[In the following essay, Hanke discusses how Francisco de Toledo, the Viceroy of Peru from 1569-1582, sought to refute Bartolomé de las Casas' condemnation of the Spanish conquest with historical treatises designed to depict Incan history as savage and tyrannical, and Spain's subsequent domination as legitimate and just.]

The best example of the effect produced by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas' theoretical writings concerning the just title Spain held to America occurred in Peru during the rule of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo, wise law-giver, energetic administrator, and greatest viceroy Spain ever sent to Peru, who laid the basis for Spanish rule there during the years 1569-1582. Before his coming, Peru had had a most turbulent and bloody history, and Toledo arrived with one great aim—to establish without question in this territory the position of the King of Spain. One of his earliest acts was to execute the Inca, Lord Tupac Amaru, the Indian leader who refused to accept Spanish rule. Presently, with a view to establishing Spain's juridical title to Peru, he undertook an extensive historical investigation which attempted to demonstrate the unjust nature of the Inca regime and thus demolish the doctrines of Las Casas.

Toledo reached Lima in 1569 while Ovando was inspecting the Council of the Indies in Spain and studying ways and means of improving the administration and at the same time of defending Spain from the attacks of foreigners who claimed that Spain held no just title to the New World and was oppressing and exploiting its natives. We have here one more illustration of the concern throughout the Indies in the sixteenth century to have “truthful and precise” history written, to the end that Spain's labors in the New World might be fully and honestly recorded. During the course of this investigation, Toledo and his associates accumulated an immense amount of raw material on Inca history and customs, designed to prove once and for all that Spain's rule in Peru was just by contrasting it with the injustice of Inca rule.

The Viceroy was impelled to this task by what he considered the pernicious influence of Las Casas. Even before Toledo's arrival in Peru, in fact in the instructions given to him by the king on January 28, 1568, he had been warned against free-speaking friars. The king had understood that “the ecclesiastics who have resided and reside in those parts on the pretext of protecting the Indians have wished to busy themselves concerning the justice and the lordship of the Indies and in other matters which lead them into much scandal, particularly when they treat these subjects in pulpits and public places.” Therefore, he warned Toledo to take care to prevent such occurrences by conferring with the provincials and superiors of these ecclesiastics, for in no wise should such scandals be permitted. So serious did Toledo consider this problem that early in his career as viceroy he conferred with the higher ecclesiastical authorities of Peru to determine whether the newly established Inquisition could not be utilized, not to smoke out heretics but to impose silence “on preachers and confessors in this realm who hold contrary opinions on jurisdictional matters and on security of conscience.”¹

Of all the ecclesiastics who had spoken on the right of Spain to the Indies, the most troublesome was Las Casas. For though the Dominican had died in 1566 at the ripe old age of 92, his doctrines lived on to agitate the Spaniards in the New World almost as violently as during his lifetime. As Viceroy Toledo expressed it, “the books of the fanatic and virulent Bishop of Chiapa served as the spearhead of the attack on Spanish rule in America.”² Most of these attacks were launched by friars, and Toledo complained bitterly throughout his rule against the “perverse and high-handed procedure” of the ecclesiastics. They were quick to detect “tyrannical and unjust” aspects of everything Toledo tried to do, he complained, and even went so far as to hide Indians from the royal tax collectors when they considered tributes unjustly levied.³ It is understandable, therefore, why the Viceroy felt so keenly that the writings of Las Casas must be suppressed; to this end he collected as many as he could, thus retiring them from circulation, and petitioned the King to allow no more to be shipped from Spain.⁴

It is not clear which of the many treatises Las Casas wrote was most abhorrent to the Viceroy. If he had known of it doubtless the Solution to the Twelve Doubts would have been the most obnoxious of all. For this treatise, written in 1564 when Las Casas was ninety years old but only published in 1822, clearly and emphatically proclaimed these principles:

1. All infidels, no matter what their sect or their sins against natural or divine law, justly hold jurisdiction over those things which they acquired without prejudicing anyone else.

2. There are four classes of infidels, and the Indians are in the fourth class, among those who have never been subject previously to a Christian ruler, nor have harmed Christians. Infidels in this category cannot be justly molested or warred against by any king or emperor.

3. The sole reason for the papal concession was the conversion of the Indians.

4. In giving this concession, the Pope did not intend to deprive the kings and natural lords of the Indies of their estates, jurisdiction, honor, or dignities.

5. The King of Spain must pay for the expense of conversion and cannot compel the Indians to contribute if they do not wish to.

6. The kings and peoples of the Indies must consent to the rule of the kings of Spain and the papal concession if these are to be valid. Las Casas employs Latin to expound this grave and unusual doctrine, although all the rest of the treatise is in Spanish.

7. The first entrada in 1492 and all those made to date by Spaniards have been wicked and tyrannical.

8. From 1510 to the present date (1564) there has not been one person of good faith in all the New World “in the wars against the Indians, in the entradas, in the traffic in slaves, and in the sale of merchandize which has provoked wars, such as arquebuses, powder, cross-bows, and above all, horses which have been more dangerous to the Indians than any weapons.⁵

Even though Toledo may not have known of this particular treatise, practically every concept stated there could be found in the printed tracts of Las Casas which circulated freely throughout the Indies.

The Viceroy took three positive steps to combat these theories. First, he inspired the composition of a treatise against Las Casas;⁶ second, he embarked upon an investigation of the justice of Inca rule by collecting the so-called Informaciones; and finally, he arranged for the preparation of a “true history” of Peru's past by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. This section will discuss the treatise.

The treatise is in the form of an anonymous letter dated at the Valley of Yucay on March 16, 1571, and is entitled “Defense of the Legitimacy of the Rule of the Kings of Spain in the Indies, in Opposition to Friar Bartolomé de las Casas.” The author, who appears to be rendering a formal opinion to Viceroy Toledo, has been identified by some as Polo de Ondegardo, one of Toledo's principal jurists, by others as Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, another one of Toledo's principal officers, but perhaps was neither.⁷ For at one point, after referring to himself he mentions “many other friars” as though he were one himself and the impression that the author is a friar is strengthened when in closing he states that he was happy to give an opinion “on a matter so appropriate to my profession.” If the author were an ecclesiastic, he may have been the Viceroy's chaplain, the Franciscan Pero Gutiérrez.⁸

At any rate this treatise was a frontal attack on the theories of Las Casas who, the author points out, although he was never in Peru and therefore could know nothing first hand of conditions there, has stirred up all the trouble. The author states that the Indies were given to Spain as a reward for her eight centuries of warfare against the Moslems and insists that the Incas were tyrants in Peru “which fact, Your Excellency is now making abundantly clear with great authority in the investigation you are making.” Las Casas has persuaded many in Spain of the justice of Inca rule by false information, states the author. Such was his influence with the Emperor and even with theologians that the Emperor desired to abandon these kingdoms to the tyrannical Incas until Friar Francisco de Vitoria told him that he should not, that if he did Christianity would perish there. The Emperor then promised to leave them when they were able to maintain themselves in the Christian faith. Las Casas wielded such power that very few persons were able to disbelieve him, and the author of the treatise confesses that he himself had followed Las Casas' doctrine until in Peru he saw that the contrary was true.

Much harm will come if the just title of the king of Spain is not clarified, continues the author. Christian government and justice will be hindered, conversion will lag, and other Christian princes will use the excuse of ill treatment of the Indians to try to take over part or all of the Indies. Moreover, and this is a curious sidelight on the times, some Spaniards have married Indian women of the Inca family in order to be in line to rule by hereditary right if the Incas should return to power, as will happen, warned the author, “if this indiscreet and mistaken Bishop has his way.”⁹ Finally, Lutheran, English, and French heretics will use the beclouded title of Spain as an excuse to rob Spaniards in the Indies, to harry the land, to ascend rivers and disseminate their heresies in all the empire.

The author then proceeds to state certain basic propositions, such as, that the Incas were modern tyrants, that before Topa Inga conquered the land there was no general overlord, that the Pope made the king of Spain lord over them and that, since they had no natural or legitimate lord, the king of Spain became their ruler. The author combats the idea put forward by Las Casas that the Incas had been received voluntarily as lords, and the charge that, whereas the Spaniards levy taxes and send money abroad, the Incas levied none and spent what money they had in Peru.

In a final burst, the author expresses his amazement as those who “under the guise of zealousness try to give these Indians titles and things which did not belong to them, because God didn't choose to give them nor is it appropriate … for they are minors who must be governed. … It has been a most delicate subtlety of the Devil to select as his instrument an ecclesiastic and apparently a person of zeal, but deceived and ill-speaking and of little discretion, as may be seen by the publication of his books, and by the disturbances he created in Peru when Blasco Núñez came.”¹⁰

This was the formal opinion given to Toledo on the doctrine of Las Casas.

THE “INFORMACIONES” OF VICEROY FRANCISCO DE TOLEDO

The Informaciones consisted of a formal inquiry, by order of the Viceroy, into the ancient history of the Incas, the conquests of Tupac Yupanqui the last Inca ruler, the institution of the Curacas, the Inca religious beliefs and practices, and their sacrifices, nature, and customs. Information was taken down, by means of translators, from two hundred Indians at eleven different points in Peru during the period November, 1570-March, 1572, while Viceroy Toledo was making a general inspection of Peru at the beginning of his rule there, much in the same way the Inca rulers began their administration by first formally surveying their realms. The complete record of this inquiry has only recently been made available by the Argentine historian, Roberto Levillier.¹¹

Few episodes in the colonial history of Peru have been interpreted so variously by modern historians as this inquiry. Clements Markham, José de la Riva-Agüero, Horacio Urteaga, and Philip A. Means believe that Toledo organized this as a public spectacle to present the Incas as monsters of cruelty, to falsify their history and customs in order to make certain of Spain's title.¹² They state that senile, servile “yes-men” were chosen as witnesses, and that if a witness happened to tell an unpalatable truth his answer was changed by the interpreter from “no” to “yes, or “yes” to “no, as the occasion required.¹³ In short, that it was intended to blacken the Incas. A good example of the heat engendered among historians on this topic is the following conclusion of Means:

I feel, however, very strongly that enough evidence has now been presented to prove the utter worthlessness of the Informaciones of Toledo and, consequently, of the History of the Incas by Sarmiento. In both cases the basis upon which the structure of false testimony, reared by Toledo's will, rests in the evidence of broken-spirited, baptized Indians who were densely ignorant of the truth concerning Incaic history and who constantly contradicted themselves and one another. They were cowed by the martial strength of the Viceroy's government and by the new spiritual terrorism which Catholic Christianity had put in the place of the old cults; they were unable to speak to their questioners directly because of the barrier of language, and consequently they had to talk through the mediation of an unscrupulous blackguard, Gómez Jiménez, to a ruthless and prejudiced audience—Toledo and Loarte; finally, most of them were in extreme old age when senectitude must have beclouded their memories considerably, and some of them harbored grudges against their former rulers.¹⁴

Levillier rejects this conclusion vehemently. He points out that not one of these writers had available all the Informaciones, and insists that the inquiry was an honest and important investigation which constitutes one of the most trustworthy sources available for a reconstruction of the events and of the spirit of the prodigious Inca communist republic.¹⁵

These inquiries make curious and interesting reading. The records tell us, for example, that on March 13, 1571, there were examined at Cuzco these witnesses: Don Francisco Antigualpa, Governor of Los Andesuyos, aged eighty years; Don Joan Llamoca, Principal of Los Lurinsoras, aged sixty years; Don Joan Caquya, Principal of Los Lurinsoras, aged fifty-five years; Don Lucas Chico, Cacique of Urcos, aged seventy years; Don Bautista Gualpuracana, Curaca of Cachec, aged seventy-five years; and Don Lope Martín Cuntimaycta, Curaca of Yucay, aged sixty years. Among the questions put to them were these:

1. Is it true that the first Inca, he who was called Mango Capac, tyrannically subjugated the Indians living around Cuzco by force of arms and despoiled them of their lands, killing them, warring against them, and otherwise maltreating them? And did all the rest of the Incas do likewise, until the fourth, called Maita Capac, who completed the conquest?

2. Is it true that the Indians never recognized voluntarily these Incas as their lords, and only obeyed them through fear of great cruelties inflicted against them?

3. Is it true that neither you nor your ancestors ever elected the Incas as your lords, but that they supported their tyrannical position by force of arms and the inculcation of fear?¹⁶

Practically all the questions were of this yes-or-no character, and there were evidently more yes- than no-men in the group interrogated, for the answers all tended to establish that the whole history of the Incas, from 565 A.D. when Manco Capac founded the dynasty until 1533 when Francisco Pizarro won Peru for Spain, was but a succession of tyrannical and brutal overlords who ruled despotically. It was thereupon an easy transition for the interrogators to elicit that the Spanish invasion was thus a deliverance and greatly to the advantage of the Indians who were now to be Christianized by the ecclesiastics and protected by the Crown. Another set of questions put to a different set of witnesses drew information that the Incas sacrificed to their gods and idols the most beautiful children to be found, that the Incas realized the laziness of their subjects and kept them at work, even if it had no real value, and that some of the Indians were cannibals.

Although Levillier has published all these Informaciones in a bulky volume and attacked the “campaign” theory vigorously in an extensive and detailed analysis, it is probable that we can never be quite certain that the last word has been said on this controversy. For the purposes of this present study it is enough to know Toledo's motive in instituting the inquiry.¹⁷ As his secretary, Alvaro Ruiz de Nabamuel, declared, “he had seen how badly the rights of the King of Spain to the Indies were treated in Spain and in the Indies, and how unreasonable and dangerous it was to attribute to these Incas the true lordship of these kingdoms.”¹⁸

Viceroy Toledo summed up his own view on the meaning of the inquiry when he transmitted to the King a summary of the Informaciones with a letter dated March 1, 1572, in which he declared:

1. Your Majesty is the legitimate ruler of this kingdom and the Incas are tyrannical usurpers.

2. Your Majesty may assign at will the Cacicazgos as you see fit, and this action would be one of the most important steps you could take for the spiritual and temporal rule of the Indians.

3. Your Majesty may therefore bestow the lands of Peru upon Spaniards and ignore the scruples of those who have claimed the Incas are the legitimate rulers.

4. Moreover, all mines and minerals, as well as the property of the Incas, belong to Your Majesty.

5. As legitimate ruler, Your Majesty rightly exercises jurisdiction over the Indians, and, given their weak reason and rude understanding, Your Majesty must devise laws for their conservation and require them to obey these ordinances.¹⁹

Toledo closes this letter with the earnest hope that “such a variety of opinion on matters of great importance will cease”, and the King, his ministers and the inhabitants of Peru will no longer have their consciences so disturbed and confused as in the past whenever some ignorant person dares to open his mouth and cry to high heaven.

THE “HISTORIA INDICA” OF PEDRO SARMIENTO DE GAMBOA

The inquiry into Inca history and Indian customs was not enough. Neither did the treatise “Defense of the Legitimacy of the Rule of the King of Spain in the Indies” wholly satisfy the Viceroy or the conquistadores and their descendants. What the situation really required, they felt, was a history—a true history, which would supplant the false histories then current. In the very year that Toledo was proceeding leisurely through Peru on his vice-regal visit, and having called in the “most ancient and most reliable” Indians to provide information for his inquiry, there was published in Seville a Historia del Perú (1571) by Diego Fernández. This was like a red flag to Toledo who promptly protested because Fernández stated that the Incas were natural lords of their realms, having been elected by their chieftains. Later, when the inquiry was completed, Toledo protested again, citing the Informaciones as proof that Fernández was wrong, and urged that this history, and other printed works such as the writings of Las Casas, should not be given credence by the King or Council of the Indies.²⁰ Perhaps as a result of the Viceroy's first protest the Council forbade the circulation of Fernández's history among the general public and referred the work for examination to the first Historian-in-Chief, the recently appointed Juan López de Velasco.²¹ On May 16, 1572, he rendered his opinion, the chief point of which was that copies of the book should be sent to the Peruvian Audiencia for private reading by persons who had knowledge of the events treated by Fernández. Once this report was in, the question of suppressing the book could be considered. The Licentiate Santillán was apparently deputed by the Audiencia to write this report and he listed sixty-eight specific objections, to which Fernández replied.²²

The widespread and intense dissatisfaction among the Spanish rulers of Peru with the historical accounts of Spanish deeds in the New World and with the justification of Spanish rule in Peru is well-illustrated by the expressive memorial drawn up by the Town Council of Cuzco and forwarded to the Council of the Indies on October 24, 1572. These worthies wrote in an injured tone as follows:

Not only did the Greek and Roman historians have a high opinion of the importance of writing history, but even barbarians who have no knowledge of writing still have by a natural instinct sought means to record their past with paintings and marks, and in Peru by a system of threads and knots and registers. Certain persons were appointed whose sole duty was to teach the meaning of it all. Such care has been taken by these Indians that they have a record for the past three hundred years of their deeds, their achievements, their edifices, their wars, and the events of their history. Truly this is to be admired and it is difficult to believe unless one has seen it with his own eyes. All the greater, then, is the fault of the discoverers, the conquistadores, and the colonizers who, having performed great feats and having labored more greatly and with more determination than any other nation in the world, permit these deeds to be forgotten.

Many of those who conquered this realm still live, and we understand that chroniclers who never were here are writing the story of our deeds without ascertaining the truth. These writers do this only to get money by publishing, and sometimes to the detriment of the estates and the honor of those whose deeds they describe. Thus there has resulted a world of conflicting opinions which have left the people disturbed and depressed. When we read the histories written about us, we think they must be describing another kind of people.

We believe ours the most justified cause of all that we know because the basis was the concession which Our Lord and His Vicar-General of our Church made to the Kings of Castile, giving them sovereign dominion and making them patrons in spiritual matters charged with the conversion and evangelical preaching, with general authority to concern themselves in everything discovered and to be discovered without any limitation whatsoever.

This spiritual obligation has been fulfilled. In Cuzco alone there are five monasteries of ecclesiastics and one convent of sisters and a hospital. In this district alone are more than one hundred and twenty priests laboring for the conversion and indoctrination of the natives, not counting the priests Your Excellency has ordered to be added whose expenses are so heavy that they amount to more than one hundred thousand castellanos. Moreover, there are only Spanish inhabitants here and they are poor.

Therefore, considering the expense which Your Majesty bears with five tribunals of judges, and mayors, and so many corregimientos and the many other salaries which are paid, which consume almost all the revenue gained in Peru, we do not know if there exists in the world a dominion possessed by such just and such reasonable titles, and from which such usefulness and benefit have resulted for the service of God and the increase of His Holy Roman Church.

Moreover, those who are curious to know the origin and basis of other dominions that are in France, Germany, and many other places will discover that most of them have their rights to possession written in the bones of men. And though they have no other reason or basis for their rule than this, they have lived and continue to live so quietly and peacefully that all they have to do is maintain their defenses. They do not have to reply to scruples because nobody raises them. We, the inhabitants of this land, have been less fortunate.²³

Then the Spaniards resident in Cuzco in 1572 proceeded to describe the tyranny of the Incas, to deplore their bad customs—in much the same vein as the Informaciones—and to approve heartily Viceroy Toledo's inquiry. They concluded with the statement that of the one thousand encomenderos appointed by the King in Peru, eight hundred have been killed in putting down rebellions and in defense of the realm and those who remained required assistance and favors. It was to satisfy the demands for an honest history, and to meet the threat to Spanish rule in America that Toledo found inherent in the doctrines of Las Casas and Fernández that he commissioned Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa to write a history to set at rest forever the doubts concerning the justice of Spain's rule in Peru.

Sarmiento was one of that group of able officials with whom the Viceroy had surrounded himself, and upon whom he leaned heavily in the administration of his far-flung realm.²⁴ As a soldier, astronomer, and later explorer of the Solomon Islands and the Straits of Magellan, Sarmiento was typical of the principal Spanish administrative officers who kept the large and complicated machinery of empire in motion. For two years he had been traversing Peru, drawing out from the oldest inhabitants their recollection of the events of the past. To a considerable extent Sarmiento depended upon the Informaciones brought forth by Toledo's inquiry, but he had also carried on other investigations in the Valley of the Jauja, in Guamanga, but principally in Cuzco where the Incas had made their capital and where the best informants still lived.

Sarmiento officially presented his history to the Viceroy on February 29, 1572, for examination and correction.²⁵ Toledo thereupon ordered the “principal and most able descendants” of the Incas to be brought together to listen to a reading of the history. Each Indian swore by the Cross to tell the truth and to indicate, by means of an interpreter, whatever corrections he considered necessary. Day after day the history was read, chapter by chapter. Now and then some name was corrected, or other minor change made, as when Doña María Cusi Guarcai objected to the prominent place accorded to certain Incas not of her own family, but all the listeners declared that they found the history good and true and according to the tales handed down by their fathers. The four living conquistadores who had entered Peru with Pizarro almost half a century before also testified that the history coincided with what they had been told by other Indians.²⁶

The corrected version was then legally certified and despatched to the king, with a covering letter from the Viceroy, a genealogical tree, and four painted cloths illustrating certain events of Inca history. These paintings had also been examined by various competent Indians and pronounced good. The Viceroy suggested in his letter to the king that such an accurate history, which would serve as the best possible justification of Spain's title to America, should be published, “in order to refute the other false and lying books that have circulated in these parts, and to explain the truth, not only to our own people but to foreign nations as well.”²⁷

The Historia Indica of Sarmiento described in detail the history of the Incas, their cruelty, their revolting customs, and their tyranny, in a tone and in a spirit reminiscent of that in which Las Casas had denounced the conquisitadores in his Very Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies. Sarmiento concluded that because of the sins of the Incas against the law of nature they should be forced to obey this law, “as had been taught by the Archbishop of Florence and confirmed by Friar Francisco de Vitoria in the discussion he made concerning the title of the Indies. Therefore, Your Majesty, by this title alone holds just as sufficient and legitimate title to the Indies as any prince in the world holds to any realm whatsoever, because in all the lands thus far discovered in the two seas to the North and to the South there has been found this general violation of the law of nature.”²⁸ But the king never published the history so laboriously compiled by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. It was allowed to remain in obscurity and not permitted to be spread abroad through Europe in opposition to the writings of Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas; indeed, it has never been published in Spain and only saw the light of day in 1906, because of the interest of a German scholar.²⁹

Nor was Toledo able to convince all the Spaniards in Peru. The Jesuit José de Acosta, perhaps the outstanding ecclesiastic of the time, without mentioning Sarmiento by name, rejected the theory that Indians could be deprived of dominion if they persisted in error. Acosta affirmed: “We must reject those false titles of dominion which some persons are trying to propagate, unnecessary defenders of the royal authority in my opinion, not to say deceivers, who would prove their assertions by the tyranny of the Incas … which we do not understand and do not admit. For it is not lawful to rob a thief, nor does the crime committed by some one else add to our own justice.”³⁰

Another prominent figure of the time, Juan de Matienzo, jurist and adviser of Toledo, was just as certain that the Viceroy was absolutely right. In the Gobierno del Perú, not published until three hundred years after it was written, Matienzo followed the same view set forth in Sarmiento's history. He first described the cruelty and tyranny of the Incas, how they killed five thousand persons at one time in one place and jerked out their hearts, how they sacrificed boys to their idols, how they burned alive the women and children of their chief men, and how the Incas governed in their own interest, and not for the welfare of their people. Then Matienzo made a rousing justification of Spanish rule, declaring:

The Indies were justly won. By the concession of the pope, or because those kingdoms were found deserted by the Spaniards. Or because of their abominable sins against nature. Or because of their infidelity. Although this last reason alone would be sufficient, as would each of the others, the tyranny of the Indians is enough to establish the fact that the kingdom of Peru was justly gained and that His Majesty has a very just title to it. … Moreover, the Indians have learned to trade and thereby win profits, and to use mechanical and agricultural instruments, which is no less a just title than the others.³¹

Curiously enough, just as certain historians today accuse the Spaniards of hypocritically seeking to justify their rule, so Polo de Ondegardo, another important adviser to Toledo, stated that the Incas, once they had determined upon a particular conquest, “looked for some title and pretext to accomplish what they wanted to do, which is only natural.”³²

We have found no documents to explain the royal indifference to a history which so stoutly defended the king's title to Peru. Perhaps ecclesiastical pressure was strong enough to prevent the publication of this history so opposed to the doctrines of Las Casas. Toledo never abandoned his official interest in the history of the Incas, an interest maintained by later viceroys.³³ Spaniards continued to question the right of their king to the Indies, and Licenciado Francisco Falcón introduced a modern idea, comparable to the mandate system under the League of Nations when he maintained that if the Incas “came to such a state as to be able to rule themselves, as they will with the aid of God, their independence should be restored by the crown.”³⁴

Today there still exists two well-defined attitudes toward the history compiled by Sarmiento de Gamboa at the behest of Viceroy Toledo, similar to the divergence of opinion on the Informaciones. Markham attempted to discredit Sarmiento's work, and Means considers it “an abominably unjust and inaccurate account of a great but fallen dynasty” and the author a pliant tool who was willing to aid in the Viceroy's “nefarious literary attack.”³⁵ Levillier, on the other hand, stoutly defends the essential truthfulness of Sarmiento's history, lashes out at Markham for what appears to be his plain mendacity, and supports Viceroy Toledo at every point.³⁶ Today, just as almost four hundred years ago, the differences of opinion on the justice of Spanish rule in Peru are deep, bitter, and apparently irreconcilable.

EPILOGUE

Two incidents occurred after the Viceroy Toledo's historical investigations which show that scruples concerning the justice of Spanish rule were raised not merely by theologians, jurists, historians, and other erudite persons, but by ordinary folk as well. For example, when Sarmiento de Gamboa was on his ill-fated expedition to the Straits of Magellan in 1581-1582, one of his sea captains, Diego Flores, exclaimed petulantly “that he didn't see what title the King had to the Indies anyway.” Sarmiento was greatly distressed and proceeded to inform Flores of all the titles the king held, described by Friar Francisco de Vitoria in his treatises, and in his own history prepared ten years previously for Viceroy Toledo. But none of these reasons persuaded the captain until Sarmiento showed him the bull of Alexander VI and sternly warned him that anyone who contradicted this title contradicted the power of the pope, and soiled the royal conscience. Only then did Flores fall silent.³⁷

A final illustration may be seen in the last will and testament of that gallant conquistador Mancio Sierra Lejesma, who had been present at the verification exercises held in Cuzco in 1572 in connection with Sarmiento's history to denounce the cruelty and tyranny of Inca Rule. Lejesma was famous throughout Peru for having been awarded the celebrated golden image of the sun which had been the chief ornament of the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco. He was even more famous for having promptly lost this image in a card game. The Viceroy Toledo once suggested that, inasmuch as the image of the sun was the focal point of paganism in Peru, it would be fitting that the king send it to the pope as a sign and symbol that Spain was fulfilling her obligation to convert the natives of the new world granted by the bull. Now in 1589 Lejesma was on his deathbed, and the oldest living conquistador, wishing to ease his conscience, solemnly swore to the following deposition before a notary public:

That the Incas had ruled so wisely that in all their realms there was not a single thief, vicious or lazy man, or adulterous woman; that immoral persons were not countenanced; that every man had an honest and profitable occupation; that the mountains, mines, and lands were all so administered that everyone had enough; that the Incas were obeyed and respected by their subjects and considered very capable rulers.³⁸

Ironically enough, the Viceroy Toledo seems to have agreed with Lejesma to some extent, in spite of the history composed by Sarmiento de Gamboa, for the many laws and administrative regulations he worked out for the Indians—which won for him the name of “Solon of Peru”—were based on the system developed centuries before by the Incas.

For those of us reared in the English tradition, the great attention paid by the Spaniards to the legal basis of their rule may seem curious and bizarre. Certainly few instances may be discovered in our own colonial history of English preoccupation with such matters. Roger Williams, the Rhode Island firebrand, did compose a manuscript in which he questioned the right of Plymouth to Indian lands unless by direct purchase in a voluntary sale, but the chief men and ministers of Boston condemned these “errors and presumptions in which treason might lurk” and Williams wrote “very submissively” to Governor Winthrop offering to burn part or all of the manuscript.³⁹ But to Spaniards, the just title by which their king ruled the Indies was a palpitating question from the moment that the Dominican Antón de Montesinos first ascended the pulpit in Hispaniola on that Sunday before Christmas in 1511 and preached to the text, “I am a voice crying in the wilderness.”

Notes

1. Archivo de Indias, Indiferente General 2859, Lib. 2, 12 vuelto—13; Marcos Jiménez de la Espada, Tres relaciones de antiguedades peruanas (Madrid, 1879), tomo 4, p. CXVII; Roberto Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, supremo organizador del Perú; su vida, su obra (1515-1582) (Buenos Aires, 1935), tomo 1, pp. 126-127 provides the Inquisition citation.

2. Archivo de Indias, Lima 29, Lib. 5. Report by Toledo to the king, from Potosí, on March 20, 1573.

3. Archivo de Indias, Lima 29, Lib. 5. Letter from Toledo at La Plata, to the king, dated Nov. 30, 1573. See also Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organización de las antiguas posesiones españolas de ultramar (Madrid, 1885-1932), tomo 15: p. 285

4. Archivo de Indias, Lima 29, Lib. 5. Toledo's letter to the king of Nov. 30, 1573.

5. Juan A. Llorente, Colección de las obras del Obispo de Chiapa, Don Bartolomé de las Casas (Paris, 1822), tomo 2, pp. 175-327.

6. Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (Madrid, 1842-1895), tomo 13, pp. 425-469.

7. Horacio Urteaga, Informaciones sobre el antiguo Perú. (Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la historia del Perú, tomo 3, segunda serie, Lima, 1921), pp. XXIX-XXX.

   Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), Ms. No. 19569, pp. 111-112. Note by Jiménez de la Espada.

8. Jimenéz de la Espada, op. cit., p. XXVIII. At another time this same author believed that Pedro Cieza de León composed the treatise.

9. Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, tomo 13, p. 443.

10. Ibid., p. 455.

11. Levillier, op. cit., tomo 2.

12. Levillier gives a résumé and criticism of these opinions, ibid., pp. 201-202. See also José de la Riva Agüero, La historia en el Perú (Lima, 1910); Urteaga, Los errores y supersticiones de los Indios (CLDHP, Lima, 1916), p. VIII; Levillier, Gobernantes del Perú, cartas y papeles, siglo XVI (Madrid, 1922), tomo 1, pp. XII-XIII; Urteaga and Romero (ed.), Relación de los fundamentos acerca del notable daño … (CLDHP, tomo III, Lima, 1916), p. LXXII. As an example of the present attitude in some Peruvian historical circles may be cited the “Juicio crítico” by Humberto Santillán, one of Urteaga's students, who states, “Aun poniéndonos en el caso extremo de que a nosotros no hubieran llegado sino estas informaciones, como único mensaje escrito de la cultura que forjaron nuestros incas, aun en ese caso carecerían de valor histórico … muchos de los datos que se consignan son falsos … en este documento no hay ni disinterés ni imparcialidad.” Humberto Santillán, Juicio crítico sobre el informe que el Virrey Don Francisco de Toledo elevó al Rey de España, sobre el origen, costumbres, etc. de los indios del Perú (Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Seminario de Letras, Lima, 1937. Folleto de vulgarizasión histórica), no. 3, pp. 3, 12.

13. Both sides were accused of dishonesty in the recording of the information. The charge that Toledo's assistants did so was made by Urteaga, Informaciones sobre el antiguo Perú, p. LXXV. The anonymous treatise writer of 1571 declared that an important ecclesiastic, afterwards a bishop, who was present when some of the testimony was being given, also tried to influence the testimony, but in the opposite way. When the Indians made certain statements bearing on the title of the King of Spain, the ecclesiastic told the interpreter not to include it, lest it be used to the disadvantage of the Indians. Colección de documentos ineditos para la historia de España, tomo 13, p. 465.

14. Philip A. Means, Biblioteca Andina, Part I (Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, No. 29, New Haven, 1928), pp. 496-7.

15. Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, tomo 1, pp. 296-7.

16. Ibid., tomo 1, pp. 65-98.

17. John Howland Rowe has made a thorough study of the evidence available in connection with the preparation of a chapter on “Inca culture at the time of the Spanish conquest” to appear in the forthcoming Handbook of the South American Indians to be published soon by the Smithsonian Institution. Rowe concludes that the material gathered by Toledo and his associates is essentially sound.

18. Levillier, op. cit., tomo 2.

19. Ibid., pp. 11-13.

20. Levillier, Gobernantes del Perú: Cartas y Papeles, Siglo XVI (14 vols., Madrid, 1921-1926), tomo 5, pp. 310-312.

21. José Toribio Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana (1493-1810), tomo 1 (Santiago de Chile, 1898), p. 355.

22. Rómulo D. Carbia, La Crónica Oficial de las Indias Occidentales (Buenos Aires, 1940), p. 148. In the Boston Public Library there is a 40 folio manuscript by Fernández entitled, “Réplica a las objeciones puestas por el Lic. Santillán a su historia del Perú, 1572”.

23. Levillier, Gobernantes del Perú, tomo 7, pp. 115-130.

24. The principal sources of our information on Sarmiento and his history are: Richard Pietschmann (ed.), Geschichte des Inkareiches von Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (Berlin, 1906); and Roberto Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, supremo organizador del Perú; su vida, su obra, 1515-1582 (Buenos Aires, 1935-1942, 3 vols.).

25. Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, tomo 3, pp. 154-5.

26. Ibid., tomo 1, pp. 285-289; tomo 3, pp. 155-159.

27. Fernando Montesinos, Memorias Antiguas Historiales y Políticas del Perú (Madrid, 1882), pp. 244-5 [Colección de libros españoles raros ó curiosos, tomo 16].

28. Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, tomo 3, p. 10.

29. Pietschmann, op. cit.

30. León Lopetegui, El Padre José de Acosta y las misiones (Madrid, 1942), pp. 251, 356.

31. Juan de Matienzo, Gobierno del Perú (edited by José Nicolás Matienzo, Buenos Aires, 1910), chapter 2. This passage was first printed by Juan de Solórzano, Política Indiana (Madrid, 1930). Matienzo was an old hand at Indian problems. In 1565 he participated in a curious episode during which he attempted to get the Inca Titu Cussi Yupangui to give in peacefully. The Inca showed an impressive finesse in the art of stalling, even when dealing with a shrewd Spanish lawyer. See Guillermo Lohmann Villena, “El Inca Titu Cussi Yupangui y su entrevista con el Oidor Matienzo (1565),” Mercurio Peruano, tomo 23 (Lima, 1941), pp. 3-18.

32. Juan Polo de Ondegardo, Relación del linaje de los Incas (edited by Horacio Urteaga and Carlos Romero), Colección de libros y documentos referentes a la historia del Perú (Lima, 1917), III, p. 48.

33. “In the letter of April 18, 1578, Toledo tells the king about a great map that he is having made. It includes, so he says, the whole of South America and it is based on every possible evidence that he has been able to collect from the Caciques and Corregidores scattered throughout the Kingdom of Peru. He states that in connection with the work, which has been going on for nearly five years, he has collected all the known chronicles of Peru and that he has made notes upon them in which truth and falsity are each pointed out. He goes on to say that, in the same connection, he sent to His Majesty much literary material and many paintings in which Indian history was set forth, dealing with the rites and polity of the natives before they were tyrannized over by the series of twelve Yngas, and then, in turn, dealing with the tyrannical government and conquests of the twelve Yngas, from Mango Capac to Guascar, during eight hundred years, and with the period of the Conquest by the Spaniards.” Means, Biblioteca Andina, pp. 492-493. The Viceroy Martín Enríquez carried on an investigation in Cuzco in March-April, 1582, on Inca customs. Cf. Levillier, Gobernantes del Perú, tomo 9, pp. 268-288.

34. Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización de las posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía (Madrid, 1864-1884), tomo 7, p. 453.

35. Means, Biblioteca Andina, p. 469.

36. Levillier, Don Francisco de Toledo, tomo 1, p. 297. For a critical review and indictment of Markham's translations and prejudices, see Bailey Diffie, “A Markham contribution to the Leyenda Negra” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 16 (1936), pp. 96-103; and Harry Bernstein and Bailey Diffie, “Sir Clemens R. Markham as a translator,” Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 17 (1937), pp. 546-557.

37. Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización de las posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía, tomo 5, pp. 301-2.

38. Manuel de Mendiburu, Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú (Lima, 1931), tomo 7, pp. 391-399. See also Means, Biblioteca Andina, p. 492. Naturally two diverse interpretations of this will have arisen. Walter Schücking, the international lawyer, stated: “I may not have searched diligently enough, but in the many narratives of modern explorations, conquerors and pioneers of civilizations, I can recall few expressions of regret so deep as that of the confessions by the Spanish conqueror, few cases in which the conscience of a modern explorer or promoter smites him, and he is filled with doubts whether it was right to break up tribal organizations and convert into masses of shifting atoms what were once strong cohesive organizations, the rudiments of nations, if not nations full grown.”

    Raúl Porras Barrenechea, the Peruvian historian, considers the whole episode due to the pressure of friars and has written an amusing literary account, sans evidence which tends to depreciate the honesty of the old conquistador's death bed statement. Raúl Porras Barrenechea, “El testamento de Mancio Serra”, Mercurio Peruano, tomo 23 (Lima, 1941), pp. 55-62.

39. James Ernest, Roger Williams (New York, 1932), pp. 80, 101-103, 130.