The Last Conquistador

by Stuart Stirling

  Nothing, however, appears to have lessened the Spaniards’ continual fear of attack by the Inca’s armies in a bid to free him. It was a fear expressed by the horseman Miguel de Estete: ‘The Inca let it be known what he planned to do with us, for it was his intention to take our horses and mares, which was what impressed him most, for breeding, and to castrate some of us for his service to guard his women, as was their custom, the rest he would sacrifice to the sun.’13 The eighteen-year-old Pedro Pizarro, who had arrived with Almagro’s reinforcements from San Miguel de Piura, where he had formed part of Pizarro’s earlier settlement, left a vivid portrait of the Inca’s captivity:

  . . . many caciques served him, though they always remained outside in the courtyard, and when ever he called one of them he would enter bare-foot and carrying in homage a burden on his back . . . on his head he [the Inca] wore a llautu, which are braids of coloured wool, half a finger thick and a finger in width, in the manner of a crown . . . on his forehead he wore a fringe attached to the llautu, made of fine scarlet wool, evenly cut and adorned with small gold strings. His hair, like that of all his lords, he wore cut short . . . one day when he was being fed by his sisters and when he raised some food to his mouth, a particle fell on his clothing, and giving his hand to one of the women he stood up and went into his chamber to put on new clothing, and when he came back he wore a shirt and a dark brown mantle. I felt the mantle which was smoother than silk and I said to him: ‘Inca, of what is this cloth made?’ And he said to me: ‘It is made of birds who fly by night [vampire bats] in Puerto Viejo and Túmbez and who bite my people.’ And on my asking him what he kept in his chests, he showed me they contained the clothing he had worn and all the garments that had touched his skin. And I asked him: ‘For what purpose do you have these garments here?’ He answered that it was in order to burn them, for what had been touched by the sons of the Sun must be burnt to ashes, which none was allowed to handle, and scattered to the wind . . .14

  Several thousand subject tribesmen and their caciques and women, among them Cañaris, Chachapoyas and Huanca warriors who had sought shelter with the Spaniards, were by then camped in the valley. A number of Inca lords from Huáscar’s defeated armies were also camped outside the walls of the township, adding to the general confusion of divided loyalties witnessed by the Inca and his retinue from his stone cell. For the next 4 months the combined company of some 330 conquistadors were to remain in the township, awaiting the arrival of further caravans of the tribute treasure. Deposited in its square, the thousands of gold and silver artefacts were taken to a chamber, of some 22 ft in length and 17 ft in width, which would eventually be filled with gold to a height of 8 ft, and filled twice over in its entirety with silver.15 The conquistadors Diego de Trujillo, Bernabé Picón and Serra de Leguizamón were later to claim that the original chamber in which the treasure had been kept had burned down.16

  Eleven days after the arrival of Almagro’s men, Hernando Pizarro and a small squadron of horse returned to Cajamarca after an absence of almost three months in search of treasure, in an expedition the Inca had sanctioned to the Temple of Pachacámac, south of Lima. Though finding little treasure, Hernando had brought with him as his prisoner Atahualpa’s warrior chief Chalcuchima. Wishing to meet with his master, he had agreed to accompany Hernando to the encampment, giving him some 5,000 pesos of gold and ordering his servants to shoe his horses with silver. Within hours of his audience with the Inca he was tied to a stake and partially burned by Hernando de Soto to reveal the whereabouts of treasure he believed he had ordered buried near the township. The brutality exhibited by Soto, who had often shown the imprisoned Inca great kindness and had taught him to play chess, is demonstrative of the psychology of the men of the Indies, none of whom, including Almagro and Pizarro, would have thought twice about meting out a similar punishment, nor believed that they would have shared a more humane fate at the hands of the Inca, who had proudly showed them the shrunken head of one of his brothers he used as a drinking vessel. The Indian Tancara, in evidence he gave to an enquiry in 1607, recorded that Hernando Pizarro had burned his grandfather to death and other caciques in the province of Omasuyos. Another Indian testimonial revealed that he had burned some 600 Lupaca tribesmen.17 Torture and killing were to become for the Spaniards a way of life. No prisoners were taken. No quarter was given.

  Some four weeks after Almagro’s reinforcements had reached Cajamarca, Pizarro ordered the smelting of what had been accumulated of the tribute, in nine separate forges. For seven days and nights 11 tons of gold and silver artefacts were fed into the furnaces, yielding some 13,420 lbs of 22.5 carat gold in ingots and 26,000 lbs in silver. A few days after the smelting had been completed, one of the three foot soldiers18 who had been sent to Cuzco under the protection of the Inca’s guides to supervise the collection of the city’s tribute, returned to the township accompanied by a caravan of llamas, bringing some of the 700 sheets of gold which had been stripped from the Temple of Coricancha. A month later Hernando Pizarro left Cajamarca for the Isthmus, taking with him the Crown’s share of the Inca’s tribute – the Royal Fifth – of some 100,000 pesos of gold and various artefacts, among them a life-size gold statue of a boy. In the following days the two other foot soldiers returned from Cuzco, carried in litters by their Indian porters and followed by a train of 255 llamas with more sheets of the temple’s gold.

  The distribution of the tribute treasure would take a whole month to complete. A document, signed by Pizarro, recorded that the full amount of treasure smelted at Cajamarca amounted to 1,326,539 pesos of gold and 51,610 marks of silver.19 Neither of these figures would include the gold and silver artefacts and jewels that the Spaniards took as personal booty, nor Atahualpa’s gold throne litter chair which Pizarro appropriated for himself. Hernando de Soto on his eventual return to Spain a few years later took with him a personal fortune of some 100,000 pesos of gold, a far greater figure than he is recorded as having been awarded by Pizarro. The gold had been smelted in ingots of 8¾ lbs in weight – some 1,000 pesos. Each of Pizarro’s horsemen were awarded approximately 8,800 pesos of gold and 362 marks of silver, each of his foot soldiers 4,440 pesos of gold and 181 marks of silver. For these men, most of whom had known nothing but poverty, it was a fortune that would transform their lives. Pizarro’s own share in gold was 57,220 pesos. The awards in gold to his three half-brothers were indicative of their influence in his small council of captains, and also of Soto’s initial investment in the expedition: Hernando Pizarro – 31,080 pesos; Hernando de Soto – 17,740 pesos; Juan Pizarro – 11,100 pesos; Sebastían de Benalcázar, Pedro de Candía, Gonzalo Pizarro – 9,009 pesos each. The Friar Valverde because of his vows of poverty received no award. The few men who had stayed behind at San Miguel, and who had formed part of Pizarro’s expeditionary force, were awarded 15,000 pesos between them. Though Almagro and his men had no claim to the tribute, Pizarro awarded them 20,000 pesos. It was a gesture that did little to alter their feeling of resentment and only increased their demand to leave Cajamarca and to continue their march to Cuzco, the sacking of which they saw as their only hope of enriching themselves.

  Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, though not even a captain, was awarded 2,000 pesos of gold by Pizarro.20 It was an award none of Almagro’s men would receive individually with the exception of Nicolás de Ribera, who had been one of Pizarro’s oldest companions, and which was possibly indicative of Pizarro’s regard for him. An encomendero of Lima would record that some five years after the events at Cajamarca, veterans could still be seen wearing the jewels they had taken there as booty. Most of them would dissipate their fortunes, gambling them away at the toss of a card in the months they had stayed in the encampment, or in their reckless spending on the few available goods to be found which they paid for in bars of gold and silver. The notary Francisco López de Jerez recorded that a jug of wine cost 60 pesos of gold; a pair of boots or breeches: from 30 to 40 pesos; a cape: 125 pesos; a clove of garlic: ½ peso; a sword: 50 pesos; a
sheet of vellum paper: 10 pesos.21 The foot soldier Melchor Verdugo is recorded as having purchased a horse, an Isthmian Indian and a woman, described as marked with a facial scar, and twenty chickens for 2,000 pesos from the priest Asencio. A horse in poor condition was valued at 94 pesos, and one in good condition at 3,000 pesos. Negro slaves, depending on their age and physique, were sold for between 300 and 600 pesos. Juan Pantiel de Salinas, one of the farriers, is recorded as having spent days shoeing horses with silver.22

  The distribution of Atahualpa’s tribute inevitably sealed his fate. Pizarro’s notary López de Jerez recorded that at the time the Inca had informed a number of his captors that he had seen a ball of fire illuminate the night sky, and that he knew it was an omen of his own death.23 Legend has created an almost theatrical image of the events that led to his supposed trial and execution based on the alleged evidence of the Indian interpreter Felipillo,24 who was said to have overheard Atahualpa ordering an attack on the township – a story originating some twenty years after the Inca’s death. Even though various eyewitnesses record that both Almagro and the treasurer Alonso de Riquelme had demanded his execution and that Pizarro had only reluctantly agreed to their request, it seems implausible that he would have been swayed in his decision by anyone’s demands. Pizarro’s brother Hernando, who would later claim to disapprove of his action because it lacked the Crown’s authority, was already in the Isthmus and about to sail for Spain. Hernando de Soto, who had offered to take the Inca to Spain – ostensibly for the same reason, but in reality to further his own influence at court – was also absent from Cajamarca on a scouting sortie to investigate a report of the approach of an army commanded by the chief Rumiñavi. It was a report that proved to be without foundation, but which had enabled Pizarro to justify his decision to his men. There appears to be no real evidence that Pizarro was opposed by anyone in his action.

  On the evening of 26 July 1533, his neck, arms and feet manacled in chains, the Inca was brought out of the chamber that had been his prison for almost eight months into the township’s square, where he was tied to a stake and made to sit on a stool in front of the entire assembly of conquistadors. He was then addressed through an interpreter by the Friar Valverde and urged to accept baptism, but he made no reply until a Cañari tribesman who Pizarro had appointed his executioner approached him. It was then, the foot soldier Lucas Martínez Vegazo recorded, that the Inca began to cry out, entreating Valverde, as if he were agreeing with what had been demanded of him, and Valverde baptized him, giving him Pizarro’s name of Francisco, and telling him that because of his repentance he would not be burnt alive as had been decreed. He once more began to cry out, gesturing with his hands and indicating the height of his children who he said were very young, and pleading with Valverde to commend their safety to Pizarro. ‘He wept and spoke to the tongue [interpreter]’, recalled Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, ‘and again he asked the Marqués to care for his two sons and daughter he had left in Quito.’ Many of the Inca lords and his women who had accompanied him in his imprisonment began to wail and prostrated themselves on the ground, but by then the Cañari had been given the signal he had been waiting for, and with one wrench of each end of the rope he had tied around the Inca’s neck, garrotted him. All that night his body remained in the square, seated on the stool and tied to the stake, his head slumped to one side, and his arms and legs covered in his blood.

  Diego de Almagro and Francisco Pizarro. (Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno)

  The events at Cajamarca were recorded by eight conquistadors.25 They were men neither schooled as historians nor possessed of any literary pretensions, but who were among the few of Pizarro’s volunteers able to read and write. In a letter to the Audiencia of the island of Santo Domingo, where he had stayed for a brief period while on his return to Spain, Hernando Pizarro had described only the principal events of his brother’s march to Cajamarca, the first account of these matters to reach Spain. A copy of his letter was made by the chronicler and genealogist Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, which he incorporated in his Historia General y Natural de las Indias, written in about 1550, in the fortress of Santo Domingo, of which he was warden. The Castilian hidalgo Cristóbal de Mena, a former encomendero of Nicaragua, who because of his disaffection with Pizarro had returned to Spain immediately after the distribution of the Inca’s tribute, shortly afterwards published his chronicle Conquista del Perú, Ilamada la Nueva Castilla, one of the few accounts highly critical of Pizarro. Other than a meeting he is recorded to have had with one of Almagro’s agents in Spain in 1536, nothing else is known of his life.

  Mena’s controversial story was followed by the publication at Seville of Verdadera Relación de la Conquista del Perú by Pizarro’s notary Francisco López de Jerez, and written partly as a refutation of Mena’s chronicle. It has always been assumed that because of a leg wound he had suffered during the capture of the Inca, López de Jerez had been forced to return to Spain directly from the township, arriving at the port of Seville, as he affirms in his chronicle in June 1534. The few surviving records show that after his wife’s death he married the daughter of a hidalgo family from Seville, and that in 1554, signing himself solely Francisco López, he was granted permission to return to Peru as notary to the Audiencia of Lima.26 It was a post historians have always believed he never filled, and that he remained in Spain until his death, the place and date of which is unknown. His presence as notary to the Audiencia of Lima between the years 1559 and 1565, however, can be established by the words added to the final page of Mansio Serra de Leguizamón’s probanza, and published here for the first time: ‘. . . inscribing my signature Francisco López, who had been among the men who had gone immediately afterwards [from Cajamarca] to place Cuzco under the royal jurisdiction, in the company of the reserves of the captain Hernando de Soto and Mansio Serra and Martínez Vegazo as they marched southward from Vilcasbamba to Cuzco, all of which he witnessed . . .’.27 The only other person at Cajamarca of the same name was an illiterate surgeon barber who served on the later march to Cuzco, but only as far as Jauja, and who returned to Spain in 1535.28

  The foot soldier Pedro Sancho de la Hoz replaced López de Jerez as Pizarro’s notary and was the author of Relación del Descubrimiento y Conquista del Perú, dated 1534, which he sent to the Emperor Charles V, the original manuscript of which was lost. A copy, translated into Italian, is dated 1550. Sancho left for Spain two years after writing his account, but like so many of the returning conquistadors he soon dissipated his share of the Cajamarca treasure, and was given permission to return to Peru in 1539. Eight years later, during the settlement of Chile he was executed by one of the Conquistador Pedro de Valdivia’s captains on a charge of sedition, his head displayed in the main square of its capital at Santiago.

  Miguel de Estete, a Riojano from Santo Domingo de la Calzada, had been one of the men Hernando de Soto had brought with him from Nicaragua. During Atahualpa’s imprisonment he had accompanied Hernando Pizarro to the coastal temple at Pachacámac, his description of which López de Jerez incorporated in his chronicle. On his return to Spain in 1534 he settled at Valladolid, where he possibly wrote his account Noticia del Perú. The date and place of his death are unknown. Juan Ruiz de Arce, an Estremaduran who had lived in Jamaica and in Honduras, returned to Spain a year after Cajamarca, where he was received at court. He was one of the few conquistadors not to have squandered his fortune, retiring to his native township of Alburquerque. His manuscript, of seventeen folio pages, remained unknown until its discovery and publication in 1933. Pedro Pizarro and Diego de Trujillo were among the few veterans still alive at the time the Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo asked them to dictate their memoirs. Pedro Pizarro, who died in 1587 at Arequipa, sent his memoir, dated 7 February 1571, the following year to Spain, and which was subsequently lost. In the early seventeenth century a copy of his manuscript was acquired from one of his descendants by the Jesuit chronicler Bernabé Cobo. Trujillo, who was probably c
ompletely illiterate, unlike Pedro Pizarro had been present at the capture of Atahualpa. A year after Cajamarca he left Cuzco for Spain with his share of booty, and lived in the township of his name in Estremadura before returning to Peru. His manuscript was discovered in 1934 in the library of the Royal Palace in Madrid.

  Few of these accounts make any mention of the undoubted pillage, rape and brutality that ensued. It was an omission also prevalent in their discrepancies, and in the partiality to which each, other than Mena, was indebted to Pizarro for patronage and honours, as is evident in their portrayal of his reluctance to execute the Inca. This act had in effect temporarily united the two rival factions of conquistadors, and would guarantee them the collaboration of the remnants of the Emperor Huáscar’s depleted armies, and in practice determine the future of the Conquest.

  * Silver – the Spanish word plata, silver, also meant treasure or money, as it still does to this day in certain Andean regions.

  † Cuzco was one of the titles of the Emperor Huáscar, who was killed at Andamarca, south of Cajamarca.

  * Ñusta meant niece or daughter of the Emperor, though one whose mother was not a coya.

  4

  THE CITY OF THE SUN GOD

  He it was who took from the Temple of Cuzco as booty the sun of gold the Incas adored, and which he staked one night in a game of gambling and lost before dawn; and which is why there exists to this day in Peru a common refrain among gamblers when they encourage one another in their gaming by exclaiming: Gamble the sun before the dawn!

  The Friar Antonio de la Calancha

  Corónica Moralizada del Orden de San Agustín