He was no bigot, like Cortes. Bigotry
is the perversion of the religious principle; but the principle
itself was wanting in Pizarro. The conversion of the heathen was
a predominant motive with Cortes in his expedition. It was not a
vain boast. He would have sacrificed his life for it at any
time; and more than once, by his indiscreet zeal, he actually did
place his life and the success of his enterprise in jeopardy. It
was his great purpose to purify the land from the brutish
abominations of the Aztecs, by substituting the religion of
Jesus. This gave to his expedition the character of a crusade.
It furnished the best apology for the Conquest, and does more
than all other considerations towards enlisting our sympathies on
the side of the conquerors.
But Pizarro's ruling motives, so far as they can be scanned by
human judgment, were avarice and ambition. The good
missionaries, indeed, followed in his train to scatter the seeds
of spiritual truth, and the Spanish government, as usual,
directed its beneficent legislation to the conversion of the
natives. But the moving power with Pizarro and his followers was
the lust of gold. This was the real stimulus to their toil, the
price of perfidy, the true guerdon of their victories. This gave
a base and mercenary character to their enterprise; and when we
contrast the ferocious cupidity of the conquerors with the mild
and inoffensive manners of the conquered, our sympathies, the
sympathies even of the Spaniard, are necessarily thrown into the
scale of the Indian.
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