at Mala, but nothing transpired. Francisco Pizarro proposed that Almagro should be given good land at Arequipa and Chencas. But Almagro wanted Cuzco or nothing. He arranged a ceremony whereby Paullu Inca was given the imperial crown as well as the ancient palace of Colcampata in Cuzco.
Everything now seemed to be leading toward the tragedy of a civil war.
The critical battle occurred in April 1538 at Las Salinas (the salt mines), outside Cuzco. It was a site where the road goes uphill, leaving a swamp on one side and a narrow but flat place on the other. The clever if footloose courtier Enríquez de Guzmán, still with Almagro, wrote that, though the encampments of the two armies were close, one was in summer, the other in winter, for Almagro was at Huaytara, in the sierra, while Pizarro was below. In the sierra, it rained or snowed half the year, while on the coast there was no water.
Suffering from a fever, Almagro could not himself fight at Las Salinas. He left his command to Orgóñez, who had with him four infantry captains. He had two cavalry detachments. Hernando Pizarro’s cavalry was divided into two also, led by Diego de Rojas and Alvarado on one side, and himself with Gonzalo, his brother, on the other. His infantry was controlled by Diego de Cerbina (pikes) and Castro from Portugal (arquebuses). Thus an Alvarado was to be found on each side, a characteristic feature of those tragic days.
First, Orgóñez ordered a cavalry detachment to attack the Pizarros’ pikemen and arquebusiers. But Pizarro’s men were by then well established in the swamp, which held up t
he cavalry of Almagro. They charged all the same. Hernando Pizarro and Pedro de Lerma, one of Almagro’s more important commanders, were met with lances, and the first named was wounded. But Almagro’s commander was blinded before being killed. Enríquez de Guzmán was wounded when his horse fell into a ravine.
Victory lay eventually with the Pizarros, though about two hundred were killed on each side. These included Fernando de Alvarado. Ruy Díaz and Lerma were killed after the battle, the latter treacherously. Almagro was captured after the battle, too, and imprisoned in one of the round towers where he had previously placed Hernando Pizarro and Gonzalo.11 Hernando Pizarro thought of sending him to Spain, but he heard that Gonzalo de Mesa, one of his own captains, planned to rescue Almagro on the way to Lima. So, after a perfunctory trial, Hernando sentenced Almagro to death. He appealed against this but without success. On July 8, 1538, Almagro, already over seventy-five, was strangled in his cell, then publicly beheaded in the square of Cuzco and buried in the main church. The only witness of his funeral was his favorite African slave.12 Almagro’s dead body lay for a while naked in the square, and a Pizarrist examined it carefully to see whether he had been, as was rumored, a sodomite. Gonzalo de Mesa, Almagro’s would-be rescuer, was also beheaded. These executions were carried out by Alonso de Toro, a criado of the Pizarros and a native of Trujíllo, who soon became lieutenant-governor of Cuzco. In 1546, he, too, was murdered, by his father-in-law.13
In Peru, the general use of heavy field artillery was now begun. Henceforth, thousands of encomienda Indians would be employed carrying big guns round the country. The battle of Las Salinas of April 1538 was the last major battle fought in medieval fashion, with lances and swords playing a decisive part. It was not, however, a chivalrous occasion.
25
Pizarro’s Triumph and Tragedy
This doctor is worth a Peru.
LORENZO DA PONTE, Così fan tutte
Fray Vicente de Valverde, the Valladolid- and Salamanca-educated Dominican, who was the only churchman to have accompanied Pizarro throughout, had returned to Spain in 1534. He now returned having been named first bishop of Peru. He was escorted by a retinue of fifty soldiers and a hundred arquebusiers and crossbowmen. Valverde had received instructions in Spain as to how to be a model bishop. He was to ensure that repartimientos (parcels of land) were moderate, to ask for accounts from the royal officials, to ensure that the payment of the royal fifth was honestly made, and to collect tithes. Here the Crown surely hoped to establish a truly separate authority.1 In 1539, Valverde sent a long report to the King in which he urged the Crown to defend the Indians against his Spanish friends, whom he described as “so many wolves.” Yet the indigenous people, he said (as he had said on other occasions), were very ready “to receive the doctrine of the holy Gospel.”2 The Pizarros had always been friendly with the Dominicans and the Mercedarians.
All the same, it was a complicated moment to write thus, for now that Almagro was dead, Manco Capac was planning a new rebellion. He had as his main commander Illa Tupac, a general who had attacked Pedro de Alvarado in 1537. Their plan was to inspire many small-scale local risings, causing much damage. The decisive moment seems to have been when a people called the Conchucos fell on Trujillo by the sea and carried out many killings or tortures of travelers. Manco himself was pursued by a commander of Pizarro’s, Illán Suárez de Carvajal. (His brother, Juan Suárez de Carvajal, was on the Council of the Indies.)3 But Manco turned successfully on this enemy, twenty-four out of thirty men being soon killed.
Francisco Pizarro took command in new counterattacks. Still, his main interest was to found new settlements. For example, in full campaign, he founded San Juan de la Frontera at Huamanga under Francisco de Cárdenas.4 Pizarro also went to Charcas and to the famous inland lake Titicaca. He learned there that rebellious Indians were busy trying to destroy a pontoon bridge of boats across the lake to the south. It was there that Pizarro received a request from one of his most brilliant men, Pedro de Valdivia. “The golden captain,” as he was known for his good qualities, asked Pizarro for permission to go and explore, and also conquer, the land abandoned by Almagro. “Seeing my determination,” Valdivia wrote later to the King, “he graciously opened the door to me.”5 But such grants were not without their cost: At the same moment as giving him carte blanche in Chile, Pizarro withdrew his earlier grant to Valdivia of the valley of Canela and its silver mine.
The Pizarro family were busy establishing their control in the center of Peru, east of the conquered lands. Thus Hernando found and took for himself the mines that the Indians had begun at Porco. Gonzalo occupied the entire valley of Cochabamba.6 Francisco established himself and his family in equally excellent estates.
Feeling that his conquests had at last been completed, Hernando Pizarro again took leave of his brothers. To Francisco, he declared, “Look, your lordship, now I am going [again] to Spain, and consider that safety lies first in God and then in your lordship’s life … do not permit those who wish it to gather ten people together within fifty leagues of wherever your lordship may be, for if you let them assemble, they are certain to kill you. If they kill your lordship, I shall be sure to conduct our business badly and no memory of your lordship will remain.”7 With that unexpectedly modest statement, he set off for Spain with the intention of justifying before the Council of the Indies his already much-criticized execution of Almagro. He traveled via New Spain, avoiding Panama since he was afraid of being seized or killed by his enemies there.8
Francisco Pizarro had aged during the crisis over the Almagros. The Emperor had named him marquess, as he had named Cortés. But Charles was allowing Pizarro to choose his title, leaving it up to him as to of what territory or city he would be marquess.
Pizarro dispatched his brother Gonzalo, accompanied by their cousin, Pedro the chronicler, and Paullu Inca to seek out Manco in his refuge beyond Vilcabamba. They went as far as horses could go, then continued on foot. With Pedro del Barco temporarily in control of the expedition, the Spaniards were ambushed by Indians, who killed five of them. Gonzalo retreated, and his brother Francisco sent more troops to assist him. Next day, they reached Manco’s secret redoubt, while another section of their forces went into the forest nearby without the Indians knowing of it. Gonzalo sought to negotiate, but his emissaries were Huaspar and Inquill, two brothers of Manco’s Queen, Cura Ocllo. Here the Indians tried unsuccessfully to experiment with arquebuses.
Manco Capac escaped downstream with three followers. The Spaniards then embarked on persecution. For example, Queen Cura Ocllo herself was captured; she tried to avoid rape by smearing filth over herself. Manco sent a messenger inviting Francisco Pizarro to meet him at Hucay, with three or four followers. Pizarro sent a pony, a black slave, and some other presents. Manco had all these killed. Pizarro’s reply was the brutal murder of Cura Ocllo by shooting arrows at her. She made no complaint at the evident pain.9 Her body was put in a basket in the river Yucay so that it would be found by Manco’s people. Pizarro then executed several of his grander prisoners, such as the general Tiso. Among others killed were Villac Umu, the high priest, who had been fighting Pedro de los Ríos in the Condesuyo for at least eight months. These enemies of the Spanish were killed by being burned.
After this, there were no more large-scale Indian rebellions. Alonso de Alvarado returned to the conquest of the Chachapoyas, north of Cajamarca, and his relatively humane treatment of Indians secured him a reasonable reception. He founded the town of Rabantu. But in Huánaco, a new and inexperienced Spanish force under Alonso de Mercadillo was busy terrifying the natives in the hope of finding gold. There were many complaints, causing Pizarro to order his brother Gonzalo to stop there on his way to becoming governor of Quito. Another rebellion that had to be quenched was on the road to Chinchaysuyo, which was the responsibility of Alonso de Orihuela. In July 1539, two encomenderos were killed in the Callejón de Huaylas. Francisco de Chaves, one of Pizarro’s most successful but more brutal captains, swept through
the valleys of the northern central highlands to carry out fearful reprisals, killing children as well as women.10
Franciso Pizarro himself was busy founding two new towns, La Plata and Arequipa. There he and his secretary, the much disliked Antonio Picado, made themselves even more unpopular by cutting back large repartimientos that had already been allocated. Picado was also hated because he unjustifiably desired that all should show reverence to him.
In the summer of 1541, several plots against Francisco Pizarro were reported to him. Perhaps a priest betrayed the discretion of the confessional. The news also came that Hernando Pizarro had been indicted in Spain, as a result of complaints by Diego de Alvarado, on account of the execution of Almagro. Diego, either poisoned or worn out by his exertions, died soon after making these allegations, but Hernando was seized and arrested. Though by now immensely rich, he passed the next quarter century as a prisoner, if a privileged prisoner, at first in Madrid, in the Alcázar, then in the Castillo de la Mota, just outside Medina del Campo. He could receive guests, children, mistresses, and food from the town, and he could buy houses and properties (and did so); but this certainly seemed an extraordinary conclusion for the life of a great conquistador who had won so much of South America for the Spanish Crown.11
The castle of La Mota is a formidable brick building on the south side of Medina del Campo, which had always been a royal city. Famous for its great annual fairs in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, it had been the favorite city of Queen Isabel the Catholic, who died there. She had said that, if she had had three sons, she would have liked one to be king of Castile, another to be archbishop of Toledo, and a third to be a notary in Medina del Campo. La Mota had been the prison of numerous dangerous persons, including for a time Cesare Borgia, the Italian adventurer, who made a daring escape from it in 1506.
