A subsequent landing party, which Pizarro sent to verify what Molina and the black slave had reported, stated that they:
saw silver vessels and many silversmiths working, and that on some walls of the temple there were gold and silver sheets, and that the women they called of the Sun were very beautiful. The Spaniards were ecstatic to hear so many things, hoping with God’s help to enjoy their share of it.
With their ship now loaded with fresh food and water, Pizarro and his men continued their exploration of the coast. At a spot near what is now called Cabo Blanco, in northwestern Peru, Pizarro went ashore in a canoe. There, looking up and down the rugged coast and then at his gathering of men, Pizarro is said to have stated, “Be my witnesses as I take possession of this land with all else that has been discovered by us for the emperor, our lord, and for the royal crown of Castile!”
To the Spaniards who witnessed Pizarro’s speech, Biru—which was soon corrupted into Peru—now belonged to a Spanish emperor living twelve thousand miles away. Thirty-five years earlier, in 1493, Pope Alexander VI—a Spaniard who had bribed his way into the papacy—had issued a papal bull that had eventually resulted in the Spanish crown being granted all lands 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. All undiscovered lands to the east of this longitudinal line would go to Portugal, the other European maritime power at the time, which gave Portugal Brazil. With one simple pronouncement from this pope, the Spanish crown had received a divine grant that bequeathed to it an enormous region of lands and peoples that had as yet to be discovered. The inhabitants of these new lands, according to the proclamation, were already subjects of the Spanish king—all that remained was that they be located and informed of this fact.
In 1501, Queen Isabella had ratified this arrangement: the “Indians” of the New World were her “subjects and vassals,” she said. Thus, as soon as they were located, the Indians would have to be informed that they owed the Spanish monarchs their “tributes and rights.” The corollary of this mind-set, of course, was that the inhabitants of the New World had no right to resist the pope’s edict, which was clearly God’s will. Anyone who refused to submit to what God himself had commanded was thus by definition a “rebel” or an “unlawful combatant.” It was a theme and argument that was to crop up over and over again in the conquest of Peru, all of the way down to the last Inca emperor.
Pizarro’s expedition had been a successful one, as far as he was concerned. On board they now carried never before seen creatures called llamas, which may have reminded some of the Spaniards of scenes of camels they had seen in woodcuts in the Bible. They also carried finely crafted native pottery and metal vessels, intricately woven clothing of cotton and of an unknown material the natives called alpaca, and even two native boys, whom they baptized Felipillo and Martinillo. The Spaniards had asked for and had been given the boys, whom they intended to train for later voyages as interpreters. Pizarro now had proof positive of a contact with what appeared to be the outskirts of a wealthy native empire.
Pizarro was worried, however, for as his ship drew nearer to Panama, word would soon get out about what they had seen. Other Spaniards might soon get the idea of heading south themselves and of stealing from him a potentially lucrative conquest. There was only one thing for Pizarro to do—he had to return to Spain. Only by petitioning the king and queen in person could he hope to obtain the exclusive rights to conquer and sack what appeared to be an untouched native kingdom. If not, then some other hastily thrown together corporation of plunder might beat him to it. Leaving Almagro behind in order to begin the preparations for their next voyage, Pizarro crossed the Isthmus, booked passage on a sailing ship, then set off for a land he hadn’t seen in thirty years—Spain.
Fifty-one-year-old Francisco Pizarro arrived in the walled city of Seville in mid-1528. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had sponsored Columbus, had died more than a dozen years earlier; now their grandson, twenty-eight-year-old Charles V, was on the throne. Pizarro quickly made his way to Toledo, where he asked for an audience with the king. It had been nearly three decades since an impoverished, twenty-four-year-old Pizarro had set off to find his fortune in the New World. Pizarro now had three decades of experience in exploration and conquest, had helped to discover the Pacific Ocean, and had sailed further south than any other European along the unknown coast of the Southern Sea. Having carefully transported with him some of the llamas, jewelry, clothing, a small amount of gold, and the two native Amerindian boys, who were rapidly learning Spanish, Pizarro was now about to try to leverage what he hoped would be his trump card: that he had discovered a heretofore unknown native empire in a land he called Peru.
Pizarro, however, soon discovered that he wasn’t the only conquistador who had come to lobby the king. Forty-three-year-old Hernando Cortés, who had conquered the Aztec Empire some seven years earlier, had just dazzled the royal court with a procession of treasures that would have rivaled those of Alexander the Great. An excellent showman, Cortés had brought forty native Amerindians with him, including three sons of Montezuma, the Aztec lord whose empire he had conquered and who had lost his life in the struggle. Cortés had also brought native jugglers, dancers, acrobats, dwarfs, and hunchbacks, fabulous feather headdresses and cloaks, fans, shields, obsidian mirrors, turquoise, jade, silver, gold, and even an armadillo, an opossum, and a brace of snarling jaguars, none of which had ever before been seen.
The spectacular display had its desired effect. Although Cortés had risked conquering the Aztecs with no official permission, King Charles brushed that aside and marveled at everything he was shown, honoring the great conqueror by having Cortés sit beside him. The king then anointed Cortés with the title of marquis, named him Captain-General of Mexico, granted him an estate of 23,000 Aztec vassals, and also granted him percent of all future profits derived from his conquests. At one stroke of the royal scepter, Cortés officially became one of the richest men in Europe as well as one of the most famous. Now, after having secured royal patronage, Cortés and his conquest would also be safe from the predations of other Spaniards.
With the visit of Cortés fresh in his mind, King Charles gave Pizarro a friendly reception. Although it had taken him thirty years, Pizarro had clearly moved up in the world, for now the former peasant from Extremadura was having an audience with one of the most powerful rulers in Europe. Soon to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor, King Charles V was not only the monarch of the kingdoms of Spain, but was also the ruler of the Netherlands, parts of what are now Austria and Germany, the kingdoms of the two Sicilies, an assortment of islands in the Caribbean, the Isthmus of Panama, and—with Cortés’s recent conquest—Mexico. Before the king and his court, Pizarro brought out the llamas, the native clothing, vessels, pottery, and other goods and then described what he and his men had seen in this recently explored part of the world—the well-ordered city of Tumbez, its buildings, its inhabitants, the intricately cut stones, and especially the interior walls lined with glimmering sheets of gold. The normally taciturn conquistador apparently made a good sales pitch, for in July 1529 while the king was on his way to his coronation, Queen Isabella* signed a capitulación, or royal license, granting Pizarro the exclusive right to conquer the unexplored land of Peru. The queen, however, made it very clear exactly what was expected from him:
As for you, Captain Francisco Pizarro, because of the desire that you have to serve us, you would like to continue the said conquest and settlement at your cost and upkeep so that at no time are we obligated to pay you or satisfy the expenses that you might have in it, except what was granted to you in this agreement….
First, I give permission and authority to you … that for us and in our name and in that of the royal crown of Castile, you may continue the said discovery and conquest and settlement of the province of Peru up to two hundred leagues [seven hundred miles] of land along the same coast….
[And] understanding that you are the executor in the service of God Our Lord and ours, and to honor your person and
to benefit you and grant you favor, we promise to make you our governor and Captain General of all the province of Peru, land [and] villages that are at present and will later be within the entire two hundred leagues, for all the days of your life, with the salary of seven hundred twenty-five thousand maravedis each year, counted from the day that you set sail from these our kingdoms to continue the said settlement and conquest. This should be paid to you from the income and interests belonging to us in the said land that you would thus settle….
Further, we grant you the title of our Governor of the said province of Peru as well as the office of Marshal of the same, all this for the [rest of the] days of your life.
It was an excellent contract, as good as Pizarro could have hoped for, and was duly notarized, signed, sealed, and delivered. The queen had made it clear, however, that in terms of financing, Pizarro was for the most part completely on his own. Since Pizarro was the co-CEO of the Company of the Levant, it was up to him and his partners to raise the capital to buy the means of production with which to carry out their corporation’s specialty: plunder. Ships, guns, knives, swords, daggers, lances, horses, gunpowder, provisions—all the accoutrements needed to bring a native empire to its knees—would have to be supplied by the conquistadors themselves, just as they had supplied them during previous expeditions.
Pizarro, having formed a company, having found what he hoped would be a native empire, and having secured a royal license, nevertheless needed further help. What was crucial at this point was finding a large group of young, stout, and well-armed entrepreneurs who would be willing to travel to the New World with him and who would follow his orders. There could be no better place to find them than in Extremadura; thus, after meeting with the king, Pizarro traveled to his native town of Trujillo in order to recruit a fresh batch of conquistadors.
Pizarro had little trouble finding them, for it seemed that every young Spaniard wanted to take part in what must have seemed at the time to be the modern equivalent of a hot, new IPO. Who in this impoverished region of dry land and thin crops wouldn’t drop everything if he had a reasonable chance of acquiring instant wealth and of retiring to a great, New World estate—or of bringing that wealth home? In Trujillo, Pizarro gathered up his four half-brothers: twenty-nine-year-old Hernando, eighteen-year-old Juan, seventeen-year-old Gonzalo, and sixteen-year-old Francisco Martín. The five brothers would soon form the core of the enterprise; throughout the coming years they would remain a tight, loyal band of brothers, no matter how difficult and formidable the circumstances would become.
According to some accounts, not long after his presentation at court, rich now with titles and rewards, Hernando Cortés met with Pizarro. Thus, for a brief moment in time, the trajectories of the two men who would each conquer an empire intertwined. What was said between the two? No record of their conversation exists. But it is likely that the fabulously wealthy Cortés gave advice to his older and equally ambitious kinsman, and that after the meeting the latter was even more determined to repeat in Peru what Cortés had wrought in Mexico.
At last, in January of 1530 and with a flotilla of would-be conquistadors—none of whom had any experience in the New World—Pizarro set sail from Seville. Nearly three years would pass before in November of 1532 he and his four brothers would finally find themselves marching with 163 other Spaniards high up in the Andes, the air growing colder and sharper, on their way to a fateful meeting with Atahualpa, the great lord of Peru.
3 SUPERNOVA OF THE ANDES
“Men do not rest content with parrying attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made. And we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves.”
THUCYDIDES, THE HISTORY OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, 5TH CENTURY B.C.
“The Inca [emperor Pachacuti] then attacked the province of the Soras, forty leagues from Cuzco. The natives came forth to resist, asking why the invaders sought their lands, telling them to depart or they would be driven out by force. Over this question there was a battle, and two towns of the Soras were subdued…. They were taken prisoners to Cuzco, and there was a triumph over them.”
PEDRO SARMIENTO DE GAMBOA, HISTORY OF THE INCAS, 1572
WHEN IN APRIL OF 1532 FRANCISCO PIZARRO ARRIVED within view of the Inca city of Tumbez, ready to begin his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Peru, he was startled by how dramatically the city had changed since his last visit. Four years earlier, Tumbez had been an orderly city with a thousand dwellings and well-appointed buildings of finely cut stones. Now, however, the city lay in ruins. Walls had been pulled down, houses destroyed, and much of the population seemed to have disappeared. What in God’s name had transpired?
The embalmed body of the emperor Huayna Capac, killed by European-introduced smallpox, being carried by native bearers to Cuzco in a royal litter.
As Pizarro wandered about the ruined city and asked questions of its dazed inhabitants, he relied on his interpreters, Felipillo and Martinillo, the native boys whom he had taught to speak Spanish. Through his interpreters he began to slowly piece together the story of what had happened, although many of the details would take years to uncover.
When Pizarro first arrived in Tumbez in 1528, the Inca Empire was ruled by a powerful emperor named Huayna Capac. At this particular moment in their history, the Incas had been carrying out a military campaign in the area that is now Ecuador, pacifying a local uprising against Inca rule.* The Incas themselves were a relatively small ethnic group that hailed from a region far to the south, in the valley of Cuzco. For a two-hundred-year period, roughly from to A.D. 1200 to 1400, the Incas had gradually been consolidating their power in the Cuzco basin, conquering or intermarrying with their neighbors and slowly developing a small state. Then, beginning in the early 1400s, the Incas suddenly launched a series of protracted military adventures, conquering tribes across the Andes and on the coast. Their martial and organizational abilities were obviously exceptional, for within the space of some sixty years the Incas had—like a supernova exploding in the heart of the Andes—transformed their tiny kingdom originally measuring perhaps less than one hundred miles in diameter into an immense empire stretching for thousands of miles.
The empire stitched together by the Incas—who as an ethnic group never numbered more than one hundred thousand individuals—was, however, only the latest in a long series of kingdoms and empires that had risen and fallen in the Andes and on the coast for more than a thousand years. Sometime between 12,500 to 15,000 years ago, the first people had arrived in South America. Their ancestors presumably had crossed the Bering Strait land bridge and had worked their way down through North and Central America. The continent was still in the grips of the last ice age, and for the next three thousand years or so men and women made a living from hunting and gathering while using a variety of stone tools. As the ice age slowly retreated, the fauna and flora gradually changed and then, around 8,000 B.C., the first evidence of agriculture appeared—archaeologists have found the remnants of cultivated potatoes in what is now northern Bolivia. Eventually, during a five-thousand-year period between 8,000 and 3,000 B.C., people in what is now Peru learned to domesticate both animals (llamas and alpacas) and food crops (potatoes, corn, quinoa, beans, peppers, squash, guava, etc.), abandoned the hunting and gathering lifestyle, and settled in permanent villages and towns. As more food was produced, local populations increased. And then something odd began occurring on the coast.
Peru’s coastal plain is a narrow strip of land about 1,400 miles long and averaging less than fifty miles wide, hemmed in on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Andes. It is extremely dry along most of its length, and in many areas rain doesn’t fall for years at a time. The desert strip is penetrated, however, by more than thirty river valleys that carry water from the Andes down to the Pacifi
c. In these valleys both fertile soil and water are abundant—prime real estate for the first agriculturalists. The Humboldt Current, meanwhile, which sweeps northward along the coast, is also one of the richest seas in the world for fish. Beginning in about 3200 B.C.,—roughly during the same period when the Egyptians were building their first pyramids—people on Peru’s northern coast began building terraced mounds alongside large plazas, ceremonial architecture, and large-scale settlements. The unusual thing about these people is that they farmed little and instead relied upon fish from the sea. In certain lowland coastal valleys, meanwhile, other groups who did farm began building their own large settlements and urban architecture.
Fast forward another three thousand years and the gradual process of population growth, competition for arable land, an erratic climate, advances in food production, and the conquest of adjacent river valleys led to the formation of the first state, or kingdom, that of the Moche (A.D 100–800) on Peru’s northern coast.* Life for the Moche kingdom’s inhabitants was quite different from the lifestyle of the first farmers, who by now had existed for thousands of years in Peru. The latter, for example, had originally produced only enough seed for their own use as food and for planting the following growing season. In general, they paid no taxes and were beholden to no one. By the time the first kingdoms arose, however, farmers were now required to produce a surplus of food or labor over and above their personal needs. They were then required to relinquish that surplus in order to support a ruler and an emerging upper class. Over thousands of years, on different parts of the coast and in different areas of the Andes, a growing number of Peru’s inhabitants had gradually become peasants, or taxpayers, a new class of human being. “Civilization” had thus begun, which in its incipient form can be defined as the development of a complex social order based upon the division of labor between rulers and food-producing cultivators. Here, amid the barren deserts of Peru and high up in the Andes, a revolution had taken place, one that would form the basis of every subsequent Peruvian civilization to come. Small groups of people, or elites, had gained control over much larger masses of people.
The Last Days of the Incas Page 5
