First "Repartimiento" in Peru.

426 boring Indians were distributed.* This repartimiento, the first made in that part of the world, was given conditionally, and with the consent of the chaplain Valverde and of the king's officers, who "judged that plan to be useful to religion and profitable to the natives, that the new inhabitants might be maintained,

and the Indians instructed in the faith, conformably to the orders of his majesty, until it should be decided

*"'A esta causa, con acuerdo de el Religioso, í de los Oficiales, que les pareció convenir así al servicio de Dios, í bien de los Naturales, el Governador depositó los Caciques, í Indios en los Vecinos de este Pueblo, porque los aiudasen á sostenir, í los Christianos los doctrinasen en Nuestra Santa Fé, conforme á los Mandamientos de su Magestad, entre tanto que provee lo que mas conviniere al servicio de Dios, í suio, í bien del Pueblo, í de los Naturales de la Tierra."-F. DE XEREZ, Conquista del Perú, p. 187.

Facilities for Pizarro's Enterprise.

427

what was most suitable for the service of God and of the king, and most advantageous to the natives."

Meanwhile vessels had arrived from Panamá with

supplies, among which may have been the cannon that are afterward mentioned. Pizarro melted the gold which he had obtained from Tumbez and from a curaca in the neighborhood of his new town. With this gold, after deducting the fifth part for the Emperor, Pizarro paid for the freight and supplies, and urged on the necessary buildings for the new town. No troops had arrived in these vessels; for Almagro, it was said, intended to come and colonize on his own account. Pizarro, hearing this, when he sent the vessels back, wrote to Almagro, begging him to change his project, and stating how much the service of God and of his majesty would suffer from the establishment of a new colony, as tending to frustrate the main design of the enterprise.

He was right in thus strongly expressing his objection, for two colonies under rival governors would not have been able to subsist in an unconquered country, and would speedily have insured each other's destruction.

It may here be observed how greatly the enterprise of Pizarro was facilitated by the establishment of the Spaniards at Panamá. Twice, at least, in the short time that had elapsed since Pizarro's departure from the Isthmus, had he received assistance from his friends and associates at Panamá. How differently situated was he from the earlier discoverers, and from the masters under whom he had served: from Columbus, left isolated in his great enterprises; from Vasco Nuñez, and from Cortez, who had much to dread upon the

428

Rumors of the State of Peru.

arrival of any Spanish vessels; and even from the minor personages, such as Ojeda, Enciso, and Nicuesa. One other difference, also, between the fortunes of these latter captains and that of Pizarro was, that he had not to contend against any tribes of Indians who made use of poisoned arrows. This alone was as good for him as if his armament had been quadrupled in number.

While Pizarro was at his new town, where he remained for several months, he learned something of the country which he was about to conquer. He heard that, on the road to places called Chincha and Cusco, there were populous towns, very large and very rich, and that a journey of twelve or fifteen days from San Miguel would bring him to a well-peopled valley, called Cassamarca, where Atahuallpa, the greatest monarch of those parts, was stationed. The account which Pizarro's secretary gives of this prince is probably the exact account of what was known to Pizarro at the

time the secretary was writing. "This prince," he says, "had come as a conqueror from a far-off land, his country, and, having arrived at the province of Cassamarca (Cassa,' hail, and 'marca,' a province), he had fixed himself there, because he found it very rich and very pleasant, and from thence he was about to extend his conquests." Pizarro must soon have learned a little more about Atahuallpa, as Fernando Pizarro, in an interesting letter which he afterward wrote to the Audiencia of St. Domingo, giving an account of the early proceedings in his brother's enterprise, states thus his brother's knowledge at that time of the affairs of the Peruvian kingdom: "He heard that there was there (at Cassamarca) Atahuallpa, son of old Cusco, and brother of him who at that time was lord of the country. Between the two brothers there

Ignorance of the Spaniards about Peru. 429

had been a very bloody war, and this Atahuallpa had gone on conquering the country as far as Cassamarca."*

The ignorance of the Spaniards as regards the kingdom they were about to conquer may be seen in their use of the word Cusco for the name of the reigning sovereign and that of his predecessor, which is much the same thing as if an invading army of barbarians, entering England, were to speak of the deceased and the reigning monarch as old and young London.

The ignorance, however, of the Spaniards about Peru was more than equaled by the ignorance of the Peruvians about the Spaniards. Indeed, the two great centres of American civilization were entirely dissociated. Nothing was known in Mexico of Peru; nothing in Peru of Mexico. The fall of the great city of Anahuac spread dismay far and wide in Central America, but not a rumor reached the golden chambers of the reigning Inca. Yet a small and narrow strip of territory was all that intervened to check communication between the two great empires. In the same parallel of latitude where dwelt some Nahuals,† an offset of the early Mexican race, were to be found those Indians who gave Vasco Nuñez that information which led the Spaniards to undertake the discovery of Peru.

Had "old Cusco" or "young Cusco" been aware of the proceedings of the Spaniards either in Darien or at Mexico, a very different reception would have awaited them in Peru; but the conquest of America was commenced at a period when nations had been formed in that continent, but when international relations had been hardly at all developed.

* See the Appendix to QUINTANA's Life of Pizarro.

+ On the Balsam Coast, and near the Gulf of Nicoya. See SQUIER'S Central America, chap. xvi.

CHAPTER III.

THE HISTORY, LAWS, RELIGION, AND CUSTOMS OF PERU PREVIOUS TO THE CONQUEST, AND THE STATE OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.

BEFORE, the ed, I must explain who

EFORE narrating the events which occurred in

"young Cusco" and "old Cusco" were, and who was this Atahuallpa, the great monarch whom Pizarro was now about to encounter. We need not enter minutely into the many and much-vexed questions relating to the origin and the duration of the dynasty of the Peruvian Incas. Whether they were of the race of Manco Capac, a great legislator who came from the Lake of Titicaca, and of his sister Mama Oello; or whether they were indigenous princes, who by slow degrees had founded a great monarchy; or whether they were the heads of some small and warlike tribe who came from a distance, are questions for the antiquary. If they were the descendants of legislators and reformers, their story will be best illustrated and explained by the extraordinary narrative of Cabeça de Vaca and his companions, who were taken for gods in Florida,* and who might easily have founded a great dynasty. If, on the other hand, they were the chiefs of some valiant and invading tribe, then what we know of the Araucans, fron the remarkable poem† of a Spanish soldier

* See the chapter on Religions, vol. ii., p. 119.

+ In the gathering of the Araucan chiefs to fight the Spanish governor Valdivia, whom they afterward conquered, some of them are described in the two following stanzas: