Within a year the Inca realm of Tahuantinsuyo was torn in a civil war which would result in the killing of tens of thousands of its people and witness the sacking of the city of Tumibamba by Atahualpa’s armies and the massacre of its Cañari inhabitants, among them some 2,000 Lupaca warriors of the Coya Doña Beatriz’s guardian.37 The war of the two brothers was finally brought to an end by the capture of the young Emperor on the outskirts of Cuzco. Imprisoned in a wooden cage, he was forced to watch the killing of nearly all the members of his panaca and of his young sister-queen, whose bodies were impaled on the northern road to what had once been his imperial capital. The only members of his immediate family to survive were his full-blooded sisters the coyas Doña Beatriz and Marca Chimbo, who after her baptism would be known as Doña Juana, then possibly twelve and thirteen years old. The chronicler Juan de Betanzos recorded that they were spared because of their youth and because, unlike their other sisters, ‘they had known no man’.38 The skin of his shoulders threaded by ropes, Huáscar was taken by the warrior chiefs Quisquis and Chalcuchima to the mountain hamlet of Andamarca, south of Cajamarca. There, above the waters of a river, together with his mother, the Hummingbird, the last God Emperor of the Sun, was killed. In less than two years the Inca realm of Tahuantinsuyo had virtually dismembered itself, and through the fate of circumstance had laid itself open to its final and inevitable destruction by the small army of Pizarro’s conquistadors who had disembarked on its northern shore.
* Coya was the title of the sister-queen of the Emperor, or of their daughter.
* Yupanqui was the Quéchua title denoting royalty.
† See Appendix 3.
3
THE KILLING OF THE GREAT TURKEY COCK
Atahualpa was a man of some thirty years of age, of fine appearance and disposition, somewhat stocky, his face imposing, beautiful and ferocious, his eyes bloodshot.
Francisco López de Jerez
Verdadera Relación de la Conquista del Perú
The arrival of the white-skinned, bearded strangers had been heralded by various portents the shaman of the imperial court had interpreted as announcing the fall of Tahuantinsuyo: an eagle had been seen being attacked by condors above the main square of Cuzco; comets were sighted across the Andes; and a blood-red circle had been witnessed enveloping the moon.1 The triumph of the Inca Atahualpa’s warrior chiefs Quisquis and Chalcuchima in their capture of Cuzco had also coincided with the first sighting of the strangers. The presence of the small contingent of conquistadors on the north-western coast was relayed to the Inca, who in the closing months of 1532 was making his triumphal progress south from Quito towards Cuzco.
There are innumerable theories as to why Pizarro’s men were allowed to found a settlement on the coast, and then to march unhindered into the heartland of the Inca realm. Some chroniclers claimed it was simply because of the fear the equatorial Indians had of them, believing them to be gods, and their horses, arquebus and cannon to be demon spirits. There is, however, no evidence that the Inca Atahualpa believed in the divinity of the Spaniards. At the time of their landing his armies were engaged in a full-scale war against his brother the Emperor Huáscar in the central Andes and Cuzco region, a campaign that would last until the arrival of Almagro’s reinforcements almost two years later. Atahualpa’s reaction towards the Spaniards, other than curiosity, was more probably based on his desire to avoid their alliance with the armies of his brother, by then in retreat, and may well have been the reason he sent them guides to lead them to the township of Cajamarca, where he could see them for himself, and where he had halted his triumphal progress to Cuzco. His scouts and messengers, moreover, would have informed him of every detail of the Spaniards and of their movements: from their constant enquiries and search for gold, to the mortality of their horses and number of the camp women and porters who accompanied them, among them Isthmian and Negro slaves, their foreheads branded with the letter R, for rey, king, the mark of their bondage to their Spanish emperor.2 He would also have been informed of their rape of some 500 mamacuna virgins of the sun temple, who the Spaniards had rounded up in the main square of the township of Cajas, north of Cajamarca.
Pizarro’s arrival at Túmbez. (Herrera: BL, 783. g. 1–4)
Pizarro’s contingent of 168 volunteers had only begun their trek into the foothills of the great cordillera of the Andes some twelve months after they had sailed from Panama, having first awaited the arrival of the ships of Sebastían de Benalcázar and the slaver Hernando de Soto from Nicaragua. The horsemen were commanded by the thirty-year-old Soto and captained by Benalcázar, who was some ten years older, and one of the few veterans of the conquest of Honduras. Pizarro commanded the main body of foot soldiers, which included the two small cannon of the Greek Pedro de Candía, a former sailor and native of Crete who had accompanied him to the court at Toledo. Another of his captains was his thirty-year-old brother Hernando, and in whose squadron rode his other half-brothers Juan and Gonzalo, both in their early twenties.3 The only priest to accompany the contingent was the thirty-year-old Dominican Vicente de Valverde, the sole survivor of the six friars of his Order, appointed by the Crown to act as chaplains to the expedition, after their superior Reginaldo de Pedraza had abandoned the march and returned to the Isthmus, ‘taking with him,’ in the words of the foot soldier Diego de Trujillo, ‘some hundred emeralds he had sewn into his garments’.4 For almost eight weeks they made their way through the mountain passes of the Andes, finally reaching the great valley and township of Cajamarca, on the outskirts of which the Inca and his court were encamped. It was a confrontation that would decide the future course of Andean American history. Forty years later the illiterate Estremaduran Trujillo recalled the events that followed their entry into the township:
The conquistadors fighting the tribesmen of Túmbez. (Herrera: BL, 783. g. 1–4)
That day the governor [Pizarro] sent the captain de Soto with twenty horsemen to visit Atahualpa and entered the lodging where he was camped, staying there until very late. And as he did not return and suspecting that he may have been killed, the governor ordered Hernando Pizarro to take with him horsemen and foot soldiers, and I among them, to discover what had taken place. When we reached his camp we found the captain de Soto with the men he had taken, and Hernando Pizarro said to him: ‘Your Grace, what is happening?’ And he replied: ‘As you can see, we are still waiting,’ and then saying: ‘soon Atahualpa will come out’ – who was still in his lodging – ‘but until now he has not.’ Hernando Pizarro shouted at the interpreter: ‘Tell him to come out!’ The man returned and said: ‘Wait, he will see you shortly.’ And Hernando Pizarro said to him: ‘Tell the dog to come out immediately!’ . . . and then Atahualpa came out of his lodging, holding two small gold cups in his hands that were filled with chicha, and gave one to Hernando Pizarro and the other he drank. And Hernando Pizarro said to the interpreter: ‘Tell Atahualpa that there is no difference in rank between myself and the captain de Soto, for we are both captains of the king, and in his service we have left our homelands to come and instruct him in the Faith.’ And then it was agreed that Atahualpa would come the following day, which was a Saturday, to Cajamarca. Guarding his camp were more than forty thousand Indian warriors in their squadrons, and many principal lords of the land. And on departing Hernando de Soto reared the legs of his horse, near to where were positioned the first of these squadrons, and the Indians of the squadron fled, falling over each other. And when we returned to Cajamarca Atahualpa ordered three hundred of them to be killed because they had shown fear and fled, and this we discovered another day when we found their bodies. The following day Atahualpa came with all his people in procession to Cajamarca, and the league they travelled took them until almost half an hour before sunset. Six hundred Indians in white and black livery, as if pieces of a chess board, came ahead of him, sweeping the road of stones and branches. And the governor, seeing they were taking such a great time, sent Hernando de Aldana who spoke their language to ask him t
o come before it was too dark.5 And Aldana spoke to him, and only then did they begin to move at a walking pace. In Cajamarca there are ten streets that lead from the square. And in each of these the governor placed eight men, and in some, fewer number, because of the few men we had, and the horsemen he positioned in three companies: one with Hernando Pizarro, one with Hernando de Soto with his own men, and one with Sebastían de Benalcázar with his, and all with bells attached to their bridles, and the governor positioned himself in the fortress with twenty-four of his guards; for in all we were a hundred and sixty: sixty horsemen and a hundred on foot . . . as Atahualpa entered the square of Cajamarca, and as he saw no Christians he asked the Inca [one of the Inca lords] who had been with us: ‘What has become of these bearded ones?’ And the Inca replied: ‘They are hidden.’ And he asked him to climb down from his throne litter on which he sat, but he refused. And then the Friar Vicente de Valverde made himself seen and attempted to inform him of the reason why we had come on the orders of the pope and of one of his sons, a Christian leader who was the emperor, our lord. And speaking of his words of the Holy Gospel Atahualpa said to him: ‘Whose words are these?’ And he replied: ‘The words of God.’ And Atahualpa said: ‘How is this possible?’ And the friar Vicente told him: ‘See, here it is written.’ And he showed him a breviary which he opened, and Atahualpa demanded to be given it and took it, and after looking at it he threw it on the ground and ordered: ‘Let none of them escape!’ And the Indians gave a great cry, shouting: ‘Inca, let it be so!’ And the shouting made us very frightened. And the friar Vicente returned and climbed to the wall where the governor was and said to him: ‘Your Excellency, what will you do? Atahualpa is like Lucifer.’ And then the governor climbed down and armed himself with a shield and sword and put on his helmet, and with the twenty-four men who were with him, and I among them, we went directly to Atahualpa’s litter, pushing our way through the crowd of Indians, and as we tried to pull him off his litter the horsemen charged to the great sound that was made from their bridle bells, and entered the fighting . . . and there in the square fell so many people, one on top of the other, that many were suffocated, and of the eight thousand Indians who died, over half died in this manner. The killing of those who fled continued for half a league and into the night . . .6
The Inca Atahualpa at Cajamarca. (Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno)
The chronicler Pedro Pizarro would also recall that he had been told that some of the conquistadors when they had first seen Atahualpa’s retinue enter Cajamarca had urinated in their armour out of sheer fear. For the majority of Pizarro’s volunteers it had been the first time they had ever fought in their lives. Their victory and the slaughter that ensued they owed more to the terror that their small cannon and horses had inflicted on the Inca’s mainly unarmed attendants. No explanation, however, is given by any of the chroniclers as to why Atahualpa had not been accompanied by his squadrons of warriors when he entered the township. What is apparent was his desire to demonstrate to both the Spaniards and his own people his sovereignty and courage, which some of his warriors had lacked when challenged by Soto’s horsemanship.
Atahualpa’s capture would virtually paralyse his empire, denigrating him in the eyes of his subjects to the level of his brother the Emperor Huáscar, whose public humiliation and torture was witnessed at Cuzco. Nor was his treatment of his brother any less cruel than what he had himself experienced during his own brief imprisonment at the outbreak of his rebellion. The great imperial panacas of Cuzco and their lords, divided by their rivalries, were soon to find themselves not only facing the open desertion of many of their subject tribesmen, but the retribution of Atahualpa’s northern warrior chiefs, men who were neither of Quéchua or Inca royal blood, but who had risen from the ranks of the imperial armies, and who had little regard for their princely order. The almost total breakdown of Inca rule, and what was becoming the virtual dismemberment of their sovereignty, indicated by the caciques who are recorded to have entered the encampment to offer the Spaniards their allegiance, possibly more than anything else influenced Pizarro’s later decision to execute Atahualpa.
Manacled and kept prisoner in one of the township’s stone lodgings, the Inca offered Pizarro tribute for his release, an act which in itself would have been regarded by his people as a symbol of his vassalage. The tribute, which would also have included the lordship of the subject tribes, their herds of llamas and women, was recorded by the horseman Cristóbal de Mena:
The cacique [Atahualpa] said that he would summon ten thousand Indians and that they would fill a chamber with silver,* and that all this he would give him if he freed him. This the governor promised him, as long as he did not deceive him . . . [some time later] we discovered the cacique had imprisoned another lord, called Cuzco† who was a greater lord and his brother, though not a son of his mother; and that Cuzco, who was being brought hither, knew that the Christians had taken his brother prisoner . . . and fearing the Christians would kill him [Atahualpa] and recognize his brother Cuzco as lord, ordered that he [Huáscar] be killed . . .7
For five months Pizarro tenuously secured the survival of his men by holding the Inca hostage on the promise of his payment of tribute, to which only he and his men would hold sole right once it had been collected. Three separate armies of Atahualpa’s northern warrior chiefs were camped within days’ and weeks’ marches of the township: the chiefs Rumiñavi to the north, Chalcuchima to the south and Quisquis guarding Cuzco, numbering some hundred thousand warriors. Their reluctance to attack the Spaniards was due solely to their desire to prevent Atahualpa being killed, and because of which they were to comply with his order for the gathering of the tribute.
On 14 April 1533, Almagro’s reinforcements, having only just heard of Atahualpa’s capture and the location of Pizarro’s men at San Miguel,8 finally entered the valley of Cajamarca after a march from the coast of almost twelve weeks. It was a sight that brought as much rejoicing to Pizarro’s beleaguered men, as it did dismay to the imprisoned Inca and his small retinue of attendants, including women from his harem who Pizarro had allowed to accompany him. Luis Sánchez, a foot soldier in Almagro’s army, recorded: ‘. . . all those who marched with the Adelantado suffered greatly in the fighting, hunger and deprivations, for the land was at war, and in the crossing of many mountains, ravines and rivers’.9 Weighed down by their armour and plagued by the intense heat of the equator and the contrasting cold of the cordillera, where horses and men in single file had crossed the giant hanging reed bridges of its rivers and ravines, it had been a march that had cost the lives of thirty of Almagro’s men. The Conquistador Nicolás de Ribera recalled they had experienced: ‘much hardship and lack of provisions until we reached Cajamarca, where the governor Don Francisco Pizarro was encamped. And though he had made Atahualpa his prisoner he was greatly overjoyed by our arrival, for we had arrived at a time when he had great need of our assistance because of Atahualpa’s imprisonment and the threat from the multitude of his warriors . . .’.10
The township that Almagro’s army entered resembled little more than an armed encampment, guarded by Candía’s cannon and by mounted and foot sentries. The rudiments of a small church had been erected in its square, where the following morning the Friar Valverde celebrated Easter Mass. The celebrations of Almagro’s weary men were, however, soon dampened by their realization that they would not be entitled to the vast hoard of treasure still being gathered for the Inca’s tribute, and which was being brought daily to the township in caravans of llamas from the neighbouring regions.
Pizarro’s refusal to share the tribute equally with Almagro and his men created a hostility between the two groups of conquistadors, which only added to the already fragile relationship of the two former Isthmian slavers. It would inevitably ferment the armed confrontation of the conquistadors years later on the windswept plains of Salinas, south of Cuzco, and of Chupas, near Ayacucho, where more of them were to be killed than at any time during
the Conquest, and which would bring about the bloody deaths of both Almagro and Pizarro. The repercussions of their differences, if not their status in later years, would manifest itself in the title given Pizarro’s men of ‘first conquerors’, for taking part in Atahualpa’s capture, and the less imposing one of ‘second conquerors’ to Almagro’s volunteers. Few of Almagro’s men would recognize this label, among them Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, who would always describe himself as a ‘first conqueror and discoverer’.11
An outward appearance of begrudging cordiality was nevertheless maintained in the encampment by both groups, conscious of the fact that strength in numbers was their only hope of fighting their way out of Cajamarca and seizing the imperial capital of Cuzco, where they believed the greatest amount of treasure was stored, and where Pizarro had sent three of his men and a Negro slave, accompanied by the Inca’s guides. Billeted in the tents they had brought with them from the Isthmus and in the stone wall and thatch-roof houses of the township, the men were provided with food by their Indian women and lived off a diet of potato, then unknown in Europe, maize, guinea pig, fowl, llama meat and chicha maize. Many of the women had followed them from the coast, others were natives of the township or had belonged to the Inca’s retinue, among them his sister the Ñusta Quispe Sisa* who he had given Pizarro for his concubine, and who after her baptism would be known as Doña Inés.12 According to the foot soldier Trujillo, among the contingent Hernando de Soto had brought with him from Nicaragua had been the first Spanish woman to set foot on the southern continent, Juana Hernández, though her presence, possibly because she was a prostitute, is not mentioned by any of the official chroniclers.
The Last Conquistador Page 5