The Great Big Book of Horrible Things: The Definitive Chronicle of History's 100 Worst Atrocities (33 page)

Central America

For several years navigators had been bumping up against a large landmass southwest of the Indies, one with rivers so big they had to be draining a full continent. An early attempt to settle this region was abandoned as soon as the Spaniards saw the jungle and its menacing natives. Onboard was Vasco de Balboa, who decided to settle in Hispaniola instead, where he did poorly as a plantation owner.

In 1508, when another, larger Spanish force set out to conquer the western mainland, Balboa stowed away among the expedition’s supplies in order to esca
pe his creditors. Although the expedition leader’s first instinct was to dump the trespasser at the next island, Balboa convinced him that his earlier experience on the mainland would be useful.

The expedition landed in Panama, founded a town, killed some natives, and began to prowl around, snatching gold wherever the explorers found it. When the leader of the expedition began to tax the settlers’ gold, Balboa led a mutiny that put him in charge. Soon a new governor arrived from Hispaniola to take control of the colony, but Balboa seized him and pushed him off to sea in a leaky boat that was never seen again.

While exploring deep inland, bartering or stealing gold baubles and jewelry from the natives, Balboa heard stories of another ocean, beyond the mainland, so he set out to see if this could be a new passage to Asia. He hacked his way onward, battling tribe after tribe and stripping them of their gold and pearls. When he found that the men of one tribe dressed as women, he had his attack dogs rip them apart. Finally, in 1513, he arrived at the Pacific Ocean, the first European to see it from that side.

It was the zenith of his career. A new royal governor, Pedrarias, soo
n replaced and beheaded Balboa. This man proved to be even more ruthless than Balboa, wiping out almost all of the local natives in his search for gold.
¹²

Mexico

Several expeditions to Mexico, both planned and accidental, had already come to grief in the face of native hostility, but Governor Velásquez of Cuba was willing to try again. In 1519, he asked Hernán Cortés, one of Cuba’s wealthiest settlers, to investigate stories of this mysterious land to the west. Cortés was supposed to make contact, arrange trade, and report back, but as preparations progressed Velásquez noticed that Cortés was a bit too enthusiastic about the assignment, outfitting a much larger and more heavily armed expedition than Velásquez had in mind.

Finally, the governor realized that the first man to reach Mexico would have virgin land to plunde
r, and he had just handed the opportunity to an untrustworthy rival. At the last minute, he tried to withdraw his permission for the expedition, but
Cortés
’s brother-in-law had Velásquez’s messenger waylaid and killed, which allowed
Cortés
the chance to escape. Now, technically in mutiny against the lawful authority,
Cortés
had no place to go but forward.

Shortly after first landing in Mexico in Yucatan, the Spaniards found a stranded compatriot from an earlier, failed expedition who knew his way around the country, as well as the local Mayan language. He led
Cortés
northward toward the Aztec Empire. As they sailed along the coast, one native village welcomed
Cortés
and gave him several women to do with as he pleased, one of whom, Malinche, proved especially useful. She spoke both Mayan and Nahuatl, the Aztec language, and eventually learned Spanish. More important, after being sold into slavery by her stepfather and passed through several hands, she was not especially loyal to her people. All accounts describe her as beautiful and intelligent, standing beside
Cortés
at all councils, whispering advice into his ear. She eventually bore
Cortés
a son, and then disappeared into history.

Finally disembarking at Veracruz, the Spaniards set out on foot. During the march inland,
Cortés
and his 500 soldiers defeated the collected armies of the Tlaxcala, deadly enemies of the Aztecs. Awed by the Spaniards’ might, the Tlaxcala quickly switched to the winning side and welcomed
Cortés
as their ally. In October 1519,
Cortés
pushed onward, now reinforced by 3,000 Tlaxcala. He attacked the Aztec holy city of Cholula, killing 3,000 citizens and burning the city.

Finally,
Cortés
marched along a wide causeway into the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, a magnificent city of pyramids, fish ponds, and gardens along interlaced canals, built on islands at the center of a lake. Gold trinkets, bangles, and ornaments were to be seen everywhere. Although no one actually knows how many people lived there, every historian agrees that Tenochtitlan was larger than any European city at that time except Constantinople.
¹³

At their first meeting, the Aztec emperor Montezuma invited
Cortés
to stay as an honored guest in the pal
ace, but over the next few weeks, Cortés began to restrict and control the emperor, making Montezuma an imprisoned puppet. Then news arrived that another Spanish force had landed at the coast with orders from Velásquez to bring Cortés under control.
Cortés rushed back and beat the newcomers in battle, but his stories of the great city of gold convinced the survivors to join him.

Meanwhile, the Spanish garrison that Cortés had left in Tenochtitlan had interrupted a religious festival, either to murder and rob wealthy Az
tecs (the native story) or to prevent a human sacrifice (the Spanish story). When
Cortés
returned, he found the Aztecs in rebellion and his countrymen besieged and starving in the palace.
Cortés
hauled Montezuma out onto a balcony to appeal for calm, but the emperor was pelted with stones and killed. Then
Cortés
was chased out of town in a running battle. Most of the Spaniards were captured and sacrificed during the retreat. Their screams as they were cut open by priests could be heard in the night by their fleeing comrades.
¹⁴

As the remaining Spaniards recuperated among the Tlaxcala, an invisible ally destroyed the Aztecs for them. Smallpox is an Old World disease that leaves its survivors scarred but immune from further infections. Over the generations, Europeans inherited resistance to the disease from these survivors, and by the sixteenth century, smallpox was a disease of children in Europe. Adults rarely died from it unless they belonged to a population that had never been exposed to it before. Now, this disease and others like it—measles, flu, tuberculosis, for example—were wiping out the susceptible populations of the Western Hemisphere. The epidemic that hit the Aztecs killed their new king and uncounted thousands more.

The Spaniards built a fleet of portable boats and returned to Tenochtitlan with 80,000 Tlaxcalan allies.
Cortés
’s invasion force then attacked across the ponds and canals of Tenochtitlan against a determined house-by-house defense.
Cortés fought his way back in, rooting out the resistance, dismantling the city as he went. Some 200,000 Aztecs died in the fight to save their city. By the time it was over, the canals were choked with bodies, and Cortés had extinguished a major world civilization, but he was wealthy beyond imagination.

Peru

The Inca Empire, which stretched along the mountainous spine of South America, was the most advanced native political entity in the Americas. As many miles in length as the United States is in width, Incan Peru was a land of llamas and alpacas, stone fortresses and terraced farms gently layered into the mountainsides. For their first few decades in the New World, the Spaniards didn’t even know it was there, until Francisco Pizarro, an illiterate former associate of Balboa’s, sailed south from Panama to explore the Pacific coast of South America. Encountering a native trading vessel, he yanked a few Indians off to serve as guides and translators. Soon he sailed into the native port of Tumbes and was hospitably received. He learned of the vast Inca Empire that stretched up and down the coast, but more important, Pizarro noticed how wealthy and vulnerable these people were.

After a pleasant visit, the Europeans took leave of their native hosts and the race was on. The town’s gove
rnor sent runners to the Inca king with news of the strangers, while Pizarro returned to Spain with his report.

The king of Spain gave Pizarro permission to conquer the Incas, and in 1531, Pizarro retraced his earlier path. This time, however, Pizarro discovered that Tumbes had been looted and devastated. As the Spaniards marched inland without opposition, they noticed that the villages along their route were missing their men.

Smallpox had arrived ahead of the Spaniards. About the time of Pizarro’s first visit, the disease was spreading throughout the interior, killing the Inca king and his heir apparent. His two remaining sons had spent much of the intervening years fighting for control of the empire and conscripting every able-bodied man they could lay their hands on. The winner, Atahualpa, had been expecting the Spaniards to arrive at some point, but he considered them less dangerous than his own family members.

Francisco Pizarro and two hundred Spaniards took over the deserted town of Cajamarca. They arranged a meeting with Atahualpa, who arrived in the main square with 80,000 troops in full splendor, marching with drums, plumes, spears, and stone hatchets.

The Incas, however, discovered the plaza mysteriously empty. A Dominican friar approached to negotiate, offering Atahualpa a choice: convert to Christianity or be attacked. This was the standard legal offer that preceded all wars against the heathens. Christians were forbidden from fighting fellow Christians without a good reason, or at least a plausible excuse, but heathens were fair game at any time, so the rule was simple: confirm their heathenism and then attack.

When Atahualpa failed to take this threat from two hundred scruffy strangers seriously, hidden Spaniards raked the plaza with gunfire and attacked the crowded Incas with horses and sabers, killing 8,000 Incas with barely a scratch to themselves. Pizarro personally seized Atahualpa and dragged him off his litter into captivity. Forced to buy back his liberty, Atahualpa agreed to fill a room with gold and silver ransom. Precious art collected by the empire for centuries was turned over to the Spaniards, who melted and hammered it down for easy shipment.

Even after the ransom was paid, the Spaniards kept Atahualpa imprisoned. Atahualpa realized that he was expendable as long as other potential rulers were free and alive, so he issued orders to wipe out the imperial family up and down the empire. His brother and rival, Huascar, was among those killed. Not only was this no help, but also it gave Pizarro an excuse to get rid of Atahualpa. The Inca king was sentenced to be burned at the stake, but he was told that if he converted to Christianity, he would be given a lighter sentence. Atahualpa agreed, so the Spaniar
ds strangled him instead.
¹⁵

Cities of Gold and Mountains of Silver

It took many hard years of fighting for the Spaniards to secure control over all of Peru. A rebel prince of the Incas took refuge in the mountain fortress of Machu Picchu and the Spaniards had to reduce his territory step-by-step. Meanwhile, a steady stream of fresh conquistadors arrived to grab a piece of the action. Even before Peru was pacified, the conquistadors began fighting among themselves, but in time, Spanish control of Peru was secure.

Then in 1549, Spaniards discovered a mountain of silver ore at Potosi (now in southern Bolivia). Over the generations that followed, native laborers were systematically drafted from neighboring districts to dig into the mountain u
ntil they dropped. Mining accidents killed dozens at a time, while mercury vapors eroded the nervous systems of other miners. Workers died by the tens of thousands, but the silver of Potosi funded Spanish ambitions for the next century.
¹⁶

One of the Spanish adventurers who drifted through Potosi, a minor nobleman and soldier of fortune named Lope de Aguirre, was arrested in 1551 and found guilty of abusing the Indians. Considering that the ordinary brutality of Potosi was killing workers by the truckload, you can imagine how badly a person would have to behave in order to be prosecuted. When Judge Francisco de Esquivel sentenced Aguirre to a flogging despite his rank, Aguirre swore vengeance. For three years Aguirre hunted Esquivel, allowing him no safe haven, chasing him to Lima, to Quito, and finally to Cuzco. Esquivel had even taken to wearing a chain mail vest at all times in case Aguirre found him. It didn’t help. In Cuzco, Aguirre caught up with Esquivel, snuck into the heavily guarded mansion of the viceroy of Peru, and killed the judge with a head wound.

Aguirre’s military skill was soon needed to put down a rebellion of mutinous Spaniards, so the Crown pardoned him for the murder of the governor. In 1559 he joined a Spanish military expedition from Peru over the Andes into the forbidding and pestilent Amazon jungle—and he brought his teenage daughter Elvira along as well. Rumors had been circulating of El Dorado, a kingdom of gold somewhere in the unexplored wilderness. Although Aguirre started low in the chain of command, a series of internal squabbles, stabbings, executions, and mysterious accidents left him in charge of the expedition. The remaining Spaniards hacked and blasted their way through the Amazonian tribes downriver for thousands of miles without finding the golden land they had been promised.