1491 (69 page)

 

French sailors killed or enslaved: Winship 1905:252 (shipwreck); Winslow 1963c:27–28 (finding body); Bradford 1981:92; Hubbard 1848:54–55; Adams 1892–93:6–10.

 

Billington: Bradford 1981:259–60 (hanging, “profanest”), 97 (runaway), 173–74; Bradford 1906:13 (“knave”); Winslow 1963b:31 (shooting gun in ship); Winslow 1963d:69–72 (runaway); Prince 1855:291 (contempt charge); A. C. Mann 1976; Dillon 1975:203 (“troublesome”).

 

Framing my ancestor: My grandfather told me that Billington was an excellent hunter and trapper. With this independent source of food, he could ignore colonial edicts. To take him down a peg, my grandfather claimed, the powers that be sent men to rob his traps. Billington caught on. He lay in wait and discovered a thief in the act. The thief shot at him. My ancestor, a much better shot, returned fire, with predictably lethal consequences. This story is unlikely but not impossible. The Billingtons were among the few families to survive the first winter intact, suggesting that John may indeed have been a fine hunter. And the Pilgrims’ contemporary reputation for ridding themselves of religiously unsympathetic people was so widespread that in 1664 the poet Samuel Butler mocked the practice in his popular satire
Hudibras:
“Our brethren of NEW ENGLAND use / Choice malefactors to excuse, / And hang the guiltless in their stead, / Of whom the Churches have less need” (Canto II, lines 409–12).

 

Actual first executions: During the catastrophic “starving time” (winter 1609–10) in Jamestown, according to colony governor George Percy, “one of our Colline murdered his [pregnant] wyfe Ripped the childe outt of her woambe and threw itt into the River and after chopped the Mother in pieces and salted her for his foode.” Percy had the man tortured and executed (Percy 1922:267). In March 1623 a man at Wessagusset, a rival Massachusetts colony, was hanged for stealing maize from an Indian family (Morton 1632:108–10; Bradford 1981:129). Bradford calls Billington’s execution “the first” in Plymouth (259), so my family can claim that our ancestor was the first person of European descent hanged in the Cape Cod area. I am arbitrarily not including the French and Spaniards in Florida who executed each other by the score in the 1560s.

 

No idea where they were heading: According to Bradford, their intended destination was “some place about Hudson’s River” (Bradford 1981:68), an assertion backed up by the diplomat John Cory, who surveyed Plymouth in 1622 on behalf of British investors (James ed. 1963:5–6). But they had earlier tried to obtain permission to settle in what is now New England, so some historians have argued that it is possible that they were going there. One theory is that the Dutch, who then had possession of the Hudson, bribed the
Mayflower
’s captain to steer them away (Morton 1669:11–12). In any case, they gave little evidence of knowing where they were going (Rutman 1960). Smith’s claims, which seem to be true, are reported in Arber and Bradley eds. 1910 (vol. 2):891–92.

 

Pilgrim incompetence: Most of this catalog of error is lifted from Bates 1940:112–13.

 

Half the Pilgrims died: Accompanied by about 30 crew members, 102 people set sail. One died en route, but a child was born before landfall, the wonderfully named Oceanus Hopkins, making the party 102 again. Of these, 44 died before spring. Among them was Bradford’s wife, Dorothy, thought to have drowned herself by leaping off the
Mayflower
rather than face the unknown continent (Deetz and Deetz 2000:39, 59–60).

 

Robbing Indian graves and houses: Bradford 1981:73–75; Winslow 1963b:19–29 (“providence,” 26). Later the Pilgrims did try to compensate the Indians for the theft (Winslow 1963c:61–62).

 

English vs. continental financing for colonies, British colonists’ flakiness and helplessness: Kuppermann 2000:3–4, 11–15, 148 (“utterly,” 13); Cell 1965.

 

Inability to understand climate: The confusion is especially surprising given that a number of British visitors had kept careful track of the weather (e.g., Anon. 1979).

 

Time of drought: Stahle et al. 1998.

 

Thoreau’s disdain: Thoreau 1906 (vol. 4):295–300 (“A party,” 300).

 

Tisquantum’s travels in New England: Baxter 1890:103–10 (“appears to,” 106); Gorges 1890a:212–25; 1890b:26–30; Dermer 1619 (“void,” 131). The line from
The Tempest
is in act 2, scene 2.

 

“Indians themselves”: Panzer 1995:118–19 (text of
Sublimis Deus,
Paul III).

 

Slany: Cell 1965:615.

 

Epidemic: Morton 1637:22–24 (“died,” 23; “Golgotha,” 23); Hubbard 1848:54–55 (French sailor’s curse); Spiess and Spiess 1987; Snow 1980:31–42; Snow and Lanphear 1988. Salisbury (1982:103–05) suggests that the disease was the plague, but Snow and Lanphear point out that this requires a chain of transmission that would have trouble getting established. According to John Smith, “where I had seene 100 or 200 Salvages [in 1614], there is scarce ten to be found [in 1620]” (Arber and Bradley eds. 1910 [vol. 2]:259). The Pilgrims may have seen evidence of the original disease carrier. One of the corpses they exhumed on Cape Cod had blond hair and was buried in a wrap of sailor’s canvas (Winslow 1963b:27–28).

 

“The idea”: Gunn Allen 2003:30.

 

Mather’s experiment: Mather 1820 (vol. 1):507.

 

Wampanoag spiritual and political crises: Salisbury 1989:235–38 (“their deities,” 236).

 

Plymouth and more than fifty villages: Pyne 1982:45–48; Cronon 1983:90.

 

Bradford and Gorges quotes: Anon. 1792:246 (attrib. to Bradford); Gorges, 1890b:77. From today’s point of view, these opinions were both unfortunately sanguine and unfortunately common. Viz., John Winthrop, first governor of the rival colony in Massachusetts Bay, describing in May 1634 the legal implications of the loss of many natives to smallpox: “The Lord hathe cleared our title to what we possess” (Winthrop 1976:116); or Cotton Mather calmly explaining that the land had been swept free “of those pernicious creatures [Indians], to make room for better growth [Europeans]” (quoted in C. F. Adams 1892–93 [vol. 1]:12).

 

“Could make [the] English”: Pratt 1858:485.

 

“He thinks we may”: Winslow 1963b:58.

 

Indians and guns: Chaplin 2001:111–12; Percy 1905–07:414 (all Jamestown quotes).

 

Indian technology: Rosier 1605:21 (canoes); Kuppermann 2000:166–68 (shoes); Bourque and Whitehead 1994:136–42 (Indian shallops). To some readers, the notion that European technology did not determine the outcome of the culture clash may seem absurd. Compare, though, the difference between the colonial histories of the Americas and Africa. The indigenous inhabitants of both places had technology that is often described as wildly inferior. And both places were the target of sustained colonial enterprises by the same nations. In the Americas, though, the Indians were rapidly defeated. “The Indians die so easily that the bare look and smell of a Spaniard causes them to give up the ghost,” a missionary commented in 1699 (quoted in Crosby 2003b:37). Yet the majority of Africa—which had, if anything, an even more “inferior” technological base—did not fall until the late nineteenth century. Technology was not a dominant factor.

 

Massasoit’s negotiations: Winslow 1963b:43–59; Deetz and Deetz 2000:61–62.

 

Tisquantum’s machinations, death: Bradford 1981:108–09 (“came running,” “and he thought,” “all was quiet”), 125–26 (Tisquantum’s death); Morton 1637:103–05; Winslow 1963a:82 (thanksgiving); Humins 1987; Salisbury 1989; Shuffelton 1976.

 

Massasoit’s son and war in 1675: The best short account I have encountered is the first section of Schultz and Tougias 1999. See also Richter 2001:90–109; Vaughan 1995:308–22; Salisbury 1982:Chap. 7.

 

1633 epidemic: Snow and Lanphear 1998.

 

3 /
In the Land of Four Quarters

Pizarro’s body: Maples and Browning 1994:213–19.

 

Ezell thesis: Ezell 1961.

 

Dobyns in Peru and Mexico: Interviews, Dobyns; Dobyns 2004.

 

Prescott as first full history: As opposed to colonial-era accounts.

 

Politicization of Andean studies: Beyers 2001. Among the better known examples (and actually a pretty good book) is Baudin 1961.

 

Dobyns’s 1963 article: Dobyns 1963.

 

Comparison of Inka realm to other states in 1491: Fernández-Armesto 2001:390–402 (“imperial potential,” 395).

 

Inka realm as empire: Peruvian historian María Rostworowski de Diez Canseco has argued that because the term “empire” has “Old World connotations”—it implies a sophisticated center that dominates “barbarians” on the periphery, as was the case for Rome—it should not be applied to the Inka, who overran societies bigger and more cosmopolitan than themselves (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1999:x). Although one can see what she means, the word is now used loosely to describe a situation in which “a core polity gains control over a range of other societies” (D’Altroy 2002:6). And the Inka did exactly that.

 

Inka goals, methods: “The Inkas were coolly pragmatic, efficient, and totalitarian in their policies toward conquered nations, [attempting to impose] a restrictive area wide standardization of politics, religion, customs, and language…. They maintained order by instilling fear and using force rather than by encouraging knowledgeable participation” (Dobyns and Doughty 1976:48–49).

 

Inka road system: Hyslop 1984:esp. 215–24, 342–43. The network appears to have been planned carefully (Jenkins 2001:655–87).

 

“not with the Wars”: Rowe 1946:329.

 

“where millions”: Quoted in Lechtman 1996a:15. My next sentence is a revamped version of Lechtman’s sentence following the quotation.

 

Steepest street: Filbert Street. I am grateful to Wade Roush for checking this comparison.

 

“a wide range”: Diamond 1997:140.

 

20 of 34 life zones: Burger 1992:12. Only 2 percent of Peru is today considered suitable for agriculture (ibid.).

 

“vertical archipelagoes”: Murra 1967.

 

Inka origin accounts: Cobo 1979:103–07 (“extreme ignorance,” 20; “ridiculous,” 103).

 

Betanzos: Betanzos 1996 (“thirty small,” 13; “two hundred,” 19). For a discussion of his value as a source, see Fossa 2000.

 

Inkas vs. Chankas, Wiraqocha Inka vs. Inka Yupanki: Betanzos 1996:19–43 (“To this,” 33; “crazy impulse,” 36); Cieza de León 1998:317 (Pizarro sees skins); Cobo 1979:130–33 (“valiant prince,” 130); Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:270–73; D’Altroy 2002:62–65; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:78–119; Santa 1963. Three of the fifteen Spanish accounts of Inka history claim that Wiraqocha Inka, not Inka Yupanki, fought the Chankas and then his father. Among them is Cobo, who confusingly attributes what seem to be the same events to both. Rostworowski de Diez Canseco (1999:28–34) convincingly argues against Wiraqocha. Pachakuti literally means “he who remakes the world” or “he who turns over time and space,” but I have followed Michael Moseley in an attempt to suggest how the name might have struck Inka ears (Moseley 2001:14).

 

Inka chronology: John H. Rowe laid out the timeline of the empire in an influential article (Rowe 1946:203). Rowe relied on the calculation in a manuscript from 1586, still not published in its entirety, by Father Miguel Cabello Balboa (Cabello Balboa 1920). A Swedish historian, Åke Wedin, fiercely criticized Rowe’s use of this and other sources (Wedin 1963, 1966). An insurmountable problem with the accounts, Wedin insisted, was that they were not drawn from interviews with the elite record keepers who actually kept track of events. The implication was that most other Indians were as reliably informed about their society’s history as, say, average U.S. citizens are about their society’s history. Since Wedin’s work historians have come to place a little more trust in Spanish chronicles, which although not taken from record keepers tended to be drawn from interviews with the educated elite. In addition, radiocarbon dating seems generally to support the chronology (Michczynski and Adamska 1997). Rowe’s chronology is now typically viewed as roughly correct, though subject to debate.

 

Fall of Chincha: Castro and Ortega Morejón 1974:91–104 (“son of the Sun,” 93; “Everything,” 95). My thanks to Robert Crease for obtaining this article for me. See also Santillán 1879:14; Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:113–14, 135 (brother left in command). As Sarmiento de Gamboa notes, Chincha was a minor incident in a much larger campaign against the bigger polity of Chimor (see Chap. 6). The rising claim on local labor both reflected a deliberate strategy by the Inka state of gradually increasing control and a rise in labor demand in the Inka state itself (Morris 1993:36–50).

 

Luttwak’s book: Luttwak 1976.

 

Inka as hegemonic empire: D’Altroy 1987; Hassig 1985.

 

Austere, contemporary feel of Inka art and architecture: Paternosto 1996:219–22 (influence on twentieth-century art); Thomson 2003:60–62, 86–87, 246–49.

 

Qosqo and Awkaypata: Rowe 1991, 1990. I thank Patricia Lyon for sending me a copy of these articles. Descriptions of the structures are in Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:85–91.

 

“point of a pin”: Pizarro 1969:272–73. He was describing Saqsawaman fortress, at the edge of town, but the same is true of the structures in central Qosqo. Sancho was similarly impressed (Sancho 1917:156–57). One viceroy wrote in 1571 that an Inka fortress was “the work of the devil…for it does not seem possible that the strength and skill of men could have made it” (quoted in Wright 2005:57).

 

Zeq’e
and
Wak’a:
D’Altroy 2002:155–67 (“otherwise diligent,” 156 [D’Altroy closed his remark by wryly noting “(see below)”]). He relied on Bauer 1998, which I have also done. The classic colonial account is from Cobo 1990:51–84 (“more than a thousand,” 9). But as a
Booknews
reviewer dryly noted, Cobo “based his account of [Inka] religion almost entirely on previous literature (his employer having eradicated his subject).”

 

Calendar: The Inka calendar and their means of reckoning time were so complex that I have basically ducked and avoided them. See instead Aveni 1995:278–304.

 

Inka economics and labor system: Cobo 1979:189–93, 211–34; La Lone 1982:312–36; Murra 1980; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:182–201; D’Altroy 2002:263–86.

 

Absence of money in Europe: Braudel 1981–84 (vol. 1):467–68.

 

“managed to eradicate”: Vargas Llosa 1992:26.

 

Population reshuffling: Cieza de León 1959:59–63; Cobo 1979:189–93; D’Altroy 2002:248–49; Rowe 1946:269–70.

 

Disproportionate size of conquest: The contrast between the tiny Spanish force and the vast Inka empire was noted as early as 1534, in the first narrative of the conquest,
Verdadera relación de la conquista del Perú,
by Francisco de Xerez. “When in ancient times have such few [triumphed] against so many?” he crowed. “And who has equaled those of Spain? Certainly not the Jews nor the Greeks nor Romans, about whom most is told.” Although the Romans subjugated many lands, Jerez said, “it was with equal or greater numbers of people, in known territories, provided with the usual sustenance, and with paid captains and armies. But our Spaniards…were never more than two or three hundred, sometimes a hundred or even less…. And the many times they traveled, they were neither paid nor forced but went of their own will and at their own cost” (Xerez 1938:16–17).

 

Inka “crown” and clothes, saving of waste: Pizarro 1969:222–26 (clothing and headband); Cobo 1979:244–47; Ruiz de Arce 1933:361 (spittle), cited in Hemming 2004:51; Rowe 1946:258–59.

 

Thupa Inka’s grandeur, military career: Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:112–19, 122–23 (“worshiped and adored,” 112); D’Altroy 2002:67–74. The description of the litter is from Thupa Inka’s successor, but seems to apply in general (Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:79).

 

Thupa Inka’s marriage(s): Betanzos 1996:119–20; Cobo 1979:142; D’Altroy 2002:103–06. As Rowe notes, multiple sister-marriages were embedded in Inka culture—the leader of the four brothers who arrived in Qosqo married his four sisters (Rowe 1946:317–18). In addition, Andean societies traditionally recognized that a man owed obligations to his sister’s son. By ensuring that his nephew was also his son, the Inka tried to reduce the potential for intrafamilial conflict (Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:103–04).

 

Troubled accession of Wayna Qhapaq: Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:133–38; Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:293–97; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:104–05. According to one report, Wayna Qhapaq was sixteen (Anello Oliva 1998:77). See also, Peñaherrera de Costales and Costales Samienego 1964.

 

Makework projects: Cieza de León 1959:77 (“mountain”), 137–38.

 

Ecuador campaign: Cobo 1979:155–60 (“commanded,” 155, “prepared himself,” 156); Betanzos 1996:182–83; Cieza de León 1959:46–50, 77–78; Cabello Balboa 1920:84–108; Niles 1999:97–105. Betanzos, but not Cobo, mentions Atawallpa’s disgrace; Cobo, but not Betanzos, describes Wayna Qhapaq’s discomfiture; omissions are consonant with the chroniclers’ biases.

 

“When his captains”: Pizarro 1969:198–99, 228 (vampire-bat wool).

 

Wayna Qhapaq’s death, succession battle: Cieza de León 1959:78–87; 1998:187–93; Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:309–24; Sarmiento de Gamboa 2000:144–60; Cabello Balboa 1920:113–21, 128–72; Anello Oliva 1998:87–92. A clear summary is D’Altroy 2002:76–83; see also, Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 2001:110–25. Betanzos’s narrative, though useful, is understandably biased; his wife was Atawallpa’s sister (Betanzos 1996:183–234). Pedro Pizarro’s version of events interestingly highlights the internal politics of Qosqo (Pizarro 1969:198–206). Garcilaso de la Vega says that Wayna Qhapaq’s death followed omens and prophecies of the collapse of the empire, which seems unlikely. If true, though, it may account for a certain fatalism toward the Spanish among the Inka elite (Gheerbrant ed. 1962:284–89). He also suggests that the war occurred after Wayna Qhapaq split up Tawantinsuyu in a Lear-like fashion, giving Atawallpa a rump kingdom to the north. Most ethnographers and historians disagree. Garcilaso’s description of the war itself as consisting in essence of a single big engagement outside Qosqo is at variance with other accounts.

 

Washkar’s marriage and his mother’s marriage: Pachacuti Yamqui Salcamayhua 1879:308; Cabello Balboa 1920:120–21 (“begging,” 121).

 

Cieza de León casualty estimates: Cieza de León 1959:84 (16,000), 87 (35,000).

 

Skull cup: “I saw the head with the skin, the dried flesh, and its hair, and it had the teeth closed, and between them was a silver straw, and attached to the top of the head was a gold cup [with a hole in the bottom that entered the skull], from which he drank when memories of [Atawallpa’s] war against his brother came to mind; he put
chicha
in the cup, from which it came out through the mouth, and he drank through the straw” (Mena 1930:250–53). The cup is also mentioned in Cieza de León 1959:84.

 

Pizarro and Atawallpa at Cajamarca: I draw mainly on Hemming 2004:30–85. See also, Sancho 1917:9–19; Mena 1930:231–81; Pizarro 1969:171–221 (“made water,” 179–80); Ruiz de Arce 1933:363 (“mounds”), cited in Hemming 2004:42.

 

Spaniards and gold: Restall 2003:22–23 (“nonperishable,” 23), 34–37, 65–67.

 

“What could,” “No amount”: Hemming 2004:115, 158. See also the vigorously argued Guilmartin 1991.

 

Marveling at failure to develop steel: “It is worthy of remark, that…the Peruvians, in their progress towards civilization, should never have detected the use of iron, which lay around them in abundance” (Prescott 2000:810).

 

Andean metallurgy: Burger and Gordon 1998; Lechtman 1996b (“hardness,” 35; “plasticity,” 37); 1993 (“eminent scholar,” 253); 1984.

 

Different contexts of technology: Interviews, Lechtman (“people solved”), Conklin, Leonard Morse-Fortier (force of sling projectiles); Ihde 2000.

 

Inka ships: Cieza de León 1998: 75–76; Heyerdahl 1996; Hemming 2004:25; Prescott 2000:854–55; interview, Vranich (replica boat created for documentary). See the account of the new ship at http://www.reedboat.org.

 

“without endangering themselves”: Sancho 1917:62.

 

Importance and fineness of textiles in Tawantinsuyu: Murra 1964 (stripping soldiers, 718); Lechtman 1993:254–59 (five hundred threads per inch, 257). “The [cotton] clothes they made were so fine that we [Spaniards] thought they were made of silk, worked with figures of beaten gold, beautifully made” (Mena 1930:225).

 

Cloth armor: Lechtman 1993:256; Murra 1964:718 (stripping of soldiers); Rowe 1946:274–75; Montell 1929:Fig. 21.

 

“with such force”: Enríquez de Guzmán 1862:99.

 

Inka rebellion with flaming missiles: Hemming 2004:193–94; Prescott 2000:1021–23.