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The Conquistador

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Francisco Pizarro (d. 1541)

Francisco Pizarro (d. 1541)

No one is quite sure when the great conquistador Francisco Pizarro was born. As he was a bastard, no one noted such niceties. He was raised to be a soldier—and he was a good one. But he was also illiterate, because no one took care that he learn to read and write, or to act the part of a gentleman. So he grew up a litle on the wild side, a man of great talents and a great destiny. With a handful of men, he destroyed an empire.

On this Columbus Day—a holiday which we are growing ever more abashed about celebrating without twinges of guilt—it is interesting to note the career of this man, who took on the mighty Inca empire, killed Atahuallpa, its leader, and sent vast treasures of gold and silver to his monarch across the Atlantic.

Pizarro founded cities, most especially Lima, enslaved the native Incas, acted at times with condign cruelty, and at other times with lightness and gentility. But, in the end, all was thrown into chaos by a partnership that failed. At the outset, he formed a compact with his fellow conquistador (and fellow bastard) Diego de Almagro. It was Pizarro, however, who seemed to get all the credit for the conquest from Charles V in Spain, who only belatedly recognized the one-eyed Almagro for his role in the conquest. In the meantime, envy had taken control; and Almagro wrested Cuzco from his partner. Francisco Pizarro’s brother Hernando defeated the rebel at Las Salinas, after which he had him tried, convicted, and executed by garroting.

The brief civil war did not have a clear victor, as, within three years, Francisco Pizarro, was assassinated by remnants of the Almagro faction in Lima. Finally, the Spanish had to step in to restore order.

In his magisterial History of the Conquest of Peru, William H. Prescott waxes lyrical about all the might-have-beens in the late conquistador’s life:

Nor can we fairly omit to notice, in extenuation of his errors, the circumstances of his early life; for, like Almagro, he was the son of sin and sorrow, early cast upon the world to seek his fortunes as he might. In his young and tender age he was to take the impression of those into whose society he was thrown. And when was it the lot of the needy outcast to fall into that of the wise and virtuous? His lot was cast among the licentious inmates of a camp, the school of rapine, whose only law was the sword, and who looked upon the wretched Indian as their rightful spoil.

Who does not shudder at the thought of what his own fate might have been, trained in such a school? The amount of crime does not necessarily show the criminality of the agent. History, indeed, is concerned with the former, that it may be recorded as a warning to mankind; but it is He alone who knoweth the heart, the strength of the temptation, and the means of resisting it, that can determine the measure of the guilt.

Contrast Pizarro with Cortés, who knew how to read and write and who was able to protect his own place in history with his writings after the conquest of the Aztecs. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that in neither Mexico or Peru are there any monuments to the conquistadores who secured those lands for Spain.

To Each According to His Needs

Llama

Llama

A similar arrangement prevailed with respect to the different manufactures as to the agricultural products of the country. The flocks of llamas, or Peruvian sheep, were appropriated exclusively to the Sun and to the Inca. Their number was immense. They were scattered over the different provinces, chiefly in the colder regions of the country, where they were intrusted to the care of experienced shepherds, who conducted them to different pastures according to the change of season. A large number was every year sent to the capital for the consumption of the Court, and for the religious festivals and sacrifices. But these were only the males, as no female was allowed to be killed. The regulations for the care and breeding of these flocks were prescribed with the greatest minuteness, and with a sagacity which excited the admiration of the Spaniards, who were familiar with the management of the great migratory flocks of merinos in their own country.

At the appointed season, they were all sheared, and the wool was deposited in the public magazines. It was then dealt out to each family in such quantities as sufficed for its wants, and was consigned to the female part of the household, who were well instructed in the business of spinning and weaving. When this labor was accomplished, and the family was provided with a coarse but warm covering, suited to the cold climate of the mountains,—for, in the lower country, cotton, furnished in like manner by the Crown, took the place, to a certain extent, of wool,— the people were required to labor for the Inca. The quantity of the cloth needed, as well as the peculiar kind and quality of the fabric, was first determined at Cuzco. The work was then apportioned among the different provinces. Officers, appointed for the purpose, superintended the distribution of the wool, so that the manufacture of the different articles should be intrusted to the most competent hands. They did not leave the matter here, but entered the dwellings, from time to time, and saw that the work was faithfully executed. This domestic inquisition was not confined to the labors for the Inca. It included, also, those for the several families; and care was taken that each household should employ the materials furnished for its own use in the manner that was intended, so that no one should be unprovided with necessary apparel. In this domestic labor all the female part of the establishment was expected to join. Occupation was found for all, from the child five years old to the aged matron not too infirm to hold a distaff. No one, at least none but the decrepit and the sick, was allowed to eat the bread of idleness in Peru. Idleness was a crime in the eye of the law, and, as such, severely punished; while industry was publicly commended and stimulated by rewards.—William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru

 

Food Fight

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William H. Prescott (1796-1859)

William H. Prescott (1796-1859)

It all started with a food fight in the Harvard University dining hall, or commons. A not particularly distinguished student from a famous family, William Hickling Prescott was hit in the left eye with a crust of bread. The impact destroyed the vision of his left eye for life and, in fact, knocked him out. The trouble began when he started suffering degeneration in his right eye. During his youth, there were whole months at a time when Prescott was blind and had to stay in a darkened room.

But things got better. By then, Prescott went to Europe and fell in love with the history of Spain. He wrote The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1837), followed by The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and The History of the Conquest of Peru (1847). During his most productive years, there were still times when he was unable to read or even see. Using the help of secretaries and a device called a noctograph, which enabled him to write clearly in total darkness, Prescott managed to write some of the greatest works of history published in the nineteenth century. In his Preface to The Conquest of Peru, he wrote:

While at the University, I received an injury in one of my eyes, which deprived me of the sight of it. The other, soon after, was attacked by inflammation so severely, that, for some time, I lost the sight of that also; and though it was subsequently restored, the organ was so much disordered as to remain permanently debilitated, while twice in my life, since, I have been deprived of the use of it for all purposes of reading and writing, for several years together. It was during one of these periods that I received from Madrid the materials for the “History of Ferdinand and Isabella,” and in my disabled condition, with my Transatlantic treasures lying around me, I was like one pining from hunger in the midst of abundance. In this state, I resolved to make the ear, if possible, do the work of the eye. I procured the services of a secretary, who read to me the various authorities; and in time I became so far familiar with the sounds of the different foreign languages (to some of which, indeed, I had been previously accustomed by a residence abroad), that I could comprehend his reading without much difficulty. As the reader proceeded, I dictated copious notes; and, when these had swelled to a considerable amount, they were read to me repeatedly, till I had mastered their contents sufficiently for the purposes of composition. The same notes furnished an easy means of reference to sustain the text.

Still another difficulty occurred, in the mechanical labor of writing, which I found a severe trial to the eye. This was remedied by means of a writing-case, such as is used by the blind, which enabled me to commit my thoughts to paper without the aid of sight, serving me equally well in the dark as in the light. The characters thus formed made a near approach to hieroglyphics; but my secretary became expert in the art of deciphering, and a fair copy—with a liberal allowance for unavoidable blunders—was transcribed for the ‘use of the printer. I have described the process with more minuteness, as some curiosity has been repeatedly expressed in reference to my modus operandi under my privations, and the knowledge of it may be of some assistance to others in similar circumstances.

Though I was encouraged by the sensible progress of my work, it was necessarily slow. But in time the tendency to inflammation diminished, and the strength of the eye was confirmed more and more. It was at length so far restored, that I could read for several hours of the day though my labors in this way necessarily terminated with the daylight. Nor could I ever dispense with the services of a secretary, or with the writing-case; for, contrary to the usual experience, I have found writing a severer trial to the eye than reading,—a remark, however, which does not apply to the reading of manuscript; and to enable myself therefore, to revise my composition more carefully, I caused a copy of the “History of Ferdinand and Isabella” to be printed for my own inspection, before it was sent to the press for publication. Such as I have described was the improved state of my health during the preparation of the “Conquest of Mexico”; and, satisfied with being raised so nearly to a level with the rest of my species, I scarcely envied the superior good fortune of those who could prolong their studies into the evening, and the later hours of the night.

But a change has again taken place during the last two years. The sight of my eye has become gradually dimmed, while the sensibility of the nerve has been so far increased, that for several weeks of the last year I have not opened a volume, and through the whole time I have not had the use of it, on an average, for more than an hour a day. Nor can I cheer myself with the delusive expectation, that, impaired as the organ has become, from having been tasked, probably, beyond its strength, it can ever renew its youth, or be of much service to me hereafter in my literary researches. Whether I shall have the heart to enter, as I had proposed, on a new and more extensive field of historical labor, with these impediments, I cannot say. Perhaps long habit, and a natural desire to follow up the career which I have so long pursued, may make this, in a manner, necessary, as my past experience has already proved that it is practicable.

It is with some frustration that I note that Prescott and his great contemporaries, Francis Parkman (The Oregon Trail, The French in North America) and John Lothrop Motley (The Rise of the Dutch Republic) are virtually ignored today—despite the fact that their literary histories are on a par with the best. That he was able to accomplish so much with his vision problems is a miracle. In fact, his histories in general are a miracle.

In preparation for an eventual visit to Peru, I am now reading The History of the Conquest of Peru and marvelling at its author’s insightfulness and sparkling literary style.