THE GOLDEN GOOSE

You remember Atahuallpa?
Perhaps not. The amnesia is perfectly understandable. The last sovereign of the Inca Empire died at 36, quite young for a king, at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors in 1533. Niall Ferguson in The Ascent of Money (2009) summarizes the situation thus:
“Five hundred years ago, the most sophisticated society in South America, the Inca Empire, was . . . moneyless. The Incas appreciated the aesthetic qualities of rare metals. Gold was the ‘sweat of the sun’, silver the ‘tears of the moon’. Labor was the unit of value in the Inca Empire, just as it was later supposed to be in a Communist society. And, as under Communism, the economy depended on often harsh central planning and forced labor. In 1532, however, the Inca Empire was brought low by a man who, like Christopher Columbus, had come to the New World expressly to search for and monetize precious metal.
The illegitimate son of a Spanish colonel, Francisco Pizarro had crossed the Atlantic to seek his fortune in 1502. One of the first Europeans to traverse the isthmus of Panama to the Pacific, he led the first of three expeditions into Peru in 1524. The terrain was harsh, food scarce and the first indigenous people they encountered hostile. However, the welcome their second expedition received in the Tumbes region, where the inhabitants hailed them as the ‘children of the sun’, convinced Pizarro and his confederates to persist. Having returned to Spain to obtain royal approval for his plan ‘to extend the empire of Castile’ as ‘Governor of Peru’, Pizarro raised a force of three ships, twenty-seven horses and one hundred and eighty men, equipped with the latest European weaponry: guns and mechanical crossbows. This third expedition set sail from Panama on 27 December 1530. It took the would-be conquerors just under two years to achieve their objective: a confrontation with Atahuallpa, one of the two feuding sons of the recently deceased Incan emperor Huayna Capac. Having declined Friar Vincent Valverd’s proposal that he submit to Christian rule, contemptuously throwing his Bible to the ground, Atahuallpa could only watch as the Spaniards, relying mainly on the terror inspired by their horses (animals unknown to the Incas), annihilated his army. Given how outnumbered they were, it was a truly astonishing coup. Atahuallpa soon came to understand what Pizarro was after, and sought to buy his freedom by offering to fill the room where he was being held with gold (once) and silver (twice). In all, in the subsequent months the Incas collected 13,420 pounds of 22 carat gold and 26,000 pounds of pure silver. Pizarro nevertheless determined to execute their prisoner, who was publicly garroted in August 1533. With the fall of the city of Cuzco, the Inca Empire was torn apart in an orgy of Spanish plundering. Despite a revolt led by the supposedly puppet Inca Manco Caopac in 1536, Spanish rule was unshakeably established and symbolized by the construction of a new capital, Lima. The empire was formally dissolved in 1572.” (London: Penguin, 2009. pp 20-21).

While most books and sites consider the execution of the man cruel and indefensible, a telling symbol of colonial invasion and obliteration of indigenous cultures, the Holy Catholic Church strikes a different note:
“On the evening of the 16th of November, 1532, Atau-hauallpa entered the squared of Caxamarca with a great retinue of men carrying their weapons concealed. They packed the court densely. Pizarro had placed on the roof of the building his artillery (two pedereros) that could not be pointed except horizontally. When the Indians thronged into the square, a Dominican friar, Fray Vicente Valverde, was sent by Pizarro to inform Atau-huallpa, through an interpreter, of the motives of the Spaniard's appearance in the country. This embassy was received with scorn, and the friar, seeing the Indians ready to begin hostilities, warned Pizarro. His action has been unjustly criticized; Valverde did what was his imperative duty under the circumstances. Then, not waiting for the Indians to attack the Spaniards [took] to the offensive. The sound of cannon and musketry, and the sight of the horses frightened the Indians so that they fled in dismay, leaving Atau-huallpa a prisoner in the hands of Pizarro, who treated him with proper regard. The stories of a terrible slaughter of the Indians are inordinate exaggerations. While a prisoner, Atau-huallpa caused the greater portion of the gold and silver at Cuzco to be turned over to the Spaniards and having them massacred. When this was discovered Pizarro had him executed, on the 9th of August, 1633. The execution was not unjustifiable. Atau-huallpa, at the time of his death, was about thirty years of age.” Bandelier, A.F. (1907). Atahuallpa. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02032a.htm )
Did Pizarro go to South America equipped with padroado, just like Vasco de Gamma hit the shores of Kerala in 1498? Seems to be so. Stephen Neill in A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707 (2004) observes:

“The fullest statement of the rights and duties of the kings under the ‘patronage’ is to be found in the bull Universalis Ecclesiae, put forth at the request of Castile.
By this bull the pope practically handed over to the king of Spain the government of and responsibility for the Church in America (and later in the Philippines). In effect the king possessed all the powers which do not require the sacerdotal character. . . It is not too much to say that, by the rights conferred on him and the services he is to render, he holds in his hands the entire life of the new church. (R. Ricard in Fliche et Martin, Historie de léglise, vol. XIII, ‘Léglise et la renaissance’. 1951, page 125).
Someone is reputed to have said “You cannot serve both God and Money.” Rings a bell?