13. The Spanish Antithesis

-Montaigne, Essays, Bk. III, ch. vi While the two sons of Huayna Capac, Huascar and Atahualpa, were fighting against each other, Pizarro landed near Tumbez and, at the head of a handful of men, began the assault on the plateau. It was the formidable clash of two different civilizations: the in dividualistic Europeans, brutal and greedy, but full of initiative and a marvelous daring; and the Indians, whose spirit had been broken by the socialist regime. Fortune smiled upon boldness, and the empire fell; but the impact was to be as fatal for the victors as for the vanquished, for the Spaniards were to take back with them, along with the gold of America, the seeds of decay. The his toric events are well known, and it is not our part to recount them anew; but it seems that the Spanish conquerors have often been misjudged. 209 210 A Socialist Empire: The Incas of Peru It would be foolish to try to compare states as dissimilar as Peru and Spain, one with its statisticians and bureaucrats, the other with its Inquisitors, its knights, and its beggars; the one all order and obedience, the other aflame with ardor and zeal. At the heart of the Peruvian empire was a small nucleus of clever men in whom all the vital existence of the country was concentrated. Spain, on the con trary, was swarming with individuals in ceaseless conflict with one another. Teeming with life, Spain gave birth to the human type that united in itself and carried to their extreme limits the good and evil qualities of the race: the conquistador. Impelled more by passion than by reflective will, more responsive to the spirit of camaraderie than to a sense of justice, mystical and sensual, am bitious and wily, valiant and resolute, the conquistador is the most perfect representative of that casticismo (i.e., pride of birth) in which is concentrated the valor and the virtue of all Castile.! He looks on life as a lottery, does not look before he leaps, and risks his very existence on the throw of the dice. Conquest fires his imagina tion by its quixotic element, nor is this, as might be imagined, the enthusiasm of youth: Francisco Pizarro was about fifty-eight years old at the time of the discovery of Peru, and his brother Fernando was nearly sixty. A nation already in step with the modem world, like France or England at the time of the Renais sance, would never have been able to produce such men, so im measurably self-confident and sure of their destiny, so "in love with glory," as, for instance, the Castilian whose story Enrique Larreta has told in his celebrated novel, La gloria de Don Ramiro. Who ever knows the passes of the Cordillera can understand the state of mind of the little band of men, numbering less than two hundred, who dared to commit themselves to the perils of a country inimical and unknown.

It is a mistake to regard the conquerors simply as bandits in search of gold and amusement. No doubt there were in Pizarro's company many ruffians and criminals, as a single detail suffices to prove: after the capture of the Inca at Cajamarca, several soldiers suggested to their leader that the hands of the Indian prisoners be cut off. But alongside such brutes as these we find Francisco de Jerez, Miguel de Estete, Bartolome Ruiz, Pedro Sancho, Cristobal The Spanish Antithesis 211 de Molina, Juan de Betanzos, and many others, who knew how to observe and report and who were something other than "ignorant adventurers." 2 It cannot be denied that the Spaniards were guilty of all kinds of cruelties. The testament of S. de Leguizamo and the N oticias secretasof Juan and Ulloa constitute overwhelming indictments. 3 The crimes of the Spaniards were innumerable, from the murder of Atahualpa to the rape of the Virgins of the Sun, the demolition of the palaces, and the looting of the warehouses. Real wealth was stupidly destroyed, and no one was the richer for it. To get cinna mon, the whole tree was cut down, and the vicuna was killed to secure its woo1.4 "The Spaniards did more harm in four years," says Ondegardo, "than the Incas had done in four hundred." "They sacked the country," adds Santillan. 5 Of course, the conquerors had to surmount unprecedented ob stacles, to struggle not only against Nature and the natives, but even against the intrigues and rivalries of their jealous compatriots.