Ayacucho

“ The “ring” in the patio below, fenced by poles tied to uprights and other rustic makeshifts, was surrounded by the excited gente del pueblo. The scene was backed by a massive, old, crumbling church—it would have been hard to avoid such a backing in Ayacucho—and a view of most of the town sprinkled away through its half-green valley, Rasuillca, the snowclad and the black range of Cundurcunca, with its white battle monument and its highway zigzagging away over into the great Amazonian montaña beyond as plainly visible as if they stood a bare mile away. ”

“ Then, too, the building of railroads left the ancient route from Lima to Cuzco stranded, and only a rare gringo andarín, driving a shaggy and sun-faded chusquito, comes now to visit the once proud city. Should the long-threatened railway across Peru ever come to pass, Ayacucho, like Huancavelica, may come more or less into her own again.
The cities of our own land are not without their faults, but he who would fully realize the advantages of even the most backward of them should come and dwell for a time in one of these shipwrecked “capitals” of the Andes. ”

“ In a letter written a short time before the battle of Ayacucho Bolivar cautioned Sucre in the following words:
"Remember, that on your army corps depends the fate of Peru, perhaps forever; and with it, that of the whole of America, perhaps for years. Considering the terrible consequences which a battle lost may entail upon us, every means of foresight and strategy is to be exerted so as not to make a move without gaining a decided and absolute success." ”

“ The city of Ayacucho has a population of ten thousand people; the houses have two stories, with large rooms and court-yards; the streets run at right angles, and are paved. On the grand plaza stands an immense cathedral, of stone, with heavy bells and iron-fastened doors. There are twenty-two other churches. The whole city was built on a grand and expensive scale. The present population indicate a falling off in numbers and wealth. The streets are strewed with ragged children and beggar men. ”

“ Only a few days before the battle, the tents of the Viceroy and his chief general had had lampoons pasted on them, accusing them of cowardice. It may fairly be said that he was goaded into action contrary to his own judgment.
The battle of Ayacucho, besides being the final combat, was one of the most brilliant in the history of the Wars of Independence. The troops on both sides were well-seasoned veterans. The generals in command were among the ablest that the long wars had developed. Every man fought with bravery. ”

“ While sheeting home, we saw the Ayacucho standing athwart our hawse, sharp upon the wind, cutting through the head seas like a knife, with her raking masts and sharp bows running up like the head of a greyhound. ”

“ While we were on the yards, we saw the Loriotte under weigh, and before our yards were mast-headed, the Ayacucho had spread her wings, and, with yards braced sharp up, was standing athwart our hawse. There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged, clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind. ”

“ Among the passengers I noticed an elderly gentleman, thin, with sandy hair and face that seemed familiar. He took off his glove and showed one shrivelled hand. It must be he! I went to him and said, “Captain Wilson, I believe.” Yes, that was his name. “I knew you, sir, when you commanded the Ayacucho on this coast, in old hide-droghing times, in 1835–6.” He was quickened by this, and at once inquiries were made on each side, and we were in full talk about the Pilgrim and Alert, Ayacucho and Loriotte, the California and Lagoda. ”

“ The so-called “Battle of Ayacucho” really took place at La Quinua, on the sloping brown mountain-flanks some twelve miles to the northeast of the city. From any high place 387in town the village, backed by its white monument and the dark face of Cundurcunca, the “Condor’s Nest,” is plainly visible. One can even make out the highway on which the Spanish veterans zigzagged up to the deep quebrada in which La Serna capitulated, almost at the very hour that Phillip V in far-off Spain was making him “Duke of the Andes” as a reward for his victorious campaign. ”

“ After the retirement of the French from Spain, the regency, which succeeded to Joseph Bonaparte, and after it the restored king, Ferdinand VII., continued the same measures, totally ignoring the loyalty which the colonies had originally displayed at the beginning of the French occupation. Nothing remained for the colonies but a war for independence, a war which terminated, as already mentioned, with the battle of Ayacucho, sixteen years after the first outbreak at Caraccas. ”

“ The final battle of the South American wars of independence was fought at Ayacucho, Peru, December 9, 1824. Let us first glance at the events which led up to that sanguinary conflict, and then consider the occurrences of the day which saw the Spanish power in America broken forever.
It is a curious circumstance that the South American revolutions had their beginning in the intense loyalty of the people of the Spanish-American colonies, and particularly of the United States of Colombia, for their king. In 1808 the armies of Napoleon were overrunning Spain ”

“ In the Andes fashions change not with time, but with place. In Inca days each district had its own distinctive garb, or at least head-gear, a custom which was strictly enforced in colonial times, in order that Indians belonging to one province might not escape compulsory labor by going to another. What a convenience it would be in our own land if we could recognize each man’s place of birth by the shape or color of his derby! The bonnets of Ayacucho are hard to believe. ”

“ Ayacucho is about as badly overdone in churches as any town in church-boasting South America. In colonial days a religious edifice was built on the slightest provocation, of cut-stone if possible, of cobbles or adobe if necessary, until to-day the entire population might be housed five times over in those that are left. Not a few are things of beauty in their time-mellowed delapidation. The cathedral, centuries old, is surpassed in all Peru only by those of Lima and Cuzco. Externally, and at some distance, like so many things of Spanish origin, it has an imposing and not inartistic appearance. ”

“ They are not nervous, and don't mind men much. A plateau is cultivated with 25 barley, and we felt somewhat interested in the ground over which we travel. It is the battle-field of Ayacucho, where the royalists of Spain, under command of Viceroy Laserna, met the independent South Americans, under the brave Venezuelan Sucre. This battle took place on the 9th day of December, 1824, when the whole of the Peruvian territory was surrendered, with the exception of Callao. ”

“ The country around is wild and deeply washed with gullies and ravines in the wet season. The Spaniards flocked to this country for silver and gold; they built a large city, and called it Huamanga; the republicans changed its name to Ayacucho, in honor of the victory. It is the capital of the department, which is divided into five provinces, and contains a population of 129,921.
The complexion of the people becomes lighter as we get south, and fewer Indians speak Spanish. ”

“ Of the vessels: one, a short, clumsy, little hermaphrodite brig, we recognized as our old acquaintance, the Loriotte; another, with sharp bows and raking masts, newly painted and tarred, and glittering in the morning sun, with the blood-red banner and cross of St. George at her peak, was the handsome Ayacucho. The third was a large ship, with top-gallant-masts housed, and sails unbent, and looking as rusty and worn as two years’ “hide-droghing” could make her. ”

“ Manco, the revolted Inca, and his followers formed the chronic habit of falling upon travelers between the ancient and the new capital of Peru, and in 1548 Pizarro ordered a city founded for their protection, usually known as Huamanga. Not until after what is known to history as the Battle of Ayacucho, in which Sucre defeated the Spanish veterans who had fled before Bolívar from the icy pampa of Junín, and brought to an end the struggle of the new world for political freedom begun in New England a half-century before, was the older and more appropriate name revived. ”

“ This was undoubtedly the route used by Manco in his raids on Spanish caravans. The Mapillo flows into the Apurimac near the mouth of the river Pampas. Not far up the Pampas is the important bridge between Bom-bon and Ocros, which Mr. Hay and I crossed in 1909 on our way from Cuzco to Lima. The city of Ayacucho was founded by Pizarro, a day's journey from this bridge. ”

“ The population is very largely Indian—often in diluted form—and genuinely white persons are decidedly rare, certainly not ten percent., though there are many more than that, strutting about in what Ayacucho fancies faultless dress, who consider themselves such, and who would be astonished at the set-back their pretentions would receive in more exacting communities. ”

“ Nezahualcoyotl himself was a poet, and very beautiful are some of the songs which have come down to us in the Spanish translation of the Tezcucan chronicler.
No wonder that under such a king the Tezcucans became the most refined and civilised of all the people of Anahuac. The Mexicans, their rivals in luxury, splendour, and power, were but humble disciples in the crowning glory of science and culture. ”

“ And now, since we are pledged, let us, every man, be up and doing. Let no loyal Tezcucan be overlooked. Move silently and quickly, ceasing not the work until the fire of patriotism, which has been enkindled in our hearts to-night, shall have spread to the farthest borders of Anahuac, and every true friend of Tezcuco has espoused her cause, and enrolled himself under the banner of Hualcoyotl and liberty. ”

“ AMONG some of the tribes of Anahuac a farmer or a mechanic or a merchant might be counted as a man; not so was it with the fierce Aztecs. Every male in that tribe was born to be a warrior; it was only when he was maimed, sick, old, or, worse than all, an outcast from his clan, that he could not claim the privilege of going to the battlefield. Even the priests took a leading part in every conflict. It was not only their business to interpret the will of the gods, but they marched at the head of the Aztec troops bearing a little image, or talisman, of the most famous of the war-gods of Mexico. ”

“ By 1850, other conditions in New Mexico endangered the status quo of the Spanish-speaking residents. With the growing dominance of Anglo-Americans in the commercial, military, political, and social matters of Santa Fe, Hispanos recognized the threat of Anglo culture to their own traditional way of life. This cultural challenge turned many Hispanos back in upon themselves for physical and social security and for spiritual comfort. By the second quarter of the 19th century, penitentes were common in Hispano villages such as Abiquiú. ”

“ THE reader would gather but an imperfect notion of the civilisation of Anahuac, without some account of the Acolhuans, or Tezcucans, as they are usually called; a nation of the same great family with the Aztecs, whom they rivalled in power, and surpassed in intellectual culture and the arts of social refinement. Fortunately, we have ample materials for this in the records left by Ixtlilxochitl, a lineal descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco, who flourished in the century of the Conquest. ”

“ One hundred years of successful government had made the Aztecs proud. Their enemies feared them. Surrounding nations sought their friendship for the sake of peace. The great house of Texcuco had allied itself with their king in marriage. Mingled in the veins of Montezuma with the savage blood of the worshippers of Huitzilopochtli, the terrible god of war, was a gentler strain of the delicate culture of the family of Nezahualcoyotl. ”

“ The Oajacan coast region or tierra caliente, if we may credit the result of researches by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg, was sometimes known as Anáhuac Ayotlan, as the opposite coast of Tabasco was called Anáhuac Xicalanco. Both these Anáhuacs were inhabited by enterprising commercial peoples, whose flourishing centres of trade were located at short intervals along the coast. Material relics of past excellence in architecture and other arts of civilization abound in Oajaca, chief among which stand the remarkable structures at Mitla. ”

“ An account of Tezcuco and its rulers, after the Conquest until 1564, was the work of a native, Juan de San Antonio; while Don Gabriel de Ayala, a native noble of that city, composed a history of the Tezcucan and Mexican events, extending from 1243 to 1562. [23]
Of the anonymous MSS. in Boturini's list, I shall mention only one, as it alone, of all his Nahuatl records, has succeeded in reaching publication. He called it a History of the Kingdoms of Culhuacan and Mexico. ”

“ The Quichuas are in the South along the Argentine border, and in the North along Lake Titicaca. The great central belt is Aymará, and the mixed blood there is Aymará and Spanish, somewhat more virile than the Spanish Quichuas.
The Aymarás, though conquered by Spain and recognizing that they were vanquished, have resisted absolutely the imposition of more than the thin layer of Caucasian civilization upon them. They are said to have aspirations for independence, but the uprisings which have taken place never have been general and usually have been due to local causes. ”