Pedro de la Gasca

As the civil turmoil in Peru continues following Francisco Pizzaro's assassination in 1541, the Spanish crown intervenes to try to bring the dispute to an end, but in the process touches off a dangerous revolt among the colonists by decreeing the end of the encomienda system in 1542.

The encomienda had originally been granted as a reward to the conquistadors and their families during the conquest and ensuing colonization, and is regarded as sacrosanct by the grantees, or encomenderos, who number about five hundred out of a total Spanish population of two thousand in 1536.

However, to the crown it raises the specter of a potentially privileged, neofeudal elite emerging in the Andes to challenge crown authority.

The crown's efforts to enforce the New Laws (Nuevos Leyes) of 1542 alienates the colonists, who rally around the figure of Gonzalo Pizarro, the late Francisco's brother.

Gonzalo manages o kill the intemperate Viceroy Don Blasco Nunez de la Vela, who, on his arrival, had foolishly tried to enforce the New Laws.

Pizarro assumes de facto authority over Peru in 1544.

His arbitrary and brutal rule, however, causes opposition among the colonists, so that when another royal representative, Pedro de la Gasca, arrives in Peru to restore crown authority, he succeeds in organizing a pro-royalist force that defeats and executes Pizarro in 1548.

With Gonzalo 's death, the crown finally succeeds, despite subsequent intermittent revolts, in ending the civil war and exerting crown control over Spanish Peru.

Some of Gonzalo Pizarro’s associates, such as Carvajal, have advised him to proclaim himself King of Peru and to disown any further claim by the King of Spain to the land, but he has refused.

The Emperor, recovering from a ruinous war, is unable to send an army against Pizarro.

He instead commissions Pedro de la Gasca, who in 1542 had negotiated for Charles in discussions with the pope and King Henry VIII, a position requiring great diplomatic skill.

The emperor charges Gasca with reestablishing royal authority in the wake of the civil wars here, naming him president of the Audiencia and providing him with unlimited authority to punish and pardon the rebels.

Gasca had sailed from Spain in May 1546, without troops or money.

Two Dominican priests and a few servants made up his party.

He had arrived in Panama, representing himself as a peacemaker charged only with reestablishing justice and granting a general amnesty.

Gasca had suggested that if he were unable to fulfill his offices, a royal fleet of 40 ships and 15,000 men was preparing to sail from Seville in June to restore the peace in Peru by more forceful methods.

Pizarro's fleet was stationed in Panama, and Gasca's diplomatic skills soon converted Pizarro's officers to the royalist cause.

Gonzalo Pizarro, however, has refused to submit, and fled secretly to Cuzco, where he has loyal troops.

Gasca lands at Tumbes in 1547, escorted by nearly the whole fleet of Pizarro.

He issues a proclamation announcing his mission as peacekeeper and inviting all good citizens to join him in restoring tranquility.

In another proclamation, he grants amnesty to all deserters and promises rewards to those who will take up arms in defense of the Crown.

He also repeals the New Laws, the cause around which the rebellion has been organized.

Gasca, soon assembling a respectable army, takes command himself and marches to Cuzco in December 1547.

Valdivia, in an effort to secure additional aid and confirm his claims to the conquered territory, had returned in 1547 to Peru, leaving Francisco de Villagra as governor in his stead.

Here he has tried to gather more resources and men to continue the conquest.

When the Gonzalo Pizarro rebellion began, insurgents had attempted unsuccessfully to win Valdivia to their side, but he ultimately supports Gasca against Pizarro, joining the royal army in early 1548.

Many Spaniards and natives, disgusted with Pizarro’s brutal rule, have flocked to Gasca’s banner.

The opposing forces meet at Xaquixaguana (or, in Spanish, Jaquijahuana), near Cuzco, on April 5 or 9, 1548.

Most of Pizarro's officers and men go over to Gasca, with the exception of Francisco de Carvajal, dubbed the Demon of the Andes.

Forty-five of Pizarro’s men are killed in battle; Gasca loses only one.

No longer supported with an army against the King's new representative, Gonzalo Pizarro surrenders and is beheaded by the royal forces, together with some of his important followers, including the octogenarian Carvajal, at the field of battle.

Gonzalo is the last of the Pizarro brothers to die a violent death (with Hernando dying of old age in Spain some three or six decades later).

Gasca disperses the adventurers, rewards the royalists, and pardons the majority of the rebels.

He reorganizes the administration of justice and the collection of taxes, and he issues several regulations opposed to the oppression of the indigenous people.

Gasca is tactful and judicious, but unyielding in his devotion to duty.

A discontented faction from Chile had managed, despite Valdivia’s support of Gasca,  to have him tried in Lima, accused of tyranny, malfeasance of public funds and public immorality.

One of the charges leveled against him was that he, being married, openly lived with Inés de Suárez "...in the manner of man and wife and they sleep in one bed and they eat in one dish..." In exchange for being freed, and for his confirmation as Royal Governor, he had agreed to relinquish her and to bring to Chile his wife, Marina Ortíz de Gaete (who only arrives after Valdivia's death in 1554.

He was also ordered to marry off Inés, which he does, upon his return to Chile in 1549, to one of his captains, Rodrigo de Quiroga.

As recognition for his services, Valdivia is finally appointed as adelantado and wins the royal assent to his coveted title of Governor of Chile, returning to the settlement with his position and prestige considerably strengthened.

Sayri Túpac had in 1544 retreated to to the remote jungles of Vilcabamba, where he has reigned for ten years with the aid of regents after the murder of his father Manco Inca, who had waged an unsuccessful war of reconquest for more than two decades,

This has been a time of peace with the Spanish.

Viceroy Pedro de la Gasca had offered to provide Sayri Túpac with lands and houses in Cuzco if he would emerge from the isolated Vilcabamba.

Sayri Túpac had accepted, but during the preparations his relative Paullu Inca suddenly died.

This had been taken as a bad omen (or a sign of Spanish treachery), and Sayri Tupac has remained in Vilcabamba.

The Audiencia has turned over its governance to the new viceroy of Peru, Andrés Hurtado de Mendoza, 3rd Marquis of Cañete, who arrives in the colony 1556.

Although the Inca in Vilcabamba is no longer ruler of an Indigenous empire, he is still ruler of an independent native state.

Like Viceroy Gasca before him, Hurtado believes it will be safer for the Spanish if Sayri Tupac can be enticed to live in the area of Spanish settlement, where the conquistadors can control him.