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Francisco Pizarro was born in Trujillo, a city in Extremadura, in Spain. Together with his compatriots Diego Almagro and Hernando De Luque he undertook the expedition that resulted in the conquest of Peru. This achievement made Pizarro and his colleagues incredibly wealthy by collecting the found riches; also that they were appointed governors of the occupied lands. Currently, this conqueror is remembered as the one who gave the kingdom of Spain a prosperous colony in the New World, but also as the one who ended the Inca empire.
Pizarro’s life has been the subject of various biographies, some of which narrate events that have been branded as fanciful, wanting to extol the figure of man as a hero. The versions or clarifications on these facts are presented below.
paternity in doubt
In general, it is considered that Francisco Pizarro was the son of the hidalgo Gonzalo Pizarro Rodríguez Aguilar and Francisca González Mateos. The most accepted version indicates that he was born in the Crown of Castile, in the Villa de Trujillo, Spain. However, none of these data can be verified, since, being an illegitimate child, he was not registered. For this same reason, the date of his birth is controversial, and there are references to this fact between 1476 and 1478.
Recently, it has been questioned whether Pizarro’s parents are the aforementioned, because when Gonzalo Pizarro left his will, he named both his legitimate and illegitimate children as heirs, among whom he did not include Francisco.
On the other hand, it is striking that Francisco is more than 20 years older than the other sons of the hidalgo, and that he was welcomed into the home of his grandfather, Hernando Alonso de Pizarro, Gonzalo’s father. Don Hernando lived with his sister Beatriz de el, who happened to be Francisca González’s employer. At that time it was a custom to pass off grandchildren as children and vice versa, in order to avoid scandals; For this reason, it is theorized that Don Hernando, who held public office, passed Francisco off as the son of his first-born Gonzalo to preserve his honor.
Uneducated, but persevering
According to the stories, Francisco Pizarro grew up completely abandoned by his parents and did not receive the most common education, which is why he reached adulthood illiterate and ignorant of the arts and sciences that were developed in Europe.
It is said that when Francisco was a child, Gonzalo Pizarro took him with him to work taking care of the pigsties on his farms. This ignoble labor did not suit the ambitions that grew along with Francis. That is why it is believed that, taking advantage of the first opportunity, he enlisted in an infantry company that was going to Italy. There he served some years as a detached soldier. However, since he was a poor soldier, without protection and without support, if it weren’t for his entrepreneurial spirit, he might have spent his life doing this humble job.
In fact, Pizarro has been characterized as an intrepid and vigorous member of the militia, a soldier impervious to pain and fatigue, whose spirits did not falter in the face of risk. Thus, despite his ignorance, he was soon regarded as a man born for command. This perception was reinforced when the operations entrusted to it were successful. In summary, Pizarro has been described as a persevering, passionate man, daring in his plans and prudent in executing them.
betrayed friendships
Francisco Pizarro was mainly related to conquerors like him. Among them are Vasco Núñez de Balboa and Diego de Almagro.
Vasco Núñez de Balboa was another conquistador who led several expeditionaries in the conquest of the New World. Pizarro accompanied Balboa, among others, to the expedition in which they discovered the South Sea. When Balboa had to be absent, he appointed Francisco as the person in charge, which is why, in addition to adventure companions, they became friends.
However, at one point, Pedro Arias Dávila “Pedrarias”, governor of Castilla de Oro (present-day Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and the northern part of Colombia) and founder of Panama, ordered Pizarro to stop Balboa. It is believed that Arias’ intention was to test the loyalty of Pizarro, who was seeking the governor’s favor to explore the still unknown lands of Peru. Pizarro complied with Pedrarias’ orders and arrested Balboa near Acla, a colonial town in northeastern Panama. The former friend then personally led Balboa to the scaffold, witnessing his beheading firsthand.
With Balboa out of the game, Pizarro insisted on traveling to the south of the continent, which had not been explored because he considered that there would be nothing worthwhile there. So, he teamed up with Diego Almagro and Hernando De Luque. In this partnership, Pizarro was in charge of leading the exploration, Almagro managed the supply of men and provisions, and Luque agreed with the governor and took care of common interests.
After a first expedition that showed that there would be rich lands to the south, the three partners raised money for Pizarro to travel to Spain and ask the kings for permission to conquer Peruvian lands. Pizarro not only obtained the authorization, but managed to appoint him as governor and captain general of all the territories that he could discover and conquer. For Luque, he obtained the title of bishop of the occupied countries, while he completely neglected the interests of Almagro, contenting himself with having him appointed governor of the fort that was to be built in Túmbez.
Unsurprisingly, Pizarro returned to find Almagro displeased with the way negotiations had been conducted at the Spanish court. However, they remained associated.
Subsequently, both Pizarro and Almagro conquered regions in South America. Almagro founded Quito and explored territories in Bolivia and Chile. Upon returning to Peru, he also took over the city of Cuzco, a process in which he arrested two of Francisco’s brothers, considering that they were on property already taken. The dispute over the conquest of Cuzco was resolved by the king, who recognized Almagro as the owner of the city. So, Francisco negotiated the release of his brothers with Almagro. After the release, and betraying the agreement, Almagro was captured and executed by the Pizarros.
wounded pride
Before the occupation of Peru, 168 Spaniards arrived in Cajamarca, the city of Atahualpa’s empire. On friendly terms, Pizarro invited the Inca emperor to a meeting. Atahualpa accepted, confident due to his 80,000-man army, and made Pizarro wait until the next day.
However, the encounter left both sides with the idea of capturing or killing the other party at the first available opportunity. The story tells that Atahualpa was attracted to the European alphabet, and wanted to know if reading was a natural ability or acquired from those foreign men. For this reason, he asked them to write a word and show it to the Spanish soldiers, who knew how to read it. However, when he made the same request to Pizarro, he was forced to confess that he could not read. The fact made Atahualpa despise Pizarro for being vulgar, ignorant and less educated than his soldiers; Meanwhile, Pizarro felt humiliated in front of his men.
The next day, Pizarro and his small army ambushed the royal guard and captured the Inca leader. The ransom given in exchange for the Inca’s freedom was large, but Pizarro tried and executed Atahualpa anyway. Although the conqueror’s decision was criticized, he explained himself by saying that, given the devotion of the subjects to Atahualpa, only the death of the emperor could bring about the total defeat of the Incas.
confirmed bachelor
Until the occupation of Peru Francisco Pizarro had remained single. As a man over fifty, he had dedicated his life to conquest and plunder. However, at one point he insisted on the importance that the Spanish, in order to extend and prolong their rule, have children with the women of the local population. It is said that, to set an example, he married at the end of his life.
One of his wives was granted to Pizarro by Atahualpa, before he had him executed. The maiden was 17 years old at the time, and she had two children with the conqueror, one of whom died in her infancy. Later, Pizarro had two other children when he was 61 and 62 years old, shortly before he died. The mother of the children, baptized as Angélica Yupanqui, had been the wife of Atahualpa.
Sorrowful protagonist of the first coup d’état in South America
Some time after the murder of Diego Almagro, his sympathizers found themselves in a painful situation, being persecuted and prosecuted by the pizarristas. This is how a group of about 20 men, led by Juan de Herrada (one of Almagro’s main lieutenants) assaulted the recently opened Palace of the Kings of Lima on June 26, 1541. This palace, current residence of the president of the Republic of Peru, was the place of residence of Pizarro.
That was how, after leaving mass, the now governor Don Francisco Pizarro went to the palace. After dinner, and upon hearing the cry “Long live the King and die to the tyrants!”, the guard, the servants and the Pizarros who were in the place took up arms. Once those who stood in their way had been killed, the attackers inflicted several wounds that ended up killing the conqueror.
After Pizarro’s assassination, Diego Almagro el Mozo, son of the deceased Diego Almagro, occupied the Palace of the Kings of Lima and was recognized as Governor of Peru.
Tribute to the wrong Pizarro
After Pizarro’s murder, his friends decided to bury him in the church that same afternoon. The rush was to prevent the corpse from being decapitated and exposed in a public square, as was customary at the time.
Three years later, Pizarro’s body was exhumed and buried with honors under the main altar of the church, where it remained for 85 years. As time passed, and as the cathedral grew, the body changed its location several times and since 1891 it was protected inside a glass urn located in the Cathedral of Lima.
However, in 1977 a group of workers who were working in the crypt of the cathedral found a lead box with an inscription that read “Here is the head of the Marquis Don Francisco Pizarro, who discovered and won the kingdoms of Peru and established in the Royal Crown of Castile». Next to the box was a velvet bag containing several bones that, when studied, turned out to be from various corpses: an adult woman, two children, and a mature man. It is said that, years before, in 1661, a new exhumation caused Pizarro’s head to be deposited in the lead box and his bones were placed in a coffin. However, the document containing this information would not be found until after an unknown skeleton occupied the urn in the cathedral.
After a radiological investigation on the skeleton of the “mature man” carried out at the Cayetano Heredia University, which was complemented by bio-archiometric analyzes carried out by a researcher from the University of San Marcos, it was confirmed that the bones were those of Pizarro. This conclusion was reached, among other indications, by the 16 wounds found in the remains, along with the traces of other scars on the bones corresponding to the wounds documented by the governor’s biographers. In addition, it was determined that Pizarro’s height was around 174 cm, that he was over 60 years of age at the time of his death, and that he possibly suffered from early arthritis.
Sources
Lebrún, E. History of the conquest of Peru and Pizarro . Barcelona: J. Subirana bookstore, editor, 1862.
Ludena, Hugo. Don Francisco Pizarro: An Archaeological and Historical Study . The Bulletin of Lima (3), Sepratata, 1980.
Sánchez, J. Pizarro: an approach to the hero and the conqueror from the chronicles of the Indies . University of Malaga, nd
