The Last Conquistador

by Stuart Stirling

  Another jurist who had accompanied him to Cuzco was Juan de Matienzo, who for many years had also resided at Sucre, where he had been a member of its audiencia that had been established in 1559. Three other figures who had an equal influence on Toledo’s understanding of the history and culture of his colony were the cartographer and explorer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, the Jesuit José de Acosta, who he would later meet at Sucre, and the Andalusian curate priest of Cuzco Cristóbal de Molina. Acosta, who had been born into a converso family in Medina del Campo, was a theologian and naturalist who arrived in Peru in the wake of the first Jesuit mission in 1572, and where he would spend fourteen years before eventually returning to Spain after visiting Mexico in 1586. Four years later he published Historia Moral y Natural de las Indias, regarded as one of the greatest naturalist accounts of the New World. He died at Salamanca in 1600.34

  Toledo’s interest in Inca history was in part influenced by his desire to justify Spain’s conquest, by proving that its dynasty was not the natural lords of its empire, and which they had won and governed by force of arms: a premise he saw as a means of countering the condemnation levelled against Spain’s right of conquest. In his efforts to gather as much information as possible he commissioned the Conquistador Diego de Trujillo to dictate his memoir of the Conquest, and also Pedro Pizarro who resided at Arequipa. However, it was the history he requested Sarmiento de Gamboa to compile that came to be regarded as possibly the most authoritative account of pre-Colombian Inca history. A native of Galicia, who four years previously had been the cartographer and commander of a naval expedition that had discovered the Solomon Islands of the western Pacific, Sarmiento de Gamboa had formerly lived in Mexico where he had been imprisoned for a brief period by the Inquisition on a charge of necromancy – a charge he faced again later after his arrival in Lima. Ignoring the charges, Toledo, who recognized his ability and scholarship, invited him to accompany him on his tour of inspection. The history he commissioned him to write in Cuzco, and which was sent to King Philip II as part of the report of information he had prepared, was discovered by a German scholar in the library of Göttingen University in 1892. Much of Sarmiento de Gamboa’s information was based on a series of enquiries held by Toledo at Cuzco and in the Yucay valley, and the evidence of thirty-seven Inca lords of the city. His manuscript, accompanied by a series of cloth paintings of Inca genealogies he had also executed, was read to the conquistadors Alonso de Mesa, Juan de Pancorbo, Pedro Alonso Carrasco and Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, who submitted a brief outline of their own understanding of the Inca dynasty.35 Mansio also added his name to a lengthy statement written by Cuzco’s Governor Polo de Ondegardo, in which the practice of human sacrifice by the Incas is recorded, but which by its general tone had possibly more to do with the rhetoric of its principal author in his desire to vindicate Toledo’s premise.36

  Sarmiento de Gamboa’s varied life later saw him serving in the colony’s flotilla of ships in pursuit of Sir Francis Drake after his raid on the port of Callao, and then as Governor of the settlement at the Strait of Magellan.37 On his return to Spain his ship was captured by English corsairs and he was taken prisoner to London and granted an audience with Queen Elizabeth, with whom he recorded he conversed in Latin, and who, at the instigation of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered his release. A great deal of the knowledge Raleigh acquired about Peru he obtained from Sarmiento de Gamboa, and which influenced his subsequent search for the legendary kingdom of el Dorado and his exploration of Guyana, the name of which was a misspelling of the Emperor Huayna Cápac’s name. Other than a record of his appointment to a command of an escort of the Indies treasure fleet, nothing more is known of Sarmiento de Gamboa’s life, nor of the year or place of his death.

  Ruins at Tiahuanacu, engraving by Champin, from Castelnau. (National Arts Library, V&A Museum)

  Toledo’s tour of inspection also led to the re-establishment of the Inca tributary service of mita labour, mainly at the mercury mines at Huancavelica, whose miners were plagued by its poisonous fumes, and at Potosí. From Cuzco to the southern settlements of northern Argentina male Indians between the ages of 18 and 50 were obliged to spend 4 months of every year working in their mita service, and from which not even the Inca nobility was immune, numbering then 1,274 male adults.38 Another of Toledo’s mandates concerned the rebel enclave at Vilcabamba, whose warriors, though few in number, had since the death of the Inca Sayri Túpac maintained a defiant independence under the successive rule of his brothers Titu Cusi and Túpac Amaru. The failure of his negotiations led Toledo to order a military campaign against Vilcabamba.

  By April 1572, the largest army seen at Cuzco since the defeat of Gonzalo Pizarro was mustered on the outskirts of the city. Its command was given to Martín Hurtado de Arbieto and Juan Alvárez Maldonado. Toledo also appointed as captains his nephew Jerónimo de Figueroa and the captain of his personal guard Martín de Lóyola, a great-nephew of St Ignatious, founder of the Jesuit Order. Each of Cuzco’s encomenderos, in lieu of their feudal obligation to the Crown, were obliged to accompany the expedition with a contingent of their tributary Indians. Several thousand Cañari and Chachapoya Indians were also assembled under their caciques as auxiliaries. Toledo also ordered the conquistadors Alonso de Mesa, Hernando de Solano and Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, who had entered Vilcabamba some forty years previously, to accompany the expedition as advisors. A total of 250 Spaniards in full armour, among them the Coya Doña Beatriz’s widowed husband Diego Hernández and her son Pedro de Bustinza, rode out of the city amid a fanfare of trumpets and beating drums.

  The soldier Miguel López recalled their first engagement against the Inca Túpac Amaru’s warriors: ‘. . . being as we were at the bridge of Chuquichaca we heard news that warriors were on their way to attack the royal encampment, at which time Mansio Serra drew his arms and began to walk towards the enemy, encouraging our troops and telling them that it was all that was needed to conquer that land, and that they should march and walk with him as he was doing, and he went ahead on foot to where it was said the Indians were coming . . .’.39 Thirty-eight years after the events at Vilcabamba one of the Spanish conscripts Baltasar de Ocampo wrote a description of the campaign and of the capture of the Inca, and of his subsequent execution at Cuzco, related to him by a Mercedarian friar of the city:

  Our men then occupied the bridge [of Chuquichaca], which was a measure of no small importance to our force. For the enemy did not remember to burn it and destroy the said bridge . . . leaving some of our men to guard it, and to forward supplies to the front, the rest of the force continued the pursuit . . . the road was narrow in the ascent with forest on the right, and on the left a ravine of great depth. Our troop could not advance in formation of squadrons, but only two abreast . . . Advancing in further pursuit of the enemy we took many prisoners, both chieftains and common people. When we forced them to tell us the route the Inca had taken, they told us he had gone towards the valley [of Simaponeto]; and that he was making for the country of the Manarís, a warlike tribe and his allies, where canoes had been prepared to enable his escape . . . Lóyola overtook the fugitives, capturing the Inca and taking many other prisoners. Only two Spaniards were killed. The Inca and other Indians were brought back to the valley . . . here Indians would be settled and a city of Spaniards founded. It was called San Francisco de la Victoria de Vilcabamba . . . leaving a garrison of 50 soldiers we marched to Cuzco with the Inca Túpac Amaru and his chieftains who were prisoners. On reaching the archway of Carmenca, which is the entrance to the city of Cuzco, the general [Martín Hurtado de Arbieto] marshalled all his troops. The commander Juan Alvárez Maldonado, as adjutant, chained Túpac Amaru and his captains together. The Inca was dressed in a mantle and doublet of crimson velvet. His shoes were made of wool of the country, of several colours. The crown or headdress called mascapaicha was on his head with a fringe over his forehead, this being the royal insignia of the Inca . . . so they proceeded in triumph for their victory directly to the palace
where the Viceroy Don Francisco de Toledo then lived . . . in line of order the commander marched there in triumph and presented his prisoners to the Viceroy. After His Excellency had savoured his conquest, he ordered that the Inca and his chieftains be taken to the fortress which is in the parish of San Cristóbal, of Colcampata . . . at the end of two or three days, after being taught and catechized, Túpac Amaru was baptized. This was done by friars of Our Lady of Merced . . . the Inca was taken from the fortress through the public streets of the city with a guard of 400 Cañaris armed with lances . . . he was accompanied by the priests Alonso de Barzana, of the Company of Jesus, and by Father Molina [the chronicler priest of Cuzco], one on either side of him . . . the open spaces, roofs, and windows in the parishes of Carmenca and San Cristóbal were so crowded with spectators that if an orange had been thrown down it could not have reached the ground anywhere, so closely were the people packed. As the executioner, who was a Cañari Indian, brought out his knife with which he was to behead the Inca, an extraordinary occurrence took place. The whole crowd of natives raised such a cry of grief that it seemed as if the day of judgement had come, and all those of Spanish race did not fail to show their feelings by shedding tears of grief and pain. When the Inca beheld the scene, he only raised his right hand on high and let it fall. With a lordly mind he alone remained calm, and all the noise was followed by a silence so profound that no living soul moved, either among those who were in the square or among those at a distance . . . the Bishop of Popayán, the provincial of the Order of Merced, the prior of the Order of San Agustín, the prior of Santo Domingo, the provincial of San Francisco . . . the rector of the Company of Jesus . . . all went to the viceroy. They went down on their knees and besought him to show mercy and spare the life of the Inca. They urged he should be sent to Spain to be judged by the king in person. But no prayers could prevail with the viceroy. Juan de Soto, chief officer of the court, was sent on horseback with a pole to clear the way, galloping furiously and riding down all kinds of people. He ordered the Inca’s head to be cut off at once in the name of the viceroy . . . the executioner then came forward and, taking the hair in his left hand, he severed the head with a knife at one blow, and held it high for all to see. As the head was severed the bells of the cathedral began to ring, and were followed by those of all the monasteries and parish churches in the city . . . when the head was cut off it was put on a pole and set up on the same scaffold in the great square . . . there it became each day more beautiful . . . and the Indians came by night to worship the head of their Inca . . .40

  Mansio’s letter to King Philip II. (Patronato 125, AGI, Seville)

  The Inca Túpac Amaru was twenty-eight years old. As he had walked to meet his death through the streets of Cuzco a Spaniard recalled that his sister the Coya Doña María, who was witnessing the spectacle from the window of a house, cried out to him: ‘Where are they taking you, my brother, prince and sole king of Tahuantinsuyo?’41 The Mercedarian friar who described much of what had taken place at Cuzco to the soldier Ocampo also mentioned that several nights after the execution Mansio Serra de Leguizamón’s grandson Juan-Pablo, having woken at dawn, gazed out from his bedroom window and witnessed the thousands of Indians kneeling as they worshipped the blooded features of his cousin.42 It was a macabre and humiliating end to a dynasty that had attempted to maintain the remnants of its sovereignty, and what would prove to be an ignominious role of the elderly conquistador once more tainted with the blood of his mestizo son’s family.

  For a further eighteen years Mansio remained living in Cuzco, outliving all the veterans of Cajamarca, and even Toledo himself, who returned to Spain nine years after Vilcabamba and who died in the care of his relatives in his family’s fiefdom in Estremadura. All that is recorded of Mansio’s final years is the evidence he gave on behalf of the testimonials of the Inca Sayri Túpac’s widow, in which he pleaded with the King to grant her a pension, and that of the priest Cristóbal de Albornoz who had dedicated much of his ministry to eradicating the cult of Taki Onqoy, a mystical Indian ghost dance held at the huaca shrines, not dissimilar to the trance-like ghost dance of the North American Indians, which also bewailed the destruction of their people at the hands of their conquerors.43 His signature also appears on a document a year before his death in support of the Jesuits in their ongoing dispute with the other religious Orders at Cuzco.44 In that same year Mansio’s younger son Francisco presented to King Philip II at the palace monastery of the Escorial the last of the petitions he wrote for compensation for the loss of his encomiendas, pleading his past service and reduced circumstances, and couched in the formal language of the age:

  Most Powerful Lord: As vassals of Your Highness, we have every right to give infinite thanks to God Our Lord for having granted us in these times so Catholic a King, and so zealous in our welfare and justice, and because of which we may take the liberty of declaring our needs . . . I, as one of the least vassals of Your Highness, being favoured by such reason, take the opportunity of expressing myself to you; something I have in so many years never been able to do, and which I can no longer do in person, yet which my son Francisco Serra de Leguizamón is able to perform on my behalf, and to kiss the royal feet of Your Highness: to inform you of the zeal that I showed in the discovery of the Indies and of Peru, in the company of the governors Pizarro and Almagro. And in the discovery, conquest, pacification and foundation of so prosperous a New World, and for which God in his infinite goodness granted me particular privilege to serve Your Royal Crown with great advantage over many of those who came with me; and if I were to relate the particular dangers in which I placed myself, the success of which was to benefit Your Highness, it would cause incredulity and appear more than a miracle; but as all this is now commonly held, and which none can deny, I now presume, if I may, being impeded to do so personally, to inform you that I am now in great poverty because the viceroys have not wished to reward my services, not because I do not feel grateful of having rendered such service to so Catholic Monarchs, but human life, children and one’s family oblige me to beseech Your Highness for redress . . . and for this motive, because of my old age, my son presents himself to Your Highness in my name. I beg Your Highness that you reward him considering my service to you for the Christian king you are, and because it is what my need requires; for here I have with me many sons and daughters God has given me who are dependent on my service to Your Highness . . .45

  Mansio’s petition remained unanswered. It was the price he had paid for his rebellion. Ghosts and memories were all that now remained to him: of his youth in Castile, and of his crossing of the Atlantic; of Veragua and Cajamarca; the killings, and the tortures he had himself endured; images of war and of love, orphaned faces and voices, lost for ever in the silence of old age. For several months he had been on the verge of death and recovered sufficiently to dictate his last will and testament he addressed to his sovereign. In the darkness of his bedchamber, the walls hung with the armour and arms he had worn as a young man, the elderly hidalgo who would be remembered for having gambled the gold face of the Inca sun, and in whose veins ran the blood of the Cid of Vivar, breathed his last.46 Dressed in the threadbare black habit of a friar of the Order of San Agustín, his body was taken for burial in a procession led by the religious Orders of the city and by its cabildo to the convent of San Agustín, where it was placed in the tomb that had been erected for him in the chapel of Santa Lucía, surmounted by his coat of arms. He was seventy-eight years old: the last of the conquistadors of Peru.

  APPENDIX 1

  MANSIO SERRA DE LEGUIZAMÓN’S WILL, CUZCO, 1589

  Recorded at Cuzco and addressed to King Philip II, dated 18 September 1589. Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Patronato 107. The transcription and translation are by the author.1

  . . . I, the Captain Mansio Serra de Leguizamón, resident of this great city of Cuzco, capital of these kingdoms of Peru, and the first who entered it in the time of its conquest: being as I am, infirm and bedridden yet of
sound mind, judgment and memory, and fearful of death as is natural, and which comes when one least expects it, authorize and let it be known that I make this my last will and testament of my own free volition, listing its legacies and codicils in the following order:

  Firstly, for the peace of my soul and before beginning my testament I declare that for many years now I have desired to address the Catholic Majesty of Don Felipe, our lord, knowing how Catholic and Most Christian he is, and zealous for the service of God, Our Lord, seeing that I took part in the name of the Crown in the discovery, conquest and settlement of these kingdoms when we deprived those who were the lords Incas, who had ruled them as their own. And it should be known to His Most Catholic Majesty that we found these realms in such order that there was not a thief, nor a vicious man, nor an adulteress, nor were there fallen women admitted among them, nor were they an immoral people, being content and honest in their labour. And that their lands, forests, mines, pastures, dwellings and all kinds of produce were regulated and distributed among them in such a manner that each person possessed his own property without any other seizing or occupying it. And that nor were law suits known in respect of such things, and that neither their wars, of which there were many, interfered with the commerce and agriculture of their people. All things, from the greatest to the smallest, had their place and order. And that the Incas were feared, obeyed and respected by their subjects as being very capable and skilled in their rule, as were their governors. And as we were to dispossess them of their authority in order to subjugate them in the service of God, Our Lord, and take from them their lands and place them under the protection of Your Crown, it was necessary to deprive them entirely of any command over their goods and lands which we seized by force of arms. And as God, Our Lord, had permitted this, it was possible to subjugate this kingdom of so great a multitude of peoples and riches, even though we Spaniards were so few in number, and to make their lords our servants and subjects, as is known.