Conquistador Voices (vol II): The Spanish Conquest of the Americas as Recounted Largely by the Participants

By Kevin H Siepel

"Exceptionally well written...very highly recommended."-Midwest Book Review 

Conquistador Voices will give you a modern, documentary-style look at the Spanish conquest of the Americas, f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spruce Tree Press
• Release date: Nov 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9780978646677

Kevin H Siepel

Kevin H. Siepel writes on personal, historical, and environmental themes. His benchmark biography of Confederate cavalry officer John Mosby has been in print since 1983. He has been published frequently in the national, regional, and special-interest press. In April 2016 he was selected by Gente de Éxito magazine as its Person of the Month for his latest work, Conquistador Voices. In May 2016 the History News Network published an article by Mr. Siepel based on this title. Mr. Siepel speaks and teaches Spanish.

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CONQUISTADOR

VOICES

CONQUISTADOR

VOICES

The Spanish Conquest of the Americas

As Recounted Largely by the Participants

Volume II

Francisco Pizarro and his Brothers

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

Hernando de Soto

Kevin H. Siepel

Spruce Tree Press

Angola, New York

Spruce Tree Press             Website: www.spruce-tree-press.com

PO Box 211                   E-mail: [e-mail]

Angola, NY 14006

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin H. Siepel

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author, except for brief quotations.

Published 2015

ISBN      978-0-9786466-3-9 (paperback, Vol II)

ISBN      978-0-9786466-7-7 (EPUB, Vol II)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015908752

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication

        Siepel, Kevin H.

              Conquistador voices : the Spanish conquest of the

            Americas as recounted largely by the participants /

            Kevin H. Siepel.

              volumes cm

              Includes bibliographical references and index.

              LCCN 2015908752

              CONTENTS: Volume I. Christopher Columbus ; Hernán

            Cortés -- Volume II. Francisco Pizarro and his brothers ;

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca ; Hernando de Soto.

ISBN 978-0-9786466-2-2 (paperback : vol. I)

              ISBN 978-0-9786466-3-9 (paperback : vol. II)

              1. America--Discovery and exploration--Spanish. 

            2. Conquerors--America--History.  3. Conquerors--Spain--

            History.    I. Title.  II. Title: Spanish conquest of

            the Americas as recounted largely by the participants.

            F1411.S577 2015                    980'.013

                                                        QBI15-600125

Cover art courtesy of the artist, Jim Carson, www.JimCarsonStudio.com

Cover design by Karrie Ross, www.KarrieRoss.com. Maps by the author.

Dedicated with gratitude to my wife

María Carmen García Pascual

without whose influence

I wouldn’t have attempted this book

and without whose patience

I couldn’t have finished it

And to my brother Tim

a faithful and helpful reader of drafts

Also by Kevin H. Siepel

Rebel: The Life and Times of John Singleton Mosby

Joseph Bennett of Evans and the Growing of New York’s Niagara Frontier

ABOUT THE TRANSLATIONS

English translations of primary-source documents used in this volume are from the following:

Pizarro

All translations by the author except for a single selection: the petition of Francisco de Orellana to the Council of the Indies, June 7, 1543, a public-domain document, taken from H.C. Heaton, ed., Bertram T. Lee, trans., The Discovery of the Amazon According to the Account of Friar Gaspar de Carvajal and Other Documents, Spec. Pub. No. 17 (New York: American Geographical Society, 1934).

Cabeza de Vaca

All translations reprinted from The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, edited and translated by Rolena Adorno and Patrick Charles Pautz, by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 1999, 2003 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Soto

All translations by the author except for the Elvas and Garcilaso accounts, both in the public domain, and both taken from Lawrence A. Clayton, Vernon James Knight, Jr., Edward C. Moore, eds., The De Soto Chronicles, 2 vols. (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1995). The Elvas account was translated and edited by James Alexander Robertson, and the Garcilaso account translated by Charmion Shelby.

THE SETTING OF THESE EVENTS

When immersing oneself in the riveting events that occurred in the New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it is easy to lose sight of what was happening at this same time in Europe.

During the era of the discovery and invasion of the American continents and the subjugation of their peoples by Europeans—during the interval of, say, 1490 to 1550, which is roughly the scope of these two volumes—the following historic events occurred in Europe: Leonardo da Vinci completed both his Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, among many other works; Michelangelo produced his large body of masterworks, including the famed Pietà in St. Peter’s, David, The Last Judgment, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling; Machiavelli wrote The Prince; Martin Luther and Henry VIII both broke with the Church of Rome; Ignatius of Loyola founded the Society of Jesus; the Council of Trent, which would dictate Roman Catholic practice well into the twentieth century, was convened; and Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England, was tried for treason and executed.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

FRANCISCO PIZARRO AND HIS BROTHERS

CONQUEROR-IN-WAITING

THE EARLY VOYAGES SOUTH

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

THE THIRD VOYAGE

INTO THE ANDES

ATAHUALPA

ATAHUALPA CAPTIVE

CUZCO

THE INDIAN SIEGE OF CUZCO

UNRAVELING FABRIC

JUNGLE EXPEDITIONS AND THE RISE OF GONZALO PIZARRO

THE END OF THE PIZARROS

ÁLVAR NÚÑEZ CABEZA DE VACA

THE NEW WORLD BECKONS

A BAD BEGINNING

ESCAPE BY SEA

WRECKED

REBIRTH INTO SLAVERY

BREAKING AWAY

FINDING THEIR OWN

BACK TO THE WILDS

HERNANDO DE SOTO

PREPARATIONS

THE FLORIDA COAST

LONG DETOUR NORTH

MOVING WEST

PLAN ABANDONED

DEATH AND DESPERATION

FLIGHT

SALVATION

MAPS

FOR FURTHER READING

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

This book has been written for the general reader. It is intended to bring to life an important and fascinating historical period—the period known as the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. It is not an in-depth treatment of sixteenth-century Spain or its colonies, nor is it an exhaustive history of the so-called Conquest itself. Indeed many more pages would be required even to address adequately the tangled skein of events of Pizarran Peru.

What this two-volume work does is to sketch out the arc of the Conquest in terms of five narratives—narratives related to five high-profile men who participated in it, men who had set out across the sea from Europe at different times to make what they could of an opportunity. Its virtue is that they or their fellow participants are here allowed to speak extensively for themselves, with minimal help or commentary from a citizen of the twenty-first century. If it were a film about modern events it would be a documentary, a collection of film clips featuring the words and actions of protagonists and eyewitnesses, the clips being interconnected by the bare amount of narration necessary to create an engaging five-part series.

The selections appearing in these two volumes help us to see—to the extent possible—these invaders, explorers, and conquerors as they were, not necessarily as our school books might represent them to be. On the basis of their own words, then, how might we describe these men who ventured across the sea as initiators of, or participants in, this raw drama?

They were in the first place courageous and tough. They knew how to face death, and how to endure enormous suffering and pain. They were in fact quite remarkable in this respect. They were for the most part self-righteously religious, their arrogance in religious matters—as in most other matters—difficult for many of us to grasp. Most were profoundly rapacious, driven by a lust for gold that the Indians found impossible to comprehend. Gold was in fact the principal reason for their flooding into this dangerous New World. Many, though not all, could be surpassingly, horrifyingly cruel. If they knew how to endure suffering, they knew also how to inflict it, and—like many colonizers—did so without compunction and frequently in monstrous fashion. Most were deeply exploitative of the Indians, not least of Indian women, who were commonly treated as chattel. The leaders, finally, and a large number of their subordinates were quite intelligent, some outstandingly so.

Since the version of history that we inherit is normally the one written by the conqueror, the preponderance of what follows is from European sources. The lone exception to this is the Nahuatl account of Cortés’s conquest of Mexico (Volume I), interspersed among European descriptions of the same events. Even this account, however, may not be free of Spanish influence.

Christopher Columbus, who began it all and whose story opens Volume I, was perhaps the most complex of the five men presented here, and certainly the least suited for leadership. Nevertheless his enormous self-esteem, his single-minded belief in an idea, his certainty of having been chosen by God to advance that idea, and his rapidly blossoming skill as a navigator made him ideally suited to the task at hand. His unavoidable foreignness, however, his lack of interest in administrative affairs, his deteriorating health, and his growing penchant for self-pity were his Achilles heel, and his death went all but unnoticed in the rush to colonize and ravish the lands that he had discovered.

Hernán Cortés was the deepest and possibly the most intelligent of the five. He was also one of the luckiest. Breaking away from Cuba with an expedition to the mainland just in time to avoid being arrested by the governor, he soon blundered upon two people whose language skills unlocked the mysterious Mexican empire, enabling him to contemplate actually bringing it down. After brazenly opening communications directly with the emperor in Europe, leapfrogging his superiors, he rallied thousands of Indians and many reluctant Spaniards to his cause by a combination of diplomacy, thinly veiled threat, and stunning violence. He showed enormous resilience in the face of devastating loss and defeat. Yet, like Columbus, he gradually lost hold over the land that he had conquered, and he met an old man’s death in virtual oblivion.

Francisco Pizarro, whose story opens Volume II, was as uneducated and rude as his rudest follower. He was nonetheless as confident as Columbus, and as devious, ruthless, brazen, and lucky as Cortés. Abetted by his brothers, with a small Spanish force, and—at least at first—with no assistance from Indian allies, by valor and cunning alone, this illiterate man caused the fall of a kingdom, and was ultimately responsible for fueling Spain’s meteoric rise to prominence in Europe with the silver produced by Peruvian mines. His legacy, however, is marred by great barbarity—much of it Spaniard upon Spaniard—and he himself suffered a violent death at the hands of his own people.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, like the others a man of these violent times, provides a breath of fresh air to the modern reader. No stranger to the excesses of the Conquest, he nonetheless learned of necessity what it meant to be an Indian, to be The Other. In the process, he turned himself into a monument to the Spanish capacity for simple endurance. He later became a monument to the Spanish capacity for vengeance, as he fell afoul of the colonists in his assignment as governor of South America’s Plata River region. To us it may seem ironic that this man, who had perforce acquired such empathy with the poverty-stricken denizens of the Americas, ended his career accused of their maltreatment.

Hernando de Soto is perhaps the most tragic of the five men presented here, a consummate leader of vast ambition, with solid powers of administration—capable, like most of the others, of great brutality—yet a man destined for ultimate failure. Returning home weighted down with wealth following a successful few years in Peru, he sought further wealth and aggrandizement as governor of the wilds of Florida, which, in the Spanish mind, extended from the southeast coast of today’s United States into northern Mexico. In three years of starving and suffering, losing men regularly to powerful Indian resistance, he found nothing in Florida of the wealth he was seeking. His last months spent in seeming loss of purpose, he died ingloriously of fever on the banks of the turbulent Mississippi, his body unceremoniously dumped into its dark waters.

Because they portray riveting events, albeit somewhat outside the mainstream, the accounts of Gonzalo Pizarro’s journey into the jungles of South America in search of cinnamon, and of Francisco de Orellana’s odyssey across that mighty continent have also been included.

What you will find featured in these two volumes—to the extent consonant with good storytelling—is the voices of the participants. Some of these accounts were set down on paper during or immediately after the chronicler’s participation in the stirring events reported. Some were written many years later, perhaps dictated to a non-participant. The connecting narrative, with the assistance of many excellent resources, has been supplied by me. In a quest for a more modern-sounding translation of the primary-source material, I have translated a substantial portion of this material myself.

The narrative is in some places lengthy, in other places minimal. I have tried to provide only what has appeared essential for furnishing context, and for connecting what I feel to be the most revelatory sound bites of long ago. To add explanatory detail without disruption of narrative flow, footnotes have been supplied. Value judgments have been left to the reader.

You will, I hope, find this an engaging story.

FRANCISCO PIZARRO

AND HIS BROTHERS

The Seizure of Peru

1

CONQUEROR-IN-WAITING

F

rancisco Pizarro González made three voyages to the western regions of South America. Because no strong eyewitness accounts are available for his first two voyages, they will be described here without eyewitness narrative, and as briefly as possible. The story of his third voyage—leading to the destruction of the Peruvian kingdom, with its sidelights and tragic aftermath—will be told mainly by those who participated in that high drama.

In about 1511, less than a decade after Columbus’s final voyage, rumors began to circulate among those pressing into the jungles of Darién about a kingdom of great wealth somewhere to the south.¹ It was Vasco Nuñez de Balboa who had first been given this information by an Indian. In 1513, partly to investigate these rumors, Balboa undertook to cross Darién’s rugged spine, where, from an eminence, he gazed southward onto a vast blue ocean shimmering in the distance—the Pacific, called by him the Southern Sea. Yet because of the Spaniards’ need to pacify the rugged, steamy isthmian lands before undertaking further exploration, and their concomitant need to create infrastructure—including shipbuilding facilities—on this southern coast, it was not till a full decade later that a formal voyage of discovery could be sent southward.²

This 1522 probe, under Pascual de Andagoya, got no farther than the San Juan River, about 360 miles from the south coast of Panama,³ in today’s Colombia, where the rumors of a wealthy kingdom to the south, and of a tribe called Birú,⁴ were reinforced. There were other men in Panamá who had heard these rumors, men who wondered whether something big might be at hand, and who were interested in improving upon Andagoya’s effort. Among these was a hard-bitten adventurer from Trujillo, Extremadura, named Francisco Pizarro.

Pizarro, born in the late 1470s, was a teenager when Columbus first ventured across the Atlantic. He was the eldest son of Gonzalo Pizarro y Rodríguez de Aguilar, an infantry colonel who had first served in the campaign to oust the Moors from Granada, then in Castile’s Italian campaigns, and later in the Navarre campaign,⁵ where he was killed in 1522, the very year of Andagoya’s voyage. Born in his father’s youth, Francisco was illegitimate, the son of Gonzalo and one Francisca González y Mateos, a peasant girl. Of Gonzalo’s other sons, his second, Hernando (born in 1501, more than two decades after Francisco), was legitimate, but his third and fourth sons, Juan and Gonzalo (born in about 1511 and 1512, respectively), were also born out of wedlock.⁶ Pizarro had five or six half-sisters, two of whom were legitimate.

Francisco, the future conqueror of Peru, appears to have been a distant cousin of Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico.⁷

Young Francisco seems to have been neglected as a child, never taught to read or write, not even to sign his name.⁸ He is thought to have had a hardscrabble youth—said by some to have been a swineherd, and later to have soldiered in southern Italy. At any rate he eventually moved to Seville, but without education or likely patrimony, he saw himself looking down the bore of an unpromising future.

By the time he had reached his thirties, however, he had formulated a plan: like others of his acquaintance, he would leave Castile to try his fortune across the sea. It is not clear when he took passage, but by 1509 he was in the Indies. In that year he had joined an expedition commanded by Alonso de Ojeda, a veteran first arrived with Columbus, and recently licensed to explore and colonize the region of today’s Colombia west of the Gulf of Urabá. In the course of this ill-starred expedition, Pizarro displayed both leadership and fighting qualities. By 1513 he was serving under Vasco Núñez de Balboa, now the governor of Veragua,⁹ and in fact was at the governor’s side in September of that year as he gazed for the first time on the Southern Sea from a ridge in Darién. That same year, however, in an administrative reshuffling of this colony by the Crown, a new jurisdiction called Castilla del Oro had been created,¹⁰ and the irascible 74-year-old Pedro Arias de Ávila, known informally as Pedrarias Dávila, was given the governorship, replacing Balboa, and leading to several years of deepening tension between himself and Balboa. Pizarro began gradually to ally himself with Dávila, the man he rightly perceived to be the eventual winner of this contest. When, a few years later, the governor had decided to rid himself of Balboa permanently, it was Pizarro who was sent to seize him. In January 1519, just days after his arrest, Balboa was tried, found guilty of plotting against the governor, and beheaded.¹¹ Shortly afterward, Dávila named Pizarro an alcalde of the settlement he had recently founded on the southern isthmian coast—Panamá.¹²

From inauspicious beginnings, this one-time relative nonentity was becoming a recognized fighter and leader of men. Before long he would become a destroyer of empires, founder of cities, and prodigiously successful deliverer of wealth to Castile.

2

THE EARLY VOYAGES SOUTH

F

ollowing the voyage of Andagoya, three men in Panamá began to talk about how the rumored wealth to the south might be found. As they talked, they began to size one another up as potential partners in such an effort. One of these men was Pizarro, now in his mid-forties. The second was Diego de Almagro, a leathery adventurer about Pizarro’s age, and equally illiterate. The third was Hernando de Luque, not an adventurer at all, but a stay-at-home cleric. He was, however, fronting for the wealthy and educated Gaspar de Espinosa of Santo Domingo. As such, he hinted, he could probably arrange the bankrolling of an expedition to the south.

The relationship among these men was uneasy from the beginning, but each recognized his need for the others. It was gradually decided that Pizarro would command the planned expedition, Luque would fund it (with Espinosa’s money), and Almagro would see to its equipping and provisioning.

By November 1524, two small vessels had been purchased, and one of them fully equipped and victualled. A force of somewhat over a hundred men with nothing better to do had been hired and sent aboard. Pizarro departed on this vessel in mid-month, with the understanding that Almagro would follow on the second vessel as soon as he could man and equip it. Winter was approaching, however, and Pizarro’s ship was forced to work its way down the coast into the teeth of contrary winds and heavy rains, to say nothing of the normally strong currents. At length, with the men worn out and ill, the ship dropped anchor in the sheltered Puerto de Piñas, about 130 miles from Panamá, still within the confines of modern-day Panama.

After a relatively unpleasant exploration of the nearby Birú River—deep forest, shallow water, clouds of mosquitoes—they returned to their southward ocean journey, where they endured ten more days of high seas and storms. Forced by these circumstances to turn back north again, they anchored just south of the Birú River and waded ashore, wondering how they were going to feed themselves, since their larder was nearly empty. Pizarro had been in tight spots before, but he was especially worried by the signs of brewing mutiny among his crew. He decided to send the ship and half his men back to the Perlas islands, just off Panamá, where the vessel could be restocked and sent southward again. He would stay with the other half of his force and try to hang on. The vessel was sent off, but as one week dragged into another and yet another, more than twenty of his approximately fifty mosquito-tortured and starving men died, unable to sustain themselves on a diet of shellfish and berries.

Desperate for food, the remaining men left the beach to begin probing cautiously inland. They soon discovered an Indian village whose residents, having fled in terror, they quickly relieved of their cache of maize and coconuts. Finally, after six weeks of fading hope, they sighted their ship, fighting toward them against headwinds and driving rain. The expedition was saved.

Pushing south again by sea, battling continually ugly weather, the expedition landed to reprovision at an Indian village, where, among other things, they found objects of gold. In March 1525 they landed further south at Punta Quemada in today’s Colombia, a place where they met strenuous resistance from Indians who appeared to be out of the Stone Age. Following a sharp skirmish in which the commander himself was wounded, they determined to return to Panamá and regroup. Pizarro, however, feeling that the expedition had accomplished nothing of note, and not wishing to face his tempestuous governor with empty hands, insisted on being landed at Chicamá, a coastal village a few miles east of Panamá. He sent others to report to the governor, making sure they brought with them at least the few gold objects that they had found in coastal villages.

Almagro, meanwhile—prior to Pizarro’s return—had succeeded in outfitting their second ship with a motley group of soldiers, a crew, and supplies, and had left in search of Pizarro, tracking his progress all the way to Punta Quemada. Almagro was forced to fight a bloody action here with the same coastal Indians that Pizarro had faced—in the process losing an eye to a spear thrust. Coping as well as possible with his wound, he continued southward to the San Juan River, as far as Andagoya had penetrated. Seeing no sign of a ship in those latitudes, he ordered a return to Panamá, where he learned that Pizarro had already returned, and was holed up at Chicamá.

Almagro was by now more enthused about their prospects than Pizarro. He had found a considerable amount of gold—which he displayed to Pizarro—and had heard tales of far greater riches in the interior. He wanted to outfit another expedition at once, and to push beyond the San Juan River.

Although none of the three partners expected the acerbic and explosive governor to contribute financially to a second voyage, his permission, at least, was required for organizing it. When Almagro approached the governor to seek such permission, however, he was sharply rebuked, Pedrarias telling Almagro essentially that he had problems enough in his own domains, and no time for such pie-in-the-sky ideas. Fortunately for Pizarro’s future, however, Luque was more diplomatic than either of his partners, and soon prevailed upon the governor to countenance a second effort.¹³ But, angered at Pizarro’s loss of valuable men, and blaming him directly for it, Pedrarias made it plain that Pizarro was not to regard himself as commander of the proposed expedition, but that Almagro was to be of equal rank.

From this point on neither of the two partners was completely at ease with the other.

In March 1526 a new contract was drawn up and executed, with two prominent citizens signing for the illiterate Pizarro and Almagro. Luque would secure funding for a second expedition on condition that he (or more precisely, Espinosa) receive one-third of any profits from it, in addition to having Espinosa’s front money reimbursed in case of failure.

The opulent Peruvian empire—whose existence was barely an object of curiosity in the colony—was being sized up for plundering by two men incapable of signing their names.

Two vessels—probably larger than the previous two—were again purchased and a larger quantity of stores laid in, along with a few horses this time, and a limited supply of firearms, powder, and ball. Sometime in the late summer or early fall of 1526, after 160 recruits had been shepherded aboard, moorings were slipped, and the two ships—one commanded by Almagro, the other by Pizarro—stood south. With a spell of favorable weather, they reached Almagro’s farthest point of penetration, the San Juan River, in a few days. Pizarro disembarked here at the head of a detachment of armed men, drove off the inhabitants of a coastal village, and seized a quantity of gold ornaments. Their appetites whetted by this find, the two leaders decided that Almagro should take one vessel back to Panamá to recruit more men—bringing the gold with him as a recruiting tool—and that the chief pilot, Bartolomé Ruiz, should take the other and scout farther southward along the coast. Pizarro would stay with the remainder of the force on the San Juan River, awaiting return of the ships.

But week after week no sign was seen of either ship, and Pizarro’s force had difficulty holding on. They had pushed inland in hopes of avoiding the swarms of coastal mosquitoes, but could cope with jungle life no better than with life on the inhospitable shoreline. A number of men died, and many of the survivors cursed the day they had joined up with this obviously unlucky or incompetent commander.

Ruiz’s ship was the first to return. Sailing south, he had soon encountered Indians on large seagoing trading rafts—¹⁴well-dressed Indians, possessing fine woolen cloth. He had seized a couple of them and found that they were from Tumbes, more than six hundred miles to the south.¹⁵ Ruiz said he had then headed south as far as a place he called Punta de Pasado, just beyond the equator,¹⁶ before turning back.

Since Ruiz’s men were also hungry, it was with great relief that, shortly after his arrival, the men sighted Almagro’s ship heading toward them. Almagro brought with him not only food and supplies, but also more than eighty fresh recruits. He also brought news that the new governor, Pedro de los Ríos,¹⁷ seemed benevolently disposed to their expedition.

Pizarro and his ragged men clambered aboard the ships, but, doubtless to the dissatisfaction of many, Pizarro ordered them not north to Panamá, but south to follow Ruiz’s recent course. Battling foul weather now, they landed first on Gallo, an island in the bay of today’s Tumaco, Colombia, where they stayed two weeks. They then proceeded to San Mateo Bay, near the mouth of the Esmeraldas River, northern Ecuador. Noting that Indian lands and villages were looking ever more civilized as they moved southward, they pushed on to Tacamez,¹⁸ where they saw a town with well laid-out streets and apparently many hundreds of inhabitants. They had unknowingly reached the outer limits of the empire they were seeking.

Tacamez may have been civilized, but its inhabitants were not welcoming toward strangers, especially when some of these strangers were a terrifying combination of large beast and metal-encased warrior. Thousands of Indians advanced upon the invaders as they splashed forward through the surf, some on horseback. As the action opened, one of the Spanish horsemen was thrown from his mount, an event that may have saved the Spaniards’ lives. Apparently the sight of the upper component of this war machine being separated from the lower so disconcerted the Indians that they fell back, and the heavily outnumbered Spaniards were able to regain their vessels.

With the Indians jeering from shore, Almagro and Pizarro held a shipboard conference on what to do next. Many of the men were for going home. Almagro refused to entertain such thoughts. Growing gradually more agitated, he insisted that Pizarro and the bulk of the men stay behind yet again while he returned to Panamá for more men and supplies. Pizarro, unwilling to be left for a third time to face starvation, reacted strongly and the two men entered into a shouting match, nearly coming to blows. Eventually recognizing the good sense of Almagro’s plan, however, Pizarro grudgingly acquiesced.

But Pizarro and his men obviously could not stay in this particular place, where they were hopelessly outnumbered by hostile Indians. It was decided to return to Gallo, the island off the coast some one hundred miles north. Many of the men were incensed at not being allowed to return to Panamá, and worse, at being sent to an island where they would surely starve. An attempt was made by many to send notes back to friends in Panamá, proclaiming their virtual detention in this tropical hell by the madmen Pizarro and Almagro, but Almagro intercepted all these notes—all but one that was successfully smuggled aboard his ship concealed in a ball of cotton.

The men were deposited on the island, and, following Almagro’s departure, Pizarro sent the second ship back to Panamá too, possibly ridding himself at the same time of the worst malcontents. Following the arrival in Panamá of the ship with the smuggled message, the news quickly spread that Pizarro was holding Spaniards against their will. In response, the governor dispatched two vessels to Gallo under an official named Pedro Alonso de Tafur, who had orders to bring back the entire expeditionary force.

Pizarro’s men, again starving, were overjoyed at the sight of Tafur’s ships on the horizon. But when Pizarro was presented with the governor’s order, he refused to obey it. He was strengthened in his resolve by letters from Almagro and Luque, begging him to stay where he was. He therefore made a counter-proposal: he would allow those to leave who wished to leave. Drawing a line in the sand he told those who wished to return to Panamá to step over it and go aboard ship. A large number did. Only thirteen did not.¹⁹ Tafur, thoroughly flummoxed by Pizarro’s refusal to obey the governor, made ready to return to Panamá with both ships. Pizarro insisted that he carry the pilot Ruiz back with him, Ruiz’s private charge being to assist Almagro and Luque in any way possible to keep the project afloat. He also insisted that he and his remaining men be taken from this island and dropped in a place where they were more likely to find game and fresh water. They were consequently carried ninety miles north and dropped at an island named Gorgona, where local resources gave them a chance of survival.²⁰ They would be forced to spend seven months here, amid mosquito hordes and incessant rains.

Tafur’s ships proceeded to Panamá, and a report of Pizarro’s continuing obstinacy was delivered to the governor. Making a virtue of necessity, the governor responded by consenting to send a single small vessel (bearing Ruiz and a skeleton crew) with a message to Pizarro that he had six months to finish his explorations and report back. Following Ruiz’s delivery of this message to Pizarro at Gorgona, Pizarro and eleven of his thirteen men joined the pilot and his few Tumbes Indians to set out once again southward along the steamy mangrove coasts. They left behind, with a few Indians of Pizarro’s retinue, two men who were too ill to travel, planning to pick them up on their way home.

In Pizarro’s view, he had as yet accomplished nothing, and he had little time left.

In twenty days they reached the Gulf of Guayaquil, with towns and villages dotting the shoreline, and the awesome wall of the Andes rising in the background—its centerpiece the nearly 21,000-foot-high white-capped volcano Chimborazo. Near tiny and uninhabited Santa Clara island in the gulf’s mouth—just north of the important Indian coastal settlement of Tumbes—they anchored for the night, and on the next day stood across the gulf for the large, civilized-looking town. Pushing their captive Tumbes Indians gently forward, Pizarro strove to convince the locals, who swarmed about the ship in their light rafts, that they had nothing to fear, and before long food began to arrive. Once he had become convinced of the Indians’ friendliness, he tentatively sent two men ashore—one a black man who had arrived in the vessel from Panamá, and the other a soldier named Alonso de Molina. He was relieved to hear that they were the objects more of curiosity than of animosity. On the men’s return to the ship, they reported seeing a great deal of silver and gold. Hesitating to believe this report, Pizarro sent his trusted Greek artilleryman Pedro de Candía ashore, and was later assured by him that the report was true. The men sent ashore had been objects of intense interest among the friendly natives, and, in addition to their reports of silver and gold seen, the Spaniards—Molina in particular—provided a glowing appraisal of Tumbes women.

Pizarro, however, seeing himself currently as only a data collector, did not wish to tarry here. He pulled his men aboard and beat further south, tack upon tack, past the great desert of Sechura as far as Santa,²¹ stopping frequently along the way to question dumbstruck Indians about the kingdom whose nerve center was said to lie beyond the Andes wall. Wherever he looked he saw evidence of high culture—neatly kept fields, irrigation canals, well-constructed buildings, causeways, roads—and flocks of strange, sheep-like animals.²² Yet the farther south they sailed, the more he felt a rising wave of disapproval among even this small band of faithful, and their growing desire to return to Panamá, now some 1,400 miles behind them.

He decided he had seen enough, that he now had concrete and worthwhile information to put before the governor. He ordered the ship to turn north again. In the course of their return journey they touched first at Tumbes—where he acceded to the request of Molina and another man to be dropped off—and later at Gorgona to pick up the two men left there.²³ At Tumbes he had also taken up a few young Indian men with the idea of transporting them to Spain to learn Spanish, and using their translation skills in the military campaign that was now shaping up in his mind.

3

LAYING THE GROUNDWORK

I

n February 1528 Pizarro’s little vessel glided into the harbor at Panamá, where his men—gone now for a year and a half, and likely having been given up for lost—received a cordial welcome from their fellow colonists. Much to Pizarro’s disappointment, however, Governor Ríos did not share their mood, no matter how much evidence of riches he was shown. The three partners were stymied, running out of ideas on how to fund or even get permission for their third and most important expedition.

At this point, Luque, who perhaps had the best perspective on the enterprise, suggested bypassing the governor and going directly to the Crown, not only for approval of the venture but also for funding. A discussion ensued as to who, in such case, should be their emissary. Luque pushed for Almagro, but Almagro—short, gruff, one-eyed, and without a diplomatic bone in his body—picturing himself dealing with the dandies he would find at court, demurred, and recommended Pizarro. Luque, whose trust in Pizarro was far from profound, at first hesitated, but at length agreed: Pizarro would go to the Castilian court to make the case for a third expedition.

Sometime in the spring of 1528, therefore, Pizarro assembled what he felt he needed to convince the emperor and his advisors. He took with him the dashing Pedro de Candía, his trusted artillery captain and presumably an articulate man; a few Tumbes Indians; two or three llamas; some fine Indian-made fabrics; ornaments of gold and silver; and some Indian vases. He headed across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios, now Panama’s main northern port, and took ship to Spain. Unbeknownst to him, Hernán Cortés, his own conquest now secure, was also departing for Spain at this time.

On landing at Palos, Pizarro encountered Cortés, on his own mission to the emperor. The meeting between the two kinsmen was cordial, but they were now on different trajectories. Cortés, whose star was setting, had come to plead for continuing favor, while Pizarro, whose star was on the ascent, had come to promise Charles a new kingdom.

Pizarro reached Seville during the humid, stifling heat of the Sevillian summer, to be told that the court was currently at Toledo.²⁴ The illiterate Pizarro, quite secure in himself now, turned his steps northward. He found the emperor, who had finally triumphed over the French, more than happy to discuss his distant colonies, which—because of the long wars against France and the deep incursions of Protestantism into his realm—had for years occupied no more than a corner of his mind. He showed himself especially happy to meet with Pizarro.

The 28-year-old monarch, after listening to the older man and seeing the proof of his discoveries, expressed his approval of a third voyage, and commended him to the Council of the Indies to iron out the details. He himself was about to leave for Italy, he explained,²⁵ and the Council would be instructed to offer him all the assistance he required.

It was at this point that the process bogged down, the Council’s paper-shufflers apparently feeling less urgency about the enterprise than the emperor had expressed. Summer dragged into fall, fall to winter, and winter to spring 1529. Pizarro was running out of resources to remain in Spain. Then in late July, the queen (Isabella of Portugal),²⁶ in charge of this affair in her husband’s absence, signed the Capitulation, or contract, spelling out what was expected of Pizarro, and what would be granted by the Crown. It was the completest triumph for an aging man who had left Spain as an unknown more than two decades before.²⁷

He was granted the right of discovery in Nueva Castilla (New Castile)—as the new region was now called—down to two hundred leagues south of Santiago,²⁸ and to the line of demarcation with Portugal to the east. He would hold the titles of governor, captain-general, adelantado, and alguacil mayor for life.²⁹ He would be salaried. Luque would become bishop of Tumbes and be named Protector of the Indians. Almagro would become commander of the fortress of Tumbes, would be salaried (at less than half Pizarro’s salary),³⁰ and would enjoy the rank and privileges of an hidalgo. Ruiz and others were given rights and privileges commensurate with their respective ranks and service.

Pizarro was ordered to take a certain number of ecclesiastics with him, but, interestingly, was forbidden to take lawyers. He was given six months to raise a force of 250 men, a hundred of whom could be recruited in the colonies. He was enjoined to embark on his mission within six months of his arrival in Panamá. The Crown proved far more generous with title and privilege than with money, contributing almost nothing to the enterprise.

Having finally gotten the green light he was longing for, but doubtless harboring some worry that his partner Almagro, who had seemingly been slighted by the Crown, would resent the position given him, he headed for his hometown, Trujillo, where he was welcomed as a returning hero. His family, still living in poverty, was enthralled by his actually having met with the emperor and queen! He had never enjoyed the attention of family and neighbors as he did now. Being here in part to recruit men, he expected to find more than a few willing to join him, but the help he most wanted was from his own family. Since, however, he was decades older than his half-brothers, he knew none of them. Hernando, 27, was born shortly before he had left Spain for the Indies. He had never seen 19-year-old Juan or 18-year-old Gonzalo. He regaled them all with tales of certain wealth and high adventure. He even targeted Francisco Martín de Alcántara y González, his half-brother through his mother. All decided to join him. His young cousin, fourteen-year-old Pedro Pizarro—who would become an important chronicler of the Peruvian saga—doubtless listened with rapt attention, because he too joined his cousins the following January as they journeyed westward to their destiny.³¹ Finally, Pizarro recruited a neighbor known to us as Diego de Trujillo, a young man who would also keep a record of events to which he was witness.

All in all, the coming voyage promised to be an easy sell.

4

THE THIRD VOYAGE

B

y the time the six months allotted by the Crown for preparation had elapsed, in January 1530, Pizarro had secured, supplied, and manned three vessels—now resting at quayside in Seville—but, no doubt surprisingly to him, he had fallen short of his specified complement of soldiers. When, however, he learned that a delegation from the Council of the Indies was on its way to inspect the ships, he hurried what soldiers he had aboard one of the vessels, slipped downriver, and headed out to sea—an act reminiscent of Cortés’s escape from Cuba just a step ahead of the authorities. By this precipitate action he also avoided taking with him a group of officials assigned to the expedition by the Crown. He left his brother Hernando to explain.

Hernando, convincing the inspectors that all was in order, caught up (in the remaining two vessels) with his brother in the Canary Islands, and together the three ships proceeded westward across the Atlantic, touching briefly at Santa Marta in today’s Colombia (where a number of the expedition’s recruits had second thoughts and jumped ship) before proceeding to Nombre de Dios, on the north coast of the isthmus.

Unknown to the Peruvian empire’s royal family, the empire’s destruction was in its opening stages.

Almagro and Luque were awaiting Pizarro at Nombre de Dios. Predictably, Almagro showed extreme displeasure at the royal document signed by Pizarro, a document that gave Almagro a total lack of parity with Pizarro in titles and salaries. He not only complained loudly and angrily about it, but blamed Pizarro directly for the little notice apparently taken of someone who had previously been an equal partner in this enterprise. Whatever shred of trust he had had in Pizarro before his mission to Spain, he said, was utterly destroyed by what he clearly considered backstabbing. Pizarro, who could find no adequate words to explain, who could do little to soothe Almagro’s raw feelings, likely decided at this point that he would have to be wary of his partner. The situation was not helped by the swaggering young Hernando, who took an instant dislike to the older man, and who was not afraid to display it. His demeanor made it clear to Almagro that to pick a fight with Francisco would mean picking a fight with him as well. Since, however, both partners remained committed to the enterprise, differences of opinion and personal antipathies were bitterly choked down, and the business of organizing the mission went ahead.

Among the small number of settlers in Nombre de Dios and Panamá, interest in the voyage was low. For this reason, as well as for reasons of logistics—the need to get supplies across the rugged isthmus, with its swamps and mountains, its mosquitoes, vampire bats, and snakes—it took nearly a year to assemble ships and men. By December 1530, however, three vessels had been leased and provisioned, and, with difficulty, 180 men signed—still far short of the complement called for by the Crown. The partners appear to have paid for this through money raised by Luque and by borrowing against the promise of future wealth. On December 27, with their ships riding at anchor in the bay, the men attended Mass in the cathedral church of Panamá. Their banners and the royal standard were blessed, and prayers offered for their holy mission. Within days, twenty-seven horses—along with various forms of livestock—were loaded aboard, anchors were weighed, and the conquest of the enormous, powerful Peruvian empire by a handful of adventurers was under way.³²

Pizarro planned to steer directly for Tumbes and proceed from there to the interior, but contrary winds forced him to land instead at San Mateo Bay, more than 350 miles short of his goal. At this point he—somewhat inexplicably—ordered the horses to be unloaded, and the infantry and cavalry to march along the coast, to be accompanied as closely as possible by the ships.

Diego de Trujillo gives us a feel for these first days