The Last Days of the Incas (34 page)
Earlier that day, Juan had been fighting on horseback when another cavalryman, Pedro del Barco, was struck on his helmet with a large stone. Barco had fallen to the ground, unconscious. Spotting the danger, Juan had ridden over, leapt from his horse, and gone to Barco’s aid. As Juan was dragging his fallen comrade to safety, a native sling thrower unleashed a stone that struck Juan squarely in his jaw.
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Although stunned, Juan managed to pull his companion to safety. By evening, however, Juan’s jaw had become so swollen that he was no longer able to wear a helmet. Nevertheless, the twenty-three-year-old was ready and willing to lead an attack on Saqsaywaman, as Hernando had asked. Helmet or no helmet, Juan realized, their lives no doubt depended upon the outcome.
The fortress Juan’s cavalry was expected to storm was a formidable one. Built upon a rocky hill on the
northern edge of the city, Saqsaywaman was protected on three of its sides by steep slopes, which prevented a direct attack. On its northern side, and facing away from the city, the fortress fronted a grassy plain that the Incas frequently used for festivals and processions. Since the fortress was pregnable only from this direction, the Incas had built a series of giant walls there with which to defend it. As the notary Sancho de la Hoz wrote:
On the … side [of the fortress] that is less steep there are three [walls], one above the other…. The most beautiful thing that can be seen among the buildings of that land are these walls, because they are of stones so large that no one who sees them would say that they had been placed there by human hands, for they are as large as chunks of mountains … and they have a height of thirty palms [twenty-one feet] and a length of as many more…. These walls twist [zigzag] in such a way that if they are bombarded (with cannons) it is impossible to do so from directly in front, but only obliquely…. The whole fortress was a warehouse of weapons, clubs, lances, bows, axes, shields, vests thickly padded with cotton, and other weapons of various sorts … gathered from every corner of the realm that was subject to the Inca lords.
Conferring with Manco’s cousin Pascac, who had sided with the Spaniards, Juan and Hernando had decided that the only way to storm the fortress was to first break through the legions of warriors to the north of the city, gaining the road that led to Jauja, and then, if successful, to wheel about and ride east around the hills until they reached the grassy plain fronting the fortress. Once there, the Spaniards would have to somehow launch a frontal assault against the Incas’ colossal walls. To many of those who listened to the plan, the mission seemed suicidal. Still, unless they were able to seize the initiative, all realized that they were doomed to remain in the city and gradually be worn down by attrition. With the grace of God, thought some, the desperate plan just might work.
Early in the morning on May 13, Juan Pizarro and about fifty horsemen
emerged from the church [of Suntur Huasi] and mounted their horses as if they were going to fight and started to look from side to side. While they were looking about in
this way, they suddenly put spurs to their horses and at full gallop, despite the enemy, broke through the opening that had been sealed like a wall and charged off up the hillside at break-neck speed.
Juan’s cousin, Pedro, recalled how he and the rest of the cavalry had to first break through the native contingents hurling stones at them and then how they had to zigzag up the steep hillside, stopping frequently while their native auxiliaries cleared the way.
We went up through Carmenca, a very narrow road, bordered on one side by a hillside and on the other by a ravine, deep in some places, and from this ravine they inflicted much damage on us with stones and arrows, and they had [also] destroyed the road in some places and had made many holes in it. We went this way and with great effort and difficulty, because we kept stopping and waiting while the few friendly Indians we had with us—fewer than a hundred—filled up the holes and repaired the roads.
Assuming that the Spaniards were trying to flee the city, the Inca commanders sent runners racing to the distant Apurímac River, ordering that the great hanging bridge there be destroyed, thus cutting off that avenue of escape. The Spanish cavalry, however, once having broken through to the northwest, suddenly wheeled around to the east and then began riding rapidly through the country in the direction of the fortress. After much effort and having to breach earthen barricades that Manco’s warriors had constructed, Juan and his cavalry finally succeeded in reaching the grassy plain that stretched before the fortress’s massive northern walls.
Pausing to regroup, the Spaniards now contemplated their next step. Before them rose three, thousand-foot-long, staggered walls of gray, gargantuan-sized stones, the largest of which weighed more than 360 tons and rose more than twenty-eight feet in height. The Incas had filled in earth behind each stone wall to form a flat terrace at its top. Native defenders could thus stand upon both the terraces and the walls and from there could direct a ferocious volley of stones, darts, and arrows upon the exposed attackers below. If the attackers seized one of the walls, the defenders could retreat upward to the next wall and terrace,
and then to the next. From the bottom of the first wall to the top of the third stretched a vertical distance of at least sixty feet. On the broad summit above the walls stood a labyrinth of buildings and from among their midst rose three stone towers. The central tower stood the tallest and was four to five stories in height, cone-shaped, and measured some seventy-five feet in diameter; the two flanking it on either side were nearly the same height and were rectangular. Beneath the towers ran a warren of secret tunnels that extended out at least as far as the defensive walls and perhaps even beyond.
Built during the previous century, Saqsaywaman—“the (fortress of the) satisfied falcon”—was so vast that the entire population of Cuzco, if necessary, could find refuge within its perimeter. With at least thirty thousand native warriors now defending it and with Villac Umu personally directing their efforts, the fifty Spanish cavalrymen and their perhaps one hundred native allies were now faced with a seemingly insurmountable task: they had to figure out a way to breach the massive walls and then to seize the fortress from its defenders.
Juan’s brother Gonzalo and Hernán Ponce de León now led several frontal attacks. Charging across the grassy plain toward the fortress, the Spaniards immediately ran into a brutal onslaught of darts, arrows, and sling stones, propelled from above by shouting native warriors. The closer the Spanish horsemen approached the fortress’s walls, the thicker the hail of missiles became. During their final charge, Manco’s warriors managed to kill Juan Pizarro’s page, who was felled by a single sling stone, presumably to the face, and also two of the Spaniards’ African slaves, who more than likely owned no armor.
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Many other Spaniards and their horses were wounded in the desperate assault.
Retreating to a rocky knoll that stood on the opposite side of the grassy plain, the Spaniards dismounted and deliberated about what to do. Below them in the city they could hear the sound of horse hooves pounding the streets and also the sounds of shouting and fighting. Their comrades were clearly engaged with attacking natives in the streets below. High above the city and gathered together
on the rocky knoll, the Spaniards felt isolated and exposed. As the sun began to set, Juan Pizarro decided to try a final attack; this time, however, he instructed his men to concentrate their forces on the main gate that created a break in the first wall. The gate was barricaded and had a defensive pit in front of it and two flanking walls on either side.
Not able to wear a helmet due to the head wound he had suffered the day before, and with the last rays of the sun illuminating the fortress walls and towers, Juan and his fellow cavalrymen, shouting traditional cries of “Santiago!,” began galloping together across the grassy plain as stone missiles began to whiz down on top of them, bouncing back up from the ground like giant hailstones. Wheeling to a stop before the main gate and protecting themselves with their shields, the Spaniards leapt from their horses, then threw themselves against the wicker barrier that sealed the gateway. Somehow breaking through, the Spaniards now began to force their way up the stone stairway that led up to the first terrace.
As the native defenders rushed forward to close off the breach, an increasingly heavy volley of rocks and missiles rained down upon the Spaniards from above, loudly clanging off their armor. The warriors’ fierce counterattack soon forced the Spaniards to retreat back down the stairway and out onto the plain. Shouting at his men to renew their efforts, Juan once again surged forward, however, swinging his sword fiercely and forcing his way ahead, literally hurling himself against a tide of native bodies. Juan’s cousin Pedro remembered what happened next:
From a terrace that is on one side of the courtyard they showered us with so many stones and arrows that we could not protect ourselves, and for this reason Juan Pizarro shoved some of the infantrymen towards the terrace … which was low, so that some Spaniards might get up on it and drive the Indians from there. And while he was fighting with these Indians in order to drive them away … Juan … neglected to cover his head with his shield, and with the many stones that they were throwing one of them hit him on the head and cracked his skull.
Bleeding from what was obviously a serious head injury, Juan nevertheless continued fighting until the Spaniards and their native allies had gained a foothold on top of the first terrace wall.
With darkness descending, however, and still pummeled from the two sets of walls above them with a constant avalanche of stones, the Spaniards were gradually forced once again to retreat back down and across the plain, some remounting their horses while others stumbled backward, holding up their shields for protection. Manco’s warriors, meanwhile, advanced after them, shouting insults and lifting their tunics to bare their legs while others continued to relentlessly whirl and launch a seemingly inexhaustible supply of stones.
Reaching the relative safety of the knoll, Juan Pizarro now collapsed. Native auxiliaries soon carried the Spanish leader down the steep hillside and back into the city. Mortally wounded, Juan would drift in and out of consciousness for the next few days, while the battle continued to swirl around him. Three days after his assault on Saqsaywaman, the twenty-five-year-old was lucid long enough to dictate his will, which a notary-conquistador duly recorded and then had the dying man scratch his mark upon:
I, Juan Pizarro, citizen of this great city of Cuzco, in the Kingdom of New Castile, son of [Captain] Gonzalo Pizarro [Sr.] and Maria Alonso, [both] deceased (may God rest their souls), being of sick body but of sound mind … because I am indisposed and not knowing what our Lord God has in mind for me, I want to make and organize this last will and testament…. Firstly, I commend my soul to God, who created and redeemed it with his precious blood and body … [and] I order that if God decides to take me from this present life because of the sickness I now have, that my body be buried in the main church [of Suntur Huasi] in this city until such a time as my brothers Hernando Pizarro and Gonzalo Pizarro carry my bones [back] to Spain, to the city of Trujillo, and have them buried there where they see fit…. I order that on the day of my death a Requiem Mass be sung, and that a Mass be sung on each of the following nine days….
I [also] order that because I have received [sexual] services from an Indian woman who has given birth to a girl whom I do not recognize as my daughter, [that nevertheless] … because of the services of her mother I order that if this girl becomes of marriageable age and weds with the blessing of my brother, Hernando Pizarro, that she will be given 2,000 ducats for her
marriage. [However] if she dies before marrying without heirs … it is my desire that those 2,000 ducats be returned to my heirs … so that her mother will not inherit them…. I [also] order that … my universal heir [will be] … and all of my worldly goods [will go to] my brother, Gonzalo Pizarro…. [This will was] made and approved before the notary public and witnesses … in the said capital of Cuzco on the 16th day of the month of May, in the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-six of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Two weeks after his injury, Juan Pizarro died, recognizing neither the native woman from whom he had “received services” nor his own mixed-race daughter, who by his own choice he insisted remain illegitimate. Juan did, however, pass on his fortune of 200,000 gold ducats to his already fabulously wealthy brother, twenty-one-year-old Gonzalo. Remarkably, Juan made no mention in his will of the battle that continued to rage around him in the streets, nor of the possibility that the desperate men who witnessed his final testament might at any moment be completely wiped out. Despite his final request, however, Juan’s remains would never be returned to Spain. Juan was the first of the five Pizarro brothers to die as a result of the conquest of Tawantinsuyu and his bones would remain forevermore buried in Peru.
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With no time to worry about his stricken brother and with a growing legion of wounded men around him, Hernando Pizarro now ordered his brother Gonzalo to take over command of the assault on Saqsaywaman. The day after wounding Juan Pizarro, the native infantry within the fortress counterattacked, carrying the battle away from the fortress walls and out onto the rocky knoll that Gonzalo and the rest of the cavalry had occupied since the previous day. “There was such terrible confusion,” wrote one eyewitness, “with everyone shouting and they were all tangled up together … [fighting for] the height they [the Spaniards] had won. It looked as if the whole world was up there fighting with each other.”
Receiving constant reports of the situation and realizing how crucial the battle of Saqsaywaman was for the outcome of
his campaign, Manco Inca ordered that an additional five thousand native troops join the fray. Hernando Pizarro, meanwhile, similarly motivated but with far fewer resources, sent another dozen cavalrymen up from the city to reinforce the embattled men; he did so despite strong complaints from the remaining Spaniards, who by now had fewer than two dozen horsemen with which to defend themselves from the natives’ unrelenting attacks. “In the city,” one eyewitness wrote, “the Indians waged such a fierce attack that the Spaniards thought themselves a thousand times lost.”