de las Indias, Ms., Parte
3, lib. 8, cap. 22.]
[Footnote 40: Ibid., Ms., ubi supra. - Pedro Pizarro, Descub. y
Conq., Ms. - See Appendix, no. 10.]
[Footnote 41: This remarkable account is given by Oviedo, not in
the body of his narrative, but in one of those supplementary
chapters, which he makes the vehicle of the most miscellaneous,
yet oftentimes important gossip, respecting the great
transactions of his history. As he knew familiarly the leaders
in these transactions, the testimony which he collected, somewhat
at random, is of high authority. The reader will find Oviedo's
account of the Inca's death extracted, in the original, among the
other notices of this catastrophe in Appendix, No. 10]
The treatment of Atahuallpa, from first to last, forms
undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters in Spanish colonial
history. There may have been massacres perpetrated on a more
extended scale, and executions accompanied with a greater
refinement of cruelty. But the blood-stained annals of the
Conquest afford no such example of cold-hearted and systematic
persecution, not of an enemy, but of one whose whole deportment
had been that of a friend and a benefactor.
From the hour that Pizarro and his followers had entered within
the sphere of Atahuallpa's influence, the hand of friendship had
been extended to them by the natives. Their first act, on
crossing the mountains, was to kidnap the monarch and massacre
his people. The seizure of his person might be vindicated, by
those who considered the end as justifying the means, on the
ground that it was indispensable to secure the triumphs of the
Cross.
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