United States or Burkina Faso ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This Guaritico was a very important person and a friend of the Spaniards, and he had been sent by the Governor from Caxamalca to repair the bridges and bad spots in the road. The cacique pretended to feel great heaviness because of his death, and the Governor himself regretted it because he liked him, and because he was very useful to the Christians.
In spite of the feelings of rivalry and distrust that existed between himself and his old comrade, Pizarro was delighted to hear of his arrival, as the additional troops he brought with him made it possible to go forward with the conquest of the country. So when Almagro reached Caxamalca in the middle of February 1533, he and his men were received with every mark of joy.
This message turned the Inca from his purpose; and, striking his tents again, he resumed his march, first advising the general that he should leave the greater part of his warriors behind, and enter the place with only a few of them, and without arms,8 as he preferred to pass the night at Caxamalca.
Meanwhile he employed his men in making Caxamalca a more suitable residence for a Christian host, by erecting a church, or, perhaps, appropriating some Indian edifice to this use, in which mass was regularly performed by the Dominican fathers, with great solemnity.
So after sending a message to San Miguel for reinforcements, he set his men to work at rebuilding the walls of Caxamalca, and fitting up a church, in which mass was celebrated daily.
As soon as the offer was made and accepted, the Inca sent messengers to Cuzco, his capital city, and to the other principal places in his kingdom, with orders to bring all the gold ornaments and utensils from his palaces and from the temples and other public buildings, and transport them in all haste to Caxamalca.
Turning back on my road, I met, on Easter, the Marshal D. Diego de Almagro near Cena which is where the road to Caxamalca branches off, and to him I related how things were going and how some suspected that the captain who was going to Quito was not going with good intentions.
Furthermore, it is said with what truth I know not that when Atahuallpa fell into the hands of the Conquistadors, and was strangled by torchlight in the great plaza of Caxamalca, many of the nobles who had been with him fled with their families into the heart of the mountains, and, establishing themselves in a certain secret place, set to work, at the bidding of one Titucocha, a priest of the Sun, to build a new City of the Sun beside the glories of which those of Cuzco were to be as nothing against the time when our Lord the Sun should again send Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca dynasty, back to earth to restore the dynasty in all its ancient splendour."
From the moment of his arrival at Caxamalca Pizarro prudently lodged his soldiers in a temple and a palace belonging to the inca, where they were sheltered from any surprise. Then he sent one of his brothers with De Soto and twenty horse-soldiers to the camp of Atahualpa, which was distant only three miles, to announce to him his arrival.
Valverde was a Dominican friar, and, like Father Olmedo in the suite of Cortes, had been by his commander's side throughout the whole of his expedition. But he did not always, like the good Olmedo, use his influence to stay the uplifted hand of the warrior. At least, this was not the mild aspect in which he presented himself at the terrible massacre of Caxamalca.
Word Of The Day