This is the most hated man in America, the Antichrist of the colonial masters, the scourge of these lands. He is responsible for the emperor’s promulgation of new laws that deprive the conquistadors’ sons of Indian slaves. What will become of them without the hands that sustain them in mines and plantations? The new laws take the food from their mouths.
This is the most beloved man in America. Voice of the voiceless, stubborn defender of those who get worse treatment than the dung in the plazas, denouncer of those who for greed turn Jesus Christ into the cruelest of gods and the king into a wolf ravening for human flesh.
No sooner had he landed in Campeche than Fray Bartoloméde las Casas announced that no owner of Indians would be absolved in confession. They answered that here his bishop’s credentials were worthless, as were the new laws, because they had come printed and not in the royal scribes’ handwriting. He threatened excommunication, and they laughed. They roared with laughter, because Fray Bartolomé was well known to be deaf.
This evening the messenger has arrived from the royal city of Chiapas. The town government sends word that there is nothing in its treasury to pay for the bishop’s journey to his diocese and sends him a few coins from the burial fund.
(27 and 70)
1544: Lima Carvajal
The dawn light gives form and face to the shadows that hang from the plaza lanterns. Some early riser recognizes them with a start: Two conquistadors of early vintage, from among those who captured the Inca Atahualpa in Cajamarca, swing with protuding tongues and staring eyes.
Roll of drums, clatter of hooves: The city jumps awake. The town crier shouts at the top of his lungs, and at his side, Francisco Carvajal dictates and listens. The crier announces that all of Lima’s principal gentry will be hanged like those two and not a house will be spared from plunder if the council does not accept Gonzalo Pizarro as governor. General Carvajal, field commander of the rebel troops, gives a noon deadline.
“Carvajal!”
Before the echo dies away, the judges of the royal tribunal and the notables of Lima have flung on some clothes and rushed in disarray to the palace and are signing, without discussion, the decree recognizing Gonzalo Pizarro as sole and absolute authority.
All that is lacking is the signature of lawyer Zárate, who strokes his neck and hesitates while the others wait, dazed, trembling, hearing or thinking they hear the panting of horses and the curses of soldiers who take the field at short rein, eager to attack.
“Get a move on,” they implore.
Zárate thinks about the good dowry he is leaving for his unmarried daughter, Teresa, and his generous offerings to the Church that have more than paid for another, serener life than this one.
“What is your honor waiting for?”
“Carvajal’s patience is short!”
Carvajaclass="underline" more than thirty years of wars in Europe, ten in America. He fought at Ravenna and at Pavia. He was in on the sack of Rome. He fought with Cortés in Mexico and with Francisco Pizarro in Peru. Six times he has crossed the cordillera.
“The Devil of the Andes!”
He is a giant who has been known to throw off helmet and cuirass in midbattle and offer his breast. He eats and sleeps on his horse.
“Calm, gentlemen, keep calm!”
“Innocent blood will flow!”
“No time to lose!”
The shadow of the gallows looms over newly purchased titles of nobility.
“Sign, sir! Let us avoid further tragedies for Peru!”
Lawyer Zárate dips the goose-quill pen, draws a cross, and beneath, before signing, writes: I swear by God and this Cross and by the words of the Evangelist Saints that I sign for three reasons: for fear, for fear, and for fear.
(167)
1545: Royal City of Chiapas The Bad News Comes from Valladolid
The Crown has suspended the most important new laws, which set the Indians free. While they lasted, barely three years, who observed them? In reality, even Indians marked free on the arm in vivid red continued to be slaves.
“For this they have told me I was right?”
Fray Bartolomé feels abandoned by God, a leaf without a branch, alone and a nobody.
“They said yes to me so that nothing would change. Now not even paper will protect those who have no more shield than their bowels. Did the monarchs receive the New World from the pope for this? Is God a mere pretext? This hangman’s shadow, does it come from my body?”
Wrapped in a blanket, he writes a letter to Prince Philip. He announces that he will visit Valladolid without waiting for a reply or permission.
Then Fray Bartolomé kneels on the mat, facing the night, and recites aloud a prayer invented by himself.
(70)
1546: Potosí The Silver of Potosí
Fifty Indians killed for refusing to work in the excavations. Less than a year since the first vein appeared, and already the slopes of the mountain have been stained with human blood. And a league from here the rocks of the ravine show the dark green spots of the Devil’s blood. The Devil shut tight the ravine that leads to Cuzco and crushed Spaniards who passed that way. An archangel hauled the Devil from his cave and dashed him against the rocks. Now the Potosí silver mines have plenty of labor and an open road.
Before the conquest, in the days of the Inca Huaina Cápac, when the flint pick bit into the mountain’s veins of silver, a frightful roar shook the world. Then the voice of the mountain said to the Indians: “This wealth has other owners.”
(21)
1547: Valparaiso
The Parting
Flies buzz among the remains of the banquet. Neither all that wine nor all this sun puts the guzzlers to sleep. This morning, hearts beat fast. Beneath the arbor, facing the sea, Pedro Valdivia is saying good-bye to those who are about to leave. After so much war and hunger in the wilds of Chile, fifteen of his men are returning to Spain. A tear rolls down Valdivia’s cheek as he recalls the shared years, the cities born out of nothing, the Indians subdued by the iron of Spanish lances.
“My only consolation,” he says, his speech warming up, “is the knowledge that you will be resting and enjoying what you so well deserve, and that eases my grief at least a little.”
Not far from the beach, waves rock the ship that will take them to Peru. From there they will sail for Panama; across Panama to the other sea, and then … It will be long, but a stretch of the legs makes one feel that one is already walking the wharves of Seville. The baggage, clothing, and gold has been on board since the night before. The scribe Juan Pinel will be taking three thousand pesos in gold from Chile. With his bundle of papers, quill pen, and inkpot, he has followed Valdivia like a shadow, attesting to his every step and giving his every act the force of law. Many times death has scraped against him. This small fortune will more than even up the score for the teenage daughters who await scribe Pinel in far-off Spain.
The soldiers are dreaming out loud when suddenly someone jumps up and shouts: “Valdivia? Where’s Validivia?”
Valdivia is looking smaller by the second. There he goes, rowing the only boat toward the ship loaded with everybody’s gold.