Chapter X Pizarro and the Incas
When stout-hearted Balboa first reached the summit of the isthmus range and looked south over the Bay of Panama, he might have seen the “Silver Bell,” which forms the summit of the mighty volcano Chimborazo. Still farther south in the same direction lay the “land of gold,” of which he had heard.
Balboa was unjustly prevented from exploring that unknown country, but among the Spanish soldiers in Panama there were two who determined to carry out Balboa’s scheme. The younger, Pizarro, was destined to rival Cortés as explorer and conqueror; Almagro, his companion in the expedition, was less crafty and cruel. Sailing from Panama, the Spanish first landed on the coast below Quito, and found the natives wearing gold and silver trinkets. On a second voyage, with more men, they explored the coast of Peru and visited Tumbez, a town with a lofty temple and a palace for the Incas.
They beheld a country fully peopled and cultivated; the natives were decently clothed, and possessed of ingenuity so far surpassing the other inhabitants of the New World as to have the use of tame domestic animals. But what chiefly attracted the notice of the visitors was such a show of gold and silver, not only in ornaments, but in several vessels and utensils for common use, formed of those precious metals as left no room to doubt that they abounded with profusion in the country.
After his return Pizarro visited Spain and secured the patronage of Charles V, who appointed him Governor and Captain-General of the newly discovered country. In the next voyage from Panama, Pizarro set sail with 180 soldiers in three small ships—“a contemptible force surely to invade the great empire of Peru.”
Pizarro was very fortunate in the time of his arrival, because two brothers were fiercely contending in civil war to obtain the sovereignty. Their father, Huana Capac, the twelfth Inca in succession from Manco Capac, had recently died after annexing the kingdom of Quito, and thus doubling the power of the empire. Pizarro made friends with Atahualpa, who had become Inca by the defeat and death of his brother, and a friendly meeting was arranged between them. The Peruvians are thus described by a Spanish onlooker:
First of all there arrived 400 men in uniform; the Inca himself, on a couch adorned with plumes, and almost covered with plates of gold and silver, enriched with precious stones, was carried on the shoulders of his principal attendants. Several bands of singers and dancers accompanied the procession; and the whole plain was covered with troops, more than 30,000 men.
After engaging in a religious dispute with the Inca, who refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pope and threw the breviary on the ground, the Spanish chaplain exclaimed indignantly that the Word of God had been insulted by a heathen.
Pizarro instantly gave the signal of assault: the martial music struck up, the cannon and muskets began to fire, the horse rallied out fiercely to the charge, the infantry rushed on sword in hand. The Peruvians, astonished at the suddenness of the attack, dismayed with the effect of the firearms and the irresistible impression of the cavalry, fled with universal consternation on every side. Pizarro, at the head of his chosen band, soon penetrated to the royal seat, and seizing the Inca by the arm, carried him as a prisoner to the Spanish quarters.
For his ransom Atahualpa agreed to pay a weight of gold amounting to more than five millions sterling.
Instead of keeping faith with the Inca by restoring him to liberty, Pizarro basely allowed him to be tried on several false charges and condemned to be burned alive.
After hearing of the enormous ransom many Spaniards hurried from Guatemala, Panama, and Nicaragua to share in the newly discovered booty of Peru, the “land of gold.” Pizarro, therefore, being now greatly reenforced with soldiers, forced his way to Cuzco, the capital. The riches found there exceeded in value what had been received as Atahualpa’s ransom.
As Governor of Peru, Pizarro chose a new site for his capital, nearer the coast than Cuzco, and there founded Lima. It is now a great center of trade. Pizarro lived here in great state till the year 1542, when his fate reached him by means of a party of conspirators seeking to avenge the death of Almagro, his former rival, whom he had cruelly executed as a traitor. On Sunday, June 26th, at midday, while all Lima was quiet under the siesta, the conspirators passed unobserved through the two outer courts of the palace, and speedily despatched the soldier-adventurer, intrepidly defending himself with a sword and buckler. “A deadly thrust full in the throat,” and the tale of daring Pizarro was told.
Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Poena claudo.
When
Did Doom, though lame, not bide its time,
To clutch the nape of skulking Crime?
W. E. Gladstone.
Footnotes
1 Tom Jones, xvi. chap. 2, 3, etc.
2 Prof. R. B. Anderson says, “The basin of the Charles River should be selected as the most probable scene of the visits of Leif Erikson, etc.” [v. map.]
3 As to the Irish claim for the pre-Columbian discovery of America, see also Humboldt (Cosmos, ii, 607), and Laing (Heimsk., i, 186).
4 MS. Book of Lismore.
5 The story is given by Humboldt and D’Avezac.
6 Some quotations from Southey’s poem are given in Chapters V, VI.
7 The poet, however, makes the clerical blunder of writing Cortez for Balboa.
8 Chips from a German Workshop, i, 327.
9 Prescott, i, I, pp. 8, 9.
10 Sahagun, Hist. de Nueva España, vi, 19.
11 A famous group of seven small stars in the Bull constellation. The “seven sisters” appear as only six to ordinary eyesight: to make out the seventh is a test of a practised eye and excellent vision.
12 White or Caucasian 640,000,000, yellow or Mongolian 600,000,000, black or African 200,000,000, red or American 20,000,000.
13 See Frontispiece.
14 D. G. Brinton.
15 Pp. 68-70, v. p. 95.
16 The ruins were referred to in chap, iv, (v. p. 84, also 130.)
17 Sahagun (vi, 22) quotes the precise instructions of a father to his son: he must wash face and hands before sitting down to table, and must not leave till he has repeated the operation and cleansed his teeth.
18 The Spanish named this handsome bird gallopavo (Lat. pavo, the “peacock”). The wild turkey is larger and more beautiful than the tame, and therefore Benjamin Franklin, when speaking sarcastically of the “American Eagle,” insisted that the wild turkey was the proper national emblem.
19 The name Montezuma means “sad or severe man,” a title suited to his features, though not to his mild character.
20 Robertson, the historian, gives £5,000; but Prescott reckons a peso de oro at £2 12s. 6d.; whence the 20,000 of the text gives 20,000 x 2-5/8 = 2,500 x 21 = £52,500.
21 Southey (Madoc, i, 7).
22 Not to be confounded with the Indian village on the shore of Lake Maracaibo, to which (with similar motive) Vespucci had given that name—now capital of a large republic.
23 E.g., Paterson, founder of the Bank of England, Fletcher of Saltoun, the Marquis of Tweeddale, then chief Minister of Scotland, Sir John Dalrymple, etc.
24 Named from boucan, a kind of preserved meat, used by those rovers. They had learned this peculiar art of preserving from the native Caribs.
25 According to Sir C. R. Markham, F. R. S.