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Title: The Spanish Pioneers
Author: Charles F. Lummis
Release Date: July 6, 2010 [EBook #33095]
Language: English
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THE SPANISH PIONEERS
[Illustration: FRANCISCO PIZARRO.]
THE
SPANISH PIONEERS
BY
CHARLES F. LUMMIS
AUTHOR OF "A NEW MEXICO DAVID," "STRANGE CORNERS OF OUR COUNTRY," ETC.
Illustrated
SIXTH EDITION
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1914
COPYRIGHT
BY CHARLES F. LUMMIS
A.D. 1893
TO
ONE OF SUCH WOMEN AS MAKE HEROES AND
KEEP CHIVALRY ALIVE IN OUR LESS
SINGLE-HEARTED DAYS:
ELIZABETH BACON CUSTER
In pronouncing the Spanish names give--
_a_ the sound of ah
_e_ " " ay
_i_ " " ee
_j_ " " h
_o_ " " oh
_u_ " " oo
_h_ is silent
_ll_ is sounded like lli in million
_ñ_ " " ny in lanyard
_hua_ " " wa in water
The views presented in this book have already taken their place in
historical literature, but they are certainly altogether new ground for
a popular work. Because it is new, some who have not fully followed the
recent march of scientific investigation may fear that it is not
authentic. I can only say that the estimates and statements embodied in
this volume are strictly true, and that I hold myself ready to defend
them from the standpoint of historical science.
I do this, not merely from the motive of personal regard toward the
author, but especially in view of the merits of his work, its value for
the youth of the present and of the coming generations.
AD. F. BANDELIER.
PREFACE.
It is because I believe that every other young Saxon-American loves fair
play and admires heroism as much as I do, that this book has been
written. That we have not given justice to the Spanish Pioneers is
simply because we have been misled. They made a record unparalleled; but
our text-books have not recognized that fact, though they no longer dare
dispute it. Now, thanks to the New School of American History, we are
coming to the truth,--a truth which every manly American will be glad to
know. In this country of free and brave men, race-prejudice, the most
ignorant of all human ignorances, must die out. We must respect manhood
more than nationality, and admire it for its own sake wherever
found,--and it is found everywhere. The deeds that hold the world up are
not of any one blood. We may be born anywhere,--that is a mere
accident; but to be heroes we must grow by means which are not
accidents nor provincialisms, but the birthright and glory of humanity.
We love manhood; and the Spanish pioneering of the Americas was the
largest and longest and most marvellous feat of manhood in all history.
It was not possible for a Saxon boy to learn that truth in my boyhood;
it is enormously difficult, if possible, now. The hopelessness of trying
to get from any or all English text-books a just picture of the Spanish
hero in the New World made me resolve that no other young American lover
of heroism and justice shall need to grope so long in the dark as I had
to; and for the following glimpses into the most interesting of stories
he has to thank me less than that friend of us both, A. F. Bandelier,
the master of the New School. Without the light shed on early America by
the scholarship of this great pupil of the great Humboldt, my book could
not have been written,--nor by me without his generous personal aid.
C. F. L.
CONTENTS.
I. The Broad Story.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PIONEER NATION 17
II. A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY 25
III. COLUMBUS THE FINDER 36
IV. MAKING GEOGRAPHY 43
V. THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST 56
VI. A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD 71
VII. SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES 78
VIII. TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED 90
II. Specimen Pioneers.
I. THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER 101
II. THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER 117
III. THE WAR OF THE ROCK 125
IV. THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY 135
V. THE SOLDIER POET 144
VI. THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES 149
VII. THE CHURCH-BUILDERS IN NEW MEXICO 158
VIII. ALVARADO'S LEAP 170
IX. THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE 181
III. The Greatest Conquest.
I. THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO 203
II. THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP 215
III. GAINING GROUND 225
IV. PERU AS IT WAS 238
V. THE CONQUEST OF PERU 246
VI. THE GOLDEN RANSOM 257
VII. ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH 265
VIII. FOUNDING A NATION.--THE SIEGE OF CUZCO 275
IX. THE WORK OF TRAITORS 284
I.
THE BROAD STORY.
HOW AMERICA WAS FOUND AND TAMED.
THE SPANISH PIONEERS.
I.
THE PIONEER NATION.
It is now an established fact of history that the Norse rovers had found
and made a few expeditions to North America long before Columbus. For
the historian nowadays to look upon that Norse discovery as a myth, or
less than a certainty, is to confess that he has never read the Sagas.
The Norsemen came, and even camped in the New World, before the year
1000; but they _only_ camped. They built no towns, and practically added
to the world's knowledge nothing at all. They did nothing to entitle
them to credit as pioneers. The honor of giving America to the world
belongs to Spain,--the credit not only of discovery, but of centuries of
such pioneering as no other nation ever paralleled in any land. It is a
fascinating story, yet one to which our histories have so far done scant
justice. History on true principles was an unknown science until within
a century; and public opinion has long been hampered by the narrow
statements and false conclusions of closet students. Some of these men
have been not only honest but most charming writers; but their very
popularity has only helped to spread their errors wider. But their day
is past, and the beginnings of new light have come. No student dares
longer refer to Prescott or Irving, or any of the class of which they
were the leaders, as authorities in history; they rank to-day as
fascinating writers of romance, and nothing more. It yet remains for
some one to make as popular the truths of American history as the fables
have been, and it may be long before an unmistaken Prescott appears; but
meantime I should like to help young Americans to a general grasp of the
truths upon which coming histories will be based. This book is not a
history; it is simply a guideboard to the true point of view, the broad
idea,--starting from which, those who are interested may more safely go
forward to the study of details, while those who can study no farther
may at least have a general understanding of the most romantic and
gallant chapter in the history of America.
We have not been taught how astonishing it was that one nation should
have earned such an overwhelming share in the honor of giving us
America; and yet when we look into the matter, it is a very startling
thing. There was a great Old World, full of civilization: suddenly a New
World was found,--the most important and surprising discovery in the
whole annals of mankind. One would naturally suppose that the greatness
of such a discovery would stir the intelligence of all the civilized
nations about equally, and that they would leap with common eagerness
to avail themselves of the great meaning this discovery had for
humanity. But as a matter of fact it was not so. Broadly speaking, all
the enterprise of Europe was confined to one nation,--and that a nation
by no means the richest or strongest. One nation practically had the
glory of discovering and exploring America, of changing the whole
world's ideas of geography, and making over knowledge and business all
to herself for a century and a half. And Spain was that nation.
It was, indeed, a man of Genoa who gave us America; but he came as a
Spaniard,--from Spain, on Spanish faith and Spanish money, in Spanish
ships and with Spanish crews; and what he found he took possession of in
the name of Spain. Think what a kingdom Ferdinand and Isabella had then
besides their little garden in Europe,--an untrodden half world, in
which a score of civilized nations dwell to-day, and upon whose
stupendous area the newest and greatest of nations is but a patch! What
a dizziness would have seized Columbus could he have foreseen the
inconceivable plant whose unguessed seeds he held that bright October
morning in 1492!
It was Spain, too, that sent out the accidental Florentine whom a German
printer made godfather of a half world that we are barely sure he ever
saw, and are fully sure he deserves no credit for. To name America after
Amerigo Vespucci was such an ignorant injustice as seems ridiculous now;
but, at all events, Spain sent him who gave his name to the New World.
Columbus did little beyond finding America, which was indeed glory
enough for one life. But of the gallant nation which made possible his
discovery there were not lacking heroes to carry out the work which that
discovery opened. It was a century before Anglo-Saxons seemed to waken
enough to learn that there really _was_ a New World, and into that
century the flower of Spain crowded marvels of achievement. She was the
only European nation that did not drowse. Her mailed explorers overran
Mexico and Peru, grasped their incalculable riches, and made those
kingdoms inalienable parts of Spain. Cortez had conquered and was
colonizing a savage country a dozen times as large as England years
before the first English-speaking expedition had ever seen the mere
coast where it was to plant colonies in the New World; and Pizarro did a
still greater work. Ponce de Leon had taken possession for Spain of what
is now one of the States of our Union a generation before any of those
regions were seen by Saxons. That first traveller in North America,
Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, had walked his unparalleled way across the
continent from Florida to the Gulf of California half a century before
the first foot of our ancestors touched our soil. Jamestown, the first
English settlement in America, was not founded until 1607, and by that
time the Spanish were permanently established in Florida and New Mexico,
and absolute masters of a vast territory to the south. They had already
discovered, conquered, and partly colonized _inland_ America from
northeastern Kansas to Buenos Ayres, and from ocean to ocean. Half of
the United States, all Mexico, Yucatan, Central America, Venezuela,
Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Chile, New Granada, and a huge area
besides, were Spanish by the time England had acquired a few acres on
the nearest edge of America. Language could scarcely overstate the
enormous precedence of Spain over all other nations in the pioneering of
the New World. They were Spaniards who first saw and explored the
greatest gulf in the world; Spaniards who discovered the two greatest
rivers; Spaniards who found the greatest ocean; Spaniards who first knew
that there were two continents of America; Spaniards who first went
round the world! They were Spaniards who had carved their way into the
far interior of our own land, as well as of all to the south, and
founded their cities a thousand miles inland long before the first
Anglo-Saxon came to the Atlantic seaboard. That early Spanish spirit of
_finding out_ was fairly superhuman. Why, a poor Spanish lieutenant with
twenty soldiers pierced an unspeakable desert and looked down upon the
greatest natural wonder of America or of the world--the Grand Cañon of
the Colorado--three full centuries before any "American" eyes saw it!
And so it was from Colorado to Cape Horn. Heroic, impetuous, imprudent
Balboa had walked that awful walk across the Isthmus, and found the
Pacific Ocean, and built on its shores the first ships that were ever
made in the Americas, and sailed that unknown sea, and had been dead
more than half a century before Drake and Hawkins saw it.
England's lack of means, the demoralization following the Wars of the
Roses, and religious dissensions were the chief causes of her torpidity
then. When her sons came at last to the eastern verge of the New World
they made a brave record; but they were never called upon to face such
inconceivable hardships, such endless dangers as the Spaniards had
faced. The wilderness they conquered was savage enough, truly, but
fertile, well wooded, well watered, and full of game; while that which
the Spaniards tamed was such a frightful desert as no human conquest
ever overran before or since, and peopled by a host of savage tribes to
some of whom the petty warriors of King Philip were no more to be
compared than a fox to a panther. The Apaches and the Araucanians would
perhaps have been no more than other Indians had they been transferred
to Massachusetts; but in their own grim domains they were the deadliest
savages that Europeans ever encountered. For a century of Indian wars in
the east there were three centuries and a half in the southwest. In one
Spanish colony (in Bolivia) as many were slain by the savages in one
massacre as there were people in New York city when the war of the
Revolution began! If the Indians in the east had wiped out twenty-two
thousand settlers in one red slaughter, as did those at Sorata, it would
have been well up in the eighteen-hundreds before the depleted colonies
could have untied the uncomfortable apron-strings of the mother
country, and begun national housekeeping on their own account.
When you know that the greatest of English text-books has not even the
name of the man who first sailed around the world (a Spaniard), nor of
the man who discovered Brazil (a Spaniard), nor of him who discovered
California (a Spaniard), nor of those Spaniards who first found and
colonized in what is now the United States, and that it has a hundred
other omissions as glaring, and a hundred histories as untrue as the
omissions are inexcusable, you will understand that it is high time we
should do better justice than did our fathers to a subject which should
be of the first interest to all real Americans.
The Spanish were not only the first conquerors of the New World, and its
first colonizers, but also its first civilizers. They built the first
cities, opened the first churches, schools, and universities; brought
the first printing-presses, made the first books; wrote the first
dictionaries, histories, and geographies, and brought the first
missionaries; and before New England had a real newspaper, Mexico had a
seventeenth-century attempt at one!
One of the wonderful things about this Spanish pioneering--almost as
remarkable as the pioneering itself--was the humane and progressive
spirit which marked it from first to last. Histories of the sort long
current speak of that hero-nation as cruel to the Indians; but, in
truth, the record of Spain in that respect puts us to the blush. The
legislation of Spain in behalf of the Indians everywhere was
incomparably more extensive, more comprehensive, more systematic, and
more humane than that of Great Britain, the Colonies, and the present
United States all combined. Those first teachers gave the Spanish
language and Christian faith to a thousand aborigines, where we gave a
new language and religion to one. There have been Spanish schools for
Indians in America since 1524. By 1575--nearly a century before there
was a printing-press in English America--many books in _twelve_
different Indian languages had been printed in the city of Mexico,
whereas in our history John Eliot's Indian Bible stands alone; and three
Spanish universities in America were nearly rounding out their century
when Harvard was founded. A surprisingly large proportion of the
pioneers of America were college men; and intelligence went hand in hand
with heroism in the early settlement of the New World.
II.
A MUDDLED GEOGRAPHY.
The least of the difficulties which beset the finders of the New World
was the then tremendous voyage to reach it. Had that three thousand
miles of unknown sea been the chief obstacle, civilization would have
overstepped it centuries before it did. It was human ignorance deeper
than the Atlantic, and bigotry stormier than its waves, which walled the
western horizon of Europe for so long. But for that, Columbus himself
would have found America ten years sooner than he did; and for
that matter, America would not have waited for Columbus's
five-times-great-grandfather to be born. It was really a strange thing
how the richest half of the world played so long at hide-and-seek with
civilization; and how at last it was found, through the merest chance,
by those who sought something entirely different. Had America waited to
be discovered by some one seeking a new continent, it might be waiting
yet.
Despite the fact that long before Columbus vagrant crews of half a dozen
different races had already reached the New World, they had left
neither mark on America nor result in civilization; and Europe, at the
very brink of the greatest discovery and the greatest events in history,
never dreamed of it. Columbus himself had no imaginings of America. Do
you know what he started westward to find? _Asia._
The investigations of recent years have greatly changed our estimates of
Columbus. The tendency of a generation ago was to transform him to a
demigod,--an historical figure, faultless, rounded, all noble. That was
absurd; for Columbus was only a man, and all men, however great, fall
short of perfection. The tendency of the present generation is to go to
the other extreme,--to rob him of every heroic quality, and make him out
an unhanged pirate and a contemptible accident of fortune; so that we
are in a fair way to have very little Columbus left. But this is equally
unjust and unscientific. Columbus in his own field was a great man
despite his failings, and far from a contemptible one.
To understand him, we must first have some general understanding of the
age in which he lived. To measure how much of an inventor of the great
idea he was, we must find out what the world's ideas then were, and how
much they helped or hindered him.
In those far days geography was a very curious affair indeed. A map of
the world then was something which very few of us would be able to
identify at all; for all the wise men of all the earth knew less of the
world's topography than an eight-year old schoolboy knows to-day. It
had been decided at last that the world was not flat, but round,--though
even that fundamental knowledge was not yet old; but as to what composed
half the globe, no man alive knew. Westward from Europe stretched the
"Sea of Darkness," and beyond a little way none knew what it was or
contained. The variation of the compass was not yet understood.
Everything was largely guess-work, and groping in the dark. The unsafe
little "ships" of the day dared not venture out of sight of land, for
there was nothing reliable to guide them back; and you will laugh at one
reason why they were afraid to sail out into the broad western
sea,--they feared that they might unknowingly get over the edge, and
that ship and crew might fall off into space! Though they knew the world
was roundish, the attraction of gravitation was not yet dreamed of; and
it was supposed that if one got too far over the upper side of the ball
one would drop off!
Still, it was a matter of general belief that there was land in that
unknown sea. That idea had been growing for more than a thousand
years,--for by the second century it began to be felt that there were
islands beyond Europe. By Columbus's time the map-makers generally put
on their rude charts a great many guess-work islands in the Sea of
Darkness. Beyond this swarm of islands was supposed to lie the east
coast of Asia,--and at no enormous distance, for the real size of the
world was underestimated by one third. Geography was in its mere
infancy; but it was engaging the attention and study of very many
scholars who were learned for their day. Each of them put his studious
guessing into maps, which varied astonishingly from one another.
But one thing was accepted: _there was land somewhere to the
west_,--some said a few islands, some said thousands of islands, but all
said land of some sort. So Columbus did not invent the idea; it had been
agreed upon long before he was born. The question was not if there was a
New World, but if it was possible or practicable to reach it without
sailing over the jumping-off place or encountering other as sad dangers.
The world said No; Columbus said Yes,--and that was his claim to
greatness. He was not an inventor, but an accomplisher; and even what he
accomplished physically was less remarkable than his faith. He did not
have to teach Europe that there was a new country, but to believe that
he could get to that country; and his faith in himself and his stubborn
courage in making others believe in him was the greatness of his
character. It took less of a man to make the final proof than to
convince the public that it was not utter foolhardiness to attempt the
proof at all.
Christopher Columbus, as we call him (as Colon[1] he was better known in
his own day), was born in Genoa, Italy, the son of Dominico Colombo, a
wool-comber, and Suzanna Fontanarossa. The year of his birth is not
certain; but it was probably about 1446. Of his boyhood we know
nothing, and little enough of all his early life,--though it is certain
that he was active, adventurous, and yet very studious. It is said that
his father sent him for awhile to the University of Pavia; but his
college course could not have lasted very long. Columbus himself tells
us that he went to sea at fourteen years of age. But as a sailor he was
able to continue the studies which interested him most,--geography and
kindred topics. The details of his early seafaring are very meagre; but
it seems certain that he sailed to England, Iceland, Guinea, and
Greece,--which made a man then far more of a traveller than does a
voyage round the world nowadays; and with this broadening knowledge of
men and lands he was gaining such grasp of navigation, astronomy, and
geography as was then to be had.
[Illustration: Autograph of Christopher Columbus.]
It is interesting to speculate how and when Columbus first conceived an
idea of such stupendous importance. It was doubtless not until he was a
mature and experienced man, who had become not only a skilled sailor,
but one familiar with what other sailors had done. The Madeiras and the
Azores had been discovered more than a century. Prince Henry, the
Navigator (that great patron of early exploration), was sending his
crews down the west coast of Africa,--for at that time it was not even
known what the lower half of Africa was. These expeditions were a great
help to Columbus as well as to the world's knowledge. It is almost
certain, too, that when he was in Iceland he must have heard something
of the legends of the Norse rovers who had been to America. Everywhere
he went his alert mind caught some new encouragement, direct or
indirect, to the great resolve which was half unconsciously forming in
his mind.
About 1473 Columbus wandered to Portugal; and there formed associations
which had an influence on his future. In time he found a wife, Felipa
Moñiz, the mother of his son and chronicler Diego. As to his married
life there is much uncertainty, and whether it was creditable to him or
the reverse. It is known from his own letters that he had other children
than Diego, but they are left in obscurity. His wife is understood to
have been a daughter of the sea-captain known as "The Navigator," whose
services were rewarded by making him the first governor of the newly
discovered island of Porto Santo, off Madeira. It was the most natural
thing in the world that Columbus should presently pay a visit to his
adventurous father-in-law; and it was, perhaps, while in Porto Santo on
this visit that he began to put his great thoughts in more tangible
shape.
With men like "the world-seeking Genoese," a resolve like that, once
formed, is as a barbed arrow,--difficult to be plucked out. From that
day on he knew no rest. The central idea of his life was "Westward!
Asia!" and he began to work for its realization. It is asserted that
with a patriotic intention he hastened home to make first offer of his
services to his native land. But Genoa was not looking for new worlds,
and declined his proffer. Then he laid his plans before John II. of
Portugal. King John was charmed with the idea; but a council of his
wisest men assured him that the plan was ridiculously foolhardy. At last
he sent out a secret expedition, which after sailing out of sight of
shore soon lost heart and returned without result. When Columbus learned
of this treachery, he was so indignant that he left for Spain at once,
and there interested several noblemen and finally the Crown itself in
his audacious hopes. But after three years of profound deliberation, a
_junta_[2] of astronomers and geographers decided that his plan was
absurd and impossible,--the islands could not be reached. Disheartened,
Columbus started for France; but by a lucky chance tarried at an
Andalusian monastery, where he won the guardian, Juan Perez de Marchena,
to his views. This monk had been confessor to the queen; and through his
urgent intercession the Crown at last sent for Columbus, who returned to
court. His plans had grown within him till they almost overbalanced him,
and he seems to have forgotten that his discoveries were only a hope and
not yet a fact. Courage and persistence he certainly had; but we could
wish that now he had been a trifle more modest. When the king asked on
what terms he would make the voyage, he replied: "That you make me an
admiral before I start; that I be viceroy of all the lands that I shall
find; and that I receive one tenth of all the gain." Strong demands,
truly, for the poor wool-comber's son of Genoa to speak to the dazzling
king of Spain!
Ferdinand promptly rejected this bold demand; and in January, 1492,
Columbus was actually on his way to France to try to make an impression
there, when he was overtaken by a messenger who brought him back to
court. It is a very large debt that we owe to good Queen Isabella, for
it was due to her strong personal interest that Columbus had a chance to
find the New World. When all science frowned, and wealth withheld its
aid, it was a woman's persistent faith--aided by the Church--that saved
history.
There has been a great deal of equally unscientific writing done for and
against that great queen. Some have tried to make her out a spotless
saint,--a rather hopeless task to attempt in behalf of any human
being,--and others picture her as sordid, mercenary, and in no wise
admirable. Both extremes are equally illogical and untrue, but the
latter is the more unjust. The truth is that all characters have more
than one side; and there are in history as in everyday life
comparatively few figures we can either deify or wholly condemn.
Isabella was not an angel,--she was a woman, and with failings, as every
woman has. But she was a remarkable woman and a great one, and worthy
our respect as well as our gratitude. She has no need to fear
comparison of character with "Good Queen Bess," and she made a much
greater mark on history. It was not sordid ambition nor avarice which
made her give ear to the world-finder. It was the woman's faith and
sympathy and intuition which have so many times changed history, and
given room for the exploits of so many heroes who would have died
unheard of if they had depended upon the slower and colder and more
selfish sympathy of men.
Isabella took the lead and the responsibility herself. She had a kingdom
of her own; and if her royal husband Ferdinand did not deem it wise to
embark the fortunes of Arragon in such a wild enterprise, she could meet
the expenses from her realm of Castile. Ferdinand seems to have cared
little either way; but his fair-haired, blue-eyed queen, whose gentle
face hid great courage and determination, was enthusiastic.
The Genoan's conditions were granted; and on the 17th of April, 1492,
one of the most important papers that ever held ink was signed by their
Majesties, and by Columbus. If you could see that precious contract, you
would probably have very little idea whose autograph was the lower
one,--for Columbus's rigmarole of a signature would cause consternation
at a teller's window nowadays. The gist of this famous agreement was as
follows:--
1. That Columbus and his heirs forever should have the office of admiral
in all the lands he might discover.
2. That he should be viceroy and governor-general of these lands, with a
voice in the appointment of his subordinate governors.
3. That he should reserve for himself one tenth part of the gold,
silver, pearls, and all other treasures acquired.
4. That he and his lieutenant should be sole judges, concurrent with the
High Admiral of Castile, in matters of commerce in the New World.
5. That he should have the privilege of contributing one eighth to the
expenses of any other expedition to these new lands, and should then be
entitled to one eighth of the profits.
It is a pity that the conduct of Columbus in Spain was not free from a
duplicity which did him little credit. He entered the service of Spain,
Jan. 20, 1486. As early as May 5, 1487, the Spanish Crown gave him three
thousand maravedis (about $18) "for some secret service for their
Majesties;" and during the same year, eight thousand maravedis more. Yet
after this he was secretly proffering his services again to the King of
Portugal, who in 1488 wrote Columbus a letter giving him the freedom of
the kingdom in return for the explorations he was to make _for
Portugal_. But this fell through.
Of the voyage itself you are more likely to have heard,--the voyage
which lasted a few months, but to earn which the strong-hearted Genoese
had borne nearly twenty years of disheartenment and opposition. It was
the years of undaunted struggling to convert the world to his own
unfathomed wisdom that showed the character of Columbus more fully than
all he ever did after the world believed him.
The difficulties of securing official consent and permission being thus
at last overcome, there was only the obstacle left of getting an
expedition together. This was a very serious matter; there were few who
cared to join in such a foolhardy undertaking as it was felt to be.
Finally, volunteers failing, a crew had to be gathered forcibly by order
of the Crown; and with his não the "Santa Maria," and his two caravels
the "Niña" and the "Pinta," filled with unwilling men, the world-finder
was at last ready.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Pronounced C[=o]-l[=o]n,--the Spanish form. (Transcriber's note: the
= signifies a macron over the o)
[2] Pronounced _Hoon_-tah.
III.
COLUMBUS, THE FINDER.
Columbus sailed from Palos, Spain, on Friday, August 3, 1492, at 8 A.
M., with one hundred and twenty Spaniards under his command. You know
how he and his brave comrade Pinzon held up the spirits of his weakening
crew; and how, on the morning of October 12, they sighted land at last.
It was not the mainland of America,--which Columbus never saw until
nearly eight years later,--but Watling's Island. The voyage had been the
longest west which man had yet made; and it was very characteristically
illustrative of the state of the world's knowledge then. When the
variations of the magnetic needle were noticed by the voyagers, they
decided that it was not the needle but the north star that varied.
Columbus was perhaps as well informed as any other geographer of his
day; but he came to the sober conclusion that the cause of certain
phenomena must be that he was sailing over _a bump on the globe_! This
was more strongly brought out in his subsequent voyage to the Orinoco,
when he detected even a worse earth-bump, and concluded that the world
must be pear-shaped! It is interesting to remember that but for an
accidental change of course, the voyagers would have struck the Gulf
Stream and been carried north,--in which case what is now the United
States would have become the first field of Spain's conquest.
The first white man who saw land in the New World was a common sailor
named Rodrigo de Triana, though Columbus himself had seen a light the
night before. Although it is probable--as you will see later on--that
Cabot saw the actual continent of America before Columbus (in 1497), it
was Columbus who found the New World, who took possession of it as its
ruler under Spain, and who even founded the first European colonies in
it,--building, and settling with forty-three men, a town which he named
La Navidad (the Nativity), on the island of San Domingo (Española, as he
called it), in December, 1492. Moreover, had it not been that Columbus
had already found the New World, Cabot never would have sailed.
The explorers cruised from island to island, finding many remarkable
things. In Cuba, which they reached October 26, they discovered tobacco,
which had never been known to civilization before, and the equally
unknown sweet potato. These two products, of the value of which no early
explorer dreamed, were to be far more important factors in the
money-markets and in the comforts of the world than all the more
dazzling treasures. Even the hammock and its name were given to
civilization by this first voyage.
In March, 1493, after a fearful return voyage, Columbus was again in
Spain, telling his wondrous news to Ferdinand and Isabella, and showing
them his trophies of gold, cotton, brilliant-feathered birds, strange
plants and animals, and still stranger men,--for he had also brought
back with him nine Indians, the first Americans to take a European trip.
Every honor was heaped upon Columbus by the appreciative country of his
adoption. It must have been a gallant sight to see this tall, athletic,
ruddy-faced though gray-haired new grandee of Spain riding in almost
royal splendor at the king's bridle, before an admiring court.
The grave and graceful queen was greatly interested in the discoveries
made, and enthusiastic in preparing for more. Both intellectually and as
a woman, the New World appealed to her very strongly; and as to the
aborigines, she became absorbed in earnest plans for their welfare. Now
that Columbus had proved that one could sail up and down the globe
without falling over that "jumping-off place," there was no trouble
about finding plenty of imitators.[3] He had done his work of
genius,--he was the pathfinder,--and had finished his great mission. Had
he stopped there, he would have left a much greater name; for in all
that came after he was less fitted for his task.
A second expedition was hastened; and Sept. 25, 1493, Columbus sailed
again,--this time taking fifteen hundred Spaniards in seventeen vessels,
with animals and supplies to colonize his New World. And now, too, with
strict commands from the Crown to Christianize the Indians, and always
to treat them well, Columbus brought the first missionaries to
America,--twelve of them. The wonderful mother-care of Spain for the
souls and bodies of the savages who so long disputed her entrance to the
New World began early, and it never flagged. No other nation ever
evolved or carried out so noble an "Indian policy" as Spain has
maintained over her western possessions for four centuries.
The second voyage was a very hard one. Some of the vessels were
worthless and leaky, and the crews had to keep bailing them out.
Columbus made his second landing in the New World Nov. 3, 1493, on the
island of Dominica. His colony of La Navidad had been destroyed; and in
December he founded the new city of Isabella. In January, 1494, he
founded there the first church in the New World. During the same voyage
he also built the first road.
As has been said, the first voyages to America were little in comparison
with the difficulty in getting a chance to make a voyage at all; and the
hardships of the sea were nothing to those that came after the safe
landing. It was now that Columbus entered upon the troubles which
darkened the remainder of a life of glory. Great as was his genius as an
explorer, he was an unsuccessful colonizer; and though he founded the
first four towns in all the New World, they brought him only ill. His
colonists at Isabella soon grew mutinous; and San Tonias, which he
founded in Hayti, brought him no better fortune. The hardships of
continued exploration among the West Indies presently overcame his
health, and for nearly half a year he lay sick in Isabella. Had it not
been for his bold and skilful brother Bartholomew, of whom we hear so
little, we might not have heard so much of Columbus.
By 1495, the just displeasure of the Crown with the unfitness of the
first viceroy of the New World caused Juan Aguado to be sent out with an
open commission to inspect matters. This was more than Columbus could
bear; and leaving Bartholomew as adelantado (a rank for which we now
have no equivalent; it means the officer in chief command of an
expedition of discoverers), Columbus hastened to Spain and set himself
right with his sovereigns. Returning to the New World as soon as
possible, he discovered at last the mainland (that of South America),
Aug. 1, 1498, but at first thought it an island, and named it Zeta.
Presently, however, he came to the mouth of the Orinoco, whose mighty
current proved to him that it poured from a continent.
Stricken down by sickness, he returned to Isabella, only to find that
his colonists had revolted against Bartholomew. Columbus satisfied the
mutineers by sending them back to Spain with a number of slaves,--a
disgraceful act, for which the times are his only apology. Good Queen
Isabella was so indignant at this barbarity that she ordered the poor
Indians to be liberated, and sent out Francisco de Bobadilla, who in
1500 arrested Columbus and his two brothers, in Española, and sent them
in irons to Spain. Columbus speedily regained the sympathy of the Crown,
and Bobadilla was superseded; but that was the end of Columbus as
viceroy of the New World. In 1502 he made his fourth voyage, discovered
Martinique and other islands, and founded his fourth colony,--Bethlehem,
1503. But misfortune was closing in upon him. After more than a year of
great hardship and distress, he returned to Spain; and there he died May
20, 1506.
The body of the world-finder was buried in Valladolid, Spain, but was
several times transferred to new resting-places. It is claimed that his
dust now lies, with that of his son Diego, in a chapel of the cathedral
of Havana; but this is doubtful. We are not at all sure that the
precious relics were not retained and interred on the island of Santo
Domingo, whither they certainly were brought from Spain. At all events,
they are in the New World,--at peace at last in the lap of the America
he gave us.
Columbus was neither a perfect man nor a scoundrel,--though as each he
has been alternately pictured. He was a remarkable man, and for his day
and calling a good one. He had with the faith of genius a marvellous
energy and tenacity, and through a great stubbornness carried out an
idea which seems to us very natural, but to the world then seemed
ridiculous. As long as he remained in the profession to which he had
been reared, and in which he was probably unequalled at the time, he
made a wonderful record. But when, after half a century as a sailor, he
suddenly turned viceroy, he became the proverbial "sailor on
land,"--absolutely "lost." In his new duties he was unpractical,
headstrong, and even injurious to the colonization of the New World. It
has been a fashion to accuse the Spanish Crown of base ingratitude
toward Columbus; but this is unjust. The fault was with his own acts,
which made harsh measures by the Crown necessary and right. He was not a
good manager, nor had he the high moral principle without which no ruler
can earn honor. His failures were not from rascality but from some
weaknesses, and from a general unfitness for the new duties to which he
was too old to adapt himself.
We have many pictures of Columbus, but probably none that look like him.
There was no photography in his day, and we cannot learn that his
portrait was ever drawn from life. The pictures that have come down to
us were made, with one exception, after his death, and all from memory
or from descriptions of him. He is represented to have been tall and
imposing, with a rather stern face, gray eyes, aquiline nose, ruddy but
freckled cheeks, and gray hair, and he liked to wear the gray habit of a
Franciscan missionary. Several of his original letters remain to us,
with his remarkable autograph, and a sketch that is attributed to him.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] As he himself complains: "The very tailors turned explorers."
IV.
MAKING GEOGRAPHY.
While Columbus was sailing back and forth between the Old World and the
new one which he had found, was building towns and naming what were to
be nations, England seemed almost ready to take a hand. All Europe was
interested in the strange news which came from Spain. England moved
through the instrumentality of a Venetian, whom we know as Sebastian
Cabot. On the 5th of March, 1496,--four years after Columbus's
discovery,--Henry VII. of England granted a patent to "John Gabote, a
citizen of Venice," and his three sons, allowing them to sail westward
on a voyage of discovery. John, and Sebastian his son, sailed from
Bristol in 1497, and saw the mainland of America at daybreak, June 24,
of the same year,--probably the coast of Nova Scotia,--but did nothing.
After their return to England, the elder Cabot died. In May, 1498,
Sebastian sailed on his second voyage, which probably took him into
Hudson's Bay and a few hundred miles down the coast. There is little
probability in the theory that he ever saw any part of what is now the
United States. He was a northern rover,--so thoroughly so, that the
three hundred colonists whom he brought out perished with cold in July.
England did not treat her one early explorer well; and in 1512 Cabot
entered the more grateful service of Spain. In 1517 he sailed to the
Spanish possessions in the West Indies, on which voyage he was
accompanied by an Englishman named Thomas Pert. In August, 1526, Cabot
sailed with another Spanish expedition bound for the Pacific, which had
already been discovered by a heroic Spaniard; but his officers mutinied,
and he was obliged to abandon his purpose. He explored the Rio de la
Plata (the "Silver River") for a thousand miles, built a fort at one of
the mouths of the Paraña, and explored part of that river and of the
Paraguay,--for South America had been for nearly a generation a Spanish
possession. Thence he returned to Spain, and later to England, where he
died about 1557.
Of the rude maps which Cabot made of the New World, all are lost save
one which is preserved in France; and there are no documents left of
him. Cabot was a genuine explorer, and must be included in the list of
the pioneers of America, but as one whose work was fruitless of
consequences, and who saw, but did not take a hand in, the New World. He
was a man of high courage and stubborn perseverance, and will be
remembered as the discoverer of Newfoundland and the extreme northern
mainland.
After Cabot, England took a nap of more than half a century. When she
woke again, it was to find that Spain's sleepless sons had scattered
over half the New World; and that even France and Portugal had left her
far behind. Cabot, who was not an Englishman, was the first English
explorer; and the next were Drake and Hawkins, and then Captains Amadas
and Barlow, after a lapse of seventy-five and eighty-seven years,
respectively,--during which a large part of the two continents had been
discovered, explored, and settled by other nations, of which Spain was
undeniably in the lead. Columbus, the first Spanish explorer, was not a
Spaniard; but with his first discovery began such an impetuous and
unceasing rush of Spanish-born explorers as achieved more in a hundred
years than all the other nations of Europe put together achieved here in
America's first three hundred. Cabot saw and did nothing; and three
quarters of a century later Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake--whom
old histories laud greatly, but who got rich by selling poor Africans
into slavery, and by actual piracy against unprotected ships and towns
of the colonies of Spain, with which their mother England was then at
peace--saw the West Indies and the Pacific, more than half a century
after these had become possessions of Spain. Drake was the first
Englishman to go through the Straits of Magellan,--and he did it sixty
years after that heroic Portuguese had found them and christened them
with his life-blood. Drake was probably first to see what is now
Oregon,--his only important discovery. He "took possession" of Oregon
for England, under the name of "New Albion;" but old Albion never had a
settlement there.
Sir John Hawkins, Drake's kinsman, was, like him, a distinguished
sailor, but not a real discoverer or explorer at all. Neither of them
explored or colonized the New World; and neither left much more impress
on its history than if he had never been born. Drake brought the first
potatoes to England; but the importance even of that discovery was not
dreamed of till long after, and by other men.
Captains Amadas and Barlow, in 1584, saw our coast at Cape Hatteras and
the island of Roanoke, and went away without any permanent result. The
following year Sir Richard Grenville discovered Cape Fear, and there was
an end of it. Then came Sir Walter Raleigh's famous but petty
expeditions to Virginia, the Orinoco, and New Guinea, and the less
important voyages of John Davis (in 1585-87) to the Northwest. Nor must
we forget brave Martin Frobisher's fruitless voyages to Greenland in
1576-81. This was the end of England in America until the seventeenth
century. In 1602 Captain Gosnold coasted nearly our whole Atlantic
seaboard, particularly about Cape Cod; and five years later yet was the
beginning of English occupancy in the New World. The first English
settlement which made a serious mark on history--as Jamestown did
not--was that of the Pilgrim Fathers in 1602; and they came not for the
sake of opening a new world, but to escape the intolerance of the old.
In fact, as Mr. Winsor has pointed out, the Saxon never took any
particular interest in America until it began to be understood as a
_commercial_ opportunity.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MOQUI TOWNS.
_See page 87._]
But when we turn to Spain, what a record is that of the hundred years
after Columbus and before Plymouth Rock! In 1499 Vincente Yañez de
Pinzon, a companion of Columbus, discovered the coast of Brazil, and
claimed the new country for Spain, but made no settlement. His
discoveries were at the mouths of the Amazon and the Orinoco; and he was
the first European to see the greatest river in the world. In the
following year Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese, was driven to the
coast of Brazil by a storm, "took possession" for Portugal, and founded
a colony there.
As to Amerigo Vespucci, the inconsiderable adventurer whose name so
overshadows his exploits, his American claims are extremely dubious.
Vespucci was born in Florence in 1451, and was an educated man,--his
father being a notary and his uncle a Dominican who gave him a good
schooling. He became a clerk in the great house of the Medicis, and in
their service was sent to Spain about 1490. There he presently got into
the employ of the merchant who fitted out Columbus's second
expedition,--a Florentine named Juanoto Berardi. When Berardi died, in
1495, he left an unfinished contract to fit out twelve ships for the
Crown; and Vespucci was intrusted with the completion of the contract.
There is no reason whatever to believe that he accompanied Columbus
either on the first or the second voyage. According to his own story, he
sailed from Cadiz May 10, 1497 (in a Spanish expedition), and reached
the mainland eighteen days before Cabot saw it. The statement of
encyclopædias that Vespucci "probably got as far north as Cape Hatteras"
is ridiculous. The proof is absolute that he never saw an inch of the
New World north of the equator. Returning to Spain in the latter part of
1498, he sailed again, May 16, 1499, with Ojeda, to San Domingo, a
voyage on which he was absent about eighteen months. He left Lisbon on
his third voyage, May 10, 1501, going to Brazil. It is not true, despite
the encyclopædias, that he discovered and named the Bay of Rio Janeiro;
both those honors belong to Cabral, the real discoverer and pioneer of
Brazil, and a man of vastly greater historical importance than Vespucci.
Vespucci's fourth voyage took him from Lisbon (June 10, 1503) to Bahia,
and thence to Cape Frio, where he built a little fort. In 1504 he
returned to Portugal, and in the following year to Spain, where he died
in 1512.
These voyages rest only on Vespucci's own statements, which are not to
be implicitly believed. It is probable that he did not sail at all in
1497, and quite certain that he had no share whatever in the real
discoveries in the New World.
The name "America" was first invented and applied in 1507 by an
ill-informed German printer, named Waldzeemüller, who had got hold of
Amerigo Vespucci's documents. History is full of injustices, but never
a greater among them all than the christening of America. It would have
been as appropriate to call it Walzeemüllera. The first map of America
was made in 1500 by Juan de la Cosa, a Spaniard,--and a very funny map
it would seem to the schoolboy of to-day. The first geography of America
was by Enciso, a Spaniard, in 1517.
It is pleasant to turn from an overrated and very dubious man to those
genuine but almost unheard-of Portuguese heroes, the brothers Gaspard
and Miguel Corte-Real. Gaspard sailed from Lisbon in the year 1500, and
discovered and named Labrador,--"the laborer." In 1501 he sailed again
from Portugal to the Arctic, and never returned. After waiting a year,
his brother Miguel led an expedition to find and rescue him; but he too
perished, with all his men, among the ice-floes of the Arctic. A third
brother wished to go in quest of the lost explorers, but was forbidden
by the king, who himself sent out a relief expedition of two ships; but
no trace of the gallant Corte-Reals, nor of any of their men, was ever
found.
Such was the pioneering of America up to the end of the first decade of
the sixteenth century,--a series of gallant and dangerous voyages (of
which only the most notable ones of the great Spanish inrush have been
mentioned), resulting in a few ephemeral colonies, but important only as
a peep into the doors of the New World. The real hardships and dangers,
the real exploration and conquest of the Americas, began with the
decade from 1510 to 1520,--the beginning of a century of such
exploration and conquest as the world never saw before nor since. Spain
had it all to herself, save for the heroic but comparatively petty
achievements of Portugal in South America, between the Spanish points of
conquest. The sixteenth century in the New World was unparalleled in
military history; and it produced, or rather developed, such men as
tower far above the later conquerors in their achievement. Our part of
the hemisphere has never made such startling chapters of conquest as
were carved in the grimmer wildernesses to our south by Cortez, Pizarro,
Valdivia, and Quesada, the greatest subduers of wild America.
There were at least a hundred other early Spanish heroes, unknown to
public fame and buried in obscurity until real history shall give them
their well-earned praise. There is no reason to believe that these
unremembered heroes were more _capable_ of great things than our Israel
Putnams and Ethan Allens and Francis Marions and Daniel Boones; but they
_did_ much greater things under the spur of greater necessity and
opportunity. A hundred such, I say; but really the list is too long to
be even catalogued here; and to pay attention to their greater brethren
will fill this book. No other mother-nation ever bore a hundred Stanleys
and four Julius Cæsars in one century; but that is part of what Spain
did for the New World. Pizarro, Cortez, Valdivia, and Quesada are
entitled to be called the Cæsars of the New World; and no other
conquests in the history of America are at all comparable to theirs. As
among the four, it is almost difficult to say which was greatest; though
there is really but one answer possible to the historian. The choice
lies of course between Cortez and Pizarro, and for years was wrongly
made. Cortez was first in time, and his operations seem to us nearer
home. He was a highly educated man for his time, and, like Cæsar, had
the advantage of being able to write his own biography; while his
distant cousin Pizarro could neither read nor write, but had to "make
his mark,"--a striking contrast with the bold and handsome (for those
days) autograph of Cortez. But Pizarro--who had this lack of education
as a handicap from the first, who went through infinitely greater
hardships and difficulties than Cortez, and managed the conquest of an
area as great with a third as many men as Cortez had, and very much more
desperate and rebellious men--was beyond question the greatest Spanish
American, and the greatest tamer of the New World. It is for that
reason, and because such gross injustice has been done him, that I have
chosen his marvellous career, to be detailed later in this book, as a
picture of the supreme heroism of the Spanish pioneers.
But while Pizarro was greatest, all four were worthy the rank they have
been assigned as the Cæsars of America.
Certain it is that the bald-headed little great man of old Rome, who
crowds the page of ancient history, did nothing greater than each of
those four Spanish heroes, who with a few tattered Spaniards in place
of the iron legions of Rome conquered each an inconceivable wilderness
as savage as Cæsar found, and five times as big. Popular opinion long
did a vast injustice to these and all other of the Spanish
_conquistadores_, belittling their military achievements on account of
their alleged great superiority of weapons over the savages, and taxing
them with a cruel and relentless extermination of the aborigines. The
clear, cold light of true history tells a different tale. In the first
place, the advantage of weapons was hardly more than a moral advantage
in inspiring awe among the savages at first, for the sadly clumsy and
ineffective firearms of the day were scarcely more dangerous than the
aboriginal bows which opposed them. They were effective at not much
greater range than arrows, and were tenfold slower of delivery. As to
the cumbrous and usually dilapidated armor of the Spaniard and his
horse, it by no means fully protected either from the agate-tipped
arrows of the savages; and it rendered both man and beast ill-fitted to
cope with their agile foes in any extremity, besides being a frightful
burden in those tropic heats. The "artillery" of the times was almost as
worthless as the ridiculous arquebuses. As to their treatment of the
natives, there was incomparably less cruelty suffered by the Indians who
opposed the Spaniards than by those who lay in the path of any other
European colonizers. The Spanish did not obliterate _any_ aboriginal
nation,--as our ancestors obliterated scores,--but followed the first
necessarily bloody lesson with humane education and care. Indeed, the
actual Indian population of the Spanish possessions in America is larger
to-day than it was at the time of the conquest; and in that astounding
contrast of conditions, and its lesson as to contrast of methods, is
sufficient answer to the distorters of history.
Before we come to the great conquerors, however, we must outline the
eventful career and tragic end of the discoverer of the Pacific Ocean,
Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. In one of the noblest poems in the English
language we read,--
"Like stout Cortes, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent upon a peak in Darien."
But Keats was mistaken. It was not Cortez who first saw the Pacific, but
Balboa,--five years before Cortez came to the mainland of America at
all.
Balboa was born in the province of Estremadura, Spain, in 1475. In 1501
he sailed with Bastidas for the New World, and then saw Darien, but
settled on the island of Española. Nine years later he sailed to Darien
with Enciso, and there remained. Life in the New World then was a
troublous affair, and the first years of Balboa's life there were
eventful enough, though we must pass them over. Quarrels presently arose
in the colony of Darien. Enciso was deposed and shipped back to Spain a
prisoner, and Balboa took command. Enciso, upon his arrival in Spain,
laid all the blame upon Balboa, and got him condemned by the king for
high treason. Learning of this, Balboa determined upon a master-stroke
whose brilliancy should restore him to the royal favor. From the natives
he had heard of the other ocean and of Peru,--neither yet seen by
European eyes,--and made up his mind to find them. In September, 1513,
he sailed to Coyba with one hundred and ninety men, and from that point,
with only ninety followers, tramped across the Isthmus to the
Pacific,--for its length one of the most frightful journeys imaginable.
It was on the 26th of September, 1513, that from the summit of the
divide the tattered, bleeding heroes looked down upon the blue infinity
of the South Sea,--for it was not called the Pacific until long after.
They descended to the coast; and Balboa, wading out knee-deep into the
new ocean, holding aloft in his right hand his slender sword, and in his
left the proud flag of Spain, took solemn possession of the South Sea in
the name of the King of Spain.
The explorers got back to Darien Jan. 18, 1514, and Balboa sent to Spain
an account of his great discovery. But Pedro Arias de Avila had already
sailed from the mother country to supplant him. At last, however,
Balboa's brilliant news reached the king, who forgave him, and made him
adelantado; and soon after he married the daughter of Pedro Arias. Still
full of great plans, Balboa carried the necessary material across the
Isthmus with infinite toil, and on the shores of the blue Pacific put
together the first ships in the Americas,--two brigantines. With these
he took possession of the Pearl Islands, and then started out to find
Peru, but was driven back by storms to an ignoble fate. His
father-in-law, becoming jealous of Balboa's brilliant prospects, enticed
him back to Darien by a treacherous message, seized him, and had him
publicly executed, on the trumped-up charge of high treason, in 1517.
Balboa had in him the making of an explorer of the first rank, and but
for De Avila's shameless deed might probably have won even higher
honors. His courage was sheer audacity, and his energy tireless; but he
was unwisely careless in his attitude toward the Crown.
V.
THE CHAPTER OF CONQUEST.
While the discoverer of the greatest ocean was still striving to probe
its farther mysteries, a handsome, athletic, brilliant young Spaniard,
who was destined to make much more noise in history, was just beginning
to be heard of on the threshold of America, of whose central kingdoms he
was soon to be conqueror.
Hernando Cortez came of a noble but impoverished Spanish family, and was
born in Estremadura ten years later than Balboa. At the age of fourteen
he was sent to the University of Salamanca to study for the law; but the
adventurous spirit of the man was already strong in the slender lad, and
in a couple of years he left college, and went home determined upon a
life of roving. The air was full of Columbus and his New World; and what
spirited youth could stay to pore in musty law-books then? Not the
irrepressible Hernando, surely.
Accidents prevented him from accompanying two expeditions for which he
had made ready; but at last, in 1504, he sailed to San Domingo, in which
new colony of Spain he made such a record that Ovando, the commander,
several times promoted him, and he earned the reputation of a model
soldier. In 1511 he accompanied Velasquez to Cuba, and was made
_alcalde_ (judge) of Santiago, where he won further praise by his
courage and firmness in several important crises. Meantime Francisco
Hernandez de Cordova, the discoverer of Yucatan,--a hero with this mere
mention of whom we must content ourselves,--had reported his important
discovery. A year later, Grijalva, the lieutenant of Velasquez, had
followed Cordova's course, and gone farther north, until at last he
discovered Mexico. He made no attempt, however, to conquer or to
colonize the new land; whereat Velasquez was so indignant that he threw
Grijalva in disgrace, and intrusted the conquest to Cortez. The
ambitious young Spaniard sailed from Santiago (Cuba) Nov. 18, 1518, with
less than seven hundred men and twelve little cannon of the class called
falconets. No sooner was he fairly off than Velasquez repented having
given him such a chance for distinction, and directly sent out a force
to arrest and bring him back. But Cortez was the idol of his little
army, and secure in its fondness for him he bade defiance to the
emissaries of Velasquez, and held on his way.[4] He landed on the coast
of Mexico March 4, 1519, near where is now the city of Vera Cruz (the
True Cross), which he founded,--the first European town on the mainland
of America as far north as Mexico.
The landing of the Spaniards caused as great a sensation as would the
arrival in New York to-day of an army from Mars.[5] The awe-struck
natives had never before seen a horse (for it was the Spanish who
brought the first horses, cattle, sheep, and other domestic animals to
the New World), and decided that these strange, pale new-comers who sat
on four-legged beasts, and had shirts of iron and sticks that made
thunder, must indeed be gods.
Here the adventurers were inflamed by golden stories of Montezuma,--a
myth which befooled Cortez no more egregiously than it has befooled some
modern historians, who seem unable to discriminate between what Cortez
_heard_ and what he _found_. He was told that Montezuma--whose name is
properly Moctezuma, or Motecuzoma, meaning "Our Angry Chief"--was
"emperor" of Mexico, and that thirty "kings," called _caciques_, were
his vassals; that he had incalculable wealth and absolute power, and
dwelt in a blaze of gold and precious stones! Even some most charming
historians have fallen into the sad blunder of accepting these
impossible myths. Mexico never had but two emperors,--Augustin de
Iturbide and the hapless Maximilian,--both in this present century; and
Moctezuma was neither its emperor nor even its king. The social and
political organization of the ancient Mexicans was exactly like that of
the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico at the present day,--a military
democracy, with a mighty and complicated religious organization as its
"power behind the throne." Moctezuma was merely Tlacatécutle, or head
war-chief of the Nahuatl (the ancient Mexicans), and neither the supreme
nor the only executive. Of just how little importance he really was may
be gathered from his fate.
Having founded Vera Cruz, Cortez caused himself to be elected governor
and captain-general (the highest military rank)[6] of the new country;
and having burned his ships, like the famous Greek commander, that there
might be no retreat, he began his march into the grim wilderness before
him.
It was now that Cortez began to show particularly that military genius
which lifted him so far above all other pioneers of America except
Pizarro. With only a handful of men,--for he had left part of his forces
at Vera Cruz, under his lieutenant Escalante,--in an unknown land
swarming with powerful and savage foes, mere courage and brute force
would have stood him in little stead. But with a diplomacy as rare as it
was brilliant, he found the weak spots in the Indian organization,
widened the jealous breaches between tribes, made allies of those who
were secretly or openly opposed to Moctezuma's federation of tribes,--a
league which somewhat resembled the Six Nations of our own history,--and
thus vastly reduced the forces to be directly conquered. Having routed
the tribes of Tlacala (pronounced Tlash-cáh-lah) and Cholula, Cortez
came at last to the strange lake-city of Mexico, with his little Spanish
troop swelled by six thousand Indian allies. Moctezuma received him with
great ceremony, but undoubtedly with treacherous intent. While he was
entertaining his visitors in one of the huge adobe houses,--not a
"palace," as the histories tell us, for there were no palaces whatever
in Mexico,--one of the sub-chiefs of his league attacked Escalante's
little garrison at Vera Cruz and killed several Spaniards, including
Escalante himself. The head of the Spanish lieutenant was sent to the
City of Mexico,--for the Indians south of what is now the United States
took not merely the scalp but the whole head of an enemy. This was a
direful disaster, not so much for the loss of the few men as because it
proved to the Indians (as the senders intended it to prove) that the
Spaniards were not immortal gods after all, but could be killed the same
as other men.
As soon as Cortez heard the ill news he saw this danger at once, and
made a bold stroke to save himself. He had already strongly fortified
the adobe building in which the Spaniards were quartered; and now, going
by night with his officers to the house of the head war-captain, he
seized Moctezuma and threatened to kill him unless he at once gave up
the Indians who had attacked Vera Cruz. Moctezuma delivered them up, and
Cortez at once had them burned in public. This was a cruel thing, though
it was undoubtedly necessary to make some vivid impression on the
savages or be at once annihilated by them. There is no apology for this
barbarity, yet it is only just that we measure Cortez by the standard of
his time,--and it was a very cruel world everywhere then.
It is amusing here to read in pretentious text-books that "Cortez now
ironed Montezuma and made him pay a ransom of six hundred thousand marks
of pure gold and an immense quantity of precious stones." That is on a
par with the impossible fables which lured so many of the early
Spaniards to disappointment and death, and is a fair sample of the
gilded glamour with which equally credulous historians still surround
early America. Moctezuma did not buy himself free,--he never was free
again,--and he paid no ransom of gold; while as for precious stones, he
may have had a few native garnets and worthless green turquoises, and
perhaps even an emerald pebble, but nothing more.
Just at this crisis in the affairs of Cortez he was threatened from
another quarter. News came that Pamfilo de Narvaez, of whom we shall see
more presently, had landed with eight hundred men to arrest Cortez and
carry him back prisoner for his disobedience of Velasquez. But here
again the genius of the conqueror of Mexico saved him. Marching against
Narvaez with one hundred and forty men, he arrested Narvaez, enlisted
under his own banner the welcome eight hundred who had come to arrest
him, and hastened back to the City of Mexico.
Here he found matters growing daily to more deadly menace. Alvarado,
whom he had left in command, had apparently precipitated trouble by
attacking an Indian dance. Wanton as that may seem and has been charged
with being, it was only a military necessity, recognized by all who
really know the aborigines even to this day. The closet-explorers have
pictured the Spaniards as wickedly falling upon an aboriginal
_festival_; but that is simply because of ignorance of the subject. An
Indian dance is _not_ a festival; it is generally, and was in this case,
a grim rehearsal for murder. An Indian never dances "for fun," and his
dances too often mean anything but fun for other people. In a word,
Alvarado, seeing in progress a dance which was plainly only the
superstitious prelude to a massacre, had tried to arrest the
medicine-men and other ringleaders. Had he succeeded, the trouble would
have been over for a time at least. But the Indians were too numerous
for his little force, and the chief instigators of war escaped.
When Cortez came back with his eight hundred strangely-acquired
recruits, he found the whole city with its mask thrown off, and his men
penned up in their barracks. The savages quietly let Cortez enter the
trap, and then closed it so that there was no more getting out. There
were the few hundred Spaniards cooped up in their prison, and the four
dykes which were the only approaches to it--for the City of Mexico was
an American Venice--swarming with savage foes by the countless
thousands.
The Indian makes very few excuses for failure; and the Nahuatl had
already elected a new head war-captain named Cuitlahuátzin in place of
the unsuccessful Moctezuma. The latter was still a prisoner; and when
the Spaniards brought him out upon the housetop to speak to his people
in their behalf, the infuriated multitude of Indians pelted him to death
with stones. Then, under their new war-captain, they attacked the
Spaniards so furiously that neither the strong walls nor the clumsy
falconets, and clumsier flintlocks, could withstand them; and there was
nothing for the Spaniards but to cut their way out along one of the
dykes in a last desperate struggle for life. The beginning of that six
days' retreat was one of the bitterest pages in American history. Then
was the Noche Triste (the Sad Night), still celebrated in Spanish song
and story. For that dark night many a proud home in mother Spain was
never bright again, and many a fond heart broke with the crimson bubbles
on the Lake of Tezcuco. In those few ghastly hours two thirds of the
conquerors were slain; and across more than eight hundred Spanish
corpses the frenzied savages pursued the bleeding survivors.
After a fearful retreat of six days, came the important running fight in
the plains of Otumba, where the Spaniards were entirely surrounded, but
cut their way out after a desperate hand-to-hand struggle which really
decided the fate of Mexico. Cortez marched to Tlacala, raised an army of
Indians who were hostile to the federation, and with their help laid
siege to the City of Mexico. This siege lasted seventy-three days, and
was the most remarkable in the history of all America. There was hard
fighting every day. The Indians made a superb defence; but at last the
genius of Cortez triumphed, and on the 13th of August, 1521, he marched
victorious into the second greatest aboriginal city in the New World.
These wonderful exploits of Cortez, so briefly outlined here, awoke
boundless admiration in Spain, and caused the Crown to overlook his
insubordination to Velasquez. The complaints of Velasquez were
disregarded, and Charles V. appointed Cortez governor and
captain-general of Mexico, besides making him Marquis de Oaxaca with a
handsome revenue.
Safely established in this high authority, Cortez crushed a plot against
him, and executed the new war-captain, with many of the caciques (who
were not potentates at all, but religious-military officers, whose hold
on the superstitions of the Indians made them dangerous).
But Cortez, whose genius shone only the brighter when the difficulties
and dangers before him seemed insurmountable, tripped up on that which
has thrown so many,--success. Unlike his unlearned but nobler and
greater cousin Pizarro, prosperity spoiled him, and turned his head and
his heart. Despite the unstudious criticisms of some historians, Cortez
was not a cruel conqueror. He was not only a great military genius, but
was very merciful to the Indians, and was much beloved by them. The
so-called massacre at Cholula was not a blot on his career as has been
alleged. The truth, as vindicated at last by real history, is this: The
Indians had treacherously drawn him into a trap under pretext of
friendship. Not until too late to retreat did he learn that the savages
meant to massacre him. When he did see his danger, there was but one
chance,--namely, to surprise the surprisers, to strike them before they
were ready to strike him; and this is only what he did. Cholula was
simply a case of the biter bitten.
No, Cortez was not cruel to the Indians; but as soon as his rule was
established he became a cruel tyrant to his own countrymen, a traitor to
his friends and even to his king,--and, worst of all, a cool assassin.
There is strong evidence that he had "removed" several persons who were
in the way of his unholy ambitions; and the crowning infamy was in the
fate of his own wife. Cortez had long for a mistress the handsome Indian
girl Malinche; but after he had conquered Mexico, his lawful wife came
to the country to share his fortunes. He did not love her, however, as
much as he did his ambition; and she was in his way. At last she was
found in her bed one morning, strangled to death.
Carried away by his ambition, he actually plotted open rebellion against
Spain and to make himself emperor of Mexico. The Crown got wind of this
precious plan, and sent out emissaries who seized his goods, imprisoned
his men, and prepared to thwart his secret schemes. Cortez boldly
hastened to Spain, where he met his sovereign with great splendor.
Charles received him well, and decorated him with the illustrious Order
of Santiago, the patron saint of Spain. But his star was already
declining; and though he was allowed to return to Mexico with
undiminished outward power, he was thenceforth watched, and did nothing
more that was comparable with his wonderful earlier achievements. He had
become too unscrupulous, too vindictive, and too unsafe to be left in
authority; and after a few years the Crown was forced to appoint a
viceroy to wield the civil power of Mexico, leaving to Cortez only the
military command, and permission for further conquests. In 1536 Cortez
discovered Lower California, and explored part of its gulf. At last,
disgusted with his inferior position where he had once been supreme, he
returned to Spain, where the emperor received him coldly. In 1541 he
accompanied his sovereign to Algiers as an attaché, and in the wars
there acquitted himself well. Soon after their return to Spain, however,
he found himself neglected. It is said that one day when Charles was
riding in state, Cortez forced his way to the royal carriage and mounted
upon the step determined to force recognition.
"Who are you?" demanded the angry emperor.
"A man, your Highness," retorted the haughty conqueror of Mexico, "who
has given you more _provinces_ than your forefathers left you
_cities_!"
Whether the story is true or not, it graphically illustrates the
arrogance as well as the services of Cortez. He lacked the modest
balance of the greatest greatness, just as Columbus had lacked it. The
self-assertion of either would have been impossible to the greater man
than either,--the self-possessed Pizarro.
At last, in disgust, Cortez retired from court; and on the 2d of
December, 1554, the man who had first opened the interior of America to
the world died near Seville.
There were some in South America whose achievements were as wondrous as
those of Cortez in Mexico. The conquest of the two continents was
practically contemporaneous, and equally marked by the highest military
genius, the most dauntless courage, the overcoming of dangers which were
appalling, and hardships which were wellnigh superhuman.
Francisco Pizarro, the unlettered but invincible conqueror of Peru, was
fifteen years older than his brilliant cousin Cortez, and was born in
the same province of Spain. He began to be heard of in America in 1510.
From 1524 to 1532 he was making superhuman efforts to get to the unknown
and golden land of Peru, overcoming such obstacles as not even Columbus
had encountered, and enduring greater dangers and hardships than
Napoleon or Cæsar ever met. From 1532 to his death in 1541, he was busy
in conquering and exploring that enormous area, and founding a new
nation amid its fierce tribes,--fighting off not only the vast hordes
of Indians, but also the desperate men of his own forces, by whose
treachery he at last perished. Pizarro found and tamed the richest
country in the New World; and with all his unparalleled sufferings still
realized, more than any other of the conquerors, the golden dreams which
all pursued. Probably no other conquest in the world's history yielded
such rapid and bewildering wealth, as certainly none was bought more
dearly in hardship and heroism. Pizarro's conquest has been most
unjustly dealt with by some historians ignorant of the real facts in the
case, and blinded by prejudice; but that marvellous story, told in
detail farther on, is coming to its proper rank as one of the most
stupendous and gallant feats in all history. It is the story of a hero
to whom every true American, young or old, will be glad to do justice.
Pizarro has been long misrepresented as a blood-stained and cruel
conqueror, a selfish, unprincipled, unreliable man; but in the clear,
true light of real history he stands forth now as one of the greatest of
self-made men, and one who, considering his chances, deserves the utmost
respect and admiration for the man he made of himself. The conquest of
Peru did not by far cause as much bloodshed as the final reduction of
the Indian tribes of Virginia. It counted scarcely as many Indian
victims as King Philip's War, and was much less bloody, because more
straightforward and honorable, than any of the British conquests in East
India. The most bloody events in Peru came after the conquest was over,
when the Spaniards fell to fighting one another; and in this Pizarro
was not the aggressor but the victim. It was the treachery of his own
allies,--the men whose fames and fortunes he had made. His conquest
covered a land as big as California, Oregon, and most of Washington,--or
as our whole seaboard from Nova Scotia to Port Royal and two hundred
miles inland,--swarming with the best organized and most advanced
Indians in the Western Hemisphere; and he did it all with less than
three hundred gaunt and tattered men. He was one of the great captains
of all time, and almost as remarkable as organizer and executive of a
new empire, the first on the Pacific shore of the southern continent. To
this greatness rose the friendless, penniless, ignorant swineherd of
Truxillo!
Pedro de Valdivia, the conqueror of Chile, subdued that vast area of the
deadly Araucanians with an "army" of two hundred men. He established the
first colony in Chile in 1540, and in the following February founded the
present city of Santiago de Chile. Of his long and deadly wars with the
Araucanians there is not space to speak here. He was killed by the
savages Dec. 3, 1553, with nearly all his men, after an indescribably
desperate struggle.
There is not space to tell here of the wondrous doings in the southern
continent or the lower point of this,--the conquest of Nicaragua by Gil
Gonzales Davila in 1523; the conquest of Guatemala, by Pedro de
Alvarado, in 1524; that of Yucatan by Francisco de Montijo, beginning in
1526; that of New Granada by Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada, in 1536; the
conquests and exploration of Bolivia, the Amazon, and the Orinoco (to
whose falls the Spaniards had penetrated by 1530, by almost superhuman
efforts); the unparalleled Indian wars with the Araucanians in Chile
(for two centuries), with the Tarrahumares in Chihuahua, the Tepehuanes
in Durango, the still untamed Yaquis in northwestern Mexico; the
exploits of Captain Martin de Hurdaide (the Daniel Boone of Sinaloa and
Sonora); and of hundreds of other unrecorded Spanish heroes, who would
have been world-renowned had they been more accessible to the
fame-maker.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] This mutiny against Velasquez was the first hint of the unscrupulous
man who was finally to turn complete traitor to Spain.
[5] Tezozomoc, the Indian historian, graphically describes the wonder of
the natives.
[6] Another specific act of treason.
VI.
A GIRDLE ROUND THE WORLD.
Before Cortez had yet conquered Mexico, or Pizarro or Valdivia seen the
lands with which their names were to be linked for all time, other
Spaniards--less conquerors, but as great explorers--were rapidly shaping
the geography of the New World. France, too, had aroused somewhat; and
in 1500 her brave son Captain de Gonneville sailed to Brazil. But
between him and the next pioneer, who was a Florentine in French pay,
was a gap of twenty-four years; and in that time Spain had accomplished
four most important feats.
Fernão Magalhaes, whom we know as Ferdinand Magellan, was born in
Portugal in 1470; and on reaching manhood adopted the seafaring life, to
which his adventurous disposition prompted. The Old World was then
ringing with the New; and Magellan longed to explore the Americas. Being
very shabbily treated by the King of Portugal, he enlisted under the
banner of Spain, where his talents found recognition. He sailed from
Spain in command of a Spanish expedition, August 10, 1519; and steering
farther south than ever man had sailed before, he discovered Cape Horn,
and the Straits which bear his name. Fate did not spare him to carry his
discoveries farther, nor to reap the reward of those he had made; for
during this voyage (in 1521) he was butchered by the natives of one of
the islands of the Moluccas. His heroic lieutenant, Juan Sebastian de
Elcano, then took command, and continued the voyage until he had
circumnavigated the globe for the first time in its history. Upon his
return to Spain, the Crown rewarded his brilliant achievements, and gave
him, among other honors, a coat-of-arms emblazoned with a globe and the
motto, _Tu primum circumdedisti me_,--"Thou first didst go around me."
Juan Ponce de Leon, the discoverer of Florida,--the first State of our
Union that was seen by Europeans,--was as ill-fated an explorer as
Magellan; for he came to "the Flowery Land" (to which he had been lured
by the wild myth of a fountain of perennial youth) only to be slain by
its savages. De Leon was born in San Servas, Spain, in the latter part
of the fifteenth century. He was the conqueror of the island of Puerto
Rico, and sailing in 1512 to find Florida,--of which he had heard
through the Indians,--discovered the new land in the same year, and took
possession of it for Spain. He was given the title of adelantado of
Florida, and in 1521 returned with three ships to conquer his new
country, but was at once wounded mortally in a fight with the Indians,
and died on his return to Cuba. He, by the way, was one of the bold
Spaniards who accompanied Columbus on his second voyage to America, in
1493.
[Illustration: Autograph of Hernando de Soto.]
More of the credit of Florida belongs to Hernando de Soto. That gallant
_conquistador_ was born in Estremadura, Spain, about 1496. Pedro Arias
de Avila took a liking to his bright young kinsman, helped him to obtain
a university education, and in 1519 took him along on his expedition to
Darien. De Soto won golden opinions in the New World, and came to be
trusted as a prudent yet fearless officer. In 1528 he commanded an
expedition to explore the coast of Guatemala and Yucatan, and in 1532
led a reinforcement of three hundred men to assist Pizarro in the
conquest of Peru. In that golden land De Soto captured great wealth; and
the young soldier of fortune, who had landed in America with no more
than his sword and shield, returned to Spain with what was in those days
an enormous fortune. There he married a daughter of his benefactor De
Avila, and thus became brother-in-law of the discoverer of the
Pacific,--Balboa. De Soto lent part of his soon-earned fortune to
Charles V., whose constant wars had drained the royal coffers, and
Charles sent him out as governor of Cuba and adelantado of the new
province of Florida. He sailed in 1538 with an army of six hundred men,
richly equipped,--a company of adventurous Spaniards attracted to the
banner of their famous countryman by the desire for discovery and gold.
The expedition landed in Florida, at Espiritu Santo Bay, in May, 1539,
and re-took possession of the unguessed wilderness for Spain.
But the brilliant success which had attended De Soto in the highlands of
Peru seemed to desert him altogether in the swamps of Florida. It is
note-worthy that nearly all the explorers who did wonders in South
America failed when their operations were transferred to the northern
continent. The physical geography of the two was so absolutely unlike,
that, after becoming accustomed to the necessities of the one, the
explorer seemed unable to adapt himself to the contrary conditions of
the other.
De Soto and his men wandered through the southern part of what is now
the United States for four ghastly years. It is probable that their
travels took them through the present States of Florida, Georgia,
Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and the northeastern corner
of Texas. In 1541 they reached the Mississippi River; and theirs were
the first European eyes to look upon the Father of Waters, anywhere save
at its mouth,--a century and a quarter before the heroic Frenchmen
Marquette and La Salle saw it. They spent that winter along the Washita;
and in the early summer of 1542, as they were returning down the
Mississippi, brave De Soto died, and his body was laid to rest in the
bosom of the mighty river he had discovered,--two centuries before any
"American" saw it. His suffering and disheartened men passed a frightful
winter there; and in 1543, under command of the Lieutenant Moscoso, they
built rude vessels, and sailed down the Mississippi to the Gulf in
nineteen days,--the first navigation in our part of America. From the
Delta they made their way westward along the coast, and at last reached
Panuco, Mexico, after such a five years of hardship and suffering as no
Saxon explorer of America ever experienced. It was nearly a century and
a half after De Soto's gaunt army of starving men had taken Louisiana
for Spain that it became a French possession,--which the United States
bought from France over a century later yet.
[Illustration: THE ROCK OF ACOMA.
_See page 125._]
So when Verazzano--the Florentine sent out by France--reached America in
1524, coasted the Atlantic seaboard from somewhere about South Carolina
to Newfoundland, and gave the world a short description of what he saw,
Spain had circumnavigated the globe, reached the southern tip of the New
World, conquered a vast territory, and discovered at least half-a-dozen
of our present States, since the last visit of a Frenchman to America.
As for England, she was almost as unheard of still on this side of the
earth as though she had never existed.
Between De Leon and De Soto, Florida was visited in 1518 by Francisco de
Garay, the conqueror of Tampico. He came to subdue the Flowery Land, but
failed, and died soon after in Mexico,--the probability being that he
was poisoned by order of Cortez. He left even less mark on Florida than
did De Leon, and belongs to the class of Spanish explorers who, though
real heroes, achieved unimportant results, and are too numerous to be
even catalogued here.
In 1527 there sailed from Spain the most disastrous expedition which was
ever sent to the New World,--an expedition notable but for two things,
that it was perhaps the saddest in history, and that it brought the man
who first of all men crossed the American continent, and indeed made one
of the most wonderful walks since the world began. Panfilo de
Narvaez--who had so ignominiously failed in his attempt to arrest
Cortez--was commander, with authority to conquer Florida; and his
treasurer was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca. In 1528 the company landed in
Florida, and forthwith began a record of horror that makes the blood run
cold. Shipwreck, savages, and starvation made such havoc with the doomed
band that when in 1529 Vaca and three companions found themselves slaves
to the Indians they were the sole survivors of the expedition.
Vaca and his companions wandered from Florida to the Gulf of California,
suffering incredible dangers and tortures, reaching there after a
wandering which lasted over eight years. Vaca's heroism was rewarded.
The king made him governor of Paraguay in 1540; but he was as unfit for
such a post as Columbus had been for a viceroy, and soon came back in
irons to Spain, where he died.
But it was through his accounts of what he saw in that astounding
journey (for Vaca was an educated man, and has left us two very
interesting and valuable books) that his countrymen were roused to begin
in earnest the exploration and colonization of what is now the United
States,--to build the first cities and till the first farms of the
greatest nation on earth.
The thirty years following the conquest of Mexico by Cortez saw an
astounding change in the New World. They were brimful of wonders.
Brilliant discovery, unparalleled exploration, gallant conquest, and
heroic colonization followed one another in a bewildering rush,--and but
for the brave yet limited exploits of the Portuguese in South America,
Spain was all alone in it. From Kansas to Cape Horn was one vast Spanish
possession, save parts of Brazil where the Portuguese hero Cabral had
taken a joint foothold for his country. Hundreds of Spanish towns had
been built; Spanish schools, universities, printing-presses, books, and
churches were beginning their work of enlightenment in the dark
continents of America, and the tireless followers of Santiago were still
pressing on. America, particularly Mexico, was being rapidly settled by
Spaniards. The growth of the colonies was very remarkable for those
times,--that is, where there were any resources to support a growing
population. The city of Puebla, for instance, in the Mexican State of
the same name, was founded in 1532 and began with thirty-three settlers.
In 1678 it had eighty thousand people, which is twenty thousand more
than New York city had one hundred and twenty-two years later.
VII.
SPAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
Cortez was still captain-general when Cabeza de Vaca came into the
Spanish settlements from his eight years' wandering, with news of
strange countries to the north; but Antonio de Mendoza was viceroy of
Mexico, and Cortez' superior, and between him and the traitorous
conqueror was endless dissension. Cortez was working for himself,
Mendoza for Spain.
As Mexico became more and more thickly dotted with Spanish settlements,
the attention of the restless world-finders began to wander toward the
mysteries of the vast and unknown country to the north. The strange
things Vaca had seen, and the stranger ones he had heard, could not fail
to excite the dauntless rovers to whom he told them. Indeed, within a
year after the arrival in Mexico of the first transcontinental
traveller, two more of our present States were found by his countrymen
as the direct result of his narratives. And now we come to one of the
best-slandered men of them all,--Fray Marcos de Nizza, the discoverer of
Arizona and New Mexico.
Fray (brother) Marcos was a native of the province of Nizza, then a part
of Savoy, and must have come to America in 1531. He accompanied Pizarro
to Peru, and thence finally returned to Mexico. He was the first to
explore the unknown lands of which Vaca had heard such wonderful reports
from the Indians, though he had never seen them himself,--"the Seven
Cities of Cibola, full of gold," and countless other marvels. Fray
Marcos started on foot from Culiacan (in Sinaloa, on the western edge of
Mexico) in the spring of 1539, with the negro Estévanico, who had been
one of Vaca's companions, and a few Indians. A lay brother, Onorato, who
started with him, fell sick at once and went no farther. Now, here was a
genuine Spanish exploration, a fair sample of hundreds,--this fearless
priest, unarmed, with a score of unreliable men, starting on a year's
walk through a desert where even in this day of railroads and highways
and trails and developed water men yearly lose their lives by thirst, to
say nothing of the thousands who have been killed there by Indians. But
trifles like these only whetted the appetite of the Spaniard; and Fray
Marcos kept his footsore way, until early in June, 1539, he actually
came to the Seven Cities of Cibola. These were in the extreme west of
New Mexico, around the present strange Indian pueblo of Zuñi, which is
all that is left of those famous cities, and is itself to-day very much
as the hero-priest saw it three hundred and fifty years ago. At the foot
of the wonderful cliff of Toyallahnah, the sacred thunder mountain of
Zuñi, the negro Estévanico was killed by the Indians, and Fray Marcos
escaped a similar fate only by a hasty retreat. He learned what he could
of the strange terraced towns of which he got a glimpse, and returned to
Mexico with great news. He has been accused of misrepresentation and
exaggeration in his reports; but if his critics had not been so ignorant
of the locality, of the Indians and of their traditions, they never
would have spoken. Fray Marcos's statements were absolutely truthful.
When the good priest told his story, we may be sure that there was a
pricking-up of ears throughout New Spain (the general Spanish name then
for Mexico); and as soon as ever an armed expedition could be fitted
out, it started for the Seven Cities of Cibola, with Fray Marcos himself
as guide. Of that expedition you shall hear in a moment. Fray Marcos
accompanied it as far as Zuñi, and then returned to Mexico, being sadly
crippled by rheumatism, from which he never fully recovered. He died in
the convent in the City of Mexico, March 25, 1558.
The man whom Fray Marcos led to the Seven Cities of Cibola was the
greatest explorer that ever trod the northern continent, though his
explorations brought to himself only disaster and bitterness,--Francisco
Vasquez de Coronado. A native of Salamanca, Spain, Coronado was young,
ambitious, and already renowned. He was governor of the Mexican province
of New Galicia when the news of the Seven Cities came. Mendoza, against
the strong opposition of Cortez, decided upon a move which would rid
the country of a few hundred daring young Spanish blades with whom peace
did not at all agree, and at the same time conquer new countries for the
Crown. So he gave Coronado command of an expedition of about two hundred
and fifty Spaniards to colonize the lands which Fray Marcos had
discovered, with strict orders never to come back!
Coronado and his little army left Culiacan early in 1540. Guided by the
tireless priest they reached Zuñi in July, and took the pueblo after a
sharp fight, which was the end of hostilities there. Thence Coronado
sent small expeditions to the strange cliff-built pueblos of Moqui (in
the northeastern part of Arizona), to the grand cañon of the Colorado,
and to the pueblo of Jemez in northern New Mexico. That winter he moved
his whole command to Tiguex, where is now the pretty New Mexican village
of Bernalillo, on the Rio Grande, and there had a serious and
discreditable war with the Tigua Pueblos.
It was here that he heard that golden myth which lured him to frightful
hardships, and hundreds since to death,--the fable of the Quivira. This,
so Indians from the vast plains assured him, was an Indian city where
all was pure gold. In the spring of 1541 Coronado and his men started in
quest of the Quivira, and marched as far across those awful plains as
the centre of our present Indian territory. Here, seeing that he had
been deceived, Coronado sent back his army to Tiguex, and himself with
thirty men pushed on across the Arkansas River, and as far as
northeastern Kansas,--that is, three-fourths of the way from the Gulf of
California to New York, and by his circuitous route much farther.
There he found the tribe of the Quiviras,--roaming savages who chased
the buffalo,--but they neither had gold nor knew where it was. Coronado
got back at last to Bernalillo, after an absence of three months of
incessant marching and awful hardships. Soon after his return, he was so
seriously injured by a fall from his horse that his life was in great
danger. He passed the crisis, but his health was wrecked; and
disheartened by his broken body and by the unredeemed disappointments of
the forbidding land he had hoped to settle, he gave up all hope of
colonizing New Mexico, and in the summer of 1542 returned to Mexico with
his men. His disobedience to the viceroy in coming back cast him into
disgrace, and he passed the remainder of his life in comparative
obscurity.
This was a sad end for the remarkable man who had found out so many
thousands of miles of the thirsty Southwest nearly three centuries
before any of our blood saw any of it,--a well-born, college-bred,
ambitious, and dashing soldier, and the idol of his troops. As an
explorer he stands unequalled, but as a colonizer he utterly failed. He
was a city-bred man, and no frontiersman; and being accustomed only to
Jalisco and the parts of Mexico which lie along the Gulf of California,
he knew nothing of, and could not adapt himself to, the fearful deserts
of Arizona and New Mexico. It was not until half a century later, when
there came a Spaniard who was a born frontiersman of the arid lands,
that New Mexico was successfully colonized.
While the discoverer of the Indian Territory and Kansas was chasing a
golden fable across their desolate plains, his countrymen had found and
were exploring another of our States,--our golden garden of California.
Hernando de Alarcon, in 1540, sailed up the Colorado River to a great
distance from the gulf, probably as far as Great Bend; and in 1543 Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo explored the Pacific coast of California to a hundred
miles north of where San Francisco was to be founded more than three
centuries later.
After the discouraging discoveries of Coronado, the Spaniards for many
years paid little attention to New Mexico. There was enough doing in
Mexico itself to keep even that indomitable Spanish energy busy for
awhile in the civilizing of their new empire. Fray Pedro de Gante had
founded in Mexico, in 1524, the first schools in the New World; and
thereafter every church and convent in Spanish America had always a
school for the Indians attached. In 1524 there was not a single Indian
in Mexico's countless thousands who knew what letters were; but twenty
years later such large numbers of them had learned to read and write
that Bishop Zumarraga had a book made for them in their own language. By
1543 there were even industrial schools for the Indians in Mexico. It
was this same good Bishop Zumarraga who brought the first printing-press
to the New World, in 1536. It was set up in the City of Mexico, and was
soon very actively at work. The oldest book printed in America that
remains to us came from that press in 1539. A majority of the first
books printed there were to make the Indian languages intelligible,--a
policy of humane scholarship which no other nation colonizing in the New
World ever copied. The first music printed in America came from this
press in 1584.
The most striking thing of all, as showing the scholarly attitude of the
Spaniards toward the new continents, was a result entirely unique. Not
only did their intellectual activity breed among themselves a galaxy of
eminent writers, but in a very few years there was a school of important
_Indian authors_. It would be an irreparable loss to knowledge of the
true history of America if we were to lose the chronicles of such Indian
writers as Tezozomoc, Camargo, and Pomar, in Mexico; Juan de Santa Cruz,
Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua, in Peru; and many others. And what a gain
to science if we had taken pains to raise up our own aborigines to such
helpfulness to themselves and to human knowledge!
In all other enlightened pursuits which the world then knew, Spain's
sons were making remarkable progress here. In geography, natural
history, natural philosophy, and other sciences they were as truly the
pioneers of America as they had been in discovery. It is a startling
fact that so early as 1579 a public autopsy on the body of an Indian was
held at the University of Mexico, to determine the nature of an epidemic
which was then devastating New Spain. It is doubtful if by that time
they had got so far in London itself. And in still extant books of the
same period we find plans for repeating firearms, and a plain hint of
the telephone! The first printing-press did not reach the English
colonies of America until 1638,--nearly one hundred years behind Mexico.
The whole world came very slowly to newspapers; and the first authentic
newspaper in its history was published in Germany in 1615. The first one
in England began in 1622; and the American colonies never had one until
1704. The "Mercurio Volante" (Flying Mercury), a pamphlet which printed
news, was running in the City of Mexico before 1693.
When the ill reports of Coronado had largely been forgotten, there began
another Spanish movement into New Mexico and Arizona. In the mean time
there had been very important doings in Florida. The many failures in
that unlucky land had not deterred the Spaniards from further attempts
to colonize it. At last, in 1560, the first permanent foothold was
effected there by Aviles de Menendez, a brutal Spaniard, who
nevertheless had the honor of founding and naming the oldest city in the
United States,--St. Augustine, 1560. Menendez found there a little
colony of French-Huguenots, who had wandered thither the year before
under Ribault; and those whom he captured he hanged, with a placard
saying that they were executed "not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." Two
years later, the French expedition of Dominique de Gourges captured the
three Spanish forts which had been built there, and hanged the colonists
"not as Spaniards, but as assassins,"--which was a very neat revenge in
rhetoric, if an unpraiseworthy one in deed. In 1586 Sir Francis Drake,
whose piratical proclivities have already been alluded to, destroyed the
friendly colony of St. Augustine; but it was at once rebuilt. In 1763
Florida was ceded to Great Britain by Spain, in exchange for Havana,
which Albemarle had captured the year before.
It is also interesting to note that the Spaniards had been to Virginia
nearly thirty years before Sir Walter Raleigh's attempt to establish a
colony there, and full half a century before Capt. John Smith's visit.
As early as 1556 Chesapeake Bay was known to the Spaniards as the Bay of
Santa Maria; and an unsuccessful expedition had been sent to colonize
the country.
In 1581 three Spanish missionaries--Fray Agostin Rodriguez, Fray
Francisco Lopez, and Fray Juan de Santa Maria--started from Santa
Barbara, Chihuahua (Mexico), with an escort of nine Spanish soldiers
under command of Francisco Sanchez Chamuscado. They trudged up along the
Rio Grande to where Bernalillo now is,--a walk of a thousand miles.
There the missionaries remained to teach the gospel, while the soldiers
explored the country as far as Zuñi, and then returned to Santa
Barbara. Chamuscado died on the way. As for the brave missionaries who
had been left behind in the wilderness, they soon became martyrs. Fray
Santa Maria was slain by the Indians near San Pedro, while trudging back
to Mexico alone that fall. Fray Rodriguez and Fray Lopez were
assassinated by their treacherous flock at Puaray, in December, 1581.
In the following year Antonio de Espejo, a wealthy native of Cordova,
started from Santa Barbara in Chihuahua, with fourteen men to face the
deserts and the savages of New Mexico. He marched up the Rio Grande to
some distance above where Albuquerque now stands, meeting no opposition
from the Pueblo Indians. He visited their cities of Zia, Jemez, lofty
Acoma, Zuñi, and far-off Moqui, and travelled a long way out into
northern Arizona. Returning to the Rio Grande, he visited the pueblo of
Pecos, went down the Pecos River into Texas, and thence crossed back to
Santa Barbara. He intended to return and colonize New Mexico, but his
death (probably in 1585) ended these plans; and the only important
result of his gigantic journey was an addition to the geographical and
ethnological knowledge of the day.
In 1590 Gaspar Castaño de Sosa, lieutenant-governor of New Leon, was so
anxious to explore New Mexico that he made an expedition without leave
from the viceroy. He came up the Pecos River and crossed to the Rio
Grande; and at the pueblo of Santo Domingo was arrested by Captain
Morlette, who had come all the way from Mexico on that sole errand, and
carried home in irons.
Juan de Oñate, the colonizer of New Mexico, and founder of the second
town within the limits of the United States, as well as of the city
which is now our next oldest, was born in Zacatecas, Mexico. His family
(which came from Biscay) had discovered (in 1548) and now owned some of
the richest mines in the world,--those of Zacatecas. But despite the
"golden spoon in his mouth," Oñate desired to be an explorer. The Crown
refused to provide for further expeditions into the disappointing north;
and about 1595 Oñate made a contract with the viceroy of New Spain to
colonize New Mexico at his own expense. He made all preparations, and
fitted out his costly expedition. Just then a new viceroy was appointed,
who kept him waiting in Mexico with all his men for over two years, ere
the necessary permission was given him to start. At last, early in 1597,
he set out with his expedition,--which had cost him the equivalent of a
million dollars, before it stirred a step. He took with him four hundred
colonists, including two hundred soldiers, with women and children, and
herds of sheep and cattle. Taking formal possession of New Mexico May
30, 1598, he moved up the Rio Grande to where the hamlet of Chamita now
is (north of Santa Fé), and there founded, in September of that year,
San Gabriel de los Españoles (St. Gabriel of the Spaniards), the second
town in the United States.
Oñate was remarkable not only for his success in colonizing a country so
forbidding as this then was, but also as an explorer. He ransacked all
the country round about, travelled to Acoma and put down a revolt of its
Indians, and in 1600 made an expedition clear up into Nebraska. In 1604,
with thirty men, he marched from San Gabriel across that grim desert to
the Gulf of California, and returned to San Gabriel in April, 1605. By
that time the English had penetrated no farther into the interior of
America than forty or fifty miles from the Atlantic coast.
In 1605 Oñate founded Santa Fé, the City of the Holy Faith of St.
Francis, about whose age a great many foolish fables have been written.
The city actually celebrated the three hundred and thirty-third
anniversary of its founding twenty years before it was three centuries
old.
In 1606 Oñate made another expedition to the far Northeast, about which
expedition we know almost nothing; and in 1608 he was superseded by
Pedro de Peralta, the second governor of New Mexico.
Oñate was of middle age when he made this very striking record. Born on
the frontier, used to the deserts, endowed with great tenacity,
coolness, and knowledge of frontier warfare, he was the very man to
succeed in planting the first considerable colonies in the United States
at their most dangerous and difficult points.
VIII.
TWO CONTINENTS MASTERED.
This, then, was the situation in the New World at the beginning of the
seventeenth century. Spain, having found the Americas, had, in a little
over a hundred years of ceaseless exploration and conquest, settled and
was civilizing them. She had in the New World hundreds of towns, whose
extremes were over five thousand miles apart, with all the then
advantages of civilization, and two towns in what is now the United
States, a score of whose States her sons had penetrated. France had made
a few gingerly expeditions, which bore no substantial fruit; and
Portugal had founded a few comparatively unimportant towns in South
America. England had passed the century in masterly inactivity,--and
there was not so much as an English hut or an English man between Cape
Horn and the North Pole.
That later times have reversed the situation; that Spain (largely
because she was drained of her best blood by a conquest so enormous that
no nation even now could give the men or the money to keep the
enterprise abreast with the world's progress) has never regained her old
strength, and is now a drone beside the young giant of nations that has
grown, since her day, in the empire she opened,--has nothing to do with
the obligation of American history to give her justice for the past. Had
there been no Spain four hundred years ago, there would be no United
States to-day. It is a most fascinating story to every genuine
American,--for every one worthy of the name admires heroism and loves
fairplay everywhere, and is first of all interested in the truth about
his own country.
By 1680 the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico was beaded with Spanish
settlements from Santa Cruz to below Socorro, two hundred miles; and
there were also colonies in the Taos valley, the extreme north of the
Territory. From 1600 to 1680 there had been countless expeditions
throughout the Southwest, penetrating even the deadly Llano Estacado
(Staked Plain). The heroism which held the Southwest so long was no less
wonderful than the exploration that found it. The life of the colonists
was a daily battle with niggard Nature--for New Mexico was never
fertile--and with deadliest danger. For three centuries they were
ceaselessly harried by the fiendish Apaches; and up to 1680 there was no
rest from the attempts of the Pueblos (who were actually with and all
about the settlers) at insurrection. The statements of closet historians
that the Spaniards enslaved the Pueblos, or any other Indians of New
Mexico; that they forced them to choose between Christianity and death;
that they made them work in the mines, and the like,--are all entirely
untrue. The whole policy of Spain toward the Indians of the New World
was one of humanity, justice, education, and moral suasion; and though
there were of course individual Spaniards who broke the strict laws of
their country as to the treatment of the Indians, they were duly
punished therefor.
Yet the mere presence of the strangers in their country was enough to
stir the jealous nature of the Indians; and in 1680 a murderous and
causeless plot broke out in the red Pueblo Rebellion. There were then
fifteen hundred Spaniards in the Territory,--all living in Santa Fé or
in scattered farm settlements; for Chamita had long been abandoned.
Thirty-four Pueblo towns were in the revolt, under the lead of a
dangerous Tehua Indian named Popé. Secret runners had gone from pueblo
to pueblo, and the murderous blow fell upon the whole Territory
simultaneously. On that bitter 10th of August, 1680, over four hundred
Spaniards were assassinated,--including twenty-one of the gentle
missionaries who, unarmed and alone, had scattered over the wilderness
that they might save the souls and teach the minds of the savages.
Antonio de Otermin was then governor and captain-general of New Mexico,
and was attacked in his capital of Santa Fé by a greatly-outnumbering
army of Indians. The one hundred and twenty Spanish soldiers, cooped up
in their little adobe city, soon found themselves unable to hold it
longer against their swarming besiegers; and after a week's desperate
defence, they made a sortie, and hewed their way through to liberty,
taking their women and children with them. They retreated down the Rio
Grande, avoiding an ambush set for them at Sandia by the Indians, and
reached the pueblo of Isleta, twelve miles below the present city of
Albuquerque, in safety; but the village was deserted, and the Spaniards
were obliged to continue their flight to El Paso, Texas, which was then
only a Spanish mission for the Indians.
In 1681 Governor Otermin made an invasion as far north as the pueblo of
Cochiti, twenty-five miles west of Santa Fé, on the Rio Grande; but the
hostile Pueblos forced him to retreat again to El Paso. In 1687 Pedro
Reneros Posada made another dash into New Mexico, and took the
rock-built pueblo of Santa Ana by a most brilliant and bloody assault.
But he also had to retire. In 1688 Domingo Jironza Petriz de
Cruzate--the greatest soldier on New Mexican soil--made an expedition,
in which he took the pueblo of Zia by storm (a still more remarkable
achievement than Posada's), and in turn retreated to El Paso.
At last the final conqueror of New Mexico, Diego de Vargas, came in
1692. Marching to Santa Fé, and thence as far as ultimate Moqui, with
only eighty-nine men, he visited every pueblo in the Province, meeting
no opposition from the Indians, who had been thoroughly cowed by
Cruzate. Returning to El Paso, he came again to New Mexico in 1693, this
time with about one hundred and fifty soldiers and a number of
colonists. Now the Indians were prepared for him, and gave him the
bloodiest reception ever accorded in New Mexico. They broke out first at
Santa Fé, and he had to storm that town, which he took after two days'
fighting. Then began the siege of the Black Mesa of San Ildefonso, which
lasted off and on for nine months. The Indians had removed their village
to the top of that New Mexican Gibraltar, and there resisted four daring
assaults, but were finally worn into surrender.
Meantime De Vargas had stormed the impregnable citadel of the Potrero
Viejo, and the beetling cliff of San Diego de Jemez,--two exploits which
rank with the storming of the Peñol of Mixton[7] in Jalisco (Mexico) and
of the vast rock of Acoma, as the most marvellous assaults in all
American history. The capture of Quebec bears no comparison to them.
These costly lessons kept the Indians quiet until 1696, when they broke
out again. This rebellion was not so formidable as the first, but it
gave New Mexico another watering with blood, and was suppressed only
after three months' fighting. The Spaniards were already masters of the
situation; and the quelling of that revolt put an end to all trouble
with the Pueblos,--who remain with us to this day practically
undiminished in numbers, though they have fewer towns, a quiet,
peaceful, Christianized race of industrious farmers, living monuments
to the humanity and the moral teaching of their conquerors.
Then came the last century, a dismal hundred years of ceaseless
harassment by the Apaches, Navajos, and Comanches, and occasionally by
the Utes,--a harassment which had hardly ceased a decade ago. The Indian
wars were so constant, the explorations (like that wonderful attempt to
open a road from San Antonio de Bejar, Texas, to Monterey, California)
so innumerable, that their individual heroism is lost in their own
bewildering multitude.
More than two centuries ago the Spaniards explored Texas, and settlement
soon followed. There were several minor expeditions; but the first of
magnitude was that of Alonzo de Leon, governor of the Mexican State of
Coahuila, who made extensive explorations of Texas in 1689. By the
beginning of the last century there were several Spanish settlements and
_presidios_ (garrisons) in what was to become, more than a hundred years
later, the largest of the United States.
The Spanish colonization of Colorado was not extensive, and they had no
towns north of the Arkansas River; but even in settling our Centennial
State they were half a century ahead of us, as they were some centuries
ahead in finding it.
In California the Spaniards were very active. For a long time there were
minor expeditions which were unsuccessful. Then the Franciscans came in
1769 to San Diego Bay, landed on the bare sands where a million-dollar
American hotel stands to-day, and at once began to teach the Indians, to
plant olive-orchards and vineyards, and to rear the noble stone churches
so beautifully described by the author of "Ramona," which shall remain
as monuments of a sublime faith long after the race that built them has
gone from off the face of the earth.
California had a long line of Spanish governors--the last of whom,
brave, courtly, lovable old Pio Pico, has just died--before our
acquisition of that garden-State of States. The Spaniards discovered
gold there centuries, and were mining it a decade, before an "American"
dreamed of the precious deposit which was to make such a mark on
civilization, and had found the rich placer-fields of New Mexico a
decade earlier yet.
In Arizona, Father Franciscus Eusebius Kuehne,[8] a Jesuit of Austrian
birth but under Spanish auspices, was first to establish the missions on
the Gila River,--from 1689 to 1717 (the date of his death). He made at
least four appalling journeys on foot from Sonora to the Gila, and
descended that stream to its junction with the Colorado. It would be
extremely interesting, did space permit, to follow fully the wanderings
and achievements of that class of pioneers of America who have left such
a wonderful impress on the whole Southwest,--the Spanish missionaries.
Their zeal and their heroism were infinite. No desert was too frightful
for them, no danger too appalling. Alone, unarmed, they traversed the
most forbidding lands and braved the most deadly savages, and left in
the lives of the Indians such a proud monument as mailed explorers and
conquering armies never made.
* * * * *
The foregoing is a running summary of the early pioneering of
America,--the only pioneering for more than a century, and the greatest
pioneering for still another century. As for the great and wonderful
work at last done by our own blood, not only in conquering part of a
continent, but in making a mighty nation, the reader needs no help from
me to enable him to comprehend it,--it has already found its due place
in history. To record all the heroisms of the Spanish pioneers would
fill, not this book, but a library. I have deemed it best, in such an
enormous field, to draw the condensed outline, as has now been done; and
then to illustrate it by giving in detail a few specimens out of the
host of heroisms. I have already given a hint of how many conquests and
explorations and dangers there were; and now I wish to show by fair
"sample pages" what Spanish conquest and exploration and endurance
really were.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Pronounced Mish-tón.
[8] Often misspelled Kino.
II.
SPECIMEN PIONEERS.
I.
THE FIRST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.
The achievements of the explorer are among the most important, as they
are among the most fascinating, of human heroisms. The qualities of mind
and body necessary to his task are rare and admirable. He should have
many sides and be strong in each,--the rounded man that Nature meant man
to be. His body need not be as strong as Samson's, nor his mind as
Napoleon's, nor his heart the most fully developed heart on earth; but
mind, heart, and body he needs, and each in the measure of a strong man.
There is hardly another calling in which every muscle, so to speak, of
his threefold nature will be more constantly or more evenly called into
play.
It is a curious fact that some of the very greatest of human
achievements have come about by chance. Many among the most important
discoveries in the history of mankind have been made by men who were not
seeking the great truth they found. Science is the result not only of
study, but of precious accidents; and this is as true of history. It is
an interesting study in itself,--the influence which happy blunders and
unintended happenings have had upon civilization.
In exploration, as in invention, accident has played its important part.
Some of the most valuable explorations have been made by men who had no
more idea of being explorers than they had of inventing a railroad to
the moon; and it is a striking fact that the first inland exploration of
America, and the two most wonderful journeys in it, were not only
accidents, but the crowning misfortunes and disappointments of the men
who had hoped for very different things.
Exploration, intended or involuntary, has not only achieved great
results for civilization, but in the doing has scored some of the
highest feats of human heroism. America in particular, perhaps, has been
the field of great and remarkable journeys; but the two men who made the
most astounding journeys in America are still almost unheard of among
us. They are heroes whose names are as Greek to the vast majority of
Americans, albeit they are men in whom Americans particularly should
take deep and admiring interest. They were Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca,
the first American traveller; and Andrés Docampo, the man who walked
farther on this continent than any other.
[Illustration: WHERE ZALDIVAR STORMED THE CITY.
_See page 135._]
In a world so big and old and full of great deeds as this, it is
extremely difficult to say of any one man, "He was the greatest" this or
that; and even in the matter of journeys there have been bewilderingly
many great ones, of the most wonderful of which we have heard least. As
explorers we cannot give Vaca and Docampo great rank; though the
latter's explorations were not contemptible, and Vaca's were of great
importance. But as physical achievements the journeys of these neglected
heroes can safely be said to be without parallel. They were the most
wonderful walks ever made by man. Both men made their records in
America, and each made most of his journey in what is now the United
States.
Cabeza de Vaca was the first European really to penetrate the then "Dark
Continent" of North America, as he was by centuries the first to _cross_
the continent. His nine years of wandering on foot, unarmed, naked,
starving, among wild beasts and wilder men, with no other attendants
than three as ill-fated comrades, gave the world its first glimpse of
the United States inland, and led to some of the most stirring and
important achievements connected with its early history. Nearly a
century before the Pilgrim Fathers planted their noble commonwealth on
the edge of Massachusetts, seventy-five years before the first English
settlement was made in the New World, and more than a generation before
there was a single Caucasian settler of _any_ blood within the area of
the present United States, Vaca and his gaunt followers had trudged
across this unknown land.
It is a long way back to those days. Henry VIII. was then king of
England, and sixteen rulers have since occupied that throne. Elizabeth,
the Virgin Queen, was not born when Vaca started on his appalling
journey, and did not begin to reign until twenty years after he had
ended it. It was fifty years before the birth of Captain John Smith, the
founder of Virginia; a generation before the birth of Shakspere, and two
and a half generations before Milton. Henry Hudson, the famous explorer
for whom one of our chief rivers is named, was not yet born. Columbus
himself had been dead less than twenty-five years, and the conqueror of
Mexico had seventeen yet to live. It was sixty years before the world
had heard of such a thing as a newspaper, and the best geographers still
thought it possible to sail through America to Asia. There was not a
white man in North America above the middle of Mexico; nor had one gone
two hundred miles inland in this continental wilderness, of which the
world knew almost less than we know now of the moon.
The name of Cabeza de Vaca may seem to us a curious one. It means "Head
of a Cow." But this quaint family name was an honorable one in Spain,
and had a brave winning: it was earned at the battle of Naves de Tolosa
in the thirteenth century, one of the decisive engagements of all those
centuries of war with the Moors. Alvar's grandfather was also a man of
some note, being the conqueror of the Canary Islands.
Alvar was born in Xeres[9] de la Frontera, Spain, toward the last of the
fifteenth century. Of his early life we know little, except that he had
already won some consideration when in 1527, a mature man, he came to
the New World. In that year we find him sailing from Spain as treasurer
and sheriff of the expedition of six hundred men with which Panfilo de
Narvaez intended to conquer and colonize the Flowery Land, discovered a
decade before by Ponce de Leon.
They reached Santo Domingo, and thence sailed to Cuba. On Good Friday,
1528, ten months after leaving Spain, they reached Florida, and landed
at what is now named Tampa Bay. Taking formal possession of the country
for Spain, they set out to explore and conquer the wilderness. At Santo
Domingo shipwreck and desertion had already cost them heavily, and of
the original six hundred men there were but three hundred and forty-five
left. No sooner had they reached Florida than the most fearful
misfortunes began, and with every day grew worse. Food there was almost
none; hostile Indians beset them on every hand; and the countless
rivers, lakes, and swamps made progress difficult and dangerous. The
little army was fast thinning out under war and starvation, and plots
were rife among the survivors. They were so enfeebled that they could
not even get back to their vessels. Struggling through at last to the
nearest point on the coast, far west of Tampa Bay, they decided that
their only hope was to build boats and try to coast to the Spanish
settlements in Mexico. Five rude boats were made with great toil; and
the poor wretches turned westward along the coast of the Gulf. Storms
scattered the boats, and wrecked one after the other. Scores of the
haggard adventurers were drowned, Narvaez among them; and scores dashed
upon an inhospitable shore perished by exposure and starvation. The
living were forced to subsist upon the dead. Of the five boats, three
had gone down with all on board; of the eighty men who escaped the wreck
but fifteen were still alive. All their arms and clothing were at the
bottom of the Gulf.
The survivors were now on Mal Hado, "the Isle of Misfortune." We know no
more of its location than that it was west of the mouth of the
Mississippi. Their boats had crossed that mighty current where it
plunges out into the Gulf, and theirs were the first European eyes to
see even this much of the Father of Waters. The Indians of the island,
who had no better larder than roots, berries, and fish, treated their
unfortunate guests as generously as was in their power; and Vaca has
written gratefully of them.
In the spring his thirteen surviving companions determined to escape.
Vaca was too sick to walk, and they abandoned him to his fate. Two other
sick men, Oviedo and Alaniz, were also left behind; and the latter soon
perished. It was a pitiable plight in which Vaca now found himself. A
naked skeleton, scarce able to move, deserted by his friends and at the
mercy of savages, it is small wonder that, as he tells us, his heart
sank within him. But he was one of the men who never "let go." A
constant soul held up the poor, worn body; and as the weather grew less
rigorous, Vaca slowly recovered from his sickness.
For nearly six years he lived an incomparably lonely life, bandied about
from tribe to tribe of Indians, sometimes as a slave, and sometimes only
a despised outcast. Oviedo fled from some danger, and he was never heard
of afterward; Vaca faced it, and lived. That his sufferings were almost
beyond endurance cannot be doubted. Even when he was not the victim of
brutal treatment, he was the worthless encumbrance, the useless
interloper, among poor savages who lived the most miserable and
precarious lives. That they did not kill him speaks well for their
humane kindness.
The thirteen who escaped had fared even worse. They had fallen into
cruel hands, and all had been slain except three, who were reserved for
the harder fate of slaves. These three were Andrés Dorantes, a native of
Bejar; Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado, a native of Salamanca; and the
negro Estévanico, who was born in Azamor, Africa. These three and Vaca
were all that were now left of the gallant four hundred and fifty men
(among whom we do not count the deserters at Santo Domingo) who had
sailed with such high hopes from Spain, in 1527, to conquer a corner of
the New World,--four naked, tortured, shivering shadows; and even they
were separated, though they occasionally heard vaguely of one another,
and made vain attempts to come together. It was not until September,
1534 (nearly seven years later), that Dorantes, Castillo, Estévanico,
and Vaca were reunited; and the spot where they found this happiness was
somewhere in eastern Texas, west of the Sabine River.
But Vaca's six years of loneliness and suffering unspeakable had not
been in vain,--for he had acquired, unknowingly, the key to safety; and
amid all those horrors, and without dreaming of its significance, he had
stumbled upon the very strange and interesting clew which was to save
them all. Without it, all four would have perished in the wilderness,
and the world would never have known their end.
While they were still on the Isle of Misfortune, a proposition had been
made which seemed the height of the ridiculous. "In that isle," says
Vaca, "they wished to make us doctors, without examining us or asking
our titles; for they themselves cure sickness by blowing upon the sick
one. With that blowing, and with their hands, they remove from him the
disease; and they bade us do the same, so as to be of some use to them.
We laughed at this, saying that they were making fun, and that we knew
not how to heal; and for that they took away our food, till we should do
that which they said. And seeing our stubbornness, an Indian said to me
that I did not understand; for that it did no good for one to know how,
because the very stones and other things of the field have power to
heal,... and that we, who were men, must certainly have greater power."
This was a characteristic thing which the old Indian said, and a key to
the remarkable superstitions of his race. But the Spaniards, of course,
could not yet understand.
Presently the savages removed to the mainland. They were always in
abject poverty, and many of them perished from starvation and from the
exposures incident to their wretched existence. For three months in the
year they had "nothing but shell-fish and very bad water;" and at other
times only poor berries and the like; and their year was a series of
wanderings hither and thither in quest of these scant and unsatisfactory
foods.
It was an important fact that Vaca was utterly useless to the Indians.
He could not serve them as a warrior; for in his wasted condition the
bow was more than he could master. As a hunter he was equally
unavailable; for, as he himself says, "it was impossible for him to
trail animals." Assistance in carrying water or fuel or anything of the
sort was impossible; for he was a man, and his Indian masters could not
let a man do woman's work. So, among these starveling nomads, this man
who could not help but must be fed was a real burden; and the only
wonder is that they did not kill him.
Under these circumstances, Vaca began to wander about. His indifferent
captors paid little attention to his movements, and by degrees he got to
making long trips north, and up and down the coast. In time he began to
see a chance for trading, in which the Indians encouraged him, glad to
find their "white elephant" of some use at last. From the northern
tribes he brought down skins and _almagre_ (the red clay so
indispensable to the savages for face-paint), flakes of flint to make
arrow-heads, hard reeds for the shafts, and tassels of deer-hair dyed
red. These things he readily exchanged among the coast tribes for
shells and shell-beads, and the like,--which, in turn, were in demand
among his northern customers.
On account of their constant wars, the Indians could net venture outside
their own range; so this safe go-between trader was a convenience which
they encouraged. So far as he was concerned, though the life was still
one of great suffering, he was constantly gaining knowledge which would
be useful to him in his never-forgotten plan of getting back to the
world. These lonely trading expeditions of his covered thousands of
miles on foot through the trackless wildernesses; and through them his
aggregate wanderings were much greater than those of either of his
fellow-prisoners.
It was during these long and awful tramps that Cabeza de Vaca had one
particularly interesting experience. He was the first European who saw
the great American bison, the buffalo, which has become practically
extinct in the last decade, but once roamed the plains in vast
hordes,--and first by many years. He saw them and ate their meat in the
Red River country of Texas, and has left us a description of the
"hunchback cows." None of his companions ever saw one, for in their
subsequent journey together the four Spaniards passed south of the
buffalo-country.
Meanwhile, as I have noted, the forlorn and naked trader had had the
duties of a doctor forced upon him. He did not understand what this
involuntary profession might do for him,--he was simply pushed into it
at first, and followed it not from choice, but to keep from having
trouble. He was "good for nothing but to be a medicine-man." He had
learned the peculiar treatment of the aboriginal wizards, though not
their fundamental ideas. The Indians still look upon sickness as a
"being possessed;" and their idea of doctoring is not so much to cure
disease, as to exorcise the bad spirits which cause it.
This is done by a sleight-of-hand rigmarole, even to this day. The
medicine-man would suck the sore spot, and pretend thus to extract a
stone or thorn which was supposed to have been the cause of trouble; and
the patient was "cured." Cabeza de Vaca began to "practise medicine"
after the Indian fashion. He says himself, "I have tried these things,
and they were very successful."
When the four wanderers at last came together after their long
separation,--in which all had suffered untold horrors,--Vaca had then,
though still indefinitely, the key of hope. Their first plan was to
escape from their present captors. It took ten months to effect it, and
meantime their distress was great, as it had been constantly for so many
years. At times they lived on a daily ration of two handfuls of wild
peas and a little water. Vaca relates what a godsend it seemed when he
was allowed to scrape hides for the Indians; he carefully saved the
scrapings, which served him as food for days. They had no clothing, and
there was no shelter; and constant exposure to heat and cold and the
myriad thorns of that country caused them to "shed their skin like
snakes."
At last, in August, 1535, the four sufferers escaped to a tribe called
the Avavares. But now a new career began to open to them. That his
companions might not be as useless as he had been, Cabeza de Vaca had
instructed them in the "arts" of Indian medicine-men; and all four began
to put their new and strange profession into practice. To the ordinary
Indian charms and incantations these humble Christians added fervent
prayers to the true God. It was a sort of sixteenth-century
"faith-cure;" and naturally enough, among such superstitious patients it
was very effective. Their multitudinous cures the amateur but sincere
doctors, with touching humility, attributed entirely to God; but what
great results these might have upon their own fortunes now began to dawn
upon them. From wandering, naked, starving, despised beggars, and slaves
to brutal savages, they suddenly became personages of note,--still
paupers and sufferers, as were all their patients, but paupers of mighty
power. There is no fairy tale more romantic than the career thenceforth
of these poor, brave men walking painfully across a continent as masters
and benefactors of all that host of wild people.
Trudging on from tribe to tribe, painfully and slowly the white
medicine-men crossed Texas and came close to our present New Mexico. It
has long been reiterated by the closet historians that they entered New
Mexico, and got even as far north as where Santa Fé now is. But modern
scientific research has absolutely proved that they went on from Texas
through Chihuahua and Sonora, and never saw an inch of New Mexico.
With each new tribe the Spaniards paused awhile to heal the sick.
Everywhere they were treated with the greatest kindness their poor hosts
could give, and with religious awe. Their progress is a very valuable
object-lesson, showing just how some Indian myths are formed: first, the
successful medicine-man, who at his death or departure is remembered as
a hero, then as a demigod, then as divinity.
In the Mexican States they first found agricultural Indians, who dwelt
in houses of sod and boughs, and had beans and pumpkins. These were the
Jovas, a branch of the Pimas. Of the scores of tribes they had passed
through in our present Southern States not one has been fully
identified. They were poor, wandering creatures, and long ago
disappeared from the earth. But in the Sierra Madre of Mexico they found
superior Indians, whom we can recognize still. Here they found the men
unclad, but the women "very honest in their dress,"--with cotton tunics
of their own weaving, with half-sleeves, and a skirt to the knee; and
over it a skirt of dressed deerskin reaching to the ground, and fastened
in front with straps. They washed their clothing with a soapy root,--the
_amole_, now similarly used by Indians and Mexicans throughout the
Southwest. These people gave Cabeza de Vaca some turquoise, and five
arrow-heads each chipped from a single emerald.
In this village in southwestern Sonora the Spaniards stayed three days,
living on split deer-hearts; whence they named it the "Town of Hearts."
A day's march beyond they met an Indian wearing upon his necklace the
buckle of a sword-belt and a horseshoe nail; and their hearts beat high
at this first sign, in all their eight years' wandering, of the nearness
of Europeans. The Indian told them that men with beards like their own
had come from the sky and made war upon his people.
The Spaniards were now entering Sinaloa, and found themselves in a
fertile land of flowing streams. The Indians were in mortal fear; for
two brutes of a class who were very rare among the Spanish conquerors
(they were, I am glad to say, punished for their violation of the strict
laws of Spain) were then trying to catch slaves. The soldiers had just
left; but Cabeza de Vaca and Estévanico, with eleven Indians, hurried
forward on their trail, and next day overtook four Spaniards, who led
them to their rascally captain, Diego de Alcaráz. It was long before
that officer could believe the wondrous story told by the naked, torn,
shaggy, wild man; but at last his coldness was thawed, and he gave a
certificate of the date and of the condition in which Vaca had come to
him, and then sent back for Dorantes and Castillo. Five days later these
arrived, accompanied by several hundred Indians.
Alcaráz and his partner in crime, Cebreros, wished to enslave these
aborigines; but Cabeza de Vaca, regardless of his own danger in taking
such a stand, indignantly opposed the infamous plan, and finally forced
the villains to abandon it. The Indians were saved; and in all their joy
at getting back to the world, the Spanish wanderers parted with sincere
regret from these simple-hearted friends. After a few days' hard travel
they reached the post of Culiacan about the first of May, 1536, where
they were warmly welcomed by the ill-fated hero Melchior Diaz. He led
one of the earliest expeditions (in 1539) to the unknown north; and in
1540, on a second expedition across part of Arizona and into California,
was accidentally killed.
After a short rest the wanderers left for Compostela, then the chief
town of the province of New Galicia,--itself a small journey of three
hundred miles through a land swarming with hostile savages. At last they
reached the City of Mexico in safety, and were received with great
honor. But it was long before they could accustom themselves to eating
the food and wearing the clothing of civilized people.
The negro remained in Mexico. On the 10th of April, 1537, Cabeza de
Vaca, Castillo, and Dorantes sailed for Spain, arriving in August. The
chief hero never came back to North America, but we hear of Dorantes as
being there in the following year. Their report of what they saw, and of
the stranger countries to the north of which they had heard, had already
set on foot the remarkable expeditions which resulted in the discovery
of Arizona, New Mexico, our Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado, and
brought about the building of the first European towns in the inland
area of the United States. Estévanico was engaged with Fray Marcos in
the discovery of New Mexico, and was slain by the Indians.
Cabeza de Vaca, as a reward for his then unparalleled walk of much more
than ten thousand miles in the unknown land, was made governor of
Paraguay in 1540. He was not qualified for the place, and returned to
Spain in disgrace. That he was not to blame, however, but was rather the
victim of circumstances, is indicated by the fact that he was restored
to favor and received a pension of two thousand ducats. He died in
Seville at a good old age.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Pronounced Hay-ress.
II.
THE GREATEST AMERICAN TRAVELLER.
The student most familiar with history finds himself constantly
astounded by the journeys of the Spanish Pioneers. If they had done
nothing else in the New World, their walks alone were enough to earn
them fame. Such a number of similar trips over such a wilderness were
never heard of elsewhere. To comprehend those rides or tramps of
thousands of miles, by tiny bands or single heroes, one must be familiar
with the country traversed, and know something of the times when these
exploits were performed. The Spanish chroniclers of the day do not
dilate upon the difficulties and dangers: it is almost a pity that they
had not been vain enough to "make more" of their obstacles. But however
curt the narrative may be on these points, the obstacles were there and
had to be overcome; and to this very day, after three centuries and a
half have mitigated that wilderness which covered half a world, have
tamed its savages, filled it with convenient stations, crossed it with
plain roads, and otherwise removed ninety per cent of its terrors, such
journeys as were looked upon as everyday matters by those hardy heroes
would find few bold enough to undertake them. The only record at all
comparable to that Spanish overrunning of the New World was the story of
the California Argonauts of '49, who flocked across the great plains in
the most remarkable shifting of population of which history knows; but
even that was petty, so far as area, hardship, danger, and endurance
went, beside the travels of the Pioneers. Thousand-mile marches through
the deserts, or the still more fatal tropic forests, were too many to be
even catalogued. It is one thing to follow a trail, and quite another to
penetrate an absolutely trackless wilderness. A big, well-armed
wagon-train is one thing, and a little squad on foot or on jaded horses
quite another. A journey from a known point to a known point--both in
civilization, though the wilderness lies between--is very different from
a journey from somewhere, through the unknown, to nowhere; whose
starting, course, and end are all untrodden and unguessed wilds. I have
no desire to disparage the heroism of our Argonauts,--they made a record
of which any nation should be proud; but they never had a chance to
match the deeds of their brother-heroes of another tongue and another
age.
* * * * *
The walk of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, the first American traveller,
was surpassed by the achievement of the poor and forgotten soldier
Andrés Docampo. Cabeza de Vaca tramped much more than ten thousand
miles, but Docampo much over _twenty_ thousand, and under as fearful
hardships. The explorations of Vaca were far more valuable to the world;
yet neither of them set out with the intention of exploring. But Docampo
did make a fearful walk voluntarily, and for a heroic purpose, which
resulted in his later enormous achievement; while Vaca's was merely the
heroism of a very uncommon man in escaping misfortune. Docampo's tramp
lasted nine years; and though he left behind no book to relate his
experiences, as did Vaca, the skeleton of his story as it remains to us
is extremely characteristic and suggestive of the times, and recounts
other heroism than that of the brave soldier.
When Coronado first came to New Mexico in 1540, he brought four
missionaries with his little army. Fray Marcos returned soon from Zuñi
to Mexico, on account of his physical infirmities. Fray Juan de la Cruz
entered earnestly into mission-work among the Pueblos; and when Coronado
and his whole force abandoned the Territory, he insisted upon remaining
behind among his dusky wards at Tiguex (Bernalillo). He was a very old
man, and fully expected to give up his life as soon as his countrymen
should be gone; and so it was. He was murdered by the Indians about the
25th of November, 1542.
The lay-brother, Fray Luis Descalona, also a very old man, chose for his
parish the pueblo of Tshiquite (Pecos), and remained there after the
Spaniards had left the country. He built himself a little hut outside
the great fortified town of the savages, and there taught those who
would listen to him, and tended his little flock of sheep,--the remnants
of those Coronado had brought, which were the first that ever entered
the present United States. The people came to love him sincerely,--all
save the wizards, who hated him for his influence; and these finally
murdered him, and ate the sheep.
Fray Juan de Padilla, the youngest of the four missionaries, and the
first martyr on the soil of Kansas, was a native of Andalusia, Spain,
and a man of great energy both mentally and physically. He himself made
no mean record as a foot-traveller, and our professional pedestrians
would stand aghast if confronted with the thousands of desert miles this
tireless apostle to the Indians plodded in the wild Southwest. He had
already held very important positions in Mexico, but gladly gave up his
honors to become a poor missionary among the savages of the unknown
north. Having walked with Coronado's force from Mexico across the
deserts to the Seven Cities of Cibola, Fray Padilla trudged to Moqui
with Pedro de Tobar and his squad of twenty men. Then plodding back to
Zuñi, he soon set forth again with Hernando de Alvarado and twenty men,
on a tramp of about a thousand miles more. He was in this expedition
with the first Europeans that ever saw the lofty town of Acoma, the Rio
Grande within what is now New Mexico, and the great pueblo of Pecos.
In the spring of 1541, when the handful of an army was all gathered at
Bernalillo, and Coronado set out to chase the fatal golden myth of the
Quivira, Fray Padilla accompanied him. In that march of one hundred and
four days across the barren plains before they reached the Quiviras in
northeastern Kansas, the explorers suffered tortures for water and
sometimes for food. The treacherous guide misled them, and they wandered
long in a circle, covering a fearful distance,--probably over fifteen
hundred miles. The expedition was mounted, but in those days the humble
_padres_ went afoot. Finding only disappointment, the explorers marched
all the way back to Bernalillo,--though by a less circuitous route,--and
Fray Padilla came with them.
But he had already decided that among these hostile, roving,
buffalo-living Sioux and other Indians of the plains should be his field
of labor; and when the Spanish evacuated New Mexico, he remained. With
him were the soldier Andrés Docampo, two young men of Michuacan, Mexico,
named Lucas and Sebastian, called the Donados, and a few Mexican Indian
boys. In the fall of 1542 the little party left Bernalillo on its
thousand-mile march. Andrés alone was mounted; the missionary and the
Indian boys trudged along the sandy way afoot. They went by way of the
pueblo of Pecos, thence into and across a corner of what is now
Colorado, and nearly the whole length of the great State of Kansas. At
last, after a long and weary tramp, they reached the temporary
lodge-villages of the Quivira Indians. Coronado had planted a large
cross at one of these villages, and here Fray Padilla established his
mission. In time the hostile savages lost their distrust, and "loved him
as a father." At last he decided to move on to another nomad tribe,
where there seemed greater need of his presence. It was a dangerous
step; for not only might the strangers receive him murderously, but
there was equal risk in leaving his present flock. The superstitious
Indians were loath to lose the presence of such a great medicine-man as
they believed the Fray to be, and still more loath to have such a
benefit transferred to their enemies,--for all these roving tribes were
at war with one another. Nevertheless, Fray Padilla determined to go,
and set out with his little retinue. One day's journey from the villages
of the Quiviras, they met a band of Indians out on the war-path. Seeing
the approach of the savages, the good Father thought first for his
companions. Andrés still had his horse, and the boys were fleet runners.
"Flee, my children!" cried Fray Padilla. "Save yourselves, for me ye
cannot help, and why should all die together? Run!"
They at first refused, but the missionary insisted; and as they were
helpless against the savages, they finally obeyed and fled. This may not
seem, at first thought, the most heroic thing to do, but an
understanding of their time exonerates them. Not only were they humble
men used to give the good priests implicit obedience, but there was
another and a more potent motive. In those days of earnest faith,
martyrdom was looked upon as not only a heroism but a prophecy; it was
believed to indicate new triumphs for Christianity, and it was a duty to
carry back to the world the news. If they stayed and were slain with
him,--as I am sure these faithful followers were not physically afraid
to do,--the lesson and glory of his martyrdom would be lost to the
world.
Fray Juan knelt on the broad prairie and commended his soul to God; and
even as he prayed, the Indians riddled him with arrows. They dug a pit
and cast therein the body of the first Kansas martyr, and piled upon it
a great pile of stones. This was in the year 1542.
Andrés Docampo and the boys made their escape at the time, but were soon
captured by other Indians and kept as slaves for ten months. They were
beaten and starved, and obliged to perform the most laborious and menial
tasks. At last, after long planning and many unsuccessful attempts, they
escaped from their barbarous captors. Then for more than eight years
they wandered on foot, unarmed and alone, up and down the thirsty and
inhospitable plains, enduring incredible privations and dangers. At
last, after those thousands of footsore miles, they walked into the
Mexican town of Tampico, on the great Gulf. They were received as those
come back from the dead. We lack the details of that grim and matchless
walk, but it is historically established. For nine years these poor
fellows zigzagged the deserts afoot, beginning in northeastern Kansas
and coming out far down in Mexico.
Sebastian died soon after his arrival in the Mexican State of Culiacan;
the hardships of the trip had been too much for even his strong young
body. His brother Lucas became a missionary among the Indians of
Zacatecas, Mexico, and carried on his work among them for many years,
dying at last in a ripe old age. As for the brave soldier Docampo, soon
after his return to civilization he disappeared from view. Perhaps old
Spanish documents may yet be discovered which will throw some light on
his subsequent life and his fate.
III.
THE WAR OF THE ROCK.
Some of the most characteristic heroisms and hardships of the Pioneers
in our domain cluster about the wondrous rock of Acoma, the strange
sky-city of the Quéres[10] Pueblos. All the Pueblo cities were built in
positions which Nature herself had fortified,--a necessity of the times,
since they were surrounded by outnumbering hordes of the deadliest
warriors in history; but Acoma was most secure of all. In the midst of a
long valley, four miles wide, itself lined by almost insurmountable
precipices, towers a lofty rock, whose top is about seventy acres in
area, and whose walls, three hundred and fifty-seven feet high, are not
merely perpendicular, but in most places even overhanging. Upon its
summit was perched--and is to-day--the dizzy city of the Quéres. The few
paths to the top--whereon a misstep will roll the victim to horrible
death, hundreds of feet below--are by wild, precipitous clefts, at the
head of which one determined man, with no other weapons than stones,
could almost hold at bay an army.
This strange aerial town was first heard of by Europeans in 1539, when
Fray Marcos, the discoverer of New Mexico, was told by the people of
Cibola of the great rock fortress of Hákuque,--their name for Acoma,
which the natives themselves called Ah'ko. In the following year
Coronado visited it with his little army, and has left us an accurate
account of its wonders. These first Europeans were well received there;
and the superstitious natives, who had never seen a beard or a white
face before, took the strangers for gods. But it was more than half a
century later yet before the Spaniards sought a foothold there.
When Oñate entered New Mexico in 1598, he met no immediate resistance
whatever; for his force of four hundred people, including two hundred
men-at-arms, was large enough to awe the Indians. They were naturally
hostile to these invaders of their domain; but finding themselves well
treated by the strangers, and fearful of open war against these men with
hard clothes, who killed from afar with their thunder-sticks, the
Pueblos awaited results. The Quéres, Tigua, and Jemez branches formally
submitted to Spanish rule, and took the oath of allegiance to the Crown
by their representative men gathered at the pueblo of Guipuy (now Santo
Domingo); as also did the Tanos, Picuries, Tehuas, and Taos, at a
similar conference at the pueblo of San Juan, in September, 1598. At
this ready submission Oñate was greatly encouraged; and he decided to
visit all the principal pueblos in person, to make them securer
subjects of his sovereign. He had founded already the first town in New
Mexico and the second in the United States,--San Gabriel de los
Españoles, where Chamita stands to-day. Before starting on this perilous
journey, he despatched Juan de Zaldivar, his _maestro de campo_,[11]
with fifty men to explore the vast, unknown plains to the east, and then
to follow him.
Oñate and a small force left the lonely little Spanish colony,--more
than a thousand miles from any other town of civilized men,--October 6,
1598. First he marched to the pueblos in the great plains of the Salt
Lakes, east of the Manzano mountains,--a thirsty journey of more than
two hundred miles. Then returning to the pueblo of Puaray (opposite the
present Bernalillo), he turned westward. On the 27th of the same month
he camped at the foot of the lofty cliffs of Acoma. The _principales_
(chief men) of the town came down from the rock, and took the solemn
pledge of allegiance to the Spanish Crown. They were thoroughly warned
of the deep importance and meaning of this step, and that if they
violated their oath they would be regarded and treated as rebels against
his Majesty; but they fully pledged themselves to be faithful vassals.
They were very friendly, and repeatedly invited the Spanish commander
and his men to visit their sky-city. In truth, they had had spies at the
conferences in Santo Domingo and San Juan, and had decided that the
most dangerous man among the invaders was Oñate himself. If _he_ could
be slain, they thought the rest of the pale strangers might be easily
routed.
But Oñate knew nothing of their intended treachery; and on the following
day he and his handful of men--leaving only a guard with the
horses--climbed one of the breathless stone "ladders," and stood in
Acoma. The officious Indians piloted them hither and yon, showing them
the strange terraced houses of many stories in height, the great
reservoirs in the eternal rock, and the dizzy brink which everywhere
surrounded the eyrie of a town. At last they brought the Spaniards to
where a huge ladder, projecting far aloft through a trapdoor in the roof
of a large house, indicated the _estufa_, or sacred council-chamber. The
visitors mounted to the roof by a smaller ladder, and the Indians tried
to have Oñate descend through the trapdoor. But the Spanish governor,
noting that all was dark in the room below, and suddenly becoming
suspicious, declined to enter; and as his soldiers were all about, the
Indians did not insist. After a short visit in the pueblo the Spaniards
descended the rock to their camp, and thence marched away on their long
and dangerous journey to Moqui and Zuñi. That swift flash of prudence in
Oñate's mind saved the history of New Mexico; for in that dark _estufa_
was lying a band of armed warriors. Had he entered the room, he would
have been slain at once; and his death was to be the signal for a
general onslaught upon the Spaniards, all of whom must have perished in
the unequal fight.
Returning from his march of exploration through the trackless and deadly
plains, Juan de Zaldivar left San Gabriel on the 18th of November, to
follow his commander-in-chief. He had but thirty men. Reaching the foot
of the City in the Sky on the 4th of December, he was very kindly
received by the Acomas, who invited him up into their town. Juan was a
good soldier, as well as a gallant one, and well used to the tricks of
Indian warfare; but for the first time in his life--and the last--he now
let himself be deceived. Leaving half his little force at the foot of
the cliff to guard the camp and horses, he himself went up with sixteen
men. The town was so full of wonders, the people so cordial, that the
visitors soon forgot whatever suspicions they may have had; and by
degrees they scattered hither and yon to see the strange sights. The
natives had been waiting only for this; and when the war-chief gave the
wild whoop, men, women, and children seized rocks and clubs, bows and
flint-knives, and fell furiously upon the scattered Spaniards. It was a
ghastly and an unequal fight the winter sun looked down upon that bitter
afternoon in the cliff city. Here and there, with back against the wall
of one of those strange houses, stood a gray-faced, tattered, bleeding
soldier, swinging his clumsy flintlock club-like, or hacking with
desperate but unavailing sword at the dark, ravenous mob that hemmed
him, while stones rained upon his bent visor, and clubs and cruel
flints sought him from every side. There was no coward blood among that
doomed band. They sold their lives dearly; in front of every one lay a
sprawling heap of dead. But one by one the howling wave of barbarians
drowned each grim, silent fighter, and swept off to swell the murderous
flood about the next. Zaldivar himself was one of the first victims; and
two other officers, six soldiers, and two servants fell in that uneven
combat. The five survivors--Juan Tabaro, who was _alguacil-mayor_, with
four soldiers--got at last together, and with superhuman strength fought
their way to the edge of the cliff, bleeding from many wounds. But their
savage foes still pressed them; and being too faint to carve their way
to one of the "ladders," in the wildness of desperation the five sprang
over the beetling cliff.
Never but once was recorded so frightful a leap as that of Tabaro and
his four companions. Even if we presume that they had been so fortunate
as to reach the very lowest point of the rock, it could not have been
less than _one hundred and fifty feet_! And yet only one of the five was
killed by this inconceivable fall; the remaining four, cared for by
their terrified companions in the camp, all finally recovered. It would
be incredible, were it not established by absolute historical proof. It
is probable that they fell upon one of the mounds of white sand which
the winds had drifted against the foot of the cliffs in places.
Fortunately, the victorious savages did not attack the little camp. The
survivors still had their horses, of which unknown brutes the Indians
had a great fear. For several days the fourteen soldiers and their four
half-dead companions camped under the overhanging cliff, where they were
safe from missiles from above, hourly expecting an onslaught from the
savages. They felt sure that this massacre of their comrades was but the
prelude to a general uprising of the twenty-five or thirty thousand
Pueblos; and regardless of the danger to themselves, they decided at
last to break up into little bands, and separate,--some to follow their
commander on his lonely march to Moqui, and warn him of his danger; and
others to hasten over the hundreds of arid miles to San Gabriel and the
defence of its women and babes, and to the missionaries who had
scattered among the savages. This plan of self-devotion was successfully
carried out. The little bands of three and four apiece bore the news to
their countrymen; and by the end of the year 1598 all the surviving
Spaniards in New Mexico were safely gathered in the hamlet of San
Gabriel. The little town was built pueblo-fashion, in the shape of a
hollow square. In the Plaza within were planted the rude
_pedreros_--small howitzers which fired a ball of stone--to command the
gates; and upon the roofs of the three-story adobe houses the brave
women watched by day, and the men with their heavy flintlocks all
through the winter nights, to guard against the expected attack. But the
Pueblos rested on their arms. They were waiting to see what Oñate would
do with Acoma, before they took final measures against the strangers.
It was a most serious dilemma in which Oñate now found himself. One need
not have known half so much about the Indian character as did this gray,
quiet Spaniard, to understand that he must signally punish the rebels
for the massacre of his men, or abandon his colony and New Mexico
altogether. If such an outrage went unpunished, the emboldened Pueblos
would destroy the last Spaniard. On the other hand, how could he hope to
conquer that impregnable fortress of rock? He had less than two hundred
men; and only a small part of these could be spared for the campaign,
lest the other Pueblos in their absence should rise and annihilate San
Gabriel and its people. In Acoma there were full three hundred warriors,
reinforced by at least a hundred Navajo braves.
But there was no alternative. The more he reflected and counselled with
his officers, the more apparent it became that the only salvation was to
capture the Quéres Gibraltar; and the plan was decided upon. Oñate
naturally desired to lead in person this forlornest of forlorn hopes;
but there was one who had even a better claim to the desperate honor
than the captain-general,--and that one was the forgotten hero Vicente
de Zaldivar, brother of the murdered Juan. He was _sargento-mayor_[12]
of the little army; and when he came to Oñate and begged to be given
command of the expedition against Acoma, there was no saying him nay.
On the 12th of January, 1599, Vicente de Zaldivar left San Gabriel at
the head of seventy men. Only a few of them had even the clumsy
flintlocks of the day; the majority were not _arquebusiers_ but
_piquiers_, armed only with swords and lances, and clad in jackets of
quilted cotton or battered mail. One small _pedrero_, lashed upon the
back of a horse, was the only "artillery."
Silently and sternly the little force made its arduous march. All knew
that impregnable rock, and few cherished an expectation of returning
from so desperate a mission; but there was no thought of turning back.
On the afternoon of the eleventh day the tired soldiers passed the last
intervening _mesa_,[13] and came in sight of Acoma. The Indians, warned
by their runners, were ready to receive them. The whole population, with
the Navajo allies, were under arms, on the housetops and the commanding
cliffs. Naked savages, painted black, leaped from crag to crag,
screeching defiance and heaping insults upon the Spaniards. The
medicine-men, hideously disguised, stood on projecting pinnacles,
beating their drums and scattering curses and incantations to the winds;
and all the populace joined in derisive howls and taunts.
Zaldivar halted his little band as close to the foot of the cliff as he
could come without danger. The indispensable notary stepped from the
ranks, and at the blast of the trumpet proceeded to read at the top of
his lungs the formal summons in the name of the king of Spain to
surrender. Thrice he shouted through the summons; but each time his
voice was drowned by the howls and shrieks of the enraged savages, and a
hail of stones and arrows fell dangerously near. Zaldivar had desired to
secure the surrender of the pueblo, demand the delivery to him of the
ringleaders in the massacre, and take them back with him to San Gabriel
for official trial and punishment, without harm to the other people of
Acoma; but the savages, secure in their grim fortress, mocked the
merciful appeal. It was clear that Acoma must be stormed. The Spaniards
camped on the bare sands and passed the night--made hideous by the
sounds of a monster war-dance in the town--in gloomy plans for the
morrow.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Pronounced Káy-ress.
[11] Commander in the field: equivalent to our colonel.
[12] Equivalent to lieutenant-colonel.
[13] Huge "table" of rock.
IV.
THE STORMING OF THE SKY-CITY.
At daybreak, on the morning of January 22, Zaldivar gave the signal for
the attack; and the main body of the Spaniards began firing their few
arquebuses, and making a desperate assault at the north end of the great
rock, there absolutely impregnable. The Indians, crowded along the
cliffs above, poured down a rain of missiles; and many of the Spaniards
were wounded. Meanwhile twelve picked men, who had hidden during the
night under the overhanging cliff which protected them alike from the
fire and the observation of the Indians, were crawling stealthily around
under the precipice, dragging the _pedrero_ by ropes. Most of these
twelve were arquebusiers; and besides the weight of the ridiculous
little cannon, they had their ponderous flintlocks and their clumsy
armor,--poor helps for scaling heights which the unencumbered athlete
finds difficult. Pursuing their toilsome way unobserved, pulling one
another and then the _pedrero_ up the ledges, they reached at last the
top of a great outlying pinnacle of rock, separated from the main cliff
of Acoma by a narrow but awful chasm. Late in the afternoon they had
their howitzer trained upon the town; and the loud report, as its
cobble-stone ball flew into Acoma, signalled the main body at the north
end of the _mesa_ that the first vantage-ground had been safely gained,
and at the same time warned the savages of danger from a new quarter.
That night little squads of Spaniards climbed the great precipices which
wall the trough-like valley on east and west, cut down small pines, and
with infinite labor dragged the logs down the cliffs, across the valley,
and up the butte on which the twelve were stationed. About a score of
men were left to guard the horses at the north end of the _mesa_; and
the rest of the force joined the twelve, hiding behind the crags of
their rock-tower. Across the chasm the Indians were lying in crevices,
or behind rocks, awaiting the attack.
At daybreak of the 23d, a squad of picked men at a given signal rushed
from their hiding-places with a log on their shoulders, and by a lucky
cast lodged its farther end on the opposite brink of the abyss. Out
dashed the Spaniards at their heels, and began balancing across that
dizzy "bridge" in the face of a volley of stones and arrows. A very few
had crossed, when one in his excitement caught the rope and pulled the
log across after him.
It was a fearful moment. There were less than a dozen Spaniards thus
left standing alone on the brink of Acoma, cut off from their companions
by a gulf hundreds of feet deep, and surrounded by swarming savages. The
Indians, sallying from their refuge, fell instantly upon them on every
hand. As long as the Spanish soldier could keep the Indians at a
distance, even his clumsy firearms and inefficient armor gave an
advantage; but at such close quarters these very things were a fatal
impediment by their weight and clumsiness. Now it seemed as if the
previous Acoma massacre were to be repeated, and the cut-off Spaniards
to be hacked to pieces; but at this very crisis a deed of surpassing
personal valor saved them and the cause of Spain in New Mexico. A
slender, bright-faced young officer, a college boy who was a special
friend and favorite of Oñate, sprang from the crowd of dismayed
Spaniards on the farther bank, who dared not fire into that
indiscriminate jostle of friend and foe, and came running like a deer
toward the chasm. As he reached its brink his lithe body gathered
itself, sprang into the air like a bird, and cleared the gulf! Seizing
the log, he thrust it back with desperate strength until his companions
could grasp it from the farther brink; and over the restored bridge the
Spanish soldiers poured to retrieve the day.
Then began one of the most fearful hand-to-hand struggles in all
American history. Outnumbered nearly ten to one, lost in a howling mob
of savages who fought with the frenzy of despair, gashed with raw-edged
knives, dazed with crushing clubs, pierced with bristling arrows, spent
and faint and bleeding, Zaldivar and his hero-handful fought their way
inch by inch, step by step, clubbing their heavy guns, hewing with their
short swords, parrying deadly blows, pulling the barbed arrows from
their quivering flesh. On, on, on they pressed, shouting the gallant
war-cry of Santiago, driving the stubborn foe before them by still more
stubborn valor, until at last the Indians, fully convinced that these
were no human foes, fled to the refuge of their fort-like houses, and
there was room for the reeling Spaniards to draw breath. Then thrice
again the summons to surrender was duly read before the strange
tenements, each near a thousand feet long, and looking like a flight of
gigantic steps carved from one rock. Zaldivar even now wished to spare
unnecessary bloodshed, and demanded only that the assassins of his
brother and countrymen should be given up for punishment. All others who
should surrender and become subjects of "Our Lord the King" should be
well treated. But the dogged Indians, like wounded wolves in their den,
stuck in their barricaded houses, and refused all terms of peace.
The rock was captured, but the town remained. A pueblo is a fortress in
itself; and now Zaldivar had to storm Acoma house by house, room by
room. The little _pedrero_ was dragged in front of the first row of
houses, and soon began to deliver its slow fire. As the adobe walls
crumbled under the steady battering of the stone cannon-balls, they only
formed great barricades of clay, which even our modern artillery would
not pierce; and each had to be carried separately at the point of the
sword. Some of the fallen houses caught fire from their own
_fogones_;[14] and soon a stifling smoke hung over the town, from which
issued the shrieks of women and babes and the defiant yells of the
warriors. The humane Zaldivar made every effort to save the women and
children, at great risk of self; but numbers perished beneath the
falling walls of their own houses.
[Illustration: RUINS OF CHURCH AT PECOS.
_See page 161._]
This fearful storming lasted until noon of January 24. Now and then
bands of warriors made sorties, and tried to cut their way through the
Spanish line. Many sprang in desperation over the cliff, and were dashed
to pieces at its foot; and two Indians who made that incredible leap
survived it as miraculously as had the four Spaniards in the earlier
massacre, and made their escape.
At last, at noon of the third day, the old men came forth to sue for
mercy, which was at once granted. The moment they surrendered, their
rebellion was forgotten and their treachery forgiven. There was no need
of further punishment. The ringleaders in the murder of Zaldivar's
brother were all dead, and so were nearly all the Navajo allies. It was
the most bloody struggle New Mexico ever saw. In this three days' fight
the Indians lost five hundred slain and many wounded; and of the
surviving Spaniards not one but bore to his grave many a ghastly scar as
mementos of Acoma. The town was so nearly destroyed that it had all to
be rebuilt; and the infinite labor with which the patient people had
brought up that cliff on their backs all the stones and timber and clay
to build a many-storied town for nearly a thousand souls was all to be
repeated. Their crops, too, and all other supplies, stored in dark
little rooms of the terraced houses, had been destroyed, and they were
in sore want. Truly a bitter punishment had been sent them by "those
above" for their treachery to Juan de Zaldivar.
When his men had sufficiently recovered from their wounds Vicente de
Zaldivar, the leader of probably the most wonderful capture in history,
marched victorious back to San Gabriel de los Españoles, taking with him
eighty young Acoma girls, whom he sent to be educated by the nuns in Old
Mexico. What a shout must have gone up from the gray walls of the little
colony when its anxious watchers saw at last the wan and unexpected
tatters of its little army pricking slowly homeward across the snows on
jaded steeds!
The rest of the Pueblos, who had been lying demure as cats, with claws
sheathed, but every lithe muscle ready to spring, were fairly paralyzed
with awe. They had looked to see the Spaniards defeated, if not crushed,
at Acoma; and then a swift rising of all the tribes would have made
short work of the remaining invaders. But now the impossible had
happened! Ah'ko, the proud sky-city of the Quéres; Ah'ko, the cliff-girt
and impregnable,--had fallen before the pale strangers! Its brave
warriors had come to naught, its strong houses were a chaos of smoking
ruins, its wealth was gone, its people nearly wiped from off the earth!
What use to struggle against "such men of power,"--these strange
wizards who must be precious to "those above," else they never could
have such superhuman prowess? The strung sinews relaxed, and the great
cat began to purr as though she had never dreamt of mousing. There was
no more thought of a rebellion against the Spaniards; and the Indians
even went out of their way to court the favor of these awesome
strangers. They brought Oñate the news of the fall of Acoma several days
before Zaldivar and his heroes got back to the little colony, and even
were mean enough to deliver to him two Quéres refugees from that dread
field who had sought shelter among them. Thenceforth Governor Oñate had
no more trouble with the Pueblos.
But Acoma itself seemed to take the lesson to heart less than any of
them. Too crushed and broken to think of further war with its invincible
foes, it still remained bitterly hostile to the Spaniards for full
thirty years, until it was again conquered by a heroism as splendid as
Zaldivar's, though in a far different way.
In 1629 Fray Juan Ramirez, "the Apostle of Acoma," left Santa Fé alone
to found a mission in that lofty home of fierce barbarians. An escort of
soldiers was offered him, but he declined it, and started unaccompanied
and on foot, with no other weapon than his crucifix. Tramping his
footsore and dangerous way, he came after many days to the foot of the
great "island" of rock, and began the ascent. As soon as the savages saw
a stranger of the hated people, they rallied to the brink of the cliff
and poured down a great flight of arrows, some of which pierced his
robes. Just then a little girl of Acoma, who was standing on the edge of
the cliff, grew frightened at the wild actions of her people, and losing
her balance tumbled over the precipice. By a strange providence she fell
but a few yards, and landed on a sandy ledge near the Fray, but out of
sight of her people, who presumed that she had fallen the whole height
of the cliff. Fray Juan climbed to her, and carried her unhurt to the
top of the rock; and seeing this apparent miracle, the savages were
disarmed, and received him as a good wizard. The good man dwelt alone
there in Acoma for more than twenty years, loved by the natives as a
father, and teaching his swarthy converts so successfully that in time
many knew their catechism, and could read and write in Spanish. Besides,
under his direction they built a large church with enormous labor. When
he died, in 1664, the Acomas from being the fiercest Indians had become
the gentlest in New Mexico, and were among the furthest advanced in
civilization. But a few years after his death came the uprising of all
the Pueblos; and in the long and disastrous wars which followed the
church was destroyed, and the fruits of the brave Fray's work largely
disappeared. In that rebellion Fray Lucas Maldonado, who was then the
missionary to Acoma, was butchered by his flock on the 10th or 11th of
August, 1680. In November, 1692, Acoma voluntarily surrendered to the
reconqueror of New Mexico, Diego de Vargas. Within a few years, however,
it rebelled again; and in August, 1696, Vargas marched against it, but
was unable to storm the rock. But by degrees the Pueblos grew to lasting
peace with the humane conquerors, and to merit the kindness which was
steadily proffered them. The mission at Acoma was re-established about
the year 1700; and there stands to-day a huge church which is one of the
most interesting in the world, by reason of the infinite labor and
patience which built it. The last attempt at a Pueblo uprising was in
1728; but Acoma was not implicated in it at all.
The strange stone stairway by which Fray Juan Ramirez climbed first to
his dangerous parish in the teeth of a storm of arrows, is used by the
people of Acoma to this day, and is still called by them _el camino del
padre_ (the path of the Father).
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Fireplaces.
V.
THE SOLDIER POET.
But now to go back a little. The young officer who made that superb leap
across the chasm at Acoma, pushed back the bridge-log, and so saved the
lives of his comrades, and indirectly of all the Spanish in New Mexico,
was Captain Gaspar Perez de Villagran.[15] He was highly educated, being
a graduate of a Spanish university; young, ambitious, fearless, and
athletic; a hero among the heroes of the New World, and a chronicler to
whom we are greatly indebted. The six extant copies of the fat little
parchment-bound book of his historical poem, in thirty-four heroic
cantos, are each worth many times their weight in gold. It is a great
pity that we could not have had a Villagran for each of the campaigns of
the pioneers of America, to tell us more of the details of those
superhuman dangers and hardships,--for most of the chroniclers of that
day treat such episodes as briefly as we would a trip from New York to
Brooklyn.
The leaping of the chasm was not Captain Villagran's only connection
with the bloody doings at Acoma in the winter of 1598-99. He came very
near being a victim of the first massacre, in which Juan de Zaldivar and
his men perished, and escaped that fate only to suffer hardships as
fearful as death.
In the fall of 1598 four soldiers deserted Oñate's little army at San
Gabriel; and the governor sent Villagran, with three or four soldiers,
to arrest them. It is hard to say what a sheriff nowadays would think if
called upon to follow four desperadoes nearly a thousand miles across
such a desert, and with a _posse_ so small. But Captain Villagran kept
the trail of the deserters; and after a pursuit of at least nine hundred
miles, overtook them in southern Chihuahua, Mexico. The deserters made a
fierce resistance. Two were killed by the officers, and two escaped.
Villagran left his little _posse_ there, and retraced his dangerous nine
hundred miles alone. Arriving at the pueblo of Puaray, on the west bank
of the Rio Grande, opposite Bernalillo, he learned that his commander
Oñate had just marched west, on the perilous trip to Moqui, of which you
have already heard. Villagran at once turned westward, and started alone
to follow and overtake his countrymen. The trail was easily followed,
for the Spaniards had the only horses within what is now the United
States; but the lonely follower of it was beset with continual danger
and hardship. He came in sight of Acoma just too late to witness the
massacre of Juan de Zaldivar and the fearful fall of the five Spaniards.
The survivors had already left the fatal spot; and when the natives saw
a solitary Spaniard approaching, they descended from their rock citadel
to surround and slay him. Villagran had no firearms, nothing but his
sword, dagger, and shield. Although he knew nothing of the dreadful
events which had just occurred, he became suspicious of the manner in
which the savages were hemming him in; and though his horse was gaunt
from its long journey, he spurred it to a gallant effort, and fought his
way through the closing circle of Indians. He kept up his flight until
well into the night, making a long circuit to avoid coming too near the
town, and at last got down exhausted from his exhausted horse, and laid
himself on the bare earth to rest. When he awoke it was snowing hard,
and he was half buried under the cold, white blanket. Remounting, he
pushed on in the darkness, to get as far as possible from Acoma ere
daylight should betray him. Suddenly horse and rider fell into a deep
pit, which the Indians had dug for a trap and covered with brush and
earth. The fall killed the poor horse, and Villagran himself was badly
hurt and stunned. At last, however, he managed to crawl out of the pit,
to the great joy of his faithful dog, who sat whining and shivering upon
the edge. The soldier-poet speaks most touchingly of this dumb companion
of his long and perilous journey, and evidently loved it with the
affection which only a brave man can give and a faithful dog merit.
Starting again on foot, Villagran soon lost his way in that trackless
wilderness. For four days and four nights he wandered without a morsel
of food or a drop of water,--for the snow had already disappeared. Many
a man has fasted longer under equal hardships; but only those who have
tasted the thirst of the arid lands can form the remotest conception of
the meaning of ninety-six hours without water. Two days of that thirst
is often fatal to strong men; and that Villagran endured four was little
short of miraculous. At last, fairly dying of thirst, with dry, swollen
tongue, hard and rough as a file, projecting far beyond his teeth, he
was reduced to the sad necessity of slaying his faithful dog, which he
did with tears of manly remorse. Calling the poor brute to him, he
dispatched it with his sword, and greedily drank the warm blood. This
gave him strength to stagger on a little farther; and just as he was
sinking to the sand to die, he spied a little hollow in a large rock
ahead. Crawling feebly to it, he found to his joy that a little
snow-water remained in the cavity. Scattered about, were a few grains of
corn, which seemed a godsend; and he devoured them ravenously.
He had now given up all hope of overtaking his commander, and decided to
turn back and try to walk that grim two hundred miles to San Gabriel.
But he was too far gone for the body longer to obey the heroic soul, and
would have perished miserably by the little rock tank but for a strange
chance.
As he lay there, faint and helpless, he suddenly heard voices
approaching. He concluded that the Indians had trailed him, and gave
himself up for lost, for he was too weak to fight. But at last his ear
caught the accent of Spain; and though it was spoken by hoarse, rough
soldiers, you may be sure he thought it the sweetest sound in all the
world. It chanced that the night before, some of the horses of Oñate's
camp had strayed away, and a small squad of soldiers was sent out to
catch them. In following the trail of the runaways, they came in sight
of Captain Villagran. Luckily they saw him, for he could no longer shout
nor run after them. Tenderly they lifted up the wounded officer and bore
him back to camp; and there, under the gentle nursing of bearded men, he
slowly recovered strength, and in time became again the daring athlete
of other days. He accompanied Oñate on that long, desert march; and a
few months later was at the storming of Acoma, and performed the
astounding feat which ranks as one of the remarkable individual heroisms
of the New World.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Pronounced Veel-yah-gráhn.
VI.
THE PIONEER MISSIONARIES.
To pretend to tell the story of the Spanish pioneering of the Americas
without special attention to the missionary pioneers, would be very poor
justice and very poor history. In this, even more than in other
qualities, the conquest was unique. The Spaniard not only found and
conquered, but converted. His religious earnestness was not a whit
behind his bravery. As has been true of all nations that have entered
new lands,--and as we ourselves later entered this,--his first step had
to be to subdue the savages who opposed him. But as soon as he had
whipped these fierce grown-children, he began to treat them with a great
and noble mercy,--a mercy none too common even now, and in that cruel
time of the whole world almost unheard of. He never robbed the brown
first Americans of their homes, nor drove them on and on before him; on
the contrary, he protected and secured to them by special laws the
undisturbed possession of their lands for all time. It is due to the
generous and manly laws made by Spain three hundred years ago, that our
most interesting and advanced Indians, the Pueblos, enjoy to-day full
security in their lands; while nearly all others (who never came fully
under Spanish dominion) have been time after time ousted from lands our
government had solemnly given to them.
That was the beauty of an Indian policy which was ruled, not by
politics, but by the unvarying principle of humanity. The Indian was
first required to be obedient to his new government. He could not learn
obedience in everything all at once; but he must at least refrain from
butchering his new neighbors. As soon as he learned that lesson, he was
insured protection in his rights of home and family and property. Then,
as rapidly as such a vast work could be done by an army of missionaries
who devoted their lives to the dangerous task, he was educated to
citizenship and Christianity. It is almost impossible for us, in these
quiet days, to comprehend what it was to convert a savage half-world. In
our part of North America there have never been such hopeless tribes as
the Spaniards met in Mexico and other southern lands. Never did any
other people anywhere complete such a stupendous missionary work. To
begin to understand the difficulties of that conversion, we must look
into an appalling page of history.
Most Indians and savage peoples have religions as unlike ours as are
their social organizations. There are few tribes that dream of one
Supreme Being. Most of them worship many gods,--"gods" whose attributes
are very like those of the worshipper; "gods" as ignorant and cruel and
treacherous as he. It is a ghastly thing to study these religions, and
to see what dark and revolting qualities ignorance can deify. The
merciless gods of India, who are supposed to delight in the crushing of
thousands under the wheels of Juggernaut, and in the sacrificing of
babes to the Ganges, and in the burning alive of girl-widows, are fair
examples of what the benighted can believe; and the horrors of India
were fully paralleled in America. The religions of our North American
Indians had many astounding and dreadful features; but they were mild
and civilized compared with the hideous rites of Mexico and the southern
lands. To understand something of what the Spanish missionaries had to
combat throughout America, aside from the common danger, let us glance
at the condition of affairs in Mexico at their coming.
The Nahuatl, or Aztecs, and similar Indian tribes of ancient Mexico, had
the general pagan creed of all American Indians, with added horrors of
their own. They were in constant blind dread of their innumerable savage
gods,--for to them everything they could not see and understand, and
nearly everything they could, was a divinity. But they could not
conceive of any such divinity as one they could love; it was always
something to be afraid of, and mortally afraid of. Their whole attitude
of life was one of dodging the cruel blows of an unseen hand; of
placating some fierce god who could not love, but might be bribed not to
destroy. They could not conceive a real creation, nor that _anything_
could be without father and mother: stones and stars and winds and gods
had to be born the same as men. Their "heaven," if they could have
understood such a word, was crowded with gods, each as individual and
personal as we, with greater powers than we, but with much the same
weaknesses and passions and sins. In fact, they had invented and
arranged gods by their own savage standards, giving them the powers they
themselves most desired, but unable to attribute virtues they could not
understand. So, too, in judging what would please these gods, they went
by what would please themselves. To have bloody vengeance on their
enemies; to rob and slay, or be paid tribute for not robbing and
slaying; to be richly dressed and well fed,--these, and other like
things which seemed to them the highest personal ambitions, they thought
must be likewise pleasing to "those above." So they spent most of their
time and anxiety in buying off these strange gods, who were even more
dreaded than savage neighbors.
Their ideas of a god were graphically expressed in the great stone idols
of which Mexico was once full, some of which are still preserved in the
museums. They are often of heroic size, and are carved from the hardest
stone with great painstaking, but their faces and figures are
indescribably dreadful. Such an idol as that of the grim Huitzilopochtli
was as horrible a thing as human ingenuity ever invented, and the same
grotesque hideousness runs through all the long list of Mexican idols.
These idols were attended with the most servile care, and dressed in the
richest ornaments known to Indian wealth. Great strings of
turquoise,--the most precious "gem" of the American aborigines,--and
really precious mantles of the brilliant feathers of tropic birds, and
gorgeous shells were hung lavishly upon those great stone nightmares.
Thousands of men devoted their lives to the tending of the dumb deities,
and humbled and tortured themselves unspeakably to please them.
But gifts and care were not enough. Treachery to his friends was still
to be feared from such a god. He must still further be bought off;
everything that to an Indian seemed valuable was proffered to the
Indian's god, to keep him in good humor. And since human life was the
most precious thing an Indian could understand, it became his most
important and finally his most frequent offering. To the Indian it
seemed no crime to take a life to please a god. He had no idea of
retribution after death, and he came to look upon human sacrifice as a
legitimate, moral, and even divine institution. In time, such sacrifices
became of almost daily occurrence at each of the numberless temples. It
was the most valued form of worship; so great was its importance that
the officials or priests had to go through a more onerous training than
does any minister of a Christian faith. They could reach their position
only by pledging and keeping up unceasing and awful self-deprivation and
self-mutilation.
Human lives were offered not only to one or two principal idols of each
community, but each town had also many minor fetiches to which such
sacrifices were made on stated occasions. So fixed was the custom of
sacrifice, and so proper was it deemed, that when Cortez came to
Cempohuál the natives could think of no other way to welcome him with
sufficient honor, and in perfect cordiality proposed to offer up human
sacrifices to him. It is hardly necessary to add that Cortez sternly
declined this pledge of hospitality.
These rites were mostly performed on the teocallis, or sacrificial
mounds, of which there were one or more in every Indian town. These were
huge artificial mounds of earth, built in the shape of truncated
pyramids, and faced all over with stone. They were from fifty to two
hundred feet high, and sometimes many hundreds of feet square at the
base. Upon the flat top of the pyramid stood a small tower,--the dingy
chapel which enclosed the idol. The grotesque face of the stone deity
looked down upon a cylindrical stone which had a bowl-like cavity in the
top,--the altar, or sacrificial stone. This was generally carved also,
and sometimes with remarkable skill and detail. The famous so-called
"Aztec Calendar Stone" in the National Museum of Mexico, which once gave
rise to so many wild speculations, is merely one of these sacrificial
altars, dating from before Columbus. It is a wonderful piece of Indian
stone-carving.
The idol, the inner walls of the temple, the floor, the altar, were
always wet with the most precious fluid on earth. In the bowl human
hearts smouldered. Black-robed wizards, their faces painted black with
white rings about eyes and mouth, their hair matted with blood, their
faces raw from constant self-torture, forever flitted to and fro,
keeping watch by night and day, ready always for the victims whom that
dreadful superstition was always ready to bring. The supply of victims
was drawn from prisoners taken in war, and from slaves paid as tribute
by conquered tribes; and it took a vast supply. Sometimes as many as
five hundred were sacrificed on one altar on one great day. They were
stretched naked upon the sacrificial stone, and butchered in a manner
too horrible to be described here. Their palpitating hearts were offered
to the idol, and then thrown into the great stone bowl; while the bodies
were kicked down the long stone stairway to the bottom of the great
mound, where they were seized upon by the eager crowd. The Mexicans were
not cannibals regularly and as a matter of taste; but they devoured
these bodies as part of their grim religion.
It is too revolting to go more into detail concerning these rites.
Enough has been said to give some idea of the moral barrier encountered
by the Spanish missionaries when they came to such blood-thirsty savages
with a gospel which teaches love and the universal brotherhood of man.
Such a creed was as unintelligible to the Indian as white blackness
would be to us; and the struggle to make him understand was one of the
most enormous and apparently hopeless ever undertaken by human teachers.
Before the missionaries could make these savages even listen to--much
less understand--Christianity, they had the dangerous task of proving
this paganism worthless. The Indian believed absolutely in the power of
his gory stone-god. If he should neglect his idol, he felt sure the idol
would punish and destroy him; and of course he would not believe
anything that could be told him to the contrary. The missionary had not
only to say, "Your idol is worthless; he cannot hurt anybody; he is only
a stone, and if you kick him he cannot punish you," but he had to prove
it. No Indian was going to be so foolhardy as to try the experiment, and
the new teacher had to do it in person. Of course he could not even do
that at first; for if he had begun his missionary work by offering any
indignity to one of those ugly gods of porphyry, its "priests" would
have slain him on the spot. But when the Indians saw at last that the
missionary was not struck down by some supernatural power for speaking
against their gods, there was one step gained. By degrees he could touch
the idol, and they saw that he was still unharmed. At last he overturned
and broke the cruel images; and the breathless and terrified worshippers
began to distrust and despise the cowardly divinities they had played
the slave to, but whom a stranger could insult and abuse with impunity.
It was only by this rude logic, which the debased savages could
understand, that the Spanish missionaries proved to the Indians that
human sacrifice was a human mistake and not the will of "Those Above."
It was a wonderful achievement, just the uprooting of this one, but
worst, custom of the Indian religion,--a custom strengthened by
centuries of constant practice. But the Spanish apostles were equal to
the task; and the infinite faith and zeal and patience which finally
abolished human sacrifice in Mexico, led gradually on, step by step, to
the final conversion of a continent and a half of savages to
Christianity.
VII.
THE CHURCH-BUILDERS IN NEW MEXICO.
To give even a skeleton of Spanish missionary work in the two Americas
would fill several volumes. The most that can be done here is to take a
sample leaf from that fascinating but formidable record; and for that I
shall outline something of what was done in an area particularly
interesting to us,--the single province of New Mexico. There were many
fields which presented even greater obstacles, and cost more lives of
uncomplaining martyrs and more generations of discouraging toil; but it
is safe to take a modest example, as well as one which so much concerns
our own national history.
New Mexico and Arizona--the real wonderland of the United States--were
discovered in 1539, as you know, by that Spanish missionary whom every
young American should remember with honor,--Fray Marcos, of Nizza. You
have had glimpses, too, of the achievements of Fray Ramirez, Fray
Padilla, and other missionaries in that forbidding land, and have gained
some idea of the hardships which were common to all their brethren; for
the wonderful journeys, the lonely self-sacrifice, the gentle zeal, and
too often the cruel deaths of these men were not exceptions, but fair
types of what the apostle to the Southwest must expect.
There have been missionaries elsewhere whose flocks were as long
ungrateful and murderous, but few if any who were more out of the world.
New Mexico has been for three hundred and fifty years, and is to-day,
largely a wilderness, threaded with a few slender oases. To people of
the Eastern States a desert seems very far off; but there are hundreds
of thousands of square miles in our own Southwest to this day where the
traveller is very likely to die of thirst, and where poor wretches every
year do perish by that most awful of deaths. Even now there is no
trouble in finding hardship and danger in New Mexico; and once it was
one of the cruellest wildernesses conceivable. Scarce a decade has gone
by since an end was put to the Indian wars and harassments, which had
lasted continuously for more than three centuries. When Spanish colonist
or Spanish missionary turned his back on Old Mexico to traverse the
thousand-mile, roadless desert to New Mexico, he took his life in his
hands; and every day in that savage province he was in equal danger. If
he escaped death by thirst or starvation by the way, if the party was
not wiped out by the merciless Apache, then he settled in the wilderness
as far from any other home of white men as Chicago is from Boston. If a
missionary, he was generally alone with a flock of hundreds of cruel
savages; if a soldier or a farmer, he had from two hundred to fifteen
hundred friends in an area as big as New England, New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio combined, in the very midst of a hundred thousand
swarthy foes whose war-whoop he was likely to hear at any moment, and
never had long chance to forget. He came poor, and that niggard land
never made him rich. Even in the beginning of this century, when some
began to have large flocks of sheep, they were often left penniless by
one night's raid of Apaches or Navajos.
Such was New Mexico when the missionaries came, and very nearly such it
remained for more than three hundred years. If the most enlightened and
hopeful mind in the Old World could have looked across to that arid
land, it would never have dreamed that soon the desert was to be dotted
with churches,--and not little log or mud chapels, but massive stone
masonries whose ruins stand to-day, the noblest in our North America.
But so it was; neither wilderness nor savage could balk that great zeal.
The first church in what is now the United States was founded in St.
Augustine, Fla., by Fray Francisco de Pareja in 1560,--but there were
many Spanish churches in America a half century earlier yet. The several
priests whom Coronado brought to New Mexico in 1540 did brave missionary
work, but were soon killed by the Indians. The first church in New
Mexico and the second in the United States was founded in September,
1598, by the ten missionaries who accompanied Juan de Oñate, the
colonizer. It was a small chapel at San Gabriel de los Españoles (now
Chamita). San Gabriel was deserted in 1605, when Oñate founded Santa Fé,
though it is probable that the chapel was still occasionally used. In
time, however, it fell into decay. As late as 1680 the ruins of this
honorable old church were still visible; but now they are quite
indistinguishable. One of the first things after establishing the new
town of Santa Fé was of course to build a church,--and here, by about
1606, was reared the third church in the United States. It did not long
meet the growing requirements of the colony; and in 1622 Fray Alonzo de
Benavides, the historian, laid the foundations of the parish church of
Santa Fé, which was finished in 1627. The church of San Miguel in the
same old city was built after 1636. Its original walls are still
standing, and form part of a church which is used to-day. It was partly
destroyed in the Pueblo rebellion of 1680, and was restored in 1710. The
new cathedral of Santa Fé is built over the remnants of the still more
ancient parish church.
In 1617--three years before Plymouth Rock--there were already _eleven_
churches in use in New Mexico. Santa Fé was the only Spanish town; but
there were also churches at the dangerous Indian pueblos of Galisteo and
Pecos, two at Jemez (nearly one hundred miles west of Santa Fé, and in
an appalling wilderness), Taos (as far north), San Yldefonso, Santa
Clara, Sandia, San Felipe, and Santo Domingo. It was a wonderful
achievement for each lonely missionary--for they had neither civil nor
military assistance in their parishes--so soon to have induced his
barbarous flock to build a big stone church, and worship there the new
white God. The churches in the two Jemez pueblos had to be abandoned
about 1622 on account of incessant harassment by the Navajos, who from
time immemorial had ravaged that section, but were occupied again in
1626. The Spaniards were confined by the necessities of the desert, so
far as home-making went, to the valley of the Rio Grande, which runs
about north and south through the middle of New Mexico. But their
missionaries were under no such limitation. Where the colonists could
not exist, _they_ could pray and teach; and very soon they began to
penetrate the deserts which stretch far on either side from that narrow
ribbon of colonizable land. At Zuñi, far west of the river and three
hundred miles from Santa Fé, the missionaries had established themselves
as early as 1629. Soon they had six churches in six of the "Seven Cities
of Cibola" (the Zuñi towns), of which the one at Chyánahue is still
beautifully preserved; and in the same period they had taken foothold
two hundred miles deeper yet in the desert, and built three churches
among the wondrous cliff-towns of Moqui.
Down the Rio Grande there was similar activity. At the ancient pueblo of
San Antonio de Senecú, now nearly obliterated, a church was founded in
1629 by Fray Antonio de Arteaga; and the same brave man, in the same
year, founded another at the pueblo of Nuestra Señora del Socorro,--now
the American town of Socorro. The church in the pueblo of Picuries, far
in the northern mountains, was built before 1632, for in that year Fray
Ascencion de Zárate was buried in it. The church at Isleta, about in the
centre of New Mexico, was built before 1635. A few miles above Glorieta,
one can see from the windows of a train on the Santa Fé route a large
and impressive adobe ruin, whose fine walls dream away in that enchanted
sunshine. It is the old church of the pueblo of Pecos; and those walls
were reared two hundred and seventy-five years ago. The pueblo, once the
largest in New Mexico, was deserted in 1840; and its great quadrangle of
many-storied Indian houses is in utter ruin; but above their gray mounds
still tower the walls of the old church which was built before there was
a Saxon in New England. You see the "mud brick," as some contemptuously
call the adobe, is not such a contemptible thing, even for braving the
storms of centuries. There was a church at the pueblo of Nambé by 1642.
In 1662 Fray Garcia de San Francisco founded a church at El Paso del
Norte, on the present boundary-line between Mexico and the United
States,--a dangerous frontier mission, hundreds of miles alike from the
Spanish settlements in Old and New Mexico.
The missionaries also crossed the mountains east of the Rio Grande, and
established missions among the Pueblos who dwelt in the edge of the
great plains. Fray Geronimo de la Llana founded the noble church at
Cuaray about 1642; and soon after came those at Abó, Tenabo, and Tabirá
(better, though incorrectly, known now as The Gran Quivira). The
churches at Cuaray, Abó, and Tabirá are the grandest ruins in the United
States, and much finer than many ruins which Americans go abroad to see.
The second and larger church at Tabirá was built between 1660 and 1670;
and at about the same time and in the same region--though many thirsty
miles away--the churches at Tajique[16] and Chililí. Acoma, as you know,
had a permanent missionary by 1629; and he built a church. Besides all
these, the pueblos of Zia, Santa Ana, Tesuque, Pojoaque, San Juan, San
Marcos, San Lazaro, San Cristobal, Alameda, Santa Cruz, and Cochiti had
each a church by 1680. That shows something of the thoroughness of
Spanish missionary work. A century before our nation was born, the
Spanish had built in one of our Territories half a hundred permanent
churches, nearly all of stone, and nearly all for the express benefit of
the Indians. That is a missionary record which has never been equalled
elsewhere in the United States even to this day; and in all our country
we had not built by that time so many churches for ourselves.
A glimpse at the life of the missionary to New Mexico in the days before
there was an English-speaking preacher in the whole western hemisphere
is strangely fascinating to all who love that lonely heroism which does
not need applause or companionship to keep it alive. To be brave in
battle or any similar excitement is a very easy thing. But to be a hero
alone and unseen, amid not only danger but every hardship and
discouragement, is quite another matter.
The missionary to New Mexico had of course to come first from Old
Mexico,--or, before that, from Spain. Some of these quiet, gray-robed
men had already seen such wanderings and such dangers as even the
Stanleys of nowadays do not know. They had to furnish their own
vestments and church furniture, and to pay for their own transportation
from Mexico to New Mexico,--for very early a "line" of semi-annual armed
expeditions across the bitter intervening wilderness was arranged. The
fare was $266, which made serious havoc with the good man's salary of
$150 a year (at which figure the salaries remained up to 1665, when they
were raised to $330, payable every three years). It was not much like a
call to a fashionable pulpit in these times. Out of this meagre
pay--which was all the synod itself could afford to give him--he had to
pay all the expenses of himself and his church.
Arriving, after a perilous trip, in perilous New Mexico,--and the
journey and the Territory were still dangerous in the present
generation,--the missionary proceeded first to Santa Fé. His superior
there soon assigned him a parish; and turning his back on the one little
colony of his countrymen, the fray trudged on foot fifty, one hundred,
or three hundred miles, as the case might be, to his new and unknown
post. Sometimes an escort of three or four Spanish soldiers accompanied
him; but often he made that toilsome and perilous walk alone. His new
parishioners received him sometimes with a storm of arrows, and
sometimes in sullen silence. He could not speak to them, nor they to
him; and the very first thing he had to do was to learn from such
unwilling teachers their strange tongue,--a language much more difficult
to acquire than Latin, Greek, French, or German. Entirely alone among
them, he had to depend upon himself and upon the untender mercies of his
flock for life and all its necessities. If they decided to kill him,
there was no possibility of resistance. If they refused him food, he
must starve. If he became sick or crippled, there were no nurses or
doctors for him except these treacherous savages. I do not think there
was ever in history a picture of more absolute loneliness and
helplessness and hopelessness than the lives of these unheard-of
martyrs; and as for mere danger, no man ever faced greater.
The provision made for the support of the missionaries was very simple.
Besides the small salary paid him by the synod, the pastor must receive
some help from his parish. This was a moral as well as a material
necessity. That interest partly depends on personal giving, is a
principle recognized in all churches. So at once the Spanish laws
commanded from the Pueblos the same contribution to the church as Moses
himself established. Each Indian family was required to give the tithe
and the first fruits to the church, just as they had always given them
to their pagan cacique. This was no burden to the Indians, and it
supported the priest in a very humble way. Of course the Indians did
_not_ give a tithe; at first they gave just as little as they could. The
"father's" food was their corn, beans, and squashes, with only a little
meat rarely from their hunts,--for it was a long time before there were
flocks of cattle or sheep to draw from. He also depended on his
unreliable congregation for help in cultivating his little plot of
ground, for wood to keep him from freezing in those high altitudes, and
even for water,--since there were no waterworks nor even wells, and all
water had to be brought considerable distances in jars. Dependent wholly
upon such suspicious, jealous, treacherous helpers, the good man often
suffered greatly from hunger and cold. There were no stores, of course,
and if he could not get food from the Indians he must starve. Wood was
in some cases twenty miles distant, as it is from Isleta to-day. His
labors also were not small. He must not only convert these utter pagans
to Christianity, but teach them to read and write, to farm by better
methods, and, in general, to give up their barbarism for civilization.
How difficult it was to do this even the statesman of to-day can hardly
measure; but what was the price in blood is simple to be understood. It
was not the killing now and then of one of these noble men by his
ungrateful flock,--it was almost a habit. It was not the sin of one or
two towns. The pueblos of Taos, Picuries, San Yldefonso, Nambé,
Pojoaque, Tesuque, Pecos, Galisteo, San Marcos, Santo Domingo, Cochiti,
San Felipe, Puaray, Jemez, Acoma, Halona, Hauicu, Ahuatui, Mishongenivi,
and Oraibe--twenty different towns--at one time or another murdered
their respective missionaries. Some towns repeated the crime several
times. Up to the year 1700, _forty_ of these quiet heroes in gray had
been slain by the Indians in New Mexico,--two by the Apaches, but all
the rest by their own flocks. Of these, one was poisoned; the others
died bloody and awful deaths. Even in the last century several
missionaries were killed by secret poison,--an evil art in which the
Indians were and are remarkably adept; and when the missionary had been
killed, the Indians burned the church.
One very important feature must not be lost sight of. Not only did these
Spanish teachers achieve a missionary work unparalleled elsewhere by
others, but they made a wonderful mark on the world's knowledge. Among
them were some of the most important historians America has had; and
they were among the foremost scholars in every intellectual line,
particularly in the study of languages. They were not merely
chroniclers, but students of native antiquities, arts, and
customs,--such historians, in fact, as are paralleled only by those
great classic writers, Herodotus and Strabo. In the long and eminent
list of Spanish missionary authors were such men as Torquemada,
Sahagun, Motolinia, Mendieta, and many others; and their huge volumes
are among the greatest and most indispensable helps we have to a study
of the real history of America.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Pronounced Tah-_hee_-ky.
VIII.
ALVARADO'S LEAP.
If the reader should ever go to the City of Mexico,--as I hope he may,
for that ancient town, which was old and populous when Columbus was
born, is alive with romantic interest,--he will have pointed out to him,
on the Rivera de San Cosme, the historic spot still known as El Salto de
Alvarado. It is now a broad, civilized street, with horse-cars running,
with handsome buildings, with quaint, contented folk sauntering to and
fro, and with little outwardly to recall the terrors of that cruellest
night in the history of America,--the _Noche Triste_.
The leap of Alvarado is among the famous deeds in history, and the
leaper was a striking figure in the pioneering of the New World. In the
first great conquest he bore himself gallantly, and the story of his
exploits then and thereafter would make a fascinating romance. A tall,
handsome man, with yellow locks and ruddy face, young, impulsive, and
generous, a brilliant soldier and charming comrade, he was a general
favorite with Spaniard and Indian alike. Though for some reason not
fully liked by Cortez, he was the conqueror's right-hand man, and
throughout the conquest of Mexico had generally the post of greatest
danger. He was a college man, and wrote a large, bold hand,--none too
common an accomplishment in those days, you will remember,--and signed a
beautiful autograph. He was not a great leader of men like Cortez,--his
valor sometimes ran away with his prudence; but as a field-officer he
was as dashing and brilliant as could be found.
Captain Pedro de Alvarado was a native of Seville, and came to the New
World in his young manhood, soon winning some recognition in Cuba. In
1518 he accompanied Grijalva in the voyage which discovered Mexico, and
carried back to Cuba the few treasures they had collected. In the
following year, when Cortez sailed to the conquest of the new and
wonderful land, Alvarado accompanied him as his lieutenant. In all the
startling feats of that romantic career he played a conspicuous part. In
the crisis when it became necessary to seize the treacherous Moctezuma,
Alvarado was active and prominent. He had much to do with Moctezuma
during the latter's detention as a hostage; and his frankness made him a
great favorite with the captive war-chief. He was left in command of the
little garrison at Mexico when Cortez marched off on his audacious but
successful expedition against Narvaez, and discharged that responsible
duty well. Before Cortez got back, came the symptoms of an Indian
uprising,--the famous war-dance. Alvarado was alone, and had to meet the
crisis on his own responsibility. But he was equal to the emergency. He
understood the murderous meaning of this "ghost-dance," as every
Indian-fighter does, and the way to meet it. In his unsuccessful attempt
to capture the wizards who were stirring up the populace to massacre the
strangers, Alvarado was severely wounded. But he bore his part in the
desperate resistance to the Indian assaults, in which nearly every
Spaniard was wounded. In the great fighting to hold their adobe
stronghold, and the wild sorties to force back the flood of savages, the
golden-haired lieutenant was always a prominent figure. When Cortez, who
had now returned with his reinforcements, saw that Mexico was untenable
and that their only salvation was in retreat from the lake city to the
mainland, the post of honor fell to Alvarado. There were twelve hundred
Spaniards and two thousand Tlaxcaltecan allies, and this force was
divided into three commands. The vanguard was led by Juan Velasquez, the
second division by Cortez, the third, upon which it was expected the
brunt of pursuit would fall, by Alvarado.
All was quiet when the Spaniards crept from their refuge to try to
escape along the dyke.
It was a rainy night, and intensely dark; and with their horses' hoofs
and little cannon muffled, the Spaniards moved as quietly as possible
along the narrow bank, which stretched like a tongue from the island
city to the mainland.
[Illustration: CHURCH, PUEBLO OF ISLETA.
_See page 163._]
This dyke was cut by three broad sluices, and to cross them the soldiers
carried a portable bridge. But despite their care the savages promptly
detected the movement. Scarcely had they issued from their barracks and
got upon the dyke, when the boom of the monster war-drum, _tlapan
huehuetl_, from the summit of the pyramid of sacrifice, burst upon the
still night,--the knell of their hopes. It is an awesome sound still,
the deep bellowing of that great three-legged drum, which is used
to-day, and can be heard more than fifteen miles; and to the Spaniards
it was the voice of doom. Great bonfires shot up from the teocalli, and
they could see the savages swarming to overwhelm them.
Hurrying as fast as their wounds and burdens would permit, the Spaniards
reached the first sluice in safety. They threw their bridge over the
gulf, and began crossing. Then the Indians came swarming in their canoes
at either side of the dyke, and attacked with characteristic ferocity.
The beset soldiers fought as they struggled on. But as the artillery was
crossing the bridge it broke, and down went cannon, horses, and men
forever. Then began the indescribable horrors of "The Sad Night." There
was no retreat for the Spaniards, for they were assailed on every side.
Those behind were pushing on, and there was no staying even for that gap
of black water. Over the brink man and horse were crowded in the
darkness, and still those behind came on, until at last the channel was
choked with corpses, and the survivors floundered across the chaos of
their dead. Velasquez, the leader of the vanguard, was slain, and
Spaniard and Tlaxcaltecan were falling like wheat before the sickle. The
second sluice, as well as each side of the dyke, was blocked with
canoes full of savage warriors; and there was another sanguinary mêlée
until this gap too was filled with slain, and over the bridge of human
corpses the fugitives gained the other bank. Alvarado, fighting with the
rearmost to hold in check the savages who followed along the dyke, was
the last to cross; and before he could follow his comrades the current
suddenly broke through the ghastly obstruction, and swept the channel
clear. His faithful horse had been killed under him; he himself was
sorely wounded; his friends were gone, and the merciless foe hemmed him
in. We cannot but be reminded of the Roman hero,--
"Of him who held the bridge so well
In the brave days of old."
Alvarado's case was fully as desperate as that of Horatius; and he rose
as manlike to the occasion. With one swift glance about, he saw that to
plunge into the flood would be sure death. So, with a supreme effort of
his muscular frame, he thrust down his lance and sprang! It was a
distance of eighteen feet. Considerably longer jumps have been recorded.
Our own Washington once made a running jump of over twenty feet in his
athletic youth. But considering the surroundings, the darkness, his
wounds, and his load of armor, the wonderful leap of Alvarado has
perhaps never been surpassed:--
"For fast his blood was flowing,
And he was sore in pain;
And heavy was his armor,
And spent with changing blows."
But the leap was made, and the heroic leaper staggered up the farther
bank and rejoined his countrymen.
From here the remnant fought, struggling along the causeway, to the
mainland. The Indians at last drew off from the pursuit, and the
exhausted Spaniards had time to breathe and look about to see how many
had escaped. The survivors were few in number. Small wonder if, as the
legend tells, their stout-hearted general, used as he was to a stoic
control of his feelings, sat him down under the cypress, which is still
pointed out as the tree of the _Noche Triste_, and wept a strong man's
tears as he looked upon the pitiful remnant of his brave army. Of the
twelve hundred Spaniards eight hundred and sixty had perished, and of
the survivors not one but was wounded. Two thousand of his allies, the
Tlaxcaltecan Indians, had also been slain. Indeed, had it not been that
the savages tried less to kill than to capture the Spanish for a more
horrible death by the sacrificial knife, not one would have escaped. As
it was, the survivors saw later three score of their comrades butchered
upon the altar of the great teocalli.
All the artillery was lost, and so was all the treasure. Not a grain of
powder was left in condition to be used, and their armor was battered
out of recognition. Had the Indians pursued now, the exhausted men would
have fallen easy victims. But after that terrific struggle the savages
were resting too, and the Spaniards were permitted to escape. They
struck out for the friendly pueblo of Tlaxcala by a circuitous route to
avoid their enemies, but were attacked at every intervening pueblo. In
the plains of Otumba was their most desperate hour. Surrounded and
overwhelmed by the savages, they gave themselves up for lost. But
fortunately Cortez recognized one of the medicine men by his rich dress,
and in a last desperate charge, with Alvarado and a few other officers,
struck down the person upon whom the superstitious Indians hang so much
of the fate of war. The wizard dead, his awe-struck followers gave way;
and again the Spaniards came out from the very jaws of death.
In the siege of Mexico,--the bloodiest and most romantic siege in all
America,--Alvarado was probably the foremost figure after Cortez. The
great general was the head of that remarkable campaign, and a head
indeed worth having. There is nothing in history quite like his
achievement in having thirteen brigantines built at Tlaxcala and
transported on the shoulders of men over fifty miles inland across the
mountains to be launched on the lake of Mexico and aid in the siege. The
nearest to it was the great feat of Balboa in taking two brigantines
across the Isthmus. The exploits of Hannibal the great Carthaginian at
the siege of Tarentum, and of the Spanish "Great Captain" Gonzalo de
Cordova at the same place, were not at all to be compared to either.
In the seventy-three days' fighting of the siege, Alvarado was the right
hand as Cortez was the head.
The dashing lieutenant had command of the force which pushed its assault
along the same causeway by which they had retreated on the _Noche
Triste_. In one of the battles Cortez's horse was killed under him, and
the conqueror was being dragged off by the Indians when one of his pages
dashed forward and saved him. In the final assault and desperate
struggle in the city Cortez led half the Spanish force, and Alvarado the
other half; and the latter it was who conducted that memorable storming
of the great teocalli.
After the conquest of Mexico, in which he had won such honors, Alvarado
was sent by Cortez to the conquest of Guatemala, with a small force. He
marched down through Oaxaca and Tehuantepec to Guatemala, meeting a
resistance characteristically Indian. There were three principal tribes
in Guatemala,--the Quiché, Zutuhil, and Cacchiquel. The Quiché opposed
him in the open field, and he defeated them. Then they formally
surrendered, made peace, and invited him to visit them as a friend in
their pueblo of Utatlan. When the Spaniards were safely in the town and
surrounded, the Indians set fire to the houses and fell fiercely upon
their stifling guests. After a hard engagement Alvarado routed them, and
put the ringleaders to death. The other two tribes submitted, and in
about a year Alvarado and his little company had achieved the conquest
of Guatemala. His services were rewarded by making him governor and
adelantado of the province; and he founded his city of Guatemala, which
in his day probably became something like what Mexico then was,--a town
containing fifteen thousand to twenty thousand Indians and one thousand
Spaniards.
From this, his capital, Governor Alvarado was frequently absent. There
were many expeditions to be made up and down the wild New World. His
greatest journey was in 1534, when, building his own vessels as usual,
he sailed to Ecuador and made the difficult march inland to Quito, only
to find himself in Pizarro's territory. So he returned to Guatemala
fruitless.
During one of his absences occurred the frightful earthquake which
destroyed the city of Guatemala, and dealt Alvarado a personal blow from
which he never recovered. Above the city towered two great
volcanoes,--the Volcan del Agua and the Volcan del Fuego. The volcano of
water was extinct, and its crater was filled with a lake. The volcano of
fire was--and is still--active. In that memorable earthquake the lava
rim of the Volcan del Agua was rent asunder by the convulsion, and its
avalanche of waters tumbled headlong upon the doomed city. Thousands of
the people perished under falling walls and in the resistless flood; and
among the lost was Alvarado's wife, Doña Beatriz de la Cueva. Her death
broke the brave soldier's spirit, for he loved her very dearly.
In the troublous times which befell Mexico after Cortez had finished his
conquest, and began to be spoiled by prosperity and to make a very
unadmirable exhibition of himself, Alvarado's support was sought and
won by the great and good viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza,--one of the
foremost executive minds of all time. This was no treachery on
Alvarado's part toward his former commander; for Cortez had turned
traitor not only to the Crown, but also to his friends. The cause of
Mendoza was the cause of good government and of loyalty.
It had become necessary to tame the hostile Nayares Indians, who had
caused the Spaniards great trouble in the province of Jalisco; and in
this campaign Alvarado joined Mendoza. The Indians retreated to the top
of the huge and apparently impregnable cliff of the Mixton, and they
must be dislodged at any cost. The storming of that rock ranks with the
storming of Acoma as one of the most desperate and brilliant ever
recorded. The viceroy commanded in person, but the real achievement was
by Alvarado and a fellow officer. In the scaling of the cliff Alvarado
was hit on the head by a rock rolled down by the savages, and died from
the wound,--but not until he saw his followers win that brilliant day.
The man who, next to Alvarado, deserves the credit of the Mixton was
Cristobal de Oñate, a man of distinction for several reasons. He was a
valued officer, a good executive, and one of the first millionnaires in
North America. He was, too, the father of the colonizer of New Mexico,
Juan de Oñate. June 11, 1548, several years after the battle of the
Mixton, the elder Oñate discovered the richest silver mines on the
continent,--the mines of Zacatecas, in the barren and desolate plateau
where now stands the Mexican city of that name. These huge veins of
"ruby," "black," arsenate, and virgin silver made the first
millionnaires in North America, as the conquest of Peru made the first
on the southern continent. The mines of Zacatecas were not so vast as
those developed at Potosi, in Bolivia, which produced between 1541 and
1664 the inconceivable sum of $641,250,000 in silver; but the Zacatecas
mines were also enormously productive. Their silver stream was the first
realization of the dreams of vast wealth on the northern continent, and
made a startling commercial change in this part of the New World.
Locally, the discovery reduced the price of the staples of life about
ninety per cent! Mexico was never a great gold country, but for more
than three centuries has remained one of the chief silver producers. It
is so to-day, though its output is not nearly so large as that of the
United States.
Cristobal de Oñate was, therefore, a very important man in the working
out of destiny. His "bonanza" made Mexico a new country, commercially,
and his millions were put to a better use than is always the case
nowadays, for they had the honor of building two of the first towns in
our own United States.
IX.
THE AMERICAN GOLDEN FLEECE.
We all know of that strange yellow ramskin which hung dragon-guarded in
the dark groves of Colchis; and how Jason and his Argonauts won the
prize after so many wanderings and besetments. But in our own New World
we have had a far more dazzling golden fleece than that mythical pupil
of old Cheiron ever chased, and one that no man ever captured,--though
braver men than Jason tried it. Indeed, there were hundreds of more than
Jasons, who fought harder and suffered tenfold deadlier fortunes and
never clutched the prize after all. For the dragon which guarded the
American Golden Fleece was no such lap-dog of a chimera as Jason's, to
swallow a pretty potion and go to sleep. It was a monster bigger than
all the land the Argonauts lived in and all the lands they roamed; a
monster which not man nor mankind has yet done away with,--the mortal
monster of the tropics.
The myth of Jason is one of the prettiest in antiquity, and it is more
than pretty. We are beginning to see what an important bearing a fairy
tale may have on sober knowledge. The myth has always somewhere some
foundation of truth; and that hidden truth may be of enduring value. To
study history, indeed, without paying any attention to the related
myths, is to shut off a precious side light. Human progress, in almost
every phase, has been influenced by this quaint but potent factor. Where
do you fancy chemistry would be if the philosopher's stone and other
myths had not lured the old alchemists to pry into mysteries where they
found never what they sought, but truths of utmost value to mankind?
Geography in particular has owed almost more of its growth into a
science to myths than to scholarly invention; and the gold myth,
throughout the world, has been the prophet and inspiration of discovery,
and a moulder of history.
We have been rather too much in the habit of classing the Spaniards as
_the_ gold-hunters, with an intimation that gold-hunting is a sort of
sin, and that they were monumentally prone to it. But it is not a
Spanish copyright,--the trait is common to all mankind. The only
difference was that the Spaniards found gold; and that is offence enough
to "historians" too narrow to consider "what would the English have done
had they found gold in America at the outset."
I believe it is not denied that when gold was discovered in the
uttermost parts of his land the Saxon found legs to get to it,--and even
adopted measures not altogether handsome in clutching it; but nobody is
so silly as to speak of "the days of '49" as a disgrace to us. Some
lamentable pages there were; but when California suddenly tipped up the
continent till the strength of the east ran down to her, she opened one
of the bravest and most important and most significant chapters in our
national story. For gold is not a sin. It is a very necessary thing, and
a very worthy one, as long as we remember that it is a means and not an
end, a tool and not an accomplishment,--which point of business
common-sense we are quite as apt to forget in Wall Street as in the
mines.
We have largely to thank this universal and perfectly proper fondness
for gold for giving us America,--as, in fact, for civilizing most other
countries.
The scientific history of to-day has fully shown how foolishly false is
the idea that the Spaniards sought merely gold; how manfully they
provided for the mind and the soul as well as the pocket. But gold was
with them, as it would be even now with other men, the strong motive.
The great difference was only that gold did not make them forget their
religion. It was the golden finger that beckoned Columbus to America,
Cortez to Mexico, Pizarro to Peru,--just as it led us to California,
which otherwise would not have been one of our States to-day. The gold
actually found at first in the New World was disappointingly little; up
to the conquest of Mexico it aggregated only $500,000. Cortez swelled
the amount, and Pizarro jumped it up to a fabulous and dazzling figure.
But, curiously enough, the gold that was found did not cut a more
important figure in the exploration and civilization of the New World
than that which was pursued in vain. The wonderful myth which stands for
the American Golden Fleece had a more startling effect on geography and
history than the real and incalculable riches of Peru.
Of this fascinating myth we have very little popular knowledge, except
that a corruption of its name is in everybody's mouth. We speak of a
rich region as "an Eldorado," or "the Eldorado" oftener than by any
other metaphor; but it is a blunder quite unworthy of scholars. It is
simply saying "an the," "the the." The word is Dorado; and it does not
mean "the golden," as we seem to fancy, but "the gilded man," being a
contraction of the Spanish _el hombre dorado_. And the Dorado, or gilded
man, has made a history of achievement beside which Jason and all his
fellow demi-gods sink into insignificance.
Like all such myths, this had a foundation in fact. The Colchian ramskin
was a poetic fancy of the gold mines of the Caucasus; but there really
_was_ a gilded man. The story of him and what he led to is a fairy tale
that has the advantage of being true. It is an enormously complicated
theme; but, thanks to Bandelier's final unravelling of it, the story can
now be told intelligibly,--as it has not been popularly told heretofore.
A number of years ago there was found in the lagoon of Siecha, in New
Granada, a quaint little group of statuary; it was of the rude and
ancient Indian workmanship, and even more precious for its ethnologic
interest than for its material, which was pure gold. This rare
specimen--which is still to be seen in a museum in Berlin--is a golden
raft, upon which are grouped ten golden figures of men. It represents a
strange custom which was in prehistoric times peculiar to the Indians of
the village of Guatavitá, on the highlands of New Granada. That custom
was this: On a certain great day one of the chiefs of the village used
to smear his naked body with a gum, and then powder himself from head to
foot with pure gold-dust. He was the Gilded Man. Then he was taken out
by his companions on a raft to the middle of the lake, which was near
the village, and leaping from the raft the Gilded Man used to wash off
his precious and wonderful covering and let it sink to the bottom of the
lake. It was a sacrifice for the benefit of the village. This custom is
historically established, but it had been broken up more than thirty
years before the story was first heard of by Europeans,--namely, the
Spaniards in Venezuela in 1527. It had not been voluntarily abandoned by
the people of Guatavitá. The warlike Muysca Indians of Bogota had ended
it by swooping down upon the village of Guatavitá and nearly
exterminating its inhabitants. Still, the sacrifice had been a fact; and
at that enormous distance and in those uncertain days the Spaniards
heard of it as still a fact. The story of the Gilded Man, _El Hombre
Dorado_, shortened to _El Dorado_, was too startling not to make an
impression. It became a household word, and thenceforward was a lure to
all who approached the northern coast of South America. We may wonder
how such a tale (which had already become a myth in 1527, since the fact
upon which it was founded had ceased) could hold its own for two hundred
and fifty years without being fully exploded; but our surprise will
cease when we remember what a difficult and enormous wilderness South
America was, and how much of it has unexplored mysteries even to-day.
The first attempts to reach the Gilded Man were from the coast of
Venezuela. Charles I. of Spain, afterward Charles V., had pawned the
coast of that Spanish possession to the wealthy Bavarian family of the
Welsers, giving them the right to colonize and "discover" the interior.
In 1529, Ambrosius Dalfinger and Bartholomew Seyler landed at Coro,
Venezuela, with four hundred men. The tale of the Gilded Man was already
current among the Spaniards; and, allured by it, Dalfinger marched
inland to find it. He was a dreadful brute, and his expedition was
nothing less than absolute piracy. He penetrated as far as the Magdalena
River, in New Granada, scattering death and devastation wherever he
went. He found some gold; but his brutality toward the Indians was so
great, and in such a strong contrast to what they had been accustomed to
from the Spaniards, that the exasperated natives turned, and his march
amounted to a running fight of more than a year's duration. The trouble
was, the Welsers cared only to get treasure back for the money they had
paid out, and had none of the real Spanish spirit of colonizing and
christianizing. Dalfinger failed to find the Gilded Man, and died in
1530 from a wound received during his infamous expedition.
His successor in command of the Welser interests, Nicolas Federmann, was
not much better as a man and no more successful as a pioneer. In 1530 he
marched inland to discover the Dorado, but his course was due south from
Coro, so he never touched New Granada. After a fearful march through the
tropical forests he had to return empty-handed in 1531.
Here already begins to enter, chronologically, one of the curious
ramifications and variations of this prolific myth. At first a fact, in
thirty years a fable, now in three years more the Gilded Man began to be
a vagabond will-o'-the-wisp, flitting from one place to another, and
gradually becoming tangled up in many other myths. The first variation
came in the first attempt to discover the source of the Orinoco,--the
mighty river which it was supposed could flow only from a great lake. In
1530, Antonio Sedeño sailed from Spain with an expedition to explore the
Orinoco. He reached the Gulf of Paria and built a fort, intending thence
to push his exploration. While he was doing this, Diego de Ordaz, a
former companion of Cortez, had obtained in Spain a concession to
colonize the district then called Maranon,--a vaguely defined area
covering Venezuela, Guiana, and northern Brazil. He sailed from Spain in
1531, reached the Orinoco and sailed up that river to its falls. Then
he had to return, after two years of vainly trying to overcome the
obstacles before him. But on this expedition he heard that the Orinoco
had its source in a great lake, and that the road to that lake led
through a province called Meta, said to be fabulously rich in gold. On
the authority of Bandelier, there is no doubt that this story of Meta
was only an echo of the Dorado tale which had penetrated as far as the
tribes of the lower Orinoco.
Ordaz was followed in 1534 by Geronimo Dortal, who attempted to reach
Meta, but failed even to get up the Orinoco. In 1535 he tried to
penetrate overland from the northeast coast of Venezuela to Meta, but
made a complete failure. These attempts from Venezuela, as Bandelier
shows, finally localized the home of the Dorado by limiting it to the
northwestern part of the continent. It had been vainly sought elsewhere,
and the inference was that it must be in the only place left,--the high
plateau of New Granada.
The conquest of the plateau of New Granada, after many unsuccessful
attempts which cannot be detailed here, was finally made by Gonzalo
Ximenez de Quesada in 1536-38. That gallant soldier moved up the
Magdalena River with a force of six hundred and twenty men on foot, and
eighty-five horsemen. Of these only one hundred and eighty survived when
he reached the plateau in the beginning of 1537. He found the Muysca
Indians living in permanent villages, and in possession of gold and
emeralds. They made a characteristic resistance; but one tribe after
another was overpowered, and Quesada became the conqueror of New
Granada.
The treasure which was divided by the conquerors amounted to 246,976
_pesos de oro_,--about $1,250,000 now,--and 1,815 emeralds, some of
which were of enormous size and value. They had found the real home of
the Gilded Man,--and had even come to Guatavitá, whose people made a
savage resistance,--but of course did not find him, since the custom had
been already abandoned.
Hardly had Quesada completed his great conquest when he was surprised by
the arrival of two other Spanish expeditions, which had been led to the
same spot by the myth of the Dorado. One was led by Federmann, who had
penetrated from the coast of Venezuela to Bogota on this his second
expedition,--a frightful journey. At the same time, and without the
knowledge of either, Sebastian de Belalcazar had marched up from Quito
in search of the Gilded Man. The story of that gold-covered chief had
penetrated the heart of Ecuador, and the Indian statements induced
Belalcazar to march to the spot. An arrangement was made between the
three leaders by which Quesada was left sole master of the country he
had conquered, and Federmann and Belalcazar returned to their respective
places.
While Federmann was chasing the myth thus, a successor to him had
already arrived at Coro. This was the intrepid German known as "George
of Speyer," whose real name, Bandelier has discovered, was George
Hormuth. Reaching Coro in 1535, he heard not only of the Dorado, but
even of tame sheep to the southwest,--that is, in the direction of Peru.
Following these vague indications, he started southwest, but encountered
such enormous difficulties in trying to reach the mountain pass, which
the Indians told him led to the land of the Dorado, that he drifted into
the vast and fearful tropical forests of the upper Orinoco. Here he
heard of Meta, and, following that myth, penetrated to within one degree
of the equator. For twenty-seven months he and his Spanish followers
floundered in the tangled and swampy wastes between the Orinoco and the
Amazon. They met some very numerous and warlike tribes, most conspicuous
of which were the Uaupes.[17] They found no gold, but everywhere heard
the fable of a great lake associated with gold. Of the one hundred and
ninety men who started on this expedition only one hundred and thirty
came back, and but fifty of these had strength left to bear arms. The
whole of the indescribably awful trip lasted three years. The result of
its horrors was to deflect the attention of explorers from the real home
of the Dorado, and to lead them on a wild-goose chase after a related
but rather geographic myth to the forests of the Amazon. In other words,
it prepared for the exploration of northern Brazil.
Shortly after George of Speyer, and entirely unconnected with him,
Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, had given an impulse to the
exploration of the Amazon from the Pacific side of the continent. In
1538, distrusting Belalcazar, he sent his brother, Gonzalo Pizarro, to
Quito to supersede his suspected lieutenant. The following year Gonzalo
heard that the cinnamon-tree abounded in the forests on the eastern
slope of the Andes, and that farther east dwelt powerful Indian tribes
rich in gold. That is, while the original and genuine myth of the Dorado
had reached to Quito from the north, the echo myth of Meta had got there
from the east. Since Belalcazar had gone to the real former home of the
Dorado, and had failed to find that gentleman at home, it was supposed
that the home must be somewhere else,--east, instead of north, from
Quito. Gonzalo made his disastrous expedition into the eastern forests
with two hundred and twenty men. In the two years of that ghastly
journey all the horses perished, and so did all the Indian companions;
and the few Spaniards who survived to get back to Peru in 1541 were
utterly broken down. The cinnamon-tree had been found, but not the
Gilded Man. One of Gonzalo's lieutenants, Francisco de Orellana, had
gone in advance on the upper Amazon with fifty men in a crazy boat. The
two companies were unable to come together again, and Orellana finally
drifted down the Amazon to its mouth with untold sufferings. Floating
out into the Atlantic, they finally reached the island of Cubagua, Sept.
11, 1541. This expedition was the first to bring the world reliable
information as to the size and nature of the greatest river on earth,
and also to give that river the name it bears to-day. They encountered
Indian tribes whose women fought side by side with the men, and for that
reason named it _Rio de las Amazones_,--River of the Amazons.
In 1543 Hernan Perez Quesada, a brother of the conqueror, penetrated the
regions which George of Speyer had visited. He went in from Bogota,
having heard the twisted myth of Meta, but only found misery, hunger,
disease, and hostile savages in the sixteen awful months he floundered
in the wilderness.
Meanwhile Spain had become satisfied that the leasing of Venezuela to
the German money-lenders was a failure. The Welser régime was doing
nothing but harm. Yet a last effort was determined upon, and Philip von
Hutten, a young and gallant German cavalier, left Coro in August, 1541,
in chase of the golden myth, which by this time had flitted as far south
as the Amazon. For eighteen months he wandered in a circle, and then,
hearing of a powerful and gold-rich tribe called the Omaguas, he dashed
on south across the equator with his force of forty men. He met the
Omaguas, was defeated by them and wounded, and finally struggled back to
Venezuela after suffering for more than three years in the most
impassable forests and swamps of the tropics. Upon his return he was
murdered; and that was the last of the German domination in Venezuela.
The fact that the Omaguas had been able to defeat a Spanish company in
open battle gave that tribe a great reputation. So strong in numbers
and in bravery, it was naturally supposed that they must also have
metallic wealth, though no evidence of that had been seen.
Driven from its home, the myth of the Gilded Man had become a wandering
ghost. Its original form had been lost sight of, and from the Dorado had
gradually been changed to a golden tribe. It had become a confusion and
combination of the Dorado and Meta, following the curious but
characteristic course of myths. First, a remarkable fact; then the story
of a fact that had ceased to be; then a far-off echo of that story,
entirely robbed of the fundamental facts; and at last a general tangle
and jumble of fact, story, and echo into a new and almost unrecognizable
myth.
This vagabond and changeling myth figured prominently in 1550 in the
province of Peru. In that year several hundred Indians from the middle
course of the Amazon--that is, from about the heart of northern
Brazil--took refuge in the eastern Spanish settlements in Peru. They had
been driven from their homes by the hostility of neighbor tribes, and
had reached Peru only after several years of toilsome wanderings.
They gave exaggerated accounts of the wealth and importance of the
Omaguas, and these tales were eagerly credited. Still, Peru was now in
no condition to undertake any new conquest, and it was not till ten
years after the arrival of these Indian refugees that any step was taken
in the matter. The first viceroy of Peru, the great and good Antonio de
Mendoza, who had been promoted from the vice-royalty of Mexico to this
higher dignity, saw in this report the chance for a stroke of wisdom. He
had cleared Mexico of a few hundred restless fellows who were a great
menace to good government, by sending them off to chase the golden
phantom of the Quivira--that remarkable expedition of Coronado which was
so important to the history of the United States. He now found in his
new province a similar but much worse danger; and it was to rid Peru of
its unruly and dangerous characters that Mendoza set on foot the famous
expedition of Pedro de Ursua. It was the most numerous body of men ever
assembled for such a purpose in Spanish America in the sixteenth
century, but was composed of the worst and most desperate elements that
the Spanish colonies ever contained. Ursua's force was concentrated on
the banks of the upper Amazon; July 1, 1560, the first brigantine
floated down the great river. The main body followed in other
brigantines on the 26th of September.
The country was one vast tropical forest, absolutely deserted. It soon
became apparent that their golden expectations could never be realized,
and discontent began to play a bloody rôle. The throng of desperadoes by
whose practical banishment the wise viceroy had purified Peru, could not
be expected to get along well together. No longer scattered among good
citizens who could restrain them, but in condensed rascality, they soon
began to suggest the fable of the Kilkenny cats. Their voyage was an
orgie entirely indescribable.
Among these scoundrels was one of peculiar character,--a physically
deformed but very ambitious fellow, who had every reason not to wish to
return to Peru. This was Lope de Aguirre. Seeing that the object of the
expedition must absolutely fail, he began to form a nefarious plot. If
they could not get gold in the way they had hoped, why not in another
way? In short, he conceived the audacious plan of turning traitor to
Spain and everything else, and founding a new empire. To achieve this he
felt it necessary to remove the leaders of the expedition, who might
have scruples against betraying their country. So, as the wretched
brigantines floated down the great river, they became the stage of a
series of atrocious tragedies. First, the commander Ursua was
assassinated, and in his place was put a young but dissolute nobleman,
Fernando de Guzman. He was at once elevated to the dignity of a
prince,--the first open step toward high treason.
Then Guzman was murdered, and also the infamous Yñez de Atienza, a woman
who bore a shameful part in the affair; and the misshapen Aguirre became
leader and "tyrant." His treason was now undisguised, and he commanded
the expedition thenceforth not as a Spanish officer, but as a rebel and
a pirate. As he steered toward the Atlantic, it was with plans of
appalling magnitude and daring. He intended to sail to the Gulf of
Mexico, land on the Isthmus, seize Panama, and thence sail to Peru,
where he would kill off all who opposed him, and establish an empire of
his own!
But a curious accident brought his plans to nought. Instead of reaching
the mouth of the Amazon, the flotilla drifted to the left, in that
wonderfully tangled river, and got into the Rio Negro. The sluggish
currents prevented their discovering their mistake, and they worked
ahead into the Cassiquiare, and thence into the Orinoco. On the 1st of
July, 1561 (a year to a day had been passed in navigating the labyrinth,
and the days had been marked with murder right and left), the
desperadoes reached the Atlantic Ocean; but through the mouth of the
Orinoco, and not, as they had expected, through the Amazon. Seventeen
days later they sighted the island of Margarita, where there was a
Spanish post. By treachery they seized the island, and then proclaimed
their independence of Spain.
This step gave Aguirre money and some ammunition, but he still lacked
vessels for a voyage by sea. He tried to seize a large vessel which was
conveying the provincial Monticinos, a Dominican missionary, to
Venezuela; but his treachery was frustrated, and the alarm was given on
the mainland. Infuriated by his failure, the little monster butchered
the royal officers of Margarita. His plan to reach Panama was balked;
but he succeeded at last in capturing a smaller vessel, by means of
which he landed on the coast of Venezuela in August, 1561. His career on
the mainland was one of crime and rapine. The people, taken by surprise,
and unable to make immediate resistance to the outlaw, fled at his
approach. The authorities sent as far as New Granada in their appeals
for help; and all northern South America was terrorized.
Aguirre proceeded without opposition as far as Barquecimeto. He found
that place deserted; but very soon there arrived the maestro de campo,
(Colonel) Diego de Paredes, with a hastily collected loyal force. At the
same time Quesada, the conqueror of New Granada, was hastening against
the traitor with what force he could muster. Aguirre found himself
blockaded in Barquecimeto, and his followers began to desert. Finally,
left almost alone, Aguirre slew his daughter (who had shared all those
awful wanderings) and surrendered himself. The Spanish commander did not
wish to execute the arch-traitor; but Aguirre's own followers insisted
upon his death, and secured it.
* * * * *
There were many subsequent attempts to discover the Gilded Man; but they
were of little importance, except the one undertaken by Sir Walter
Raleigh in 1595. He got only as far as the Salto Coroni,--that is,
failed to achieve anything like as great a feat as even Ordaz,--but
returned to England with glowing accounts of a great inland lake and
rich nations. He had mixed up the legend of the Dorado with reports of
the Incas of Peru,--which proves that the Spanish were not the only
people to swallow fables. Indeed, the English and other explorers were
fully as credulous and fully as anxious to get to the fabled gold.
The myth of the great lake, the lake of Parime,[18] gradually absorbed
the myth of the Gilded Man. The historic tradition became merged and
lost in the geographic fable. Only in the eastern forests of Peru did
the Dorado re-appear in the beginning of the last century, but as a
distorted and groundless tale. But Lake Parime remained on the maps and
in geographical descriptions. It is a curious coincidence that where the
golden tribes of Meta were once believed to exist, the gold fields of
Guiana (now a bone of contention between England and Venezuela) have
recently been discovered. It is certain that Meta was only a myth, but
even the myth was useful.
The fable of the lake of Parime--long believed in as a great lake with
whole ranges of mountains of silver behind it--was fully exploded by
Humboldt in the beginning of the present century. He showed that there
was neither a great lake nor were there mountains of silver. The broad
savannas of the Orinoco, when overflowed in the rainy season, had been
taken for a lake, and the silver background was simply the shimmer of
the sunlight on peaks of micaceous rock.
With Humboldt finally perished the most remarkable fairy tale in
history. No other myth or legend in either North or South America ever
exercised such a powerful influence on the course of geographical
discovery; none ever called out such surpassing human endeavor, and none
so well illustrated the matchless tenacity of purpose and the
self-sacrifice inherent in the Spanish character. It is a new lesson to
most of us, but a true and proved one, that this southern nation, more
impulsive and impetuous than those of the north, was also more patient
and more enduring.
The myth died, but it had not existed in vain. Before it had been
disproved, it had brought about the exploration of the Amazon, the
Orinoco, all Brazil north of the Amazon, all Venezuela, all New Granada,
and eastern Ecuador. If we look at the map a moment, we shall see what
this means,--that the Gilded Man gave to the world the geography of all
South America above the equator.
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Pronounced Wów-pess.
[18] Pronounced Pah-_ree_-may.
III.
THE GREATEST CONQUEST.
PIZARRO AND PERU.
I.
THE SWINEHERD OF TRUXILLO.
Somewhere between the years 1471 and 1478, (we are not sure of the exact
date), an unfortunate boy was born in the city of Truxillo,[19] province
of Estremadura, Spain. He was an illegitimate son of Colonel Gonzalo
Pizarro,[20] who had won distinction in the wars in Italy and Navarre.
But his parentage was no help to him. The disgraced baby never had a
home,--it is even said that he was left as a foundling at the door of a
church. He grew up to young manhood in ignorance and abject poverty,
without schools or care or helping hands, thrown entirely upon his own
resources to keep from starving. Only the most menial occupations were
open to him; but he seems to have done his best with them. How the
neighbor-boys would have laughed and hooted if one had said to them:
"That dirty, ragged youngster who drives his pigs through the oak-groves
of Estremadura will one day be the greatest man in a new world which no
one has yet seen, and will be a more famous soldier than our Great
Captain,[21] and will divide more gold than the king has!" And we could
not have blamed them for their sneers. The wisest man in Europe then
would have believed as little as they such a wild prophecy; for truly it
was the most improbable thing in the world.
But the boy who could herd swine faithfully when there was no better
work to do, could turn his hand to greater things when greater offered,
and do them as well. Luckily the New World came just in time for him. If
it had not been for Columbus, he might have lived and died a swineherd,
and history would have lost one of its most gallant figures, as well as
many more of those to whom the adventurous Genoese opened the door of
fame. To thousands of men as undivined by themselves as by others, there
was then nothing to see in life but abject obscurity in crowded,
ignorant, poverty-stricken Europe. When Spain suddenly found the new
land beyond the seas, it caused such a wakening of mankind as was never
before nor ever has been since. There was, almost literally, a new
world; and it made almost a new people. Not merely the brilliant and the
great profited by this wonderful change; there was none so poor and
ignorant that he might not now spring up to the full stature of the man
that was in him. It was, indeed, the greatest beginning of human
liberty, the first opening of the door of equality, the first seed of
free nations like our own. The Old World was the field of the rich and
favored; but America was already what it is so proud to be to-day,--the
poor man's chance. And it is a very striking fact that nearly all who
made great names in America were not of those who came great, but of the
obscure men who won here the admiration of a world which had never heard
of them before. Of all these and of all others, Pizarro was the greatest
pioneer. The rise of Napoleon himself was not a more startling triumph
of will and genius over every obstacle, nor as creditable morally.
[Illustration: ATAHUALPA'S HOUSE, CAXAMARCA.
_See page 260._]
We do not know the year in which Francisco Pizarro, the swineherd of
Truxillo, reached America; but his first importance here began in 1510.
In that year he was already in the island of Española, and accompanied
Ojeda[22] on the disastrous expedition to Urabá on the mainland. Here he
showed himself so brave and prudent that Ojeda left him in charge of the
ill-fated colony of San Sebastian, while he himself should return to
Española for help. This first honorable responsibility which fell to
Pizarro was full of danger and suffering; but he was equal to the
emergency, and in him began to grow that rare and patient heroism which
was later to bear him up through the most dreadful years that ever
conqueror had. For two months he waited in that deadly spot, until so
many had died that the survivors could at last crowd into their one
boat.
Then Pizarro joined Balboa, and shared that frightful march across the
Isthmus and that brilliant honor of the discovery of the Pacific. When
Balboa's gallant career came to a sudden and bloody ending, Pizarro was
thrown upon the hands of Pedro Arias Davila, who sent him on several
minor expeditions. In 1515 he crossed the Isthmus again, and probably
heard vaguely of Peru. But he had neither money nor influence to launch
out for himself. He accompanied Governor Davila when that official moved
to Panama, and won respect in several small expeditions. But at fifty
years of age he was still a poor man and an unknown one,--an humble
_ranchero_ near Panama. On that pestilent and wild Isthmus there had
been very little chance to make up for the disadvantages of his youth.
He had not learned to read or write,--indeed, he never did learn. But it
is evident that he had learned some more important lessons, and had
developed a manhood equal to any call the future might make upon it.
In 1522, Pascual de Andagóya made a short voyage from Panama down the
Pacific coast, but got no farther than Balboa had gone years before. His
failure, however, called new attention to the unknown countries to the
south; and Pizarro burned to explore them. The mind of the man who had
been a swineherd was the only one that grasped the importance of what
awaited discovery,--his courage, the only courage ready to face the
obstacles that lay between. At last, he found two men ready to listen to
his plans and to help him. These were Diego de Almagro[23] and Hernando
de Luque.[24] Almagro was a soldier of fortune, a foundling like
Pizarro, but better educated and somewhat older. He was a brave man
physically; but he lacked the high moral courage as well as the moral
power of Pizarro. He was in every way a lower grade of man,--more what
would have been expected from their common birth than was that
phenomenal character which was as much at home in courts and conquest as
it had been in herding beasts. Not only could Pizarro accommodate
himself to any range of fortune, but he was as unspoiled by power as by
poverty. He was a man of principle; a man of his word; inflexible,
heroic, yet prudent and humane, generous and just, and forever
loyal,--in all of which qualities Almagro fell far below him.
De Luque was a priest, vicar at Panama. He was a wise and good man, to
whom the two soldiers were greatly indebted. They had nothing but strong
arms and big courage for the expedition; and he had to furnish the
means. This he did with money he secured from the licentiate Espinosa, a
lawyer. The consent of the governor was necessary, as in all Spanish
provinces; and though Governor Davila did not seem to approve of the
expedition, his permission was secured by promising him a share of the
profits, while he was not called upon for any of the expenses. Pizarro
was given command, and sailed in November, 1524, with one hundred men.
Almagro was to follow as soon as possible, hoping to recruit more men in
the little colony.
After coasting a short distance to the south, Pizarro effected a
landing. It was an inhospitable spot. The explorers found themselves in
a vast, tropical swamp, where progress was made almost impossible by
the morasses and by the dense growth. The miasma of the marsh brooded
everywhere, an intangible but merciless foe. Clouds of venomous insects
hung upon them. To think of flies as a danger to life is strange to
those who know only the temperate zones; but in some parts of the
tropics the insects are more dreadful than wolves. From the swamps the
exhausted Spaniards struggled through to a range of hills, whose sharp
rocks (lava, very likely) cut their feet to the bone. And there was
nothing to cheer them; all was the same hopeless wilderness. They toiled
back to their rude brigantine, fainting under the tropic heat, and
re-embarked. Taking on wood and water, they pursued their course south.
Then came savage storms, which lasted ten days. Hurled about on the
waves, their crazy little vessel barely missed falling asunder. Water
ran short; and as for food, they had to live on two ears of corn apiece
daily. As soon as the weather would permit they put to a landing, but
found themselves again in a trackless and impenetrable forest. These
strange, vast forests of the tropics (forests as big as the whole of
Europe) are Nature's most forbidding side; the pathless sea and the
desert plains are not so lonely or so deadly. Gigantic trees, sometimes
much more than a hundred feet in circumference, grow thick and tall,
their bases buried in eternal gloom, their giant columns interwoven with
mighty vines, so that it is no longer a forest but a wall. Every step
must be won by the axe. Huge and hideous snakes and great saurians are
there; and in the hot, damp air lurks a foe deadlier than python or
alligator or viper,--the tropic pestilence.
The men were no weaklings, but in this dreadful wilderness they soon
lost hope. They began to curse Pizarro for leading them only to a
miserable death, and clamored to sail back to Panama. But this only
served to show the difference between men who were only brave physically
and those of moral courage like Pizarro's. He had no thought of giving
up; yet as his men were ripe for mutiny, something must be done; and he
did a very bright thing,--one of the small first flashes of that genius
which danger and extremity finally developed so conspicuously. He
cheered his followers even while he was circumventing their mutiny.
Montenegro, one of the officers, was sent back with the brigantine and
half the little army to the Isle of Pearls for supplies. That kept the
expedition from being given up. Pizarro and his fifty men could not
return to Panama, for they had no boat; and Montenegro and his
companions could not well fail to come back with succor. But it was a
bitter waiting for relief. For six weeks the starving Spaniards
floundered in the swamps, from which they could find no exit. There was
no food except the shellfish they picked up and a few berries, some of
which proved poisonous and caused tortures to those who ate them.
Pizarro shared the hardships of his men with unselfish gentleness,
dividing with the poorest soldier, and toiling like the rest, always
with brave words to cheer them up. More than twenty men--nearly half the
little force--died under their hardships; and all the survivors lost
hope save the stout-hearted commander. When they were almost at the last
gasp, a far light gleaming through the forest aroused them; and forcing
their way in that direction they came at last to open ground, where was
an Indian village whose corn and cocoanuts saved the emaciated
Spaniards. These Indians had a few rude gold ornaments, and told of a
rich country to the south.
At last Montenegro got back with the vessel and supplies to Puerto de la
Hambre, or the Port of Hunger, as the Spaniards named it. He too had
suffered greatly from hunger, having been delayed by storms. The
reunited force sailed on southward, and presently came to a more open
coast. Here was another Indian village. Its people had fled, but the
explorers found food and some gold trinkets. They were horrified,
however, at discovering that they were among cannibals, for before the
fireplaces human legs and arms were roasting. They put to sea in the
teeth of a storm sooner than remain in so repulsive a spot. At the
headland, which they named Punta Quemada,--the Burnt Cape,--they had to
land again, their poor bark being so strained that it was in great
danger of going to the bottom. Montenegro was sent inland with a small
force to explore, while Pizarro camped at a deserted Indian _rancheria_.
The lieutenant had penetrated but a few miles when he was ambushed by
the savages, and three Spaniards were slain. Montenegro's men had not
even muskets; but with sword and cross-bow they fought hard, and at last
drove off their dusky foes. The Indians, failing there, made a rapid
march back to their village, and knowing the paths got there ahead of
Montenegro and made a sudden attack. Pizarro led his little company out
to meet them, and a fierce but unequal fight began. The Spaniards were
at great odds, and their case was desperate. In the first volley of the
enemy, Pizarro received _seven wounds_,--a fact which in itself is
enough to show you what slight advantage their armor gave the Spaniards
over the Indians, while it was a fearful burden in the tropic heats and
amid such agile foes. The Spaniards had to give way; and as they
retreated, Pizarro slipped and fell. The Indians, readily recognizing
that he was the chief, had directed their special efforts to slay him;
and now several sprang upon the fallen and bleeding warrior. But Pizarro
struggled up and struck down two of them with supreme strength, and
fought off the rest till his men could run to his aid. Then Montenegro
came up and fell upon the savages from behind, and soon the Spaniards
were masters of the field. But it had been dearly bought, and their
leader saw plainly that he could not succeed in that savage land with
such a weak force. His next step must be to get reinforcements.
He accordingly sailed back to Chicamá, and remaining there with most of
his men,--again careful not to give them a chance to desert,--sent
Nicolas de Ribera, with the gold so far collected and a full account of
their doings, to Governor Davila at Panama.
Meanwhile Almagro, after long delays, had sailed with sixty men in the
second vessel from Panama to follow Pizarro. He found the "track" by
trees Pizarro had marked at various points, according to their
agreement. At Punta Quemada he landed, and the Indians gave him a
hostile reception. Almagro's blood was hot, and he charged upon them
bravely. In the action, an Indian javelin wounded him so severely in the
head that after a few days of intense suffering he lost one of his eyes.
But despite this great misfortune he kept on his voyage. It was the one
admirable side of the man,--his great brute courage. He could face
danger and pain bravely; but in a very few days he proved that the
higher courage was lacking. At the river San Juan (St. John) the
loneliness and uncertainty were too much for Almagro, and he turned back
toward Panama. Fortunately, he learned that his captain was at Chicamá,
and there joined him. Pizarro had no thought of abandoning the
enterprise, and he so impressed Almagro--who only needed to be _led_ to
be ready for any daring--that the two solemnly vowed to each other to
see the voyage to the end or die like men in trying. Pizarro sent him on
to Panama to work for help, and himself stayed to cheer his men in
pestilent Chicamá.
Governor Davila, at best an unenterprising and unadmirable man, was just
now in a particularly bad humor to be asked for help. One of his
subordinates in Nicaragua needed punishment, he thought, and his own
force was small for the purpose. He bitterly regretted having allowed
Pizarro to go off with a hundred men who would be so useful now, and
refused either to help the expedition or to permit it to go on. De
Luque, whose calling and character made him influential in the little
colony, finally persuaded the mean-hearted governor not to interfere
with the expedition. Even here Davila showed his nature. As the price of
his official consent,--without which the voyage could not go on,--he
extorted a payment of a thousand _pesos de oro_, for which he also
relinquished all his claims to the profits of the expedition, which he
felt sure would amount to little or nothing. A _peso de oro_, or "dollar
of gold," had about the intrinsic value of our dollar, but was then
really worth far more. In those days of the world gold was far scarcer
than now, and therefore had much more purchasing power. The same weight
of gold would buy about five times as much then as it will now; so what
was called a dollar, and _weighed_ a dollar, was really _worth_ about
five dollars. The "hush-money" extorted by Davila was therefore some
$5,000.
Fortunately, about this time Davila was superseded by a new governor of
Panama, Don Pedro de los Rios, who opposed no further obstacles to the
great plan. A new contract was entered into between Pizarro, Almagro,
and Luque, dated March 10, 1526. The good vicar had advanced gold bars
to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars for the expedition; and
was to receive one third of all the profits. But in reality most of this
large sum had come from the licentiate Espinosa; and a private contract
insured that Luque's share should be turned over to him. Two new
vessels, larger and better than the worn-out brigantine which had been
built by Balboa, were purchased and filled with provisions. The little
army was swelled by recruits to one hundred and sixty men, and even a
few horses were secured; and the second expedition was ready.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Pronounced Troo-_heel_-yo.
[20] Pronounced Pee-_sáh_-roh.
[21] The famous European campaigner, De Cordova.
[22] Pronounced O-_yáy_-dah.
[23] Pronounced Dee-_ay_-go day Al-_mah_-gro.
[24] Pronounced Er-_nan_-do day _Loo_-kay.
II.
THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT GIVE UP.
With so inadequate a force, yet much stronger than before, Pizarro and
Almagro sailed again on their dangerous mission. The pilot was Bartolomé
Ruiz, a brave and loyal Andalusian and a good sailor. The weather was
better now, and the adventurers pushed on hopefully. After a few days'
sail they reached the Rio San Juan, which was as far as any European had
ever sailed down that coast: it will be remembered that this was where
Almagro had got discouraged and turned back. Here were more Indian
settlements, and a little gold; but here too the vastness and savagery
of the wilderness became more apparent. It is hard for us to conceive at
all, in these easy days, how _lost_ these explorers were. Then there was
not a white man in all the world who knew what lay beyond them; and the
knowledge of something somewhere ahead is the most necessary prop to
courage. We can understand their situation only by supposing a band of
schoolboys--brave boys but unlearned--carried blindfold a thousand
miles, and set down in a trackless wilderness they had never heard of.
Pizarro halted here with part of his men, and sent Almagro back to
Panama with one vessel for recruits, and Pilot Ruiz south with the
other to explore the coast. Ruiz coasted southward as far as Punta de
Pasado, and was the first white man who ever crossed the equator on the
Pacific,--no small honor. He found a rather more promising country, and
encountered a large raft with cotton sails, on which were several
Indians. They had mirrors (probably of volcanic glass, as was common to
the southern aborigines) set in silver, and ornaments of silver and
gold, besides remarkable cloths, on which were woven figures of beasts,
birds, and fishes. The cruise lasted several weeks; and Ruiz got back to
the San Juan barely in time. Pizarro and his men had suffered awful
hardships. They had made a gallant effort to get inland, but could not
escape the dreadful tropical forest, "whose trees grew to the sky." The
dense growth was not so lonely as their earlier forests. There were
troops of chattering monkeys and brilliant parrots; around the huge
trees coiled lazy boas, and alligators dozed by the sluggish lagoons.
Many of the Spaniards perished by these grim, strange foes; some were
crushed to pulp in the mighty coils of the snakes, and some were
crunched between the teeth of the scaly saurians. Many more fell victims
to lurking savages; in a single swoop fourteen of the dwindling band
were slain by Indians, who surrounded their stranded canoe. Food gave
out too, and the survivors were starving when Ruiz got back with a scant
relief but cheering news. Very soon too Almagro arrived, with supplies
and a reinforcement of eighty men.
The whole expedition set sail again for the south. But at once there
rose persistent storms. After great suffering the explorers got back to
the Isle of Gallo, where they stayed two weeks to repair their disabled
vessels and as badly shattered bodies. Then they sailed on again down
the unknown seas. The country was gradually improving. The malarial
tropic forests no longer extended into the very sea. Amid the groves of
ebony and mahogany were occasional clearings, with rudely cultivated
fields, and also Indian settlements of considerable size. In this region
were gold-washings and emerald-mines, and the natives had some valuable
ornaments. The Spaniards landed, but were set upon by a vastly superior
number of savages, and escaped destruction only in a very curious way.
In the uneven battle the Spaniards were sorely pressed, when one of
their number fell from his horse; and this trivial incident put the
swarming savages to flight. Some historians have ridiculed the idea that
such a trifle could have had such an effect; but that is merely because
of ignorance of the facts. You must remember that these Indians had
never before seen a horse. The Spanish rider and his steed they took for
one huge animal, strange and fearful enough at best,--a parallel to the
old Greek myth of the Centaurs, and a token of the manner in which that
myth began. But when this great unknown beast divided itself into two
parts, which were able to act independently of each other, it was too
much for the superstitious Indians, and they fled in terror. The
Spaniards escaped to their vessels, and gave thanks for their strange
deliverance.
But this narrow escape had shown more clearly how inadequate their
handful of men was to cope with the wild hordes. They must again have
reinforcements; and back they sailed to the Isle of Gallo, where Pizarro
was to wait while Almagro went to Panama for help. You see Pizarro
always took the heaviest and hardest burden for himself, and gave the
easiest to his associate. It was always Almagro who was sent back to the
comforts of civilization, while his lion-hearted leader bore the waiting
and danger and suffering. The greatest obstacle all along now was in the
soldiers themselves,--and I say this with a full realization of the
deadly perils and enormous hardships. But perils and hardships without
are to be borne more easily than treachery and discontent within. At
every step Pizarro had to _carry_ his men,--morally. They were
constantly discouraged (for which they surely had enough reason); and
when discouraged they were ready for any desperate act, except going
ahead. So Pizarro had constantly to be will and courage not only for
himself, who suffered as cruelly as the meanest, but for all. It was
like the stout soul we sometimes see holding up a half-dead body,--a
body that would long ago have broken loose from a less intrepid spirit.
The men were now mutinous again; and despite Pizarro's gallant example
and efforts, they came very near wrecking the whole enterprise. They
sent by Almagro to the governor's wife a ball of cotton as a sample of
the products of the country; but in this apparently harmless present the
cowards had hidden a letter, in which they declared that Pizarro was
leading them only to death, and warned others not to follow. A doggerel
verse at the end set forth that Pizarro was a butcher waiting for more
meat, and that Almagro went to Panama to gather sheep to be slaughtered.
The letter reached Governor de los Rios, and made him very indignant. He
sent the Cordovan Tafur with two vessels to the Isle of Gallo to bring
back every Spaniard there, and thus stop an expedition the importance of
which his mind could not grasp. Pizarro and his men were suffering
terribly, always drenched by the storms, and nearly starving. When Tafur
arrived, all but Pizarro hailed him as a deliverer, and wanted to go
home at once. But the captain was not daunted. With his dagger he drew a
line upon the sands, and looking his men in the face, said: "Comrades
and friends, on that side are death, hardship, starvation, nakedness,
storms; on this side is comfort. From this side you go to Panama to be
poor; from that side to Peru to be rich. Choose, each who is a brave
Castilian, that which he thinks best."
As he spoke he stepped across the line to the south. Ruiz, the brave
Andalusian pilot, stepped after him; and so did Pedro de Candia, the
Greek, and one after another eleven more heroes, whose names deserve to
be remembered by all who love loyalty and courage. They were Cristóval
de Peralta, Domingo de Soria Luce, Nicolas de Ribera, Francisco de
Cuellar, Alonso de Molina, Pedro Alcon, Garcia de Jerez, Anton de
Carrion, Alonso Briceño, Martin de Paz, and Juan de la Torre.
The narrow Tafur could see in this heroism only disobedience to the
governor, and would not leave them one of his vessels. It was with
difficulty that he was prevailed upon to give them a few provisions,
even to keep them from immediate starvation; and with his cowardly
passengers he sailed back to Panama, leaving the fourteen alone upon
their little island in the unknown Pacific.
Did you ever know of a more remarkable heroism? Alone, imprisoned by the
great sea, with very little food, no boat, no clothing, almost no
weapons, here were fourteen men still bent on conquering a savage
country as big as Europe! Even the prejudiced Prescott admits that in
all the annals of chivalry there is nothing to surpass this.
The Isle of Gallo became uninhabitable, and Pizarro and his men made a
frail raft and sailed north seventy-five miles to the Isle of Gorgona.
This was higher land, and had some timber, and the explorers made rude
huts for shelter from the storms. Their sufferings were great from
hunger, exposure, and venomous creatures which tortured them
relentlessly. Pizarro kept up daily religious services, and every day
they thanked God for their preservation, and prayed for his continued
protection. Pizarro was always a devout man, and never thought of
acting without invoking divine help, nor of neglecting thanks for his
successes. It was so to the last, and even with his last gasp his dying
fingers traced the cross he revered.
For seven indescribable months the fourteen deserted men waited and
suffered on their lonely reef. Tafur had reached Panama safely, and
reported their refusal to return. Governor de los Rios grew angrier yet,
and refused to help the obstinate castaways. But De Luque, reminding him
that his orders from the Crown commanded assistance to Pizarro, at last
induced the niggard governor to allow a vessel to be sent with barely
enough sailors to man it, and a small stock of provisions. But with it
went strict orders to Pizarro to return, and report at the end of six
months, no matter what happened. The rescuers found the brave fourteen
on the Isle of Gorgona; and Pizarro was at last enabled to resume his
voyage, with a few sailors and an army of _eleven_. Two of the fourteen
were so sick that they had to be left on the island in the care of
friendly Indians, and with heavy hearts their comrades bade them
farewell.
Pizarro sailed on south. Soon they passed the farthest point a European
had ever reached,--Punta de Pasado, which was the limit of Ruiz's
explorations,--and were again in unknown seas. After twenty days' sail
they entered the Gulf of Guayaquil, in Ecuador, and anchored in the Bay
of Tumbez. Before them they saw a large Indian town with permanent
houses. The blue bay was dotted with Indian sail-rafts; and far in the
background loomed the giant peaks of the Andes. We may imagine how the
Spaniards were impressed by their first sight of mountains that rose
more than twenty thousand feet above them.
The Indians came out on their _balsas_ (rafts) to look at these
marvellous strangers, and being treated with the utmost kindness and
consideration, soon lost their fears. The Spaniards were given presents
of chickens, swine, and trinkets, and had brought to them bananas, corn,
sweet potatoes, pineapples, cocoanuts, game, and fish. You may be sure
these dainties were more than welcome to the gaunt explorers after so
many starving months. The Indians also brought aboard several
llamas,--the characteristic and most valuable quadruped of South
America. The fascinating but misled historian who has done more than any
other one man in the United States to spread an interesting but
absolutely false idea of Peru, calls the llama the Peruvian sheep; but
it is no more a sheep than a giraffe is. The llama is the South American
camel (a true camel, though a small one), the beast of burden whose
slow, sure feet and patient back have made it possible for man to subdue
a country so mountainous in parts as to make horses useless. Besides
being a carrier it is a producer of clothing; it supplies the camel's
hair which is woven into the woollen garments of the people. There were
three other kinds of camel,--the vicuña, the guanaco, and the
alpaca,--all small, and all variously prized for their hair, which still
surpasses the wool of the best sheep for making fine fabrics. The
Peruvians domesticated the llama in large flocks, and it was their most
important helper. They were the only aborigines in the two Americas who
had a beast of burden before the Europeans came, except the Apaches of
the Plains and the Eskimos, both of whom had the dog and the sledge.
At Tumbez, Alonso de Molina was sent ashore to look at the town. He came
back with such gorgeous reports of gilded temples and great forts that
Pizarro distrusted him, and sent Pedro de Candia. This Greek, a native
of the Isle of Candia, was a man of importance in the little Spanish
force. The Greeks everywhere were then regarded as a people adept in the
still mysterious weapons; and all Europe had a respect for those who had
invented that wonderful agent "Greek fire," which would burn under
water, and which no man now-a-days knows how to make. The Greeks were
generally known as "fire-workers," and were in great demand as masters
of artillery.
[Illustration: Autograph of Pedro de Candia.]
De Candia went ashore with his armor and arquebuse, both of which
astounded the natives; and when he set up a plank and shivered it with a
ball, they were overwhelmed at the strange noise and its result. Candia
brought back as glowing reports as Molina had done; and the tattered
Spaniards began to feel that at last their golden dreams were coming
true, and took heart again. Pizarro gently declined the gifts of gold
and silver and pearls which the awe-struck natives offered, and turned
his face again to the south, sailing as far as about the ninth degree of
south latitude. Then, feeling that he had seen enough to warrant going
back for reinforcements, he stood about for Panama. Alonso de Molina and
one companion were left in Tumbez at their own request, being much in
love with the country. Pizarro took back in their places two Indian
youth, to learn the Spanish language. One of them, who was given the
name of Felipillo (little Philip) afterward cut an important and
discreditable figure. The voyagers stopped at the Isle of Gorgona for
their two countrymen who had been left there sick. One was dead, but the
other gladly rejoined his compassionate comrades. And so, with his dozen
men, Pizarro came back to Panama after an absence of eighteen months,
into which had been crowded the sufferings and horrors of a lifetime.
III.
GAINING GROUND.
Governor de los Rios was not impressed by the heroism of the little
party, and refused them aid. The case seemed hopeless; but the leader
was not to be crushed. He decided to go to Spain in person, and appeal
to his king. It was one of his most remarkable undertakings, it seems to
me. For this man, whose boyhood had been passed with swine, and who in
manhood had been herding rude men far more dangerous, who was ignorant
of books and unversed in courts, to present himself confidently yet
modestly at the dazzling and punctilious court of Spain, showed another
side of his high courage. It was very much as if a London chimney-sweep
were to go to-morrow to ask audience and favors of Queen Victoria.
But Pizarro was equal to this, as to all the other crises of his life,
and acquitted himself as gallantly. He was still tattered and penniless,
but De Luque collected for him fifteen hundred ducats; and in the spring
of 1528 Pizarro sailed for Spain. He took with him Pedro de Candia and
some Peruvians, with some llamas, some beautifully-woven Indian cloths,
and a few trinkets and vessels of gold and silver, to corroborate his
story. He reached Seville in the summer, and was at once thrown into
jail by Enciso under the cruel old law, long prevalent in all civilized
countries, allowing imprisonment for debt. His story soon got abroad,
and he was released by order of the Crown and summoned to court.
Standing before the brilliant Charles V., the unlettered soldier told
his story so modestly, so manfully, so clearly, that Charles shed tears
at the recital of such awful sufferings, and warmed to such heroic
steadfastness.
The king was just about to embark for Italy on an important mission; but
his heart was won, and he left Pizarro to the Council of the Indies with
recommendation to help the enterprise. That wise but ponderous body
moved slowly, as men learned only in books and theories are apt to move;
and delay was dangerous. At last the queen took up the matter, and on
the 26th of July, 1529, signed with her own royal hand the precious
document which made possible one of the greatest conquests, and one of
the most gallant, in human history. America owes a great deal to the
brave queens of Spain as well as to its kings. We remember what Isabella
had done for the discovery of the New World; and now Charles's consort
had as creditable a hand in its most exciting chapter.
The _capitulacion_, or contract, in which two such strangely different
"parties" were set side by side--one signing boldly _Yo la Reina_ ("I
the Queen"), and the other following with "Francisco [X] Pizarro, his
mark"--was the basis of Pizarro's fortunes. The man who had been sneered
at and neglected by narrow minds that had constantly hindered his one
great hope, now had won the interest and support of his sovereigns and
their promise of a magnificent reward,--of which latter we may be sure a
man of his calibre thought less than of the chance to realize his dream
of discovery. Followers he had to bait with golden hopes; and for that
matter it was but natural and right that after more than fifty years of
poverty and deprivation he should also think somewhat of comfort and
wealth for himself. But no man ever did or ever will do from mere
sordidness such a feat as Pizarro's. Such successes can be won only by
higher minds with higher aims; and it is certain that Pizarro's chief
ambition was for a nobler and more enduring thing than gold.
[Illustration: Autograph of Francisco Pizarro.]
The contract with the Crown gave to Francisco Pizarro the right to find
and make a Spanish empire of the country of New Castile, which was the
name given to Peru. He had leave "to explore, conquer, pacify, and
colonize" the land from Santiago to a point two hundred leagues south;
and of this vast and unknown new province he was to be governor and
captain-general,--the highest military rank. He was also to bear the
titles of adelantado and alguacil-mayor for life, with a salary of
seven hundred and twenty-five thousand _maravedis_ (about $2,000) a
year. Almagro was to be commander of Tumbez, with an annual rental of
three hundred thousand _maravedis_ and the rank of hidalgo. Good Father
Luque was made Bishop of Tumbez and Protector of the Indians, with one
thousand ducats a year. Ruiz was made Grand Pilot of the South Seas;
Candia, commander of the artillery; and the eleven others who had stood
so bravely by Pizarro on the lonely isle were all made hidalgos.
In return, Pizarro was required to pledge himself to observe the noble
Spanish laws for the government, protection, and education of the
Indians, and to take with him priests expressly to convert the savages
to Christianity. He was also to raise a force of two hundred and fifty
men in six months, and equip them well, the Crown giving a little help;
and within six months after reaching Panama, he must get his expedition
started for Peru. He was also invested with the Order of Santiago; and
thus suddenly raised to the proud knighthood of Spain he was allowed to
add the royal arms to those of the Pizarros, with other emblems
commemorative of his exploits,--an Indian town, with a vessel in the
bay, and the little camel of Peru. This was a startling and significant
array of honors, hard to be comprehended by those used only to
republican institutions. It swept away forever the disgrace of Pizarro's
birth, and gave him an unsullied place among the noblest. It is doubly
important in that it shows that the Spanish Crown thus recognized the
rank of Pizarro in American conquest. Cortez never earned and never
received such distinction.
This division of the honors led to very serious trouble. Almagro never
forgave Pizarro for coming out a greater man than he, and charged him
with selfishly and treacherously seeking the best for himself. Some
historians have sided with Almagro; but we have every reason to believe
that Pizarro acted straightforwardly and with truth. As he explained, he
made every effort to induce the Crown to give equal honors to Almagro;
but the Crown refused. Pizarro's word aside, it was merely political
common-sense for the Crown to refuse such a request. Two leaders
anywhere are a danger; and Spain already had had too bitter experience
with this same thing in America to care to repeat it. It was willing to
give all honor and encouragement to the arms; but there must be only one
head, and that head, of course, could be none but Pizarro. And certainly
any one who looks at the mental and moral difference between the two
men, and what were their actions and results both before and after the
royal grant, will concede that the Spanish Crown made a most liberal
estimate for Almagro, and gave him certainly quite as much as he was
worth. In the whole contract there is circumstantial evidence that
Pizarro did his best in behalf of his associate,--the ungrateful and
afterward traitorous Almagro,--an evidence mightily corroborated by
Pizarro's long patience and clemency toward his vulgar, ignoble, and
constantly deteriorating comrade. Pizarro had the head that fate could
not turn. He was neither crushed by adversity, nor, rarer yet, spoiled
by the most dazzling success,--wherein he rose superior to the greater
genius, but less noble man, Napoleon. When raised from lifelong, abject
poverty to the highest pinnacle of wealth and fame, Pizarro remained the
same quiet, modest, God-fearing and God-thanking, prudent, heroic man.
Success only intensified Almagro's base nature, and his end was
ignominious.
Having secured his contract with the Crown, Pizarro felt a longing to
see the scenes of his boyhood. Unhappy as they had been, there was a
manly satisfaction in going back to look upon these places. So the
ragged boy who had left his pigs at Truxillo, came back now a knighted
hero with gray hair and undying fame. I do not believe it was for the
sake of vain display before those who might remember him. That was
nowhere in the nature of Pizarro. He never exhibited vanity or pride. He
was of the same broad, modest, noble gauge as gallant Crook, the
greatest and best of our Indian conquerors, who was never so content as
when he could move about among his troops without a mark in dress or
manner to show that he was a major-general of the United States army
rather than some poor scout or hunter. No; it was the man in him that
took Pizarro back to Truxillo,--or perhaps a touch of the boy that is
always left in such great hearts. Of course the people were glad to
honor the hero of such a fairy tale as his sober story makes; but I am
sure that the brilliant general was glad to escape sometimes from the
visitors, and get out among the hillsides where he had driven his pigs
so many years before, and see the same old trees and brooklets, and
even, no doubt, the same ragged, ignorant boy still herding the noisy
porkers. He might well have pinched himself to see if he were really
awake; whether that were not the real Francisco Pizarro over yonder,
still in his rags tending the same old swine, and this gray, famous,
travelled, honored knight only a dream like the years between them. And
he was the very man who, finding himself awake, would have gone over to
the ragged herder and sat down beside him upon the sward with a gentle
_Como lo va, amigo?_--"How goes it, friend?" And when the wondering and
frightened lad stammered or tried to run away from the first great
personage that had ever spoken to him, Pizarro would talk so kindly and
of such wonderful things that the poor herder would look upon him with
that hero-worship which is one of the purest and most helpful impulses
in all our nature, and wonder if he too might not sometime be somewhat
like this splendid, quiet man who said, "Yes, my boy, I used to herd
pigs right here." The more I think of it, from what we know of Pizarro,
the surer I am that he really did look up the old pastures and the swine
and their ignorant keepers, and talked with them simply and gently, and
left in them the resolve to try for better things.
[Illustration: Autograph of Hernando Pizarro.]
[Illustration: Autograph of Juan Pizarro.]
But the interest which everywhere centred upon Pizarro did not bring in
recruits to his banner as fast as could be desired. Most people would
much rather admire the hero than become heroes at the cost of similar
suffering. Among those who joined him were his brothers, Hernando,
Gonzalo, and Juan, who were to figure prominently in the New World,
though until now they had never been heard of. Hernando, the eldest of
brothers, was the only legitimate son, and was much better educated. But
he was also the worst; and being without the strict principles of
Francisco made a sorry mark in the end. Juan was a sympathetic figure,
and distinguished himself by his great manliness and courage before he
came to an untimely end. Gonzalo was a genuine knight-errant, fearless,
generous, and chivalric, beloved alike in the New World by the soldiers
he led and the Indians he conquered. He made one of the most incredible
marches in all history, and would have won a great name, probably, had
not the death of his guide-brother Francisco thrown him into the power
of evil counsellors like the scoundrel Carabajal and others, who led and
pushed him to ruin. But while none of the brothers were wicked men, nor
cowards, nor fools, there was none like Francisco. He was one of the
rare types of whom but a few have been scattered, far apart, up and down
the world's path. He had not only the qualities which make heroes and
which are very common, fortunately for us, but with them the insight and
the unfaltering aim of genius. Less than Napoleon in insight, because
less learned, fully as great in resolve and greater in principle, he was
one of the prominent men of all time.
But the six months were up, and he still lacked something of the
necessary two hundred and fifty recruits. The Council was about to
inspect his expedition, and Pizarro, fearing that the strict letter of
the law might now prevent the consummation of his great plans just for
the want of a few men, and growing desperate at the thought of further
delay, waited no longer for official leave, but slipped his cable and
put to sea secretly in January, 1530. It was not exactly the handsomest
course to take, but he felt that too much was at stake to be risked on a
mere technicality, and that he was keeping the spirit if not the letter
of the law. The Crown evidently looked upon the matter in the same
light, for he was neither brought back nor punished. After a tedious
voyage he got safely to Santa Marta. Here his new soldiers were aghast
at hearing of the great snakes and alligators to be encountered, and a
considerable number of the weaker spirits deserted. Almagro, too, began
an uproar, declaring that Pizarro had robbed him of his rightful honors;
but De Luque and Espinosa pacified the quarrel, helped by the generous
spirit of Pizarro. He agreed to make Almagro the adelantado, and to ask
the Crown to confirm the appointment. He also promised to provide for
him before he did for his own brothers.
Early in January, 1531, Francisco Pizarro sailed from Panama on his
third and last voyage to the south. He had in his three vessels one
hundred and eighty men and twenty-seven horses. That was not an imposing
army, truly, to explore and conquer a great country; but it was all he
could get, and Pizarro was bound to try. He made the real conquest of
Peru with a handful of rough heroes; indeed, he would certainly have
tried, and very possibly would have succeeded in the vast undertaking,
if he had had but fifty soldiers; for it was very much more the one man
who conquered Peru than his one hundred and eighty followers. Almagro
was again left behind at Panama to try to drum up recruits.
Pizarro intended to sail straight to Tumbez, and there effect his
landing; but storms beat back the weak ships, so that he was obliged to
change his plan. After thirteen days he landed in the Bay of San Mateo
(St. Matthew), and led his men by land, while the vessels coasted along
southward. It was an enormously difficult tramp on that inhospitable
shore, and the men could scarcely stagger on. But Pizarro acted as
guide, and cheered them up by words and example. It was the old story
with him. Everywhere he had fairly to _carry_ his company. Their legs
no doubt were as strong as his, though he must have had a very wonderful
constitution; but there is a mental muscle which is harder and more
enduring, and has held up many a tottering body,--the muscle of pluck.
And that pluck of Pizarro was never surpassed on earth. You might almost
say it had to carry his army pick-a-back.
Wild as the region was, it had some mineral wealth. Pizarro collected
(so Pedro Pizarro[25] says) two hundred thousand _castellanos_ (each
weighing a dollar) of gold. This he sent back to Panama by his vessels
to speak for him. _It_ was the kind of argument the rude adventurers on
the Isthmus could understand, and he trusted to its yellow logic to
bring him recruits. But while the vessels had gone on this important
errand, the little army, trudging down the coast, was suffering greatly.
The deep sands, the tropic heat, the weight of their arms and armor were
almost unendurable. A strange and horrible pestilence broke out, and
many perished. The country grew more forbidding, and again the suffering
soldiers lost hope. At Puerto Viejo they were joined by thirty men under
Sebastian de Belalcazar, who afterward distinguished himself in a brave
chase of that golden butterfly which so many pursued to their death, and
none ever captured,--the myth of the Dorado.
Pushing on, Pizarro finally crossed to the island of Puná, to rest his
gaunt men, and get them in trim for the conquest. The Indians of the
island attempted treachery; and when their ringleaders were captured and
punished, the whole swarm of savages fell desperately on the Spanish
camp. It was a most unequal contest; but at last courage and discipline
prevailed over mere brute force, and the Indians were routed. Many
Spaniards were wounded, and among them Hernando Pizarro, who got an ugly
javelin-wound in the leg. But the Indians gave them no rest, and were
constantly harassing them, cutting off stragglers, and keeping the camp
in endless alarm. Then fortunately came a reinforcement of one hundred
men with a few horses, under command of Hernando de Soto, the heroic but
unfortunate man who later explored the Mississippi.
Thus strengthened, Pizarro crossed back to the mainland on rafts. The
Indians disputed his passage, killed three men on one raft, and cut off
another raft, whose soldiers were overpowered. Hernando Pizarro had
already landed; and though a dangerous mud-flat lay between, he spurred
his floundering horse through belly-deep mire, with a few companions,
and rescued the imperilled men.
Entering Tumbez, the Spaniards found the pretty town stripped and
deserted. Alonso de Molina and his companion had disappeared, and their
fate was never learned. Pizarro left a small force there, and in May,
1532, marched inland, sending De Soto with a small detachment to scout
the base of the giant Andes. From his very first landing, Pizarro
enforced the strictest discipline. His soldiers must treat the Indians
well, under the severest penalties. They must not even enter an Indian
dwelling; and if they dared disobey this command they were sternly
punished. It was a liberal and gentle policy toward the Indians which
Pizarro adopted at the very start, and maintained inflexibly.
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. FRANCIS, CAXAMARCA.
_See page 268._]
After three or four weeks spent in exploring, Pizarro picked out a site
in the valley of Tangara, and founded there the town of San Miguel (St.
Michael). He built a church, storehouse, hall of justice, fort and
dwellings, and organized a government. The gold they had collected he
sent back to Panama, and waited several weeks hoping for recruits. But
none came, and it was evident that he must give up the conquest of Peru,
or undertake it with the handful of men he already had. It did not take
a Pizarro long to choose between such alternatives. Leaving fifty
soldiers under Antonio Navarro to garrison San Miguel, and with strict
laws for the protection of the Indians, Pizarro marched Sept. 24, 1532,
toward the vast and unknown interior.
FOOTNOTES:
[25] A Spanish historian of the sixteenth century, a relative of
Francisco Pizarro.
IV.
PERU AS IT WAS.
Now that we have followed Pizarro to Peru, and he is about to conquer
the wonderful land to find which he has gone through such unparalleled
discouragements and sufferings, we must stop for a moment to get an
understanding of the country. This is the more necessary because such
false and foolish tales of "the Empire of Peru" and "the reign of the
Incas," and all that sort of trash, have been so widely circulated. To
comprehend the Conquest at all, we must understand what there was to
conquer; and that makes it necessary that I should sketch in a few words
the picture of Peru that was so long accepted on the authority of
grotesquely mistaken historians, and also Peru as it really was, and as
more scholarly history has fully proved it to have been.
We were told that Peru was a great, rich, populous, civilized empire,
ruled by a long line of kings who were called Incas; that it had
dynasties and noblemen, throne and crown and court; that its kings
conquered vast territories, and civilized their conquered savage
neighbors by wonderful laws and schools and other tools of the highest
political economy; that they had military roads finer than those built
by the Romans, and a thousand miles in length, with wonderful pavement
and bridges; that this wonderful race believed in one Supreme Being;
that the king and all of the royal blood were immeasurably above the
common people, but mild, just, paternal, and enlightened; that there
were royal palaces everywhere; that they had canals four or five hundred
miles long, and county fairs, and theatrical representations of tragedy
and comedy; that they carved emeralds with bronze tools the making of
which is now a lost art; that the government took the census, and had
the populace educated; and that while the policy of the remarkable
aborigines of Mexico was the policy of hate, that of the Inca kings was
the policy of love and mildness. Above all, we were told much of the
long line of Inca monarchs, the royal family, whose last great king,
Huayna Capac, had died not a great while before the coming of the
Spaniards. He was represented as dividing the throne between his sons
Atahualpa and Huascar, who soon quarrelled and began a wicked and
merciless fratricidal war with armies and other civilized arrangements.
Then, we were told, came Pizarro and took advantage of this unfraternal
war, arrayed one brother against the other, and thus was enabled at last
to conquer the empire.
All this, with a thousand other things as ridiculous, as untrue, and as
impossible, is part of one of the most fascinating but misleading
historical romances ever written. It never could have been written if
the beautiful and accurate science of ethnology had then been known. The
whole idea of Peru so long prevalent was based upon utter ignorance of
the country, and, above all, of Indians everywhere. For you must
remember that these wonderful beings, whose pictured government puts to
shame any civilized nation now on earth, were _nothing but Indians_. I
do not mean that Indians are not men, with all the emotions and feelings
and rights of men,--rights which I only wish we had protected with as
honorable care as Spain did. But the North and South American Indians
are very like each other in their social, religious, and political
organization, and very unlike us. The Peruvians had indeed advanced
somewhat further than any other Indians in America, but they were still
Indians. They had no adequate idea of a Supreme Being, but worshipped a
bewildering multitude of gods and idols. There was no king, no throne,
no dynasty, no royal blood, nor anything else royal. Anything of that
sort was even more impossible among the Indians than it would be now in
our own republic. There was not, and could not be, even a nation. Indian
life is essentially tribal. Not only can there be no king nor anything
resembling a king, but there is no such thing as heredity,--except as
something to be guarded against. The chief (and there cannot be even one
supreme chief) cannot hand down his authority to his son, nor to any one
else. The successor is elected by the council of officials who have such
things in charge. Where there are no kings there can be no
palaces,--and there were neither in Peru. As for fairs and schools and
all those things, they were as untrue as impossible. There was no court,
nor crown, nor nobility, nor census, nor theatres, nor anything remotely
suggesting any of them; and as for the Incas, they were not kings nor
even rulers, but _a tribe of Indians_. They were the only Indians in the
Americas who had the smelter; and that enabled them to make rude gold
and silver ornaments and images; so their country was the richest in the
New World, and they certainly had a remarkable though barbaric splendor.
The temples of their blind gods were bright with gold, and the Indians
wore precious metals in profusion, just as our own Navajos and Pueblos
in New Mexico and Arizona wear pounds and pounds of silver ornaments
to-day. They made bronze tools too, some of which had a very good
temper; but it was not an art, only an accident. Two of those tools were
never found of the same alloy; the Indian smith simply guessed at it,
and had to throw away many a tool for every one he accidentally made.
The Incas were one of the Peruvian tribes, at first weak and sadly
mauled about by their neighbors. At last, driven from their old home,
they stumbled upon a valley which was a natural fortress. Here they
built their town of Cuzco,--for they built towns as did our Pueblos, but
better. Then when they had fortified the two or three passes by which
alone that pocket in the Andes can be reached, they were safe. Their
neighbors could no longer get in to kill and rob them. In time they
grew to be numerous and confident, and like all other Indians (and some
white peoples) at once began to sally out to kill and rob their
neighbors. In this they succeeded very well, because they had a safe
place to retreat to; and, above all, because they had their little
camels, and could carry food enough to be gone long from home. They had
domesticated the llama, which none of the neighbor tribes, except the
Aymaros, had done; and this gave the Incas an enormous advantage. They
could steal out from their safe valley in a large force, with provisions
for a month or more, and surprise some village. If they were beaten off,
they merely skulked in the mountains, living by their pack-train,
constantly harassing and cutting off the villagers until the latter were
simply worn out. We see what the little camel did for the Incas: it
enabled them to make war in a manner no other Indians in America had
then ever used. With this advantage and in this manner this warrior
tribe had made what might be called a "conquest" over an enormous
country. The tribes found it cheaper at last to yield, and pay the Incas
to let them alone. The robbers built storehouses in each place, and put
there an official to receive the tribute exacted from the conquered
tribe. These tribes were never assimilated. They could not enter Cuzco,
nor did Incas come to live among them. It was not a nation, but a
country of Indian tribes held down together by fear of the one stronger
tribe.
The organization of the Incas was, broadly speaking, the same as that of
any other Indian tribe. The most prominent official in such a tribe of
land-pirates was naturally the official who had charge of the business
of fighting,--the war-captain. He was the commander in war; but in the
other branches of government he was far from being the only or the
highest man! And that is simply what Huayna Capac and all the other
fabulous Inca kings were,--Indian war-captains of the same influence as
several Indian war-captains I know in New Mexico.
Huayna Capac's sons were also Indian war-captains, and nothing
more,--moreover, war-captains of different tribes, rivals and enemies.
Atahualpa moved down from Quito with his savage warriors, and had
several fights, and finally captured Huascar and shut him up in the
Indian fort at Xauxa.[26]
That was the state of things when Pizarro began his march inland; and
lest you should be misled by assertions that the condition of things in
Peru was differently stated by the Spanish historians, it is needful to
say one thing more. The Spanish chroniclers were not liars nor
blunderers,--any more than our own later pioneers who wrote gravely of
the Indian _King_ Philip, and the Indian _King_ Powhatan, and the Indian
_Princess_ Pocahontas. Ethnology was an unknown science then. None of
those old writers comprehended the characteristic Indian organization.
They saw an ignorant, naked, superstitious man who commanded his
ignorant followers; he was a person in authority, and they called him a
king because they did not know what else to call him. The Spaniards did
the same thing. All the world in those days had but one little foot-rule
wherewith to measure governments or organizations; and ridiculous as
some of their measurements seem now, no one then could do better. No;
the mistakes of the Spanish chroniclers were as honest and as ignorant
as those which Prescott made three centuries later, and by no means so
absurd.
Peru, however, was a very wonderful country to have been built up by
simple Indians, without even that national organization or spirit which
is the first step toward a nation. Its "cities" were substantial, and in
their construction had considerable claim to skill; the farms were
better than those of our Pueblos, because they had indigenous there the
potato and other plant-foods unknown then in our southwest, and were
watered by the same system of irrigation common to all the sedentary
tribes. They were the only shepherd Indians, and their great flocks of
llamas were a very considerable source of wealth; while the camel's-hair
cloths of their own weaving were not disdained by the proud ladies of
Spain. And above all, their rude ovens for melting metal enabled them to
supply a certain dazzling display, which was certainly not to be
expected among American Indians: indeed, it would surprise us to enter
churches anywhere and find them so bright with golden plates and images
and dados as were some of their barbaric temples. We cannot say that
they never made human sacrifices; but these hideous rites were rare, and
not to be compared with the daily horrors in Mexico. For ordinary
sacrifices, the llama was the victim.
It was into the strongholds of this piratical but uncommon Indian tribe
that Pizarro was now leading his little band.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] Pronounced Sów-sa.
V.
THE CONQUEST OF PERU.
Certainly no army ever marched in the face of more hopeless odds.
Against the countless thousands of the Peruvians, Pizarro had one
hundred and seventy-seven men. Only sixty-seven of these had horses. In
the whole command there were but three guns; and only twenty men had
even cross-bows; all the others were armed with sword, dagger, and
lance. A pretty array, truly, to conquer what was an empire in size
though not in organization!
Five days out from San Miguel, Pizarro paused to rest. Here he noticed
that the seeds of discontent were among his followers; and he adopted a
remedy characteristic of the man. Drawing up his company, he addressed
them in friendly fashion. He said he wished San Miguel might be better
guarded; its garrison was very small. If there were any now who would
rather not proceed to the unknown dangers of the interior, they were at
perfect liberty to return and help guard San Miguel, where they should
have the same grants of land as the others, besides sharing in the final
profits of the conquest.
It was an audacious yet a wise step. Four foot-soldiers and five
cavalrymen said they believed they would go back to San Miguel; and
back they went, while the loyal one hundred and sixty-eight pressed on,
pledged anew to follow their intrepid leader to the end.
De Soto, who had been out on a scout for eight days, now returned,
accompanied by a messenger from the Inca war-captain, Atahualpa. The
Indian brought gifts, and invited them to visit Atahualpa, who was now
encamped with his braves at Caxamarca.[27] Felipillo, the young Indian
from Tumbez, who had gone back to Spain with Pizarro and had learned
Spanish, now made a very useful interpreter; and through him the
Spaniards were able to converse with the Inca Indians. Pizarro treated
the messenger with his usual courtesy, and sent him home with gifts, and
marched on up the hills in the direction of Caxamarca. One of the
Indians declared that Atahualpa was simply decoying the Spaniards into
his stronghold to destroy them without the trouble of going after them,
which was quite true; and another Indian declared that the Inca
war-captain had with him a force of at least fifty thousand men. But
without faltering, Pizarro sent an Indian ahead to reconnoitre, and
pushed on through the fearful mountain passes of the Cordillera,
cheering his men with one of his characteristic speeches:--
"Let all take heart and courage to do as I expect of you,
and as good Spaniards are wont to do. And do not be alarmed
by the multitude the enemy is said to have, nor by the small
number of us Christians. For even if we were fewer and the
opposing army greater, the help of God is much greater yet;
and in the utmost need He aids and favors His own to
disconcert and humble the pride of the infidels, and bring
them to the knowledge of our holy faith."
To this knightly speech, the men shouted that they would follow wherever
he led. Pizarro went ahead with forty horsemen and sixty infantry,
leaving his brother Hernando to halt with the remaining men until
further orders. It was no child's play, climbing those awful paths. The
horsemen had to dismount, and even then could hardly lead their horses
up the heights. The narrow trails wound under hanging cliffs and along
the brinks of gloomy _quebradas_,[28]--narrow clefts, thousands of feet
deep, where the rocky shelf was barely wide enough to creep along. The
pass was commanded by two remarkable stone forts; but luckily these were
deserted. Had an enemy occupied them, the Spaniards would have been
lost; but Atahualpa was letting them walk into his trap, confident of
crushing them there at his ease. At the top of the pass Hernando and his
men were sent for, and came up. A messenger from Atahualpa now arrived
with a present of llamas; and at about the same time Pizarro's Indian
spy returned, and reiterated that Atahualpa meant treachery. The
Peruvian messenger plausibly explained the suspicious movements related
by the spy. His explanation was far from satisfactory; but Pizarro was
too wise to show his distrust. Nothing but a confident front could save
them now.
The Spaniards suffered much from cold in crossing that lofty upland; and
even the descent on the east side of the Cordillera was full of
difficulty. On the seventh day they came in sight of Caxamarca in its
pretty oval valley,--a pocket of the great range. Off to one side was
the camp of the Inca war-captain and his army, covering a great area. On
the 15th of November, 1532, the Spaniards entered the town. It was
absolutely deserted,--a serious and dangerous omen. Pizarro halted in
the great square or common, and sent De Soto and Hernando Pizarro with
thirty-five cavalry to Atahualpa's camp to ask an interview. They found
the Indian surrounded by a luxury which startled them; and the
overwhelming number of warriors impressed them no less. To their request
Atahualpa replied that to-day he was keeping a sacred fast (itself a
highly suspicious fact), but to-morrow he would visit the Spaniards in
the town. "Take the houses on the square," he said, "and enter no
others. They are for the use of all. When I come, I will give orders
what shall be done."
The Peruvians, who had never seen a horse before, were astounded at
these mounted strangers, and doubly charmed when De Soto, who was a
gallant horseman, displayed his prowess,--not for vanity; it was a
matter of very serious importance to impress these outnumbering
barbarians with the dangerous abilities of the strangers.
The events of the next day deserve special attention, as they and their
direct consequences have been the basis of the unjust charge that
Pizarro was a cruel man. The _real_ facts are his full justification.
On the morning of November 16, after an anxious night, the Spaniards
were up with the first gray dawn. It was plain now that they had walked
right into the trap; and the chances were a hundred to one that they
would never get out. Their Indian spy had warned them truly. Here they
were cooped up in the town, one hundred and sixty-eight of them; and
within easy distance were the unnumbered thousands of the Indians. Worse
yet, they saw their retreat cut off; for in the night Atahualpa had
thrown a large force between them and the pass by which they had
entered. Their case was absolutely hopeless,--nothing but a miracle
could save them. But their miracle was ready,--it was Pizarro.
It is by one of the finest provisions of Nature that the right sort of
minds think best and swiftest when there is most need for them to think
quickly and well. In the supreme moment all the crowding, jumbled
thoughts of the full brain seem to be suddenly swept aside, to leave a
clear space down which the one great thought may leap forward like the
runner to his goal,--or like the lightning which splits the slow, tame
air asunder even as its fire dashes on its way. Most intelligent persons
have that mental lightning sometimes; and when it can be relied on to
come and instantly illumine the darkest crisis, it is the insight of
genius. It was that which made Napoleon, Napoleon; and made Pizarro,
Pizarro.
There was need of some wonderfully rapid, some almost superhuman
thinking. What could overcome those frightful odds? Ah! Pizarro had it!
He did not know, as we know now, what superstitious reasons made the
Indians revere Atahualpa so; but he did know that the influence existed.
Somewhat as Pizarro was to the Spaniards, was their war-captain to the
Peruvians,--not only their military head, but literally equal to "a host
in himself." Very well! If he could capture this treacherous chieftain,
it would reduce the odds greatly; indeed, it would be the bloodless
equivalent of depriving the hostile force of several thousand men.
Besides, Atahualpa would be a pledge for the peace of his people. And as
the only way out of destruction, Pizarro determined to capture the
war-captain.
For this brilliant strategy he at once made careful preparations. The
cavalry, in two divisions commanded respectively by Hernando de Soto and
Hernando Pizarro, was hidden in two great hallways which opened into the
square. In a third hallway were put the infantry; and with twenty men
Pizarro took his position at a fourth commanding point. Pedro de Candia,
with the artillery,--two poor little falconets,--was stationed on the
top of a strong building. Pizarro then made a devout address to his
soldiers; and with public prayers to God to aid and preserve them, the
little force awaited its enemy.
The day was nearly gone when Atahualpa entered town, riding on a golden
chair borne high on the shoulders of his servants. He had promised to
come for a friendly visit, and unarmed; but singularly his friendly
visit was made with a following of several thousand athletic warriors!
Ostensibly they were unarmed; but underneath their cloaks they clutched
bows and knives and war-clubs. Atahualpa was certainly not above
curiosity, unconcerned as he had seemed. This new sort of men was too
interesting to be exterminated at once. He wished to see more of them,
and so came, but perfectly confident, as a cruel boy might be with a
fly. He could watch its buzzings for a time; and whenever he was tired
of that, he had but to turn down his thumb and crush the fly upon the
pane. He reckoned too soon. A hundred and seventy Spanish bodies might
be easily crushed; but not when they were animated by one such mind as
their leader's.
Even now Pizarro was ready to adopt peaceful measures. Good Fray Vicente
de Valverde, the chaplain of the little army, stepped forth to meet
Atahualpa. It was a strange contrast,--the quiet, gray-robed missionary,
with his worn Bible in his hand, facing the cunning Indian on his golden
throne, with golden ornaments and a necklace of emeralds. Father
Valverde spoke. He said they came as servants of a mighty king and of
the true God. They came as friends; and all they asked was that the
Indian chief should abandon his idols and submit to God, and accept the
king of Spain as his _ally_, not as his sovereign.
Atahualpa, after looking curiously at the Bible (for of course he had
never seen a book before), dropped it, and answered the missionary
curtly and almost insultingly. Father Valverde's exhortations only
angered the Indian, and his words and manner grew more menacing.
Atahualpa desired to see the sword of one of the Spaniards, and it was
shown him. Then he wished to draw it; but the soldier wisely declined to
allow him. Father Valverde did not, as has been charged, then urge a
massacre; he merely reported to Pizarro the failure of his conciliatory
efforts. The hour had come. Atahualpa might now strike at any moment;
and if he struck first, there was absolutely no hope for the Spaniards.
Their only salvation was in turning the tables, and surprising the
surprisers. Pizarro waved his scarf to Candia; and the ridiculous little
cannon on the housetop boomed across the square. It did not hit anybody,
and was not meant to; it was merely to terrify the Indians, who had
never heard a gun, and to give the signal to the Spaniards. The
descriptions of how the "smoke from the artillery rolled in sulphurous
volumes along the square, blinding the Peruvians, and making a thick
gloom," can best be appreciated when we remember that all this deadly
cloud had to come from two little pop-cannon that were carried over the
mountains on horseback, and three old flintlock muskets! Yet in such a
ridiculous fashion have most of the events of the conquest been written
about.
Not less false and silly are current descriptions of the "massacre"
which ensued. The Spaniards all sallied out at the signal and fell upon
the Indians, and finally drove them from the square. We cannot believe
that two thousand were slain, when we consider how many Indians one man
would be capable of killing with a sword or clubbed musket or cross-bow
in half an hour's running fight, and multiplying that by one hundred and
sixty-eight; for after such a computation we should believe, not that
two thousand, but two hundred is about the right figure for those killed
at Caxamarca.
The chief efforts of the Spaniards were necessarily not to kill, but to
drive off the other Indians and capture Atahualpa. Pizarro had given
stern orders that the chief must not be hurt. He did not wish to kill
him, but to secure him alive as a hostage for the peaceful conduct of
his people. The bodyguard of the war-captain made a stout resistance;
and one excited Spaniard hurled a missile at Atahualpa. Pizarro sprang
forward and took the wound in his own arm, saving the Indian chief. At
last Atahualpa was secured unhurt, and was placed in one of the
buildings under a strong guard. He admitted--with the characteristic
bravado of an Indian, whose traditional habit it is to show his courage
by taunting his captors--that he had let them come in, secure in his
overwhelming numbers, to make slaves of such as pleased him, and put
the others to death. He might have added that had the wily war-chief
his father been alive, this never would have happened. Experienced old
Huayna Capac would never have let the Spaniards enter the town, but
would have entangled and annihilated them in the wild mountain passes.
But Atahualpa, being more conceited and less prudent, had taken a
needless risk, and now found himself a prisoner and his army routed. The
biter was bitten.
The distinguished captive was treated with the utmost care and kindness.
He was a prisoner only in that he could not go out; but in the spacious
and pleasant rooms assigned him he had every comfort. His family lived
with him; his food, the best that could be procured, he ate from his own
dishes; and every wish was gratified except the one wish to get out and
rally his Indians for war. Father Valverde, and Pizarro himself, labored
earnestly to convert Atahualpa to Christianity, explaining the
worthlessness and wickedness of his idols, and the love of the true
God,--as well as they could to an Indian, to whom, of course, a
Christian God was incomprehensible. The worthlessness of his own gods
Atahualpa was not slow to admit. He frankly declared that they were
nothing but liars. Huayna Capac had consulted them, and they answered
that he would live a great while yet,--and Huayna Capac had promptly
died. Atahualpa himself had gone to ask the oracle if he should attack
the Spaniards: the oracle had answered yes, and that he would easily
conquer them. No wonder the Inca war-chief had lost confidence in the
makers of such predictions.
The Spaniards gathered many llamas, considerable gold, and a large store
of fine garments of cotton and camel's-hair. They were no longer
molested; for the Indians without their professional war-maker were even
more at a loss than a civilized army would be without its officers, for
the Indian leader has a priestly as well as a military office,--and
their leader was a prisoner.
At last Atahualpa, anxious to get back to his forces at any cost, made a
proposition so startling that the Spaniards could scarce believe their
ears. If they would set him free, he promised to fill the room wherein
he was a prisoner as high as he could reach with gold, and a smaller
room with silver! The room to be filled with golden vessels and trinkets
(nothing so compact as ingots) is said to have been twenty-two feet long
and seventeen wide; and the mark he indicated on the wall with his
fingers was nine feet from the floor!
FOOTNOTES:
[27] Pronounced Cash-a-_már_-ca.
[28] Pronounced kay-_bráh_-das.
VI.
THE GOLDEN RANSOM.
There is no reason whatever to doubt that Pizarro accepted this
proposition in perfect good faith. The whole nature of the man, his
religion, the laws of Spain, and the circumstantial evidence of his
habitual conduct lead us to believe that he intended to set Atahualpa
free when the ransom should have been paid. But later circumstances, in
which he had neither blame nor control, simply forced him to a different
course.
Atahualpa's messengers dispersed themselves through Peru to gather the
gold and silver for the ransom. Meanwhile, Huascar,--who, you will
remember, was a prisoner in the hands of Atahualpa's men,--having heard
of the arrangement, sent word to the Spaniards setting forth his own
claims. Pizarro ordered that he should be brought to Caxamarca to tell
his story. The only way to learn which of the rival war-captains was
right in his claims was to bring them together and weigh their
respective pretensions. But this by no mean suited Atahualpa. Before
Huascar could be brought to Caxamarca he was assassinated by his Indian
keepers, the henchmen of Atahualpa,--and, it is commonly agreed, by
Atahualpa's orders.
The gold and silver for the ransom came in slowly. Historically there is
no doubt what was Atahualpa's plan in the whole arrangement. He was
merely _buying time_,--alluring the Spaniards to wait and wait, until he
could collect his forces to his rescue, and then wipe out the invaders.
This, indeed, began to dawn on the Spaniards. Tempting as was the golden
bait, they suspected the trap behind it. It was not long before their
fears were confirmed. They began to learn of the secret rallying of the
Indian forces. The news grew worse and worse; and even the daily arrival
of gold--some days as high as $50,000 in weight--could not blind them to
the growing danger.
It was necessary to learn more of the situation than they could know
while shut up in Caxamarca; and Hernando Pizarro was sent out with a
small force to scout to Guamachúcho and thence to Pachacámac, three
hundred miles. It was a difficult and dangerous reconnoissance, but full
of interest. Their way along the table-land of the Cordillera was a
toilsome one. The story of great military roads is largely a myth,
though much had been done to improve the trails,--a good deal after the
rude fashion of the Pueblos of New Mexico, but on a larger scale. The
improvements, however, had been only to adapt the trails for the
sure-footed llama; and the Spanish horses could with great difficulty be
hauled and pushed up the worst parts. Especially were the Spaniards
impressed with the rude but effective swinging bridges of vines, with
which the Indians had spanned narrow but fearful chasms; yet even these
swaying paths were most difficult to be crossed with horses.
[Illustration: AN ANGLE OF THE FORTRESS OF THE SACSAHUAMAN.
_See page 278._]
After several weeks of severe travel, the party reached Pachacámac
without opposition. The famous temple there had been stripped of its
treasures, but its famous god--an ugly idol of wood--remained. The
Spaniards dethroned and smashed this pagan fetich, purified the temple,
and set up in it a large cross to dedicate it to God. They explained to
the natives, as best they could, the nature of Christianity, and tried
to induce them to adopt it.
Here it was learned that Chalicuchima, one of Atahualpa's subordinate
war-captains, was at Xauxa with a large force; and Hernando decided to
visit him. The horses were in ill shape for so hard a march; for their
shoes had been entirely worn out in the tedious journey, and how to shoe
them was a puzzle: there was no iron in Peru. But Hernando met the
difficulty with a startling expedient. If there was no iron, there was
plenty of silver; and in a short time the Spanish horses were shod with
that precious metal, and ready for the march to Xauxa. It was an arduous
journey, but well worth making. Chalicuchima voluntarily decided to go
with the Spaniards to Caxamarca to consult with his superior, Atahualpa.
Indeed, it was just the chance he desired. A personal conference would
enable them to see exactly what was best to be done to get rid of these
mysterious strangers. So the adventurous Spaniards and the wily
sub-chief got back at last to Caxamarca together.
Meanwhile Atahualpa had fared very well at the hands of his captors.
Much as they had reason to distrust, and did distrust, the treacherous
Indian, they treated him not only humanely but with the utmost kindness.
He lived in luxury with his family and retainers, and was much
associated with the Spaniards. They seem to have been trying their
utmost to make him their friend,--which was Pizarro's principle all
along. Prejudiced historians can find no answer to one significant fact.
The Indians came to regard Pizarro and his brothers Gonzalo and Juan as
their friends,--and an Indian, suspicious and observant far beyond us,
is one of the last men in the world to be fooled in such things. Had the
Pizarros been the cruel, merciless men that partisan and ill-informed
writers have represented them to be, the aborigines would have been the
first to see it and to hate them. The fact that the people they
conquered became their friends and admirers is the best of testimony to
their humanity and justice.
Atahualpa was even taught to play chess and other European games; and
besides these efforts for his amusement, pains was also taken to give
him more and more understanding of Christianity. Notwithstanding all
this, his unfriendly plots were continually going on.
In the latter part of May the three emissaries who had been sent to
Cuzco for a portion of the ransom got back to Caxamarca with a great
treasure. From the famous Temple of the Sun alone the Indians had given
them seven hundred golden plates; and that was only a part of the
payment from Cuzco. The messengers brought back two hundred loads of
gold and twenty-five of silver, each load being carried on a sort of
hand-barrow by four Indians. This great contribution swelled the ransom
perceptibly, though the room was not yet nearly filled to the mark
agreed upon. Pizarro, however, was not a Shylock. The ransom was not
complete, but it was enough; and he had his notary draw up a document
formally freeing Atahualpa from any further payment,--in fact, giving
him a receipt in full. But he felt obliged to delay setting the
war-captain at liberty. The murder of Huascar and similar symptoms
showed that it would be suicidal to turn Atahualpa loose now. His
intentions, though masked, were fully suspected, and so Pizarro told him
that it would be necessary to keep him as a hostage a little longer.
Before it would be safe for him to release Atahualpa he knew that he
must have a larger force to withstand the attack which Atahualpa was
sure at once to organize. He was rather better acquainted with the
Indian vindictiveness than some of his closet critics are.
Meantime Almagro had at last got away from Panama with one hundred and
fifty foot and fifty horse, in three vessels; and landing in Peru, he
reached San Miguel in December, 1532. Here he heard with astonishment of
Pizarro's magical success, and of the golden booty, and at once
communicated with him. At the same time his secretary secretly
forwarded a treacherous letter to Pizarro, trying to arouse enmity and
betray Almagro. The secretary had gone to the wrong man, however, for
Pizarro spurned the contemptible offer. Indeed, his treatment of his
unadmirable associate from first to last was more than just; it was
forbearing, friendly, and magnanimous to a degree. He now sent Almagro
assurance of his friendship, and generously welcomed him to share the
golden field which had been won with very little help from him. Almagro
reached Caxamarca in February, 1533, and was cordially received by his
old companion-in-arms.
The vast ransom--a treasure to which there is no parallel in
history--was now divided. This division in itself was a labor involving
no small prudence and skill. The ransom was not in coin or ingots, but
in plates, vessels, images, and trinkets varying greatly in weight and
in purity. It had to be reduced to something like a common standard.
Some of the most remarkable specimens were saved to send to Spain; the
rest was melted down to ingots by the Indian smiths, who were busy a
month with the task. The result was almost fabulous. There were
1,326,539 _pesos de oro_, commercially worth, in those days, some five
times their weight,--that is, about $6,632,695. Besides this vast sum of
gold there were 51,610 marks of silver, equivalent by the same standard
to $1,135,420 now.
The Spaniards were assembled in the public square of Caxamarca. Pizarro
prayed that God would help him to divide the treasure justly, and the
apportionment began. First, a fifth of the whole great golden heap was
weighed out for the king of Spain, as Pizarro had promised in the
_capitulacion_. Then the conquerors took their shares in the order of
their rank. Pizarro received 57,222 _pesos de oro_, and 2,350 marks of
silver, besides the golden chair of Atahualpa, which weighed $25,000.
Hernando his brother got 31,080 _pesos de oro_, and 2,350 marks of
silver. De Soto had 17,749 _pesos de oro_, and 724 marks of silver.
There were sixty cavalrymen, and most of them received 8,880 _pesos de
oro_, and 362 marks of silver. Of the one hundred and five infantry,
part got half as much as the cavalry each, and part one fourth less.
Nearly $100,000 worth of gold was set aside to endow the first church in
Peru,--that of St. Francis. Shares were also given Almagro and his
followers, and the men who had stayed behind at San Miguel. That Pizarro
succeeded in making an equitable division is best evidenced by the
absence of any complaints,--and his associates were not in the habit of
keeping quiet under even a fancied injustice. Even his defamers have
never been able to impute dishonesty to the gallant conqueror of Peru.
To put in more graphic shape the results of this dazzling windfall, we
may tabulate the list, giving each share in its value in dollars
to-day:--
To the Spanish Crown $1,553,623
" Francisco Pizarro 462,810
" Hernando Pizarro 207,100
" De Soto 104,628
" each cavalryman 52,364
" each infantryman 26,182
All this was besides the fortunes given Almagro and his men and the
church.
This is the nearest statement that can be made of the value of the
treasure. The study of the enormously complicated and varying currency
values of those days is in itself the work for a whole lifetime; but the
above figures are _practically_ correct. Prescott's estimate that the
_peso de oro_ was worth eleven dollars at that time is entirely
unfounded; it was close to five dollars. The mark of silver is much more
difficult to determine, and Prescott does not attempt it at all. The
mark was not a coin, but a weight; and its commercial value was about
twenty-two dollars at that time.
VII.
ATAHUALPA'S TREACHERY AND DEATH.
But in the midst of their happiness at this realization of their golden
dreams,--and we may half imagine how they felt, after a life of poverty
and great suffering, at now finding themselves rich men,--the Spaniards
were rudely interrupted by less pleasant realities. The plots of the
Indians, always suspected, now seemed unmistakable. News of an uprising
came in from every hand. It was reported that two hundred thousand
warriors from Quito and thirty thousand of the cannibal Caribs were on
their way to fall upon the little Spanish force. Such rumors are always
exaggerated; but this was probably founded on fact. Nothing else was to
be expected by any one even half so familiar with the Indian character
as the Spaniards were. At all events, our judgment of what followed must
be guided not merely by what _was_ true, but even more by what the
Spaniards _believed_ to be true. They had reason to believe, and there
can be no question whatever that they did believe, that Atahualpa's
machinations were bringing a vastly superior force down upon them, and
that they were in imminent peril of their lives. Their newly acquired
wealth only made them the more nervous. It is a curious but common
phase of human nature that we do not realize half so much the many
hidden dangers to our lives until we have acquired something which makes
life seem better worth the living. One may often see how a fearless man
suddenly becomes cautious, and even laughably fearful, when he gets a
dear wife or child to think of and protect; and I doubt if any stirring
boy has come to twenty years without suddenly being reminded, by the
possession of some little treasure, how many things _might_ happen to
rob him of the chance to enjoy it. He sees and feels dangers that he had
never thought of before.
The Spaniards certainly had cause enough to be alarmed for their lives,
without any other consideration; but the sudden treasure which gave
those lives such promise of new and hard-earned brightness undoubtedly
made their apprehensions more acute, and spurred them to more desperate
efforts to escape.
There is not the remotest evidence of any sort that Pizarro ever
meditated any treachery to Atahualpa; and there is very strong
circumstantial evidence to the contrary. But now his followers began to
demand what seemed necessary for their protection. Atahualpa, they
believed, had betrayed them. He had caused the murder of his brother
Huascar, who was disposed to make friends with them, for the sake of
being put by this alliance above the power of his merciless rival. He
had baited them with a golden ransom, and by delaying it had gained
time to have his forces organized to crush the Spaniards,--and now they
demanded that he must not only be punished, but be put past further
plotting. Their logic was unanswerable by any one in the same
circumstances; nor can I now bring myself to quarrel with it. Not only
did they _believe_ their accusation just,--it probably _was_ just; at
all events, they acted justly by the light they had. So serious was the
alarm that the guards were doubled, the horses were kept constantly
under saddle and bridle, and the men slept on their arms; while Pizarro
in person went the rounds every night to see that everything was ready
to meet the attack, which was expected to take place at any moment.
Yet in this crisis the Spanish leader showed a manly unwillingness even
to _seem_ treacherous. He was a man of his word, as well as a humane
man; and it was hard for him to break his promise to set Atahualpa free,
even when he was fully absolved by Atahualpa's own utter violation of
the spirit of the contract. But it was impossible to withstand the
demands of his followers; he was responsible for their lives as well as
his own, and when it came to a question between them and Atahualpa there
could be but one decision. Pizarro opposed, but the army insisted, and
at last he had to yield. Yet even then, when the enemy might come at any
moment, he insisted upon a full and formal trial for his prisoner, and
saw that it was given. The court found Atahualpa proven guilty of
causing his brother's murder, and of conspiring against the Spaniards,
and condemned him to be executed that very night. If there were any
delay, the Indian army might arrive in time to rescue their war-captain,
and that would greatly increase the odds against the Spaniards. That
night, therefore, in the plaza of Caxamarca, Atahualpa was executed by
the garrote; and the next day he was buried from the Church of St.
Francis with the highest honors.
Again the Peruvians were taken by surprise, this time by the death of
Atahualpa. Without the direction of their war-captain and the hope of
rescuing him, they found themselves hesitating at a direct attack upon
the Spaniards. They stayed at a safe distance, burning villages and
hiding gold and other articles which might "give comfort to the enemy;"
and upon the whole, though the immediate danger had been averted by the
execution of the war-captain, the outlook was still extremely ominous.
Pizarro, who did not understand the Peruvian titles better than some of
our own historians have done, and in hope of bringing about a more
peaceful feeling, appointed Toparca, another son of Huayna Capac, to be
war-captain; but this appointment did not have the desired effect.
It was now decided to undertake the long and arduous march to Cuzco, the
home and chief town of the Inca tribe, of which they had heard such
golden stories. Early in September, 1533, Pizarro and his army--now
swelled by Almagro's force to some four hundred men--set out from
Caxamarca. It was a journey of great difficulty and danger. The narrow,
steep trails led along dizzy cliffs, across bridges almost as difficult
to walk as a hammock would be, and up rocky heights where there were
only foot-holes for the agile llama. At Xauxa a great number of Indians
were drawn up to oppose them, intrenched on the farther side of a
freshet-swollen stream. But the Spaniards dashed through the torrent,
and fell upon the savages so vigorously that they presently gave way.
In this pretty valley Pizarro had a notion to found a colony; and here
he made a brief halt, sending De Soto ahead with a scouting-party of
sixty men. De Soto began to find ominous signs at once. Villages had
been burned and bridges destroyed, so that the crossing of those awful
_quebradas_ was most difficult. Wherever possible, too, the road had
been blocked with logs and rocks, so that the passage of the cavalry was
greatly impeded. Near Bilcas he had a sharp brush with the Indians; and
though the Spaniards were victorious, they lost several men. De Soto,
however, resolutely pushed on. Just as the wearied little troop was
toiling up the steep and winding defile of the Vilcaconga, the wild
whoop of the Indians rang out, and a host of warriors sprang from their
hiding-places behind rock and tree, and fell with fury upon the
Spaniards. The trail was steep and narrow, the horses could barely keep
their footing; and under the crash of this dusky avalanche rider and
horse went rolling down the steep. The Indians fairly swarmed upon the
Spaniards like bees, trying to drag the soldiers from their saddles,
even clinging desperately to the horses' legs, and dealing blows with
agile strength. Farther up the rocky pathway was a level space; and De
Soto saw that unless he could gain this, all was lost. By a supreme
effort of muscle and will, he brought his little band to the top against
such heavy odds; and after a brief rest, he made a charge upon the
Indians, but could not break that grim, dark mass. Night came on, and
the worn and bleeding Spaniards--for few men or horses had escaped
without wounds from that desperate mêlée, and several of both had been
killed--rested as best they might with weapons in their hands. The
Indians were fully confident of finishing them on the morrow, and the
Spaniards themselves had little room for hope to the contrary. But far
in the night they suddenly heard Spanish bugles in the pass below, and a
little later were embracing their unexpected countrymen, and thanking
God for their deliverance. Pizarro, learning of the earlier dangers of
their march, had hurriedly despatched Almagro with a considerable force
of cavalry to help De Soto; and the reinforcement by forced marches
arrived just in the nick of time. The Peruvians, seeing in the morning
that the enemy was reinforced, pressed the fight no further, and
retreated into the mountains. The Spaniards, moving on to a securer
place, camped to await Pizarro.
He soon came up, having left the treasure at Xauxa, with forty men to
guard it. But he was greatly troubled by the aspect of affairs. These
organized and audacious attacks by the enemy, and the sudden death of
Toparca under suspicious circumstances, led him to believe that
Chalicuchima, the second war-captain, was acting treacherously,--as he
very probably was. After rejoining Almagro, Pizarro had Chalicuchima
tried; and being found guilty of treason, he was promptly executed. We
cannot help being horrified at the manner of the execution, which was by
fire; but we must not be too hasty in calling the responsible individual
a cruel man for all that. All such things must be measured by
comparison, and by the general spirit of the age. The world did not then
deem the stake a cruelty; and more than a hundred years later, when the
world was much more enlightened, Christians in England and France and
New England saw no harm in that sort of an execution for certain
offences,--and surely we shall not say that our Puritan forefathers were
wicked and cruel men. They hanged witches and whipped infidels, not from
cruelty, but from the blind superstition of their time. It seems a
hideous thing now, but it was not thought so then; and we must not
expect that Pizarro should be wiser and better than the men who had so
many advantages that he had not. I certainly wish that he had not
allowed Chalicuchima to be burned; but I also wish that the shocking
pages of Salem and slavery could be blotted from our own story. In
neither case, however, would I brand Pizarro as a monster, nor the
Puritans as a cruel people.
At this juncture, the Inca Indian Manco came in gorgeous fashion to
Pizarro and proposed an alliance. He claimed to be the rightful
war-chief, and desired that the Spaniards recognize him as such. His
proposition was gladly accepted.
Moving onward, the Spaniards were again ambushed in a defile, but beat
off their assailants; and at last entered Cuzco November 15, 1533. It
was the largest Indian "city" in the western hemisphere, though not
greatly larger than the pueblo of Mexico; and its superior buildings and
furnishings filled the Spaniards with wonder. A great deal of gold was
found in caves and other hiding-places. In one spot were several large
gold vases, gold and silver images of llamas and human beings, and
cloths adorned with gold and silver beads. Among other treasures Pedro
Pizarro, an eye-witness and chronicler, mentions ten rude "planks" of
silver twenty feet long, a foot wide, and two inches thick. The total
treasure secured footed up 580,200 _pesos de oro_ and 215,000 marks of
silver, or an equivalent of about $7,600,000.
Pizarro now formally crowned Manco as "ruler" of Peru, and the natives
seemed very well pleased. Good Father Valverde was made bishop of Cuzco;
a cathedral was founded; and the devoted Spanish missionaries began
actively the work of educating and converting the heathen,--a work which
they continued with their usual effectiveness.
Quizquiz, one of Atahualpa's subordinate war-captains and a leader of no
small prowess, still kept the field. Almagro with a few cavalry, and
Manco with his native followers, were sent out and routed the hostiles;
but Quizquiz held out until put to death by his own men.
In March, 1534, Pedro de Alvarado, Cortez's gallant lieutenant, who had
been rewarded for his services in Mexico by being made governor of
Guatemala, landed and marched on Quito, only to discover that it was in
Pizarro's territory. A compromise was made between him and Pizarro;
Alvarado received a compensation for his fruitless expedition, and went
back to Guatemala.
Pizarro was now very busy in developing the new country he had
conquered, and in laying the cornerstone of a nation. January 6, 1535,
he founded the Ciudad de los Reyes, the City of the Kings, in the lovely
valley of Rimac. The name was soon changed to Lima; and Lima, the
capital of Peru, remains to this day. The remarkable conqueror was now
showing another side of his character,--his genius as an organizer and
administrator of affairs. He addressed himself to the task of upbuilding
Lima with energy, and his direction of all the affairs of his young
government showed great foresight and wisdom.
Meantime Hernando, his brother, had been sent to Spain with the treasure
for the Crown, arriving there in January, 1534. Besides the "royal
fifth" he carried half a million _pesos de oro_ belonging to those
adventurers who had decided to enjoy their money at home. Hernando made
a great impression in Spain. The Crown fully confirmed all former
grants to Pizarro, and extended his territory seventy leagues to the
south; while Almagro was empowered to conquer Chile (then called New
Toledo), beginning at the south end of Pizarro's domain and running
south two hundred leagues. Hernando was knighted, and given command of
an expedition,--one of the largest and best equipped that had sailed
from Spain. He and his followers had a terrible time in getting back to
Peru, and many perished on the way.
VIII.
FOUNDING A NATION.--THE SIEGE OF CUZCO.
But before Hernando reached Peru, one of his company carried thither to
Almagro the news of his promotion; and this prosperity at once turned
the head of the coarse and unprincipled soldier. Forgetful of all
Pizarro's favors, and that Pizarro had made him all he was, the false
friend at once set himself up as master of Cuzco.
It was shameful ingratitude and rascality, and very nearly precipitated
the Spaniards into a civil war. But the forbearance of Pizarro bridged
the difficulty at last; and on the 12th of June, 1535, the two captains
renewed their friendly agreement. Almagro soon marched off to try--and
to fail in--the conquest of Chile; and Pizarro turned his attention
again to developing his conquered province.
In the few years of his administrative career Pizarro achieved
remarkable results. He founded several new towns on the coast, naming
one Truxillo in memory of his birthplace. Above all, he delighted in
upbuilding and beautifying his favorite city of Lima, and promoting
commerce and other necessary factors in the development of the new
nation. How wise were his provisions is attested by a striking contrast.
When the Spaniards first came to Caxamarca a pair of spurs was worth
$250 in gold! A few years before Pizarro's death the first cow brought
to Peru was sold for $10,000; two years later the best cow in Peru could
be bought for less than $200. The first barrel of wine sold for $1600;
but three years later native wine had taken the place of imported, and
was to be had in Lima at a cheap price. So it was with almost
everything. A sword had been worth $250; a cloak, $500; a pair of shoes,
$200; a horse, $10,000; but under Pizarro's surprising business ability
it took but two or three years to place the staples of life within the
reach of every one. He encouraged not only commerce but home industry,
and developed agriculture, mining, and the mechanical arts. Indeed, he
was carrying out with great success that general Spanish principle that
the chief wealth of a country is not its gold or its timber or its
lands, but its _people_. It was everywhere the attempt of the Spanish
Pioneers to uplift and Christianize and civilize the savage inhabitants,
so as to make them worthy citizens of the new nation, instead of wiping
them off the face of the earth to make room for the new-comers, as has
been the general fashion of some European conquests. Now and then there
were mistakes and crimes by individuals; but the great principle of
wisdom and humanity marks the whole broad course of Spain,--a course
which challenges the admiration of every manly man.
While Pizarro was busy with his work, Manco showed his true colors. It
is not at all improbable that he had meditated treachery throughout, and
had made alliance with the Spaniards simply to get them in his power. At
all events he now suddenly slipped away, without provocation, to raise
forces to attack the Spaniards, thinking to overcome them while they
were scattered at work in their various colonies. The loyal Indians
warned Juan Pizarro, who captured and imprisoned Manco. Just then
Hernando Pizarro arrived from Spain, and Francisco gave him command at
Cuzco. The wily Manco fooled Hernando into setting him free, and at once
began to rally his forces. Juan was sent out with sixty mounted men, and
finally met Manco's thousands at Yucay. In a terrible struggle of two
days the Spaniards held their ground, though with heavy loss, and then
were startled by a messenger with the news that Cuzco itself was
besieged by the savages. By a forced march they got back to the city by
nightfall, and found it surrounded by a vast host. The Indians suffered
them to enter,--evidently desiring to have all their mice in one
trap,--and then closed in upon the doomed city.
Hernando and Juan were now shut up in Cuzco. They had less than two
hundred men, while outside, the slopes far and near were dotted with the
camp-fires of the enemy,--so innumerable as to seem "like a sky full of
stars." Early in the morning (in February, 1536), the Indians attacked.
They hurled into the town fire-balls and burning arrows, and soon had
set fire to the thatched roofs. The Spaniards could not extinguish the
fire, which raged for several days. The only thing that saved them from
being smothered or roasted to death was the public square, in which they
huddled. They made several sallies, but the Indians had driven stakes
and prepared other obstacles in which the horses became entangled.
The Spaniards, however, cleared the road under a fierce fire and made a
gallant charge, which was as gallantly resisted. The Indians were expert
not only with the bow but with the _reata_ as well, and many Spaniards
were lassoed and slain. The charge drove the savages back somewhat, but
at heavy cost to the Spaniards, who had to return to town. They had no
chance for rest; the Indians kept up their harrying assaults, and the
outlook was very black. Francisco Pizarro was besieged in Lima; Xauxa
was also blockaded; and the Spaniards in the smaller colonies had been
overpowered and slain. Their ghastly heads were hurled into Cuzco, and
rolled at the feet of their despairing countrymen. The case seemed so
hopeless that many were for trying to cut through the Indians and escape
to the coast; but Hernando and Juan would not hear of it.
Upon the hill overlooking Cuzco was--and is to this day--the remarkable
Inca fortress of the Sacsahuaman. It is a cyclopean work. On the side
toward the city, the almost impregnable bluff was made fully impregnable
by a huge wall twelve hundred feet long and of great thickness. On the
other side of the hill the gentler slope was guarded by two walls, one
above the other, and each twelve hundred feet long. The stones in these
walls were fitted together with surprising skill; and some single stones
were thirty-eight feet long, eighteen feet wide, and six feet thick!
And, most wonderful of all, they had been quarried at least twelve miles
away, and then transported by the Indians to their present site! The top
of the hill was further defended by great stone towers.
This remarkable aboriginal fortress was in the hands of the Indians, and
enabled them to harass the beleaguered Spaniards much more effectively.
It was plain that they must be dislodged. As a preliminary to this
forlorn hope, the Spaniards sallied out in three detachments, commanded
by Gonzalo Pizarro, Gabriel de Rojas, and Hernando Ponce de Leon, to
beat off the Indians. The fighting was thoroughly desperate. The Indians
tried to crush their enemies to the earth by the mad rush of numbers;
but at last the Spaniards forced the stubborn foe to give ground, and
fell back to the city.
For the task of storming the Sacsahuaman Juan Pizarro was chosen, and
the forlorn hope could not have been intrusted to a braver cavalier.
Marching out of Cuzco about sunset with his little force, Juan went off
as if to forage; but as soon as it was dark he turned, made a detour,
and hurried to the Sacsahuaman. The great Indian fort was dark and
still. Its gateway had been closed with great stones, built up like the
solid masonry; and these the Spaniards had much difficulty in removing
without noise. When at last they passed through and were between the two
giant walls, a host of Indians fell upon them. Juan left half his force
to engage the savages, and with the other half opened the gateway in the
second wall which had been similarly closed. When the Spaniards
succeeded in capturing the second wall, the Indians retreated to their
towers; and these last and deadliest strongholds were to be stormed. The
Spaniards assaulted them with that characteristic valor which faltered
at no odds of Nature or of man, but at the first onset met an
irreparable loss. Brave Juan Pizarro had been wounded in the jaw, and
his helmet so chafed the wound that he snatched it off and led the
assault bareheaded. In the storm of Indian missiles a rock smote him
upon his unprotected skull and felled him to the ground. Yet even as he
lay there in his agony and weltering in his blood, he shouted
encouragement to his men, and cheered them on,--Spanish pluck to the
last. He was tenderly removed to Cuzco and given every care; but the
broken head was past mending, and after a few days of agony the
flickering life went out forever.
The Indians still held their stronghold; and leaving his brother Gonzalo
in charge of beleaguered Cuzco, Hernando Pizarro sallied out with a new
force to attack the towers of the Sacsahuaman. It was a desperate
assault, but a successful one at last. One tower was soon captured; but
in the other and stronger one the issue was long doubtful. Conspicuous
among its defenders was a huge and fearless Indian, who toppled over the
ladders and struck down the Spaniards as fast as they could scale the
tower. His valor filled the soldiers with admiration. Heroes themselves,
they could see and respect heroism even in an enemy. Hernando gave
strict orders that this brave Indian should not be hurt. He must be
overpowered, but not struck down. Several ladders were planted on
different sides of the tower, and the Spaniards made a simultaneous
rush, Hernando shouting to the Indian that he should be preserved if he
would yield. But the swarthy Hercules, seeing that the day was lost,
drew his mantle over his head and face, and sprang off the lofty tower,
to be dashed to pieces at its base.
The Sacsahuaman was captured, though at heavy cost, and thereby the
offensive power of the savages was materially lessened. Hernando left a
small garrison to hold the fortress and returned to the invested city,
there with his companions to bear the cruel fortunes of the siege. For
five months the siege of Cuzco lasted; and they were five months of
great suffering and danger. Manco and his host hung upon the starving
city, fell with deadly fury upon the parties that were driven by hunger
to sally out for food, and harassed the survivors incessantly. All the
outlying Spanish colonists had been massacred, and matters grew daily
darker.
Francisco Pizarro, beleaguered in Lima, had beaten off the Indians,
thanks to the favorable nature of the country; but they hovered always
about. He was full of anxiety for his men at Cuzco, and sent out four
successive expeditions, aggregating four hundred men, to their relief.
But the rescue-parties were successively ambushed in the mountain
passes, and nearly all were slain. It is said that seven hundred
Spaniards perished in that unequal war. Some of the men begged to be
allowed to cut through to the coast, take ship, and escape this deadly
land; but Pizarro would not hear to such abandonment of their brave
countrymen at Cuzco, and was resolved to stand by them and save them, or
share their fate. To remove the temptation to selfish escape, he sent
off the ships, with letters to the governors of Panama, Guatemala,
Mexico, and Nicaragua detailing his desperate situation and asking aid.
At last, in August, Manco raised the siege of Cuzco. His great force was
eating up the country; and unless he set the inhabitants to their
planting, famine would presently be upon him. So, sending most of the
Indians to their farms, he left a large force to watch and harass the
Spaniards, and himself with a strong garrison retired to one of his
forts. The Spaniards now had better success in their forays for food,
and could better stave off starvation; but the watchful Indians were
constantly attacking them, cutting off men and small parties, and giving
them no respite. Their harassment was so sleepless and so disastrous
that to check it Hernando conceived the audacious plan of capturing
Manco in his stronghold. Setting out with eighty of his best horsemen
and a few infantry, he made a long, circuitous march with great caution,
and without giving the alarm. Attacking the fortress at daybreak, he
thought to take it unawares; but behind those grim walls the Indians
were watching for him, and suddenly rising they showered down a perfect
hail of missiles upon the Spaniards. Three times with the courage of
despair the handful of soldiers pressed on to the assault, but three
times the outnumbering savages drove them back. Then the Indians opened
their sluice-gates above and flooded the field; and the Spaniards,
reduced and bleeding, had to beat a retreat, hard pressed by the
exultant foe. In this dark hour, Pizarro was suddenly betrayed by the
man who, above all, should have been loyal to him,--the coarse traitor
Almagro.
IX.
THE WORK OF TRAITORS.
Almagro had penetrated Chile, suffering great hardships in crossing the
mountains. Again he showed the white feather; and, discouraged by the
very beginning, he turned and marched back to Peru. He seems to have
concluded that it would be easier to rob his companion and benefactor
than to make a conquest of his own,--especially since he learned how
Pizarro was now beset. Pizarro, learning of his approach, went out to
meet him. Manco fell upon the Spaniards on the way, but was repulsed
after a hot fight.
Despite Pizarro's manly arguments, Almagro would not give up his plans.
He insisted that he should be given Cuzco, the chief city, pretending
that it was south of Pizarro's territory. It was really within the
limits granted Pizarro by the Crown, but that would have made no
difference with him. At last a truce was made until a commission could
measure and determine where Pizarro's southern boundary lay. Meantime
Almagro was bound by a solemn oath to keep his hands off. But he was not
a man to regard his oath or his honor; and on the dark and stormy night
of April 8, 1537, he seized Cuzco, killed the guards, and made Hernando
and Gonzalo Pizarro prisoners. Just then Alonso de Alvarado was coming
with a force to the relief of Cuzco; but being betrayed by one of his
own officers, he was captured with all his men by Almagro.
At this critical juncture, Pizarro was strengthened by the arrival of
his old supporter, the licentiate Espinosa, with two hundred and fifty
men, and a shipload of arms and provisions from his great cousin Cortez.
He started for Cuzco, but at the overpowering news of Almagro's wanton
treachery, retreated to Lima and fortified his little capital. He was
clearly anxious to avert bloodshed; and instead of marching with an army
to punish the traitor, he sent an embassy, including Espinosa, to try to
bring Almagro to decency and reason. But the vulgar soldier was
impervious to such arguments. He not only refused to give up stolen
Cuzco, but coolly announced his determination to seize Lima also.
Espinosa suddenly and conveniently died in Almagro's camp, and Hernando
and Gonzalo Pizarro would have been put to death but for the efforts of
Diego de Alvarado (a brother of the hero of the _Noche Triste_), who
saved Almagro from adding this cruelty to his shame. Almagro marched
down to the coast to found a port, leaving Gonzalo under a strong guard
in Cuzco, and taking Hernando with him as a prisoner. While he was
building his town, which he named after himself, Gonzalo Pizarro and
Alonso de Alvarado made their escape from Cuzco and reached Lima in
safety.
Francisco Pizarro still tried to keep from blows with the man who,
though now a traitor, had been once his comrade. At last an interview
was arranged, and the two leaders met at Mala. Almagro greeted
hypocritically the man he had betrayed; but Pizarro was of different
fibre. He did not wish to be enemies with former friends; but as little
could he be friend again to such a person. He met Almagro's lying
welcome with dignified coolness. It was agreed that the whole dispute
should be left to the arbitration of Fray Francisco de Bobadilla, and
that both parties should abide by his decision. The arbitrator finally
decided that a vessel should be sent to Santiago to measure southward
from there, and determine Pizarro's exact southern boundary. Meantime
Almagro was to give up Cuzco and release Hernando Pizarro. To this
perfectly just arrangement the usurper refused to agree, and again
violated every principle of honor. Hernando Pizarro was in imminent
danger of being murdered; and Francisco, bound to save his brother at
any cost, bought him free by giving up Cuzco.
At last, worn past endurance by the continued treachery of Almagro,
Pizarro sent him warning that the truce was at an end, and marched on
Cuzco. Almagro made every effort to defend his stolen prize, but was
outgeneralled at every step. He was shattered by a shameful sickness,
the penalty of his base life, and had to intrust the campaign to his
lieutenant Orgoñez. On the 26th of April, 1538, the loyal Spaniards,
under Hernando and Gonzalo Pizarro, Alonso de Alvarado, and Pedro de
Valdivia, met Almagro's forces at Las Salinas. Hernando had Mass said,
aroused his men by recounting the conduct of Almagro, and led the charge
upon the rebels. A terrible struggle ensued; but at last Orgoñez was
slain, and then his followers were soon routed. The victors captured
Cuzco and made the arch-traitor prisoner. He was tried and convicted of
treason,--for in being traitor to Pizarro, he had also been a traitor to
Spain,--and was sentenced to death. The man who could be so physically
brave in some circumstances was a coward at the last. He begged like a
craven to be spared; but his doom was just, and Hernando Pizarro refused
to reverse the sentence. Francisco Pizarro had started for Cuzco; but
before he arrived Almagro was executed, and one of the basest
treacheries in history was avenged. Pizarro was shocked at the news of
the execution; but he could not feel otherwise than that justice had
been done. Like the man he was, he had Diego de Almagro, the traitor's
illegitimate son, taken to his own house, and cared for as his own
child.
Hernando Pizarro now returned to Spain. There he was accused of
cruelties; and the Spanish government, prompter than any other in
punishing offences of the sort, threw him into prison. For twenty years
the gray-haired prisoner lived behind the bars of Medina del Campo; and
when he came out his days of work were over, though he lived to be a
hundred years old.
The state of affairs in Peru, though improved by the death of Almagro
and the crushing of his wicked rebellion, was still far from secure.
Manco was developing what has since come to be regarded as the
characteristic Indian tactics. He had learned that the original fashion
of rushing upon a foe in mass, fairly to smother him under a crush of
bodies, would not work against discipline. So he took to the tactics of
harassment and ambuscade,--the policy of killing from behind, which our
Apaches learned in the same way. He was always hanging about the
Spaniards, like a wolf about the flock, waiting to pounce upon them
whenever they were off their guard, or when a few were separated from
the main body. It is the most telling mode of warfare, and the hardest
to combat. Many of the Spaniards fell victims; in a single swoop he cut
off and massacred thirty of them. It was useless to pursue him,--the
mountains gave him an impregnable retreat. As the only deliverance from
this harassment, Pizarro adopted a new policy. In the most dangerous
districts he founded military posts; and around these secure places
towns grew rapidly, and the people were able to hold their own.
Emigrants were coming to the country, and Peru was developing a
civilized nation out of them and the uplifted natives. Pizarro imported
all sorts of European seeds, and farming became a new and civilized
industry.
Besides this development of the new little nation, Pizarro was spreading
the limits of exploration and conquest. He sent out brave Pedro de
Valdivia,--that remarkable man who conquered Chile, and made there a
history which would be found full of thrilling interest, were there room
to recount it here. He sent out, too, his brother Gonzalo as governor of
Quito, in 1540. That expedition was one of the most astounding and
characteristic feats of Spanish exploration in the Americas; and I wish
space permitted the full story of it to enter here. For nearly two years
the knightly leader and his little band suffered superhuman hardships.
They froze to death in the snows of the Andes, and died of heat in the
desert plains, and fell in the forest swamps of the upper Amazon. An
earthquake swallowed an Indian town of hundreds of houses before their
eyes. Their way through the tropic forests had to be hewn step by step.
They built a little brigantine with incredible toil,--Gonzalo working as
hard as any,--and descended the Napo to the Amazon. Francisco de
Orellana and fifty men could not rejoin their companions, and floated
down the Amazon to the sea, whence the survivors got to Spain. Gonzalo
at last had to struggle back to Quito,--a journey of almost matchless
horror. Of the three hundred gallant men who had marched forth so
blithely in 1540 (not including Orellana's fifty), there were but eighty
tattered skeletons who staggered into Quito in June, 1542. This may give
some faint idea of what they had been through.
Meanwhile an irreparable calamity had befallen the young nation, and
robbed it at one dastardly blow of one of its most heroic figures. The
baser followers who had shared the treachery of Almagro had been
pardoned, and well-treated; but their natures were unchanged, and they
continued to plot against the wise and generous man who had "made" them
all. Even Diego de Almagro, whom Pizarro had reared tenderly as a son,
joined the conspirators. The ringleader was one Juan de Herrada. On
Sunday, June 26, 1541, the band of assassins suddenly forced their way
into Pizarro's house. The unarmed guests fled for help; and the faithful
servants who resisted were butchered. Pizarro, his half-brother Martinez
de Alcántara, and a tried officer named Francisco de Chaves had to bear
the brunt alone. Taken all by surprise as they were, Pizarro and
Alcántara tried to hurry on their armor, while Chaves was ordered to
secure the door. But the mistaken soldier half opened it to parley with
the villains, and they ran him through, and kicked his corpse down the
stair-case. Alcántara sprang to the door and fought heroically,
undaunted by the wounds that grew thicker on him. Pizarro, hurling aside
the armor there was no time to don, flung a cloak over his left arm for
a shield, and with the right grasping the good sword that had flashed in
so many a desperate fray he sprang like a lion upon the wolfish gang. He
was an old man now; and years of such hardship and exposure as few men
living nowadays ever dreamed of had told on him. But the great heart was
not old, and he fought with superhuman valor and superhuman strength.
His swift sword struck down the two foremost, and for a moment the
traitors were staggered. But Alcántara had fallen; and taking turns to
wear out the old hero, the cowards pressed him hard. For several minutes
the unequal fight went on in that narrow passage, slippery with
blood,--one gray-haired man with flashing eyes against a score of
desperadoes. At last Herrada seized Narvaez, a comrade, in his arms, and
behind this living shield rushed against Pizarro. Pizarro ran Narvaez
through and through; but at the same instant one of the crowding
butchers stabbed him in the throat. The conqueror of Peru reeled and
fell; and the conspirators plunged their swords in his body. But even
then the iron will kept the body to the last thought of a great heart;
and calling upon his Redeemer, Pizarro drew a cross with bloody finger
upon the floor, bent and kissed the sacred symbol, and was dead.
So lived and so died the man who began life as the swineherd of
Truxillo, and who ended it the conqueror of Peru. He was the greatest of
the Pioneers; a man who from meaner beginnings rose higher than any; a
man much slandered and maligned by the prejudiced; but nevertheless a
man whom history will place in one of her highest niches,--a hero whom
every lover of heroism will one day delight to honor.
* * * * *
Such was the conquest of Peru. Of the romantic history which followed in
Peru I cannot tell here,--of the lamentable fall of brave Gonzalo
Pizarro; of the remarkable Pedro de la Gasca; of the great Mendoza's
vice-royal promotion; nor of a hundred other chapters of fascinating
history. I have wished only to give the reader some idea of what a
Spanish conquest really was, in superlative heroism and hardship.
Pizarro's was the greatest conquest; but there were many others which
were not inferior in heroism and suffering, but only in genius; and the
story of Peru was very much the story of two thirds of the Western
Hemisphere.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Spanish Pioneers, by Charles F. Lummis
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