Peruvian Traditions

by Palma, Richardo; Lane, Helen R. ; Conway, Christopher

  The day came when the apostle of the Indies, Bartolomé de las Casas, succeeded in obtaining from Charles V the fiercely opposed Ordinances in favor of the Indians, and the execution of the Ordinances was entrusted to the man least suited to introduce reforms. We are referring to the first viceroy of Peru, Blasco Núñez de Vela. It is a wellknown fact that the lack of common sense of the king’s representative caused him to praise to the skies the interests that the reform was aimed at, thus encouraging the great rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro.

  Carbajal, who foresaw the turn that events would take, hastened to realize his assets in order to return to Spain. As luck would have it, at the time there was not a single ship ready to set out on an ocean crossing as risky as it was long. The dominant qualities in the soul of our hero were gratitude and loyalty. Many ties united him to the Pizarros, and they conspired to give him the second most important role in the rebel ranks.

  Gonzalo Pizarro, who always greatly esteemed the valor and experience of the veteran soldier, immediately appointed him field marshal of the army.

  Carbajal, who was not only a valiant soldier but a man who knew his way around politically, gave Pizarro at that juncture the most timely advice imaginable in view of his compromised situation: “Since things are going extremely well for you,” he wrote him, “take over the government once and for all, and after that matters will proceed as you please. Since God has not given us the power of divination, the real way of succeeding is to be stout hearted and be ready for anything that happens, for great things are not undertaken without great risk. The best thing to do is to entrust your justification to the lancers and harquebusiers, for you have gone too far to hope for favor from the crown.” But Pizarro’s upbringing and his habits of respect for the sovereign limited his ambition, and he never dared to be seen to be in open rebellion against the king. Carbajal’s bold counsel frightened him. Politically speaking, the field marshal was a man who was ahead of his time and who set forth what was gospel in the nineteenth century: A revolution defeated is called an uprising; a triumphant rebellion is called a revolution. Success dictates the name.

  It is not our intention to recount the history of the long and wearying campaign that, with the death of the viceroy in the battle of Iñaquito on January 18, 1546, placed the country, though only for a short time, in the power of the Most Magnificent don Gonzalo Pizarro. We summarize the great services of Carbajal in this campaign in the following lines of a historian:

  “The octogenarian warrior annihilated or demolished the royalists of the South. At an age in which few men still have the fire of their passions and the vigor of their limbs, he crossed the Andes six times without tiring. From Quito to San Miguel, from Lima to Guamanga, from Guamanga to Lima, from Lucanas to Cuzco, from Callao to Arequipa, and from Arequipa to Charcas. Eating and sleeping on horseback, he was insensible to the chills of the highlands, to the blinding glint of the sun on the desert sands, and to the privations and fatigues of forced marches. The superstitious common people said that Carbajal and his horse flew through the air. Only thus could they explain such tireless activity.”

  After the victory of Iñaquito, Pizarro’s power seemed indestructible. Everything appeared to conspire to have the victorious governor make Peru independent. His tempter The Demon of the Andes wrote him from Andahuailas, urging him to make himself king: “You must declare yourself king of this land conquered by your arms and those of your brothers. Your claims are far greater than those of the kings of Spain. In what clause of his will did Adam bequeath the empire of the Incas to them? Don’t be intimidated because vulgar gossip accuses you of disloyalty. No one who has made himself king has ever had the name of traitor. Those governments that force created time makes legitimate. Reign and you will be honored. In any event you are the de facto king and you must die on the throne. France and Rome will aid you if you have the will and the cunning to win their protection for yourself. Count on me in life and in death, and when troubled times come, I have a neck as big around for the gallows as the next man.”

  Among the paintings that adorned the walls of the Museo Nacional until 1860 and later were transferred to the Palacio de la Exposición, we remember having seen a portrait of The Demon of the Andes,2beneath there could be read these words:

  Del Peru la suprema independencia

  Carbajal ha tres siglos quería Y quererla

  costóle la existencia.3

  But it was written in the stars that Pizarro was not the man chosen by God to create the Peruvian nation. By crowning himself he would have created special interests in the country, and people would have made their destiny as one with his. Therefore, on the arrival of the bachelor–at–law La Gasca with plenipotentiary powers from Philip II to proceed with matters pending in America and to be lavish with exemptions, honors, and rewards, treason began to bear very bitter fruits in Pizarro’s ranks. His friends scattered to swell the ranks of La Gasca’s supporters. Only Carbajal’s harshness kept the traitors in line. So great was the terror inspired by the name of the veteran soldier that on a certain occasion Pizarro said to Pedro Paniagua, Gasca’s emissary:

  “Wait until Field Marshal Carbajal comes and you’ll get to see him and know him.”

  “That, sir, is something that I have no desire to wait for,” the emissary answered; “I’ll annotate the marshal as ‘seen and known’4here and now.”

  In Lima the rebellion against Pizarro had reached the boiling point. The people who at an open meeting of the city council had proclaimed him liberator, who had called him “Most Magnificent” and obliged him to continue in the post of governor since he disdained the throne that they had offered him, that same people a year later denied him all possibility of their sympathies. The love of the people is a sad, very sad thing!

  In order not to be overcome in Lima, Pizarro found himself obliged to withdraw to the South and wage the battle of Huarina. The loyal men who accompanied him numbered no more than 500. Diego Centeno, in command of a 1,200 men, attacked the limited revolutionary forces; but the strategic cunning and the heroic valor of the aged field marshal won for so desperate a cause the last of its victories.

  The great figure of the victor of Huarina has its frighteningly dark side: his cruelty. Carbajal barely gave quarter to those who surrendered, and more than 300 deserters or soldiers suspected of treason were executed.

  The story has it that in Cuzco donãa María Calderón, the wife of a captain of Centeno’s troops, allowed herself with womanly indiscretion to call Pizarro a tyrant, and repeated in public that the king would soon triumph over the rebels.

  “Comadre,”5Carbajal said to her on three different occasions, “swallow your words, because if you don’t contain your accursed tongue I’ll have you killed, as sure as there is a God. The spiritual kinship that you have with me will be of no use to you.”

  As soon as he saw the futility of his third warning, the marshal appeared at the lady’s house, saying to her: “I’ll have you know, señora comadre, that I’ve come to garrote you.” And after having exposed her dead body in the window, he exclaimed: “Accursed body of yours, comadre chatterbox, if you don’t learn your lesson from this I don’t know what else to do!”

  Finally, on April 9, 1548, the battle of Saxsahuamán began. Fearing that Carbajal’s impetuousness would be fatal for him, Gonzalo Pizarro made the infamous Cepeda second in rank, leaving the field marshal to resign himself to fighting as a mere soldier of the line. The first shots had barely been fired when Cepeda, the second in command, and Captain Garcilaso, the father of the historian,6 went over to La Gasca’s side. Their treason was contagious, and La Gasca, with no other arms save his breviary and his council of chaplains won cheap and bloodless laurels at Saxsahuamán. It was neither valor nor military science, but ingratitude and treachery that defeated the generous brother of Marquis Pizarro.

  When Carbajal saw the traitorous desertion of his comrades, he put one leg over the saddletree and began to sing the song that became so popular la
ter:

  Los mis cabellicos, maire,

  uno a uno se los llevó el aire.

  ¡Ay pobrecicos,

  los mis cabellicos!7

  When the horse he was riding fell, the field marshal found himself surrounded by enemies resolved to kill him, but a timely intervention by Centeno saved him. Some historians say that the prisoner asked him:

  “Who is your grace who is granting me such mercy?”

  “Doesn’t your grace recognize me?” the other answered affably. “I am Diego Centeno.”

  “By my holy patron saint!” the veteran soldier answered, and then said, alluding to the retreat from Charcas and the battle of Huarina: “Since I always saw your grace from the back, I didn’t recognize you from the front.”

  Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Carbajal were immediately put on trial and condemned to death. As a knight of a religious order, the governor was sentenced to decapitation. The field marshal, who was a commoner, was to be drawn and quartered. When this sentence was read to him, he answered:

  “It suffices to kill me.”

  A captain, who on one occasion don Francisco wanted to hang because he suspected him of being a traitor, approached him:

  “Although your grace intended to finish me off, I would be pleased to serve you in any way you might choose.”

  “When I wanted to hang you I could do so, and if I didn’t hang you it was because I never liked killing such despicable men as you.”

  A soldier who had been an aide of the marshal’s but had passed over to the enemy, said to him in tears:

  “My captain! May it please God to let your grace live and kill me!

  If your grace had fled at the same time as I did, you wouldn’t be in the trouble you’re in today.”

  “Brother Pedro de Tapia,” Carbajal answered him with his usual sarcasm, “since we were such great friends, why did you sin against friendship and not notify me so that we could flee together?”

  A merchant who complained of having been ruined by don Francisco, began to insult him:

  “And by what sum am I indebted to you?”

  “It surely adds up to a thousand ducets.”

  Carbajal calmly took from his waist the scabbard of his sword (having presented the sword itself to Pedro Valdivia on surrendering to him), and handing it to the merchant said to him:

  “Well, little brother, put this scabbard on my account and don’t come complaining again about debts I owe you, for in the bottom of my heart I do not recall having any other debt save five maravedis I owe to a witch who kept a tavern in Seville, and if I didn’t pay it was because she baptized the wine with water, and thus exposed me to an attack of stomach cramps and diarrhea.”

  When he was put in a basket drawn by two mules to take him to the place where he would be put to death, he let out a guffaw and began to sing:

  ¡Qué fortuna! Niño en cuna,

  Viejo en cuna. ¡Qué fortuna!8

  On the way, the crowd tried to seize the condemned man and tear him to pieces. Making a show of valor and self–possession, Carbajal said:

  “I say, sirs, clear the way! There is no reason to mill about. Let justice be done.”

  And at the moment that the executioner Juan Enríquez was preparing to dispatch the victim, the latter said to him with a smile:

  “Brother Juan, treat me as one tailor to another.”

  Carbajal was executed on the battlefield itself on April 10, at the age of 84. On the following day La Gasca made his triumphal entry into Cuzco.

  Here is the moral portrait that a historian draws of the unfortunate field marshal:

  “Among the soldiers of the New World, Carbajal was doubtless the one possessed of the most military gifts. A strict disciplinarian, active and persevering, he knew neither danger nor fatigue, and such were his sagacity and the resourcefulness that he displayed in action that the common people believed that he had a familiar devil. With such an extraordinary character, with strength that lasted much longer than it does in most men, and with the good fortune of never having known defeat save at Saxsahuamán in the 65 years that he lived the military life in Europe and in America, it is not surprising that fabulous things were recounted of him, or that his soldiers, taking him to be a supernatural being, should call him The Demon of the Andes. He had a gift for talk, if it can be called that, and gave free rein to his loquacity on any occasion. He looked on life as a comedy, although more than once he made it a tragedy. His ferocity was proverbial, but even his enemies recognized in him a great virtue: fidelity. For that reason he was not tolerant of the perfidy of others; for this reason he never showed compassion toward traitors. This constant loyalty, in times when such a virtue was a rarity, surrounds with respect the great figure of Field Marshal Francisco de Carbajal.” But the vengeance of the crown did not end for Carbajal with his being put to death.

  His estate, or house and grounds in Lima, was formed where the streets that today are known as Pelota and Los Gallos met. The grounds were sown with salt, the inside walls were demolished, and on the corner of the latter street a bronze tablet was placed, with an infamous inscription in memory of the owner. The street was given the name of Mármol de Carbajal.

  But among the soldiery the field marshal had left many passionate followers, and as soon as La Gasca returned to Spain they removed the ignominious tablet one night. The Royal Tribunal made a number of arrests but they proved fruitless, for the thieves were never found.

  Shortly thereafter there took place the famous rebellion of Captain don Francisco Girón, who, by proclaiming the same cause as was defeated at Saxsahuamán, endangered the power of the Royal Audience for 13 months.

  Having been defeated, Girón was taken prisoner, brought to Lima, and his bloody head placed on a post in the main square between two posts with the heads of Gonzalo Pizarro and Francisco de Carbajal.

  About 60 years had gone by since the horrible drama of Saxsahuamán. A descendant of Saint Francis Borja, duke of Gandía, the viceroy poet–prince of Esquilache, was governing Peru in the name of Philip III. We do not know whether it was because of strict orders or in order to surround the monarchical principle with an aura of terrifying power that on January 1, 1617, with great ceremony a memorial tablet was placed in the house of the field marshal.

  The tablet reads:

  This tablet may be seen today, set in one of the walls of the reception room of the Biblioteca Nacional.9But some years later a relative of Carbajal’s was responsible for its disappearance from the corner of Los Gallos, as is proved by the following lines that complete the tablet in the reception room of the library:

  When Peru won its independence, the calle del Mármol de Carbajal lost its name. We sons of the Republic could not, in all propriety, share in a mercilessness that did not respect even the sanctity of the tomb.

  1Cesare Borgia, duke of Valentinois (1476–1507) held a Spanish archibishopric and cardinalate before embarking on bloody military campaigns in central Italy.—Ed.

  2The portrait of Carbajal is now in the Palacio de la Exposición. Don Mateo Paz Soldón in his Geografía del Perú, a book printed in Paris in 1862, also has these words [Author’s note].

  3Peru’s supreme independence / Carbajal wanted three centuries ago / and wanting it cost him his life.

  4The usual phrase acknowledging the review of official documents.

  5A fellow sponsor of a child at baptism.

  6Father of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, see “Don Alonso the Brawny,” note 3.—Ed.

  7O the hairs on my head, marshal / The wind blew away one by one. / O the hairs on my head, / Poor things!

  8What luck! As a child, in a cradle, / As an old man, in a cradle. What luck!

  9In 1906 this tablet was transferred to the Historical Museum installed in the Palacio de la Exposición [Author’s note].

  The Judge’s Three Reasons

  On October 27, 1544, the residents of Lima were terrified. And with good reason, I assure you.

  On getting up ou
t of bed and opening their doors wide to allow God’s grace free passage, they were confronted with the heartstopping news that Francisco de Carbajal, without being heard by a soul, had slipped into the city with 50 of his men, imprisoned a number of the leading citizens said to be friends of Viceroy Blasco Núñez, and hanged, not a couple of poor devils as would have been desirable, but Pedro del Barco and Machín de Florencia, men of great importance because they had been among the first conquistadors, that is to say, those who captured Atahualpa in the main square of Cajamarca.

  Carbajal charitably warned the inhabitants of Lima that he was determined to go on hanging its residents and sacking the city if it did not accept Gonzalo Pizarro as governor of Peru; the latter, with the greater part of his army, was just two leagues away, awaiting their reply.

  The Royal Tribunal was composed at the time of the bachelors–atlaw Cepeda, Tejado, and Zárate, for the bachelor–at–law Alvarez had gotten out of a tight spot by declaring himself to be on the side of the viceroy. The judges, frightened by Carbajal’s threat, summoned the notables to a meeting of the town council. The matter was discussed only superficially, for there was no time to lose in long speeches or flowers of rhetoric, and a document was drawn up recognizing Gonzalo as governor.

  When it came the turn of Judge Zárate (a doddering old man, according to Palentino) to sign, he began by drawing a cross and underneath it, before setting down his scribble of a signature, he wrote: “I swear by God and by this cross and the words of Holy Scripture that I am signing for three reasons: out of fear, out of fear, and out of fear.”