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$Title{History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Chapter IV: Part I}
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$Author{Prescott, William H.}
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$Date{1864}
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Title:       History Of The Conquest Of Peru
Book:        Book V: Settlement Of The Country
Author:      Prescott, William H.
Date:        1864

Chapter IV: Part I

Execution Of Carbajal. - Gonzalo Pizarro Beheaded. - Spoils Of Victory. - Wise
Reforms By Gasca. - He Returns To Spain. - His Death And Character.

     1548-1550.

     It was now necessary to decide on the fate of the prisoners; and
Alonso de Alvarado, with the Licentiate Cianca, one of the new Royal
Audience, was instructed to prepare the process.  It did not require a
long time.  The guilt of the prisoners was too manifest, taken, as they
had been, with arms in their hands.  They were all sentenced to be
executed, and their estates were confiscated to the use of the Crown.
Gonzalo Pizarro was to be beheaded, and Carbajal to be drawn and
quartered.  No mercy was shown to him who had shown none to others.  There
was some talk of deferring the execution till the arrival of the troops in
Cuzco; but the fear of disturbances from those friendly to Pizarro
determined the president to carry the sentence into effect the following
day, on the field of battle. ^1

[Footnote 1: The sentence passed upon Pizarro is given at length in the
manuscript copy of Zarate's History, to which I have had occasion more
than once to refer.  The historian omitted it in his printed work, but the
curious reader may find it entire, cited in the original, in Appendix, No.
14.]

     When his doom was communicated to Carbajal, he heard it with his
usual indifference.  "They can but kill me," he said, as if he had already
settled the matter in his own mind. ^2 During the day, many came to see him
in his confinement; some to upbraid him with his cruelties; but most, from
curiosity to see the fierce warrior who had made his name so terrible
through the land.  He showed no unwillingness to talk with them, thought
it was in those sallies of caustic humor in which he usually indulged at
the expense of his hearer.  Among these visiters was a cavalier of no
note, whose life, it appears, Carbajal had formerly spared, when in his
power.  This person expressed to the prisoner his strong desire to serve
him; and as he reiterated his professions, Carbajal cut them short by
exclaiming, - "And what service can you do me?  Can you set me free?  If
you cannot do that, you can do nothing.  If I spared your life, as you
say, it was probably because I did not think it worth while to take it."

[Footnote 2: 'Basta matar." Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2,
cap. 91.]

     Some piously disposed persons urged him to see a priest, if it were
only to unburden his conscience before leaving the world.  "But of what
use would that be?" asked Carbajal.  "I have nothing that lies heavy on my
conscience, unless it be, indeed, the debt of half a real to a shopkeeper
in Seville, which I forgot to pay before leaving the country!" ^3

[Footnote 3: "En esso no tengo que confessar: porque juro a tal, que no
tengo otro cargo, si no medio rea que deuo en Seuilla a vna bodegonera de
la puerta del Arenal, del tiempo que passe a Indias." Ibid., ubi supra.]

     He was carried to execution on a hurdle, or rather in a basket, drawn
by two mules.  His arms were pinioned, and, as they forced his bulky body
into this miserable conveyance, he exclaimed, - "Cradles for infants, and
a cradle for the old man too, it seems!" ^4 Notwithstanding the
disinclination he had manifested to a confessor, he was attended by
several ecclesiastics on his way to the gallows; and one of them
repeatedly urged him to give some token of penitence at this solemn hour,
if it were only by repeating the Pater Noster and Ave Maria.  Carbajal, to
rid himself of the ghostly father's importunity, replied by coolly
repeating the words, "Pater Noster," "Ave Maria"!  He then remained
obstinately silent.  He died, as he had lived, with a jest, or rather a
scoff, upon his lips. ^5

[Footnote 4: "Nino en cuna, y viejo en cuna" Ibid., loc. cit.]

[Footnote 5: "Murio como gentil, porque dicen, que yo no le quise ver, que
unsi le di la palabra de no velle; mas a la postrer vez que me hablo
llevandole a matar le decia el sacerdote que con el iba, que se
encomendase a Dios y dijese el Pater Noster y el Ave Maria, y dicen que
dijo Pater Noster, Ave Maria y que no dijo otra palabra." Pedro Pizarro,
Descub. y Conq Ms.]

     Francisco de Carbajal was one of the most extraordinary characters of
these dark and turbulent times; the more extraordinary from his great age;
for, at the period of his death, he was in his eighty-fourth year; - an
age when the bodily powers, and, fortunately, the passions, are usually
blunted; when, in the witty words of the French moralist, "We flatter
ourselves we are leaving our vices, whereas it is our vices that are
leaving us." ^6 But the fires of youth glowed fierce and unquenchable in
the bosom of Carbajal.

[Footnote 6: I quote from memory, but believe the reflection may be found
in that admirable digest of worldly wisdom, The Characters of La Bruyere.]

     The date of his birth carries us back towards the middle of the
fifteenth century, before the times of Ferdinand and Isabella.  He was of
obscure parent age, and born, as it is said, at Arevalo.  For forty years
he served in the Italian wars, under the most illustrious captains of the
day, Gonsalvo de Cordova, Navarro, and the Colonnas.  He was an ensign at
the battle of Ravenna; witnessed the capture of Francis the First at
Pavia; and followed the banner of the ill-starred Bourbon at the sack of
Rome.  He got no gold for his share of the booty, on this occasion, but
simply the papers of a notary's office, which, Carbajal shrewdly thought,
would be worth gold to him.  And so it proved; for the notary was fain to
redeem them at a price which enabled the adventurer to cross the seas to
Mexico, and seek his fortune in the New World.  On the insurrection of the
Peruvians, he was sent to the support of Francis Pizarro, and was rewarded
by that chief with a grant of land in Cuzco.  Here he remained for several
years, busily employed in increasing his substance; for the love of lucre
was a ruling passion in his bosom.  On the arrival of Vaca de Castro, we
find him doing good service under the royal banner; and at the breaking
out of the great rebellion under Gonzalo Pizarro, he converted his
property into gold, and prepared to return to Castile.  He seemed to have
a presentiment that to remain where he was would be fatal.  But, although
he made every effort to leave Peru, he was unsuccessful, for the viceroy
had laid an embargo on the shipping. ^7 He remained in the country,
therefore, and took service, as we have seen, though reluctantly, under
Pizarro.  It was his destiny.

[Footnote 7: Pedro Pizarro bears testimony to Carbajal's endeavours to
leave the country, in which he was aided, though ineffectually, by the
chronicler, who was, at that time, in the most friendly relations with
him.  Civil war parted these ancient comrades; but Carbajal did not forget
his obligations to Pedro Pizarro, which he afterwards repaid by exempting
him on two different occasions from the general doom of the prisoners who
fell into his hands.]

     The tumultuous life on which he now entered roused all the slumbering
passions of his soul, which lay there, perhaps unconsciously to himself;
cruelty, avarice, revenge.  He found ample exercise for them in the war
with his countrymen; for civil war is proverbially the most sanguinary and
ferocious of all.  The atrocities recorded of Carbajal, in his new career,
and the number of his victims, are scarcely credible.  For the honor of
humanity, we may trust the accounts are greatly exaggerated; but that he
should have given rise to them at all is sufficient to consign his name to
infamy. ^8

[Footnote 8: Out of three hundred and forty executions, according to
Fernandez, three hundred were by Carbajal.  (Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib.
2, cap. 91.) Zarate swells the number of these executions to five hundred.
(Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 1.) The discrepancy shows how little we can
confide in the accuracy of such estimates.]

     He even took a diabolical pleasure, it is said, in amusing himself
with the sufferings of his victims, and in the hour of execution would
give utterance to frightful jests, that made them taste more keenly the
bitterness of death!  He had a sportive vein, if such it could be called,
which he freely indulged on every occasion.  Many of his sallies were
preserved by the soldiery; but they are, for the most part, of a coarse,
repulsive character, flowing from a mind familiar with the weak and wicked
side of humanity, and distrusting every other.  He had his jest for every
thing, - for the misfortunes of others, and for his own.  He looked on
life as a farce, - though he too often made it a tragedy.

     Carbajal must be allowed one virtue; that of fidelity to his party.
This made him less tolerant of perfidy in others.  He was never known to
show mercy to a renegade.  This undeviating fidelity, though to a bad
cause, may challenge something like a feeling of respect, where fidelity
was so rare. ^9

[Footnote 9: Fidelity, indeed, is but one of many virtues claimed for
Carbajal by Garcilasso, who considers most of the tales of cruelty and
avarice circulated of the veteran, as well as the hardened levity imputed
to him in his latter moments, as inventions of his enemies.  The Inca
chronicler was a boy when Gonzalo and his chivalry occupied Cuzco; and the
kind treatment he experienced from them, owing, doubtless, to his father's
position in the rebel army, he has well repaid by depicting their
portraits in the favorable colors in which they appeared to his young
imagination.  But the garrulous old man has recorded several individual
instances of atrocity in the career of Carbajal, which form but an
indifferent commentary on the correctness of his general assertions in
respect to his character.]

     As a military man, Carbajal takes a high rank among the soldiers of
the New World.  He was strict, even severe, in enforcing discipline, so
that he was little loved by his followers.  Whether he had the genius for
military combinations requisite for conducting war on an extended scale
may be doubted; but in the shifts and turns of guerilla warfare he was
unrivalled.  Prompt, active, and persevering, he was insensible to danger
or fatigue, and, after days spent in the saddle, seemed to attach little
value to the luxury of a bed. ^10

[Footnote 10: "Fue maior sufridor de trabajos, que requeria su edad,
porque a maravilla se quitaba las Armas de Dia, ni de Noche, i quando era
necesario, tampoco se acostaba, ni dormia mas de quanto recostado en vna
Silla, se le cansaba la mano en que arrimaba la Cabeca." Zarate, Conq. del
Peru, lib. 5, cap. 14.]

     He knew familiarly every mountain pass, and, such were the sagacity
and the resources displayed in his roving expeditions, that he was
vulgarly believed to be attended by a familiar. ^11 With a character so
extraordinary, with powers prolonged so far beyond the usual term of
humanity, and passions so fierce in one tottering on the verge of the
grave, it was not surprising that many fabulous stories should be eagerly
circulated respecting him, and that Carbajal should be clothed with
mysterious terrors as a sort of supernatural being, - the demon of the
Andes!

[Footnote 11: Pedro Pizarro, who seems to have entertained feelings not
unfriendly to Carbajal, thus sums up his character in a few words.  "Era
mui lenguaz: hablaba muy discreptamente y a gusto de los que le oian: era
hombre sagaz, cruel, bien entendido en la guerra. . . . . . Este Carbajal
era tan sabio que decian tenia familiar." Descub. y Conq., Ms.]

     Very different were the circumstances attending the closing scene of
Gonzalo Pizarro.  At his request, no one had been allowed to visit him in
his confinement.  He was heard pacing his tent during the greater part of
the day, and when night came, having ascertained from Centeno that his
execution was to take place on the following noon, he laid himself down to
rest.  He did not sleep long, however, but soon rose, and continued to
traverse his apartment, as if buried in meditation, till dawn He then sent
for a confessor, and remained with him till after the hour of noon, taking
little or no refreshment.  The officers of justice became impatient; but
their eagerness was sternly rebuked by the soldiery, many of whom, having
served under Gonzalo's banner, were touched with pity for his misfortunes.

     When the chieftain came forth to execution, he showed in his dress
the same love of magnificence and display as in happier days.  Over his
doublet he wore a superb cloak of yellow velvet, stiff with gold
embroidery, while his head was protected by a cap of the same materials,
richly decorated, in like manner, with ornaments of gold. ^12 In this gaudy
attire he mounted his mule, and the sentence was so far relaxed that his
arms were suffered to remain unshackled.  He was escorted by a goodly
number of priests and friars, who held up the crucifix before his eyes,
while he carried in his own hand an image of the Virgin.  She had ever
been the peculiar object of Pizarro's devotion; so much so, that those who
knew him best in the hour of his prosperity were careful, when they had a
petition, to prefer it in the name of the blessed Mary.

[Footnote 12: "Al tiempo que lo mataron, dio al Verdugo toda la Ropa, que
traia que era mui rica, i de mucho valor, porque tenia vna Ropa de Armas
de Terciopelo amarillo, casi toda cubierta de Chaperia de Oro i vn Chapeo
de la misma forma.' Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib 7 cap. 8.]

     Pizarro's lips were frequently pressed to the emblem of his divinity,
while his eyes were bent on the crucifix in apparent devotion, heedless of
the objects around him.  On reaching the scaffold, he ascended it with a
firm step, and asked leave to address a few words to the soldiery gathered
round it.  "There are many among you," said he, "who have grown rich on my
brother's bounty, and my own.  Yet, of all my riches, nothing remains to
me but the garments I have on; and even these are not mine, but the
property of the executioner.  I am without means, therefore, to purchase a
mass for the welfare of my soul; and I implore you, by the remembrance of
past benefits, to extend this charity to me when I am gone, that it may be
well with you in the hour of death." A profound silence reigned throughout
the martial multitude, broken only by sighs and groans, as they listened
to Pizarro's request; and it was faithfully responded to, since, after his
death, masses were said in many of the towns for the welfare of the
departed chieftain.

     Then, kneeling down before a crucifix placed on a table, Pizarro
remained for some minutes absorbed in prayer; after which, addressing the
soldier who was to act as the minister of justice, he calmly bade him "do
his duty with a steady hand." He refused to have his eyes bandaged, and,
bending forward his neck, submitted it to the sword of the executioner,
who struck off the head with a single blow, so true that the body remained
for some moments in the same erect posture as in life. ^13 The head was
taken to Lima, where it was set in a cage or frame, and then fixed on a
gibbet by the side of Carbajal's.  On it was placed a label, bearing, -
"This is the head of the traitor Gonzalo Pizarro, who rebelled in Peru
against his sovereign, and battled in the cause of tyranny and treason
against the royal standard in the valley of Xaquixaguana." ^14 His large
estates, including the rich mines in Potosi, were confiscated; his mansion
in Lima was razed to the ground, the place strewed with salt, and a store
pillar set up, with an inscription interdicting any one from building on a
spot which had been profaned by the residence of a traitor.

[Footnote 13: "The executioner," says Garcilasso, with a simile more
expressive than elegant, "did his work as cleanly as if he had been
slicing off a head of lettuce!" "De vn reues le corto la cabeca con tanta
facilidad, como si fuera vna hoja de lechuga, y se quedo con ella en la
mano, y tardo el cuerpo algun espacio en caer en el suelo." Garcilasso,
Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 43.]

[Footnote 14: "Esta es la cabeza del traidor de Gonzalo Pizarro que se
hizo justicia del en el valle de Aquixaguana, donde dio la batalla campal
contra el estandarte real queriendo defender su traicion e tirania:
ninguno sea osado de la quitar de aqui so pena de muerte natural." Zarate,
Ms.]

     Gonzalo's remains were not exposed to the indignities inflicted on
Carbajal's, whose quarters were hung in chains on the four great roads
leading to Cuzco.  Centeno saved Pizarro's body from being stripped, by
redeeming his costly raiment from the executioner, and in this sumptuous
shroud it was laid in the chapel of the convent of Our Lady of Mercy in
Cuzco.  It was the same spot where, side by side, lay the bloody remains
of the Almagros, father and son, who in like manner had perished by the
hand of justice, and were indebted to private charity for their burial.
All these were now con signed "to the same grave," says the historian,
with some bitterness, "as if Peru could not afford land enough for a
burial-place to its conquerors." ^15

[Footnote 15: "Y las sepolturas vna sola auiendo de ser tres: que aun la
tierra parece que les falto para auer los de cubrir." Garcilasso, Com.
Real., Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 43.

     For the tragic particulars of the preceding pages, see Ibid, cap.
39-43. - Relacion del Lic. Gasca, Ms - Carta de Valdivia, Ms. - Ms. de
Caravantes. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y Conq., Ms. - Gomara, Hist. de las
Indias, cap 186. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib. 2, cap. 91. -
Zarate Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 8. - Herrera, Hist. General, dec. 8,
lib. 4, cap. 16.]

     Gonzalo Pizarro had reached only his forty-second year at the time of
his death, - being just half the space allotted to his follower Carbajal.
He was the youngest of the remarkable family to whom Spain was indebted
for the acquisition of Peru.  He came over to the country with his brother
Francisco, on the return of the latter from his visit to Castile.  Gonzalo
was present in all the remarkable passages of the Conquest.  He witnessed
the seizure of Atahuallpa, took an active part in suppressing the
insurrection of the Incas, and especially in the reduction of Charcas.  He
afterwards led the disastrous expedition to the Amazon; and, finally,
headed he memorable rebellion which ended so fatally to himself.  There
are but few men whose lives abound in such wild and romantic adventure,
and, for the most part, crowned with success.  The space which he occupies
in the page of history is altogether disproportioned to his talents.  It
may be in some measure ascribed to fortune, but still more to those showy
qualities which form a sort of substitute for mental talent, and which
secured his popularity with the vulgar.

     He had a brilliant exterior; excelled in all martial exercises; rode
well, fenced well, managed his lance to perfection, was a first-rate
marksman with the arquebuse, and added the accomplishment of being an
excellent draughtsman.  He was bold and chivalrous, even to temerity;
courted adventure, and was always in the front of danger.  He was a
knighterrant, in short, in the most extravagant sense of the term, and,
"mounted on his favorite charger," says one who had often seen him, "made
no more account of a squadron of Indians than of a swarm of flies." ^16

[Footnote 16: "Quando Goncalo Pizarro, que aya gloria, se veya en su
zaynillo, no hazia mas caso de esquadrones de Yndios, que si fueran de
moscas." Garcilasso, Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 43.]

     While thus, by his brilliant exploits and showy manners, he
captivated the imaginations of his countrymen, he won their hearts no less
by his soldier-like frankness, his trust in their fidelity, - too often
abused, - and his liberal largesses; for Pizarro, though avaricious of the
property of others, was, like the Roman conspirator, prodigal of his own.
This was his portrait in happier days, when his heart had not been
corrupted by success; for tha some change was wrought on him by his
prosperity is well attested.  His head was made giddy by his elevation;
and it is proof of a want of talent equal to his success, that he knew not
how to profit by it.  Obeying the dictates of his own rash judgment, he
rejected the warnings of his wisest counsellors, and relied with blind
confidence on his destiny.  Garcilasso imputes this to the malignant
influence of the stars. ^17 But the superstitious chronicler might have
better explained it by a common principle of human nature; by the
presumption nourished by success; the insanity, as the Roman, or rather
Grecian, proverb calls it, with which the gods afflict men when they
design to ruin them. ^18

[Footnote 17: "Dezian que no era falta de ontendimiento, pues lo tenia
bastante, sino que deuia de ser sobra de influencia de signos y planetas,
que le cegauan y forcauan a que pusiesse la garganta al cuchillo."
Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2 lib. 5, cap. 33.]

[Footnote 18:  Eurip. Fragmenta]

     Gonzalo was without education, except such as he had picked up in the
rough school of war.  He had little even of that wisdom which springs from
natural shrewdness and insight into character.  In all this he was
inferior to his elder brothers, although he fully equalled them in
ambition.  Had he possessed a tithe of their sagacity, he would not have
madly persisted in rebellion, after the coming of the president. Before
this period, he represented the people.  Their interests and his were
united.  He had their support, for he was contending for the redress of
their wrongs.  When these were redressed by the government, there was
nothing to contend for.  From that time, he was battling only for himself
The people had no part nor interest in the contest.  Without a common
sympathy to bind them together, was it strange that they should fall off
from him, like leaves in winter, and leave him exposed, a bare and sapless
trunk, to the fury of the tempest?

     Cepeda, more criminal than Pizarro, since he had both superior
education and intelligence, which he employed only to mislead his
commander, did not long survive him.  He had come to the country in an
office of high responsibility.  His first step was to betray the viceroy
whom he was sent to support; his next was to betray the Audience with whom
he should have acted; and lastly, he betrayed the leader whom he most
affected to serve.  His whole career was treachery to his own government.
His life was one long perfidy.

     After his surrender, several of the cavaliers, disgusted at his
cold-blooded apostasy, would have persuaded Gasca to send him to execution
along with his commander; but the president refused, in consideration of
the signal service he had rendered the Crown by his defection.  He was put
under arrest, however, and sent to Castile.  There he was arraigned for
high-treason.  He made a plausible defence, and as he had friends at
court, it is not improbable he would have been acquitted; but, before the
trial was terminated, he died in prison.  It was the retributive justice
not always to be found in the affairs of this world. ^19

[Footnote 19: The cunning lawyer prepared so plausible an argument in his
own justification, that Yllescas, the celebrated historian of the Popes,
declares that no one who read the paper attentively, but must rise from
the perusal of it with an entire conviction of the writer's innocence, and
of his unshaken loyalty to the Crown.  See the passage quoted by
Garcilasso Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 6, cap. 10]

     Indeed, it so happened, that several of those who had been most
forward to abandon the cause of Pizarro survived their commander but a
short time.  The gallant Centeno, and the Licentiate Carbajal, who
deserted him near Lima, and bore the royal standard on the field of
Xaquixaguana, both died within a year after Pizarro.  Hinojosa was
assassinated but two years later in La Plata; and his old comrade
Valdivia, after a series of brilliant exploits in Chili, which furnished
her most glorious theme to the epic Muse of Castile, was cut off by the
invincible warriors of Arauco.  The Manes of Pizarro were amply avenged.