Treasure Seekers: Lost Cities of the Inca Page #3

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Espiritu Pampa's desolate jungle,

the remains of Vilcabamba had been

lying only a few hundred yards

from where Hiram had searched.

Determined to dispel

any lingering doubts

that Machu Picchu was not

the last refuge of the Incas,

Hiram devoted many of the years

up to his death in 1956

to his researches into Vilcabamba

and its fall.

His studies took him back to

the 16th century.

The bloodstained and tumultuous era

of the Conquest

and to a brilliant, chilling,

now largely forgotten man

who changed the course of

Peru's history

Francisco de Toledo,

administrator of genius,

passionate believer in the law,

destroyer of Vilcabamba,

killer of the last Inca king.

Francisco de Toledo was born in 1515

into the high Spanish nobility

in the town of Oropesa.

In the 16th century, you couldn't get

much more privileged than this.

Spain was the wealthiest and most

powerful nation on earth.

Its massive armies had subdued

Moslems in the Middle East

and Protestants in Europe's north.

It was the powerhouse of the West.

The recent astonishing discoveries

of a whole new continent

promised an inexhaustible supply of

wealth, and it all belonged to Spain.

This was the confident, aggressive and

opulent world

Francisco was born into.

But despite his family's position,

his early life was not easy.

His mother died in childbirth, and

young Francisco was raised by nuns.

He grew up isolated in a world of

austere Catholicism

and fervent devotion.

Young Francisco took on the qualities

of the religious world that shaped him.

He became tough minded,

disciplined,

and an ardent believer

in the justice of Christ.

His family had always been loyal

servants of the Spanish crown,

so at 15 Francisco became a page

at the royal palace.

In 1532, Francisco would have been

at court for only two years

when he heard the astounding tales

of Pizarro's conquest of Peru

and the astonishing ransom in gold

of the Inca king, Atahuallpa.

These were reports from beyond

the edge of the known world.

How could his imagination not be

seized

by the faraway kingdom of Peru

and its amazing riches?

Francisco joined a religious

and military order

at the forefront of

Spain's expansion.

He took the necessary vows

and dedicated his life to Christ,

Spain and the law.

Toledo was brought up to be

what we would consider a humanist.

He had training in the law,

he could read Latin.

So, he was a man trained to be like,

today we would say a Harvard or

a Yale man, ready to rule.

Francisco rose fast

through the ranks.

By 1558, he'd become a permanent,

powerful member of the royal household.

He was one of the chosen few present

at the bedside of King Charles V

when he died.

Francisco went on to serve the

next king of Spain,

Philip II,

who on taking the throne was confronted

with the devastating

and unexpected realization

the empire was broke.

Overextended in Europe,

Spain had also financed

decades of conquest

and exploration in the Americas.

Very little was coming back.

All that Inca and Aztec gold

that had been melted down

turned out to be a drop in the ocean.

The real wealth of the colonies was

in the hands of the 'encomenderos,'

the new Spanish overlords who had

divided up the lands

and the Indians amongst themselves.

In a feeding frenzy

over the astonishing wealth

of their newfound land,

the encomenderos had spawned Spain's

very own Wild West,

where lawlessness and

the sword ruled.

They were busy making themselves rich,

and not paying tribute to the crown.

Philip realized he desperately

needed someone

who could straighten out the colony

in Peru

and get some revenues flowing

back to Spain.

That man, he decided,

was Francisco de Toledo.

In 1569, Francisco set sail for Peru

to take up the most challenging

and important job

in the Spanish Empire,

Viceroy of Peru.

The grueling journey took almost

an entire year

across the barely charted waters

of the Atlantic,

and then down the Pacific Coast of

South America to Peru.

On November 30th, 1569,

Francisco arrived in the

Spanish capital of Peru, Lima.

Anxious for his favor,

the local encomenderos gave him

an enthusiastic welcome.

But in a letter to King Philip,

he secretly confided his disgust

for the anarchic little frontier town

and its Spanish overlords.

The Spaniards in this kingdom

have tried to fill their greedy hands

in the looting of ancient tombs

and sacred worship sites.

And it is the most common thing

for them to wildly flaunt their finds.

But this is what he'd been sent to

put right.

The new viceroy threw himself into the

task of reforming the delinquent colony.

It quickly became clear to him that

the colony was being pulled apart by

two powerful forces.

On the one hand there were

the encomenderos

who fought amongst themselves

and enslaved the Indians.

On the other, there was the Church,

which also felt it had a moral right

not only to Indian souls,

but their labor.

The whole colony was feeding itself

on Indian toil and Indian ignorance.

Not surprisingly,

the native population simmered with

resentment and discontent.

Francisco could immediately see

where he had to focus his reforms.

I am informed that the Indians

are not free

as a result of their weakness,

and the great awe they have

toward Spaniards.

It is, therefore, my duty

as their protector

to see they are not cheated

in their work.

Francisco also learned

the Inca court in exile,

now established in Vilcabamba,

had already been at the center

of the violent rebellion

which had raged for years.

When Toledo arrived to Peru,

he was sympathetic to the Inca.

On the other hand, there had been

this famous uprising of the Incas.

The Incas had retired to Vilcabamba

and they were threatening the

whole process of the conquest.

Francisco had to somehow

introduce order

into this volatile

and chaotic situation.

He realized he could never

put things right

unless he came to understand it

in greater depth.

So he proposed something that,

for the time,

was absolutely remarkable

a research trip

to find out at first hand

what was happening in the colony.

I saw clearly that I would not be

able to govern the Spaniards

or the Indians with the zeal that

I had for serving God or Your Majesty

unless I saw the land, traveled

through it, and inspected it.

It was what we would do today

in a social survey.

It was completely innovative.

The government up to that point was

based on brutality and the use of arms.

What Toledo proposes is government

based on knowledge,

which makes him a man

ahead of his time.

So in 1570, Toledo set out on his

remarkable voyages of investigation

through the remnants of

the vast Inca Empire.

They would last for five years.

With translators and scribes,

he traveled from one end of

the colony to the other,

interviewing Indians and Spanish

alike, collecting data on population,

land holdings, resources

and local history.

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