The unfortunate Inca was arraigned by the attorney-general, of having encouraged his servants and vassals to infest the roads and to rob the Spanish merchants, of having declared enmity against all who lived or inhabited among the Spaniards, and of having entered into a plot with the Caracas or Caciques, who were lords of districts and Indians by ancient grants of the former Incas, to rise in arms on a certain day and to kill all the Spaniards they could find. At the same time a general accusation was made against all the males of mixed race, born of Indian mothers to the Spanish conquerors, who were alleged to have secretly agreed with Tupac Amaru and other Incas to make an insurrection for extirpating the Spaniards and restoring the native, Inca to the throne of Peru. In consequence of this accusation, all the sons of Spaniards by Indian women who were of age sufficient to carry arms were committed to prison, and many of them were put to the torture to extort confession of these alleged crimes, for which they had no proof or evidence whatsoever. Many of them were accordingly banished to various remote parts of the New World, as to Chili, the new kingdom of Granada, the West India islands, Panama, and Nicaragua, and others were sent into Spain.
All the males of the royal line of the Incas, who were in the capacity of being able to succeed to the throne, to the number of thirty-six persons, together with the two sons and the daughter of the Inca Tupac Amaru, were commanded to reside for the future in Lima, where in little more than two years they all died except three, who were permitted to return to their own houses for purer air: But even these three were beyond recovery, and died soon afterwards. One of these, Don Carlos Paula, left a son who died in Spain in 1610, leaving one son a few months old who died next year; and in him ended the entire male line of the Incas of Peru.
Tupac Amaru was brought to trial, under pretence that he intended to rebel, and had engaged in a conspiracy with several Indians, and with the sons of Spaniards born of Indian mothers, intending to have dispossessed his majesty Philip II of the kingdom of Peru. On this unfounded accusation, and on the most inconclusive evidence, he was condemned to lose his head. Upon notice of this sentence, the friars of Cuzco flocked to prison, and persuaded the unfortunate prince to receive baptism, on which he assumed the name of Don Philip. Though the Inca earnestly entreated to be sent to Spain, and urged the absurdity and impossibility that he could ever intend to rebel against the numerous Spanish colonists who now occupied the whole country of Peru, seeing that his father with 200,000 men was utterly unable to overcome only 200 Spaniards whom he besieged in the city of Cuzco; yet the viceroy thought fit to order the sentence to be carried into execution. The Inca was accordingly brought out of prison, mounted on a mule, having his bands tied and a halter about his neck, and being conducted to the ordinary place of execution in the city of Cuzco, his head was cut off by the public executioner.
After continuing sixteen years in the viceroyalty of Peru, Don Francisco de Toledo returned into Spain, with a fortune of above half a million of pesos. Falling under the displeasure of the king, he was ordered to confine himself to his own house, and all his fortune was laid under sequestration, which so affected his mind that he soon died of a broken heart. Martin Garcia Loyola, who made the Inca prisoner, was married to a coya, the daughter of the former Inca Sayri Tupac, by whom he acquired a considerable estate; and being afterwards made governor of Chili, was slain in that country by the natives.
END OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF PERU.
CHAPTER IX.
HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF CHILI
Not having the advantage of any original and contemporary author to lay before our readers on this occasion, it was at first our intention to have omitted any notice of Chili in the present division of this work: But under the existing and important circumstances of the Spanish American colonies, to which some allusion has been already made in the introduction to the preceding chapter, it has been deemed proper to deviate on this occasion from our general principle, and to endeavour to draw up a short satisfactory account of the Discovery and Conquest of Chili, and of the early History of that interesting region, the most distant of all the early European colonies in the New World, and which presents the singular and solitary phenomenon, of a native nation inhabiting a fertile and champaign country, successfully resisting the arts, discipline, and arms of Europeans, and remaining unconquered and independent to the present day, after the almost perpetual efforts of the Spaniards during a period of 277 years.
In the composition of this chapter, we have been chiefly guided by the geographical natural and civil history of Chili, by the Abbe Don Juan Ignatio Molina, a native of the country, and a member of the late celebrated order of the Jesuits. On the dissolution of that order, being expelled along with all his brethren from the Spanish dominions, he went to reside at Bologna in Italy, where in 1787 he published the first part of his work, containing the natural history of Chili, and the second part, or civil history, some years afterwards. This work was translated and published some years ago in the United States of North America; and was republished in London in the year 1809, with the addition of several notes and appendixes from various sources by the English editor. In the present abridged version of the second part of that work, or civil history of Chili, we have collated the whole with An Historical Relation of the Kingdom of Chili, by Alonzo de Ovalle, or Ovaglia, likewise a native and a Jesuit, printed at Rome in 1649, of which an English translation is inserted in Churchill's collection of voyages and travels, Vol. III. p. 1-146. In other divisions of this work, more minute accounts will be furnished, respecting the country of Chili and its inhabitants and productions, by means of several voyages to that distant and interesting country.
The kingdom of Chili in South America, is situated on the coast of the Pacific Ocean or Great South Sea, between 24° and 45° of south latitude, and between 68° 40ґ and 74° 20ґ of west longitude from Greenwich; but as its direction is oblique from N.N.E. to S.S.W. between the Andes on the east and the Pacific Ocean on the west, the middle of its northern extremity is in 70°, and of its southern termination in about 73° of W. longitude. Its extreme length therefore is 1260 geographical, or 1450 statute miles; but its breadth varies considerably, as the Andes approach or recede from the sea. In the more northern parts, between the latitudes of 24° and 32° S. the average breadth is about two degrees, or nearly 140 English miles. Its greatest breadth in lat. 37° S. is about 220 miles; whence it grows again narrower, and the continental part of the country, opposite to the Archipelago of Chiloe, varies from about 50 to 100 miles. These measures are all assumed as between the main ridge of the Andes and the sea; but in many places these mountains extend from 60 to 100 miles farther towards the east, and, being inhabited by natives of the same race with the indigenous Chilese, or confederated with them, that transalpine region may be likewise considered as belonging to Chili.
Chili is bounded on the north by Peru, whence its lower or plain country, between the Andes and the Pacific, is divided by the extensive and arid desert of Atacama. On the east it is separated by the lofty chain of the southern Andes, from the countries of Tucuman, Cujo, and Patagonia, on the waters which run towards the Southern Atlantic. Through these lofty and almost impracticable mountains, there are eight or nine roads which lead from Chili towards the east, into the vast plains which depend upon the viceroyalty of La Plata, all of which are exceedingly difficult and even dangerous. The most frequented of these roads is that which leads from the province of Aconcagua in Chili to Cujo, running along the deep ravines of the rivers Chillan and Mendoza, bordered on one side by deep precipices overhanging these rivers, and on the other by lofty and almost perpendicular mountains. Both of these rivers derive their origin from the Alpine vallies of the Andes, the former running westwards to the Pacific; while the latter takes a much longer course towards the Southern Atlantic. This road requires at least eight days journey to get across the mountain range, and is so narrow and incommodious, that travellers are obliged in many places to quit their mules and proceed on foot, and every year some loaded mules are precipitated from this road into the rivers below. In some places the road passes over agreeable plains among the mountains, and in these the travellers halt for rest and refreshment. In these vallies, when the Incas conquered the northern provinces of Chili, before the coming of the Spaniards, they caused some tambos or stone houses to be constructed for the accommodation of their officers. Some of these are ruined but others remain entire, and the Spaniards have built some more for the convenience of travellers.