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Concerning Pigs, the Pizarros, and the Agro-Pastoral Background of the Conquerors of Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

David E. Vassberg
David E. Vassberg*
Affiliation:
Pan American University
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The history of the Pizarros, conquerors of Peru, is inseparably bound with images of swine. If we are to believe the chronicler Gómara, the Pizarro-pig association began when the illegitimate infant Francisco was abandoned at a church door, where he survived by suckling a sow for several days. Later, according to Gómara, the young Francisco's father recognized his offspring, but only to make him his swineherd. Though the former of these two stories is probably fantasy, the latter should not be rejected out of hand, as will become clear later. But whether true or not, the legend of the swineherd-turned-conquistador has sparked the historian's imagination for centuries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , 1978 , pp. 47 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1. Francisco López de Gómara. La historia general de las Indias y nuevo mundo, con más la conquista del Perú y de México: agora nuevamenta añadida y emendada por el mismo autor … (Zaragoza, 1554), capítulo 145, folio 65 verso.

2. The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega rejected both parts of Gómara's Pizarro-pig story, blaming it on malice and envy (the Pizarros had fallen from royal grace). Moreover, it would have been difficult for the Inca to accept the idea that the glorious empire of his forebears had been conquered by an individual with such a discreditable background. See his Historia general del Peru … (Córdoba, 1617), folio 91 verso.

3. Among recent writers, José Manuel Quintana accepts the entire Gómara pig story as part of the romance of the conquest, Vida de Francisco Pizarro, 3a ed. (Madrid, 1959), pp. 9, 10. Ricardo Majo Framis, Francisco Pizarro (Madrid, 1972), p. 16, accepts only the swineherd part of the story, as does José Antonio Busto Duthurburu, Francisco Pizarro. El Marqués Gobernador (Madrid, 1965), pp. 9–13, albeit with reservations. To R. Vidal Cúneo, Vida del Conquistador del Perú, don Francisco Pizarro (Barcelona, 1925), p. 90 and Clodoaldo Naranjo Alonso, Solar de conquistadores. Trujillo, sus hijos y monumentos, 2a ed. (Serradilla [Cáceres], 1929), p. 521, the idea of a Pizarro swineherd is patently absurd. The redoubtable William H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru, 2 vols. (New York, 1847), l:203f, cites the Gómara stories with the warning that “little is told of Francisco's early years, and that little not always deserving of credit.”

4. Garcilaso, Historia general, folio 83 and 83 verso; Augustin de Zárate, Historia del descubrimiento y conquista delas provincias del Perú … (Sevilla, 1577), folios 32 verso, 34 verso; Antonio de Herrera [y Tordesillas], Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las Islas i tierra firme del Mar Oceano, 4 vols. (Madrid, 1601–15), 3, década 6, libro 8, capítulos 6 y 7, pp. 232–34.

5. The first pigs in America were brought by Columbus on his second voyage. These seem to have multiplied rapidly, probably augmented by new stock from Spain, and the Antillies became pig supply depots for the Spanish conquest of the mainland. See Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3 vols, ed. Agustín Millares Cario (México, 1965), libro 1, capítulo 73 (1:351 of this ed.); and Merrill K. Bennett, “Aspects of the Pig,” Agricultural History 44, no. 2 (April 1970): 230.

6. Bennett, “Aspects of the Pig,” pp. 228–31; and Las Casas, Historia, libro 2, capítulo 6 (2:225f in the cited edition).

7. Zárate, Historia, folio 2 verso.

8. Naranjo, Solar, pp. 93–121.

9. “El Rey Don Alonso el lo. Fuero que dió ala ciudad de Truxillo,” 27 July 1294, Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) (henceforth BN), MSS 430, folios 49–52; Naranjo, Solar, pp. 202–4.

10. See the descriptive travelogue, begun in 1517 by Columbus' son, Fernando Colón, Descripción y cosmografía de España, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1910), 1:177–79, 181, 209f. See also a copy of Trujillo's 1499 Ordenanzas de Montes in Archivo de la Mesta (Madrid) (henceforth AM), Executorias, Trujillo, 16 December 1521; and Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino, “Extremadura en el siglo XVI. Noticias de viajeros y geógrafos (1495–1600),” Revista de estudios extremeños (henceforth REE) 8 (1952):281–376, 10 (1954):329–411.

11. Colón, Descripción 1:177, 2:181; Jean-Paul Le Flem, “Cáceres, Plasencia y Trujillo en la segunda mitad del siglo XVI,” trans. Claude Le Flem, Cuadernos de historia de España (Buenos Aires), 1967, pp. 253ff.

12. Naranjo, Solar, pp. 221–23.

13. Eugenio Escobar Prieto, “Los Reyes Católicos en Trujillo,” Revista de Extremadura (henceforth RE) 6 (1904):483–99.

14. See a copy of a 1538 Previlegio to Trujillo in “Escritura de Venta … a Juan de Vargas …,” 13 October 1559, Archivo del Ayuntamiento de Trujillo (henceforth AAT), 1–3–82, no. 51; and Clodoaldo Naranjo Alonso, Trujillo y su tierra. Historia. Monumentos e hijos ilustres, 2 vols. (Trujillo, s.a.) 1:336–45; Naranjo, Solar, pp. 221–23.

15. See a copy of an Ordenanza of 1434 in “La Cd. de Trujillo contra las villas y lugares de su tierra,” various dates 1552–1631, Archivo de la Chancilleria de Granada (henceforth ACHGR), 3-958-1; and Naranjo, Solar, pp. 265–71.

16. Several impressive regional bibliographies notwithstanding, there is surprising little of value about rural society in Extremadura in the early modern period. See Vicente Barrantes [Moreno], Aparato bibliográfico para la historia de Extremadura, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1875–77); Domingo Sánchez Loro, Bibliografía de Extremadura (Cáceres, 1951); Justo Corchón García, Bibliografía geográfica extremeña, precedida de una Introducción al estudio geográfico de la Alta Extremadura (Badajoz, 1955).

17. Le Flem, “Cáceres,” pp. 261–70. My definition of the pobre comes from José Ortega Valcárcel, La Bureba. Estudio geográfico (Valladolid, 1966), p. 105.

18. Le Flem, “Cáceres,” pp. 255ff, 265; Pedro Herrera Puga, Sociedad y delicuéncia en el siglo de oro. Aspectos de la vida sevillana en los siglos XVI y XVII (Granada, 1971), pp. 431ff.

19. “Escritura de venta para Franco de Amarilla …,” 6 February 1556, AAT, 1–3–82, no. 21; “Carta de venta que otorgó Albar García de Solís …,” 22 November 1574, AAT, 1–3–82, no. 31; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1608, ACHGR, 3–443–3; Le Flem, “Cáceres,” pp. 261f.

20. For Trujillo, see Miguel Muñoz de San Pedro, Diego García de Paredes. Herculés y Sansón de España (Madrid, s.a. [1946]), p. 70. Compare also with Miguel Angel Orti Belmonte, La vida en Cáceres en los siglos XIII y XVI al XVIII (Cáceres, 1949), pp. 96f.

21. Fray Gabriel de Talavera, Historia de nuestra Señora de Guadalupe … (Toledo, 1597), quoted in Rodríquez-Moñino, “Extremadura en el siglo XVI,” p. 392.

22. Julius Klein, the mesta historian, was conservative in assessing the impact of mesta herds on cultivated fields. See The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History, 1273–1836 (Cambridge, Mass., 1920), pp. 336–42. But some other historians have been carried away by the pathos of the theoretical possibility that the mesta destroyed rural Castile.

23. I plan to treat the subject in depth in a future article, but there are some references to the problem in my “The Tierras Baldías: Community Property and Public Lands in 16th Century Castile,” Agricultural History 48, no. 3, (July 1974): 383–401 and “The Sale of Tierras Baldías in Sixteenth-Century Castile,” Journal of Modern History 47, no. 4 (December 1975):629–54.

24. A few examples out of many possible that show rich and poor with both fields and flocks in the Trujillo-Cáceres area: AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 1 December 1578; AM Executorias, Trujillo, 21 February 1584; Orti, Vida en Cáceres, pp. 37–39; and El Bachiller de Trevejo (pseud. for Daniel Berjano), “Como vivían nuestros antepasados (Un hogar noble de antaño),” RE 11 (1909):516–21, 530–36.

25. AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 21 February 1584 and 2 June 1586; Justo Corchón García, El Campo de Arañuelo (Estudio geográfico de una comarca extremeña) (Madrid, 1963), pp. 79–83, 196, 200f, 260. For more on the Castilian rotation-fallow system, see Vassberg, “The Tierras Baldías.”

26. “Hernán Pérez con la Cd. de Trujillo y Alonso Hernández, alguacil,” various dates in 1588–89, ACHGR, 3–1298–2; AAT, 1–3–82 passim; and compare with Rodríguez-Moñino, “Extremadura en el siglo XVI,” p. 392; and Anónimo, Floresta española (1607), BN, MSS, 5.989, folios 79, 80.

27. Out of many possible examples, see one reported in AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 1 December 1578.

28. See Klein's The Mesta and Pedro de Medina, Libro de grandezas y cosas memorables de España (Sevilla, 1549), folio lxxiii.

29. See a statement made by the city in the 1570s in “La Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1609, ACHGR, 3–443–3.

30. See a copy of Trujillo's 1499 Ordenanzas de Montes in AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 December 1521. For the importance of hogs in Trujillo and other areas in Extremadura, see “El Rey y la Reina al Onrado Maestre [de Alcántara],” 10 March 1491, BN, MSS, 430, folios 418 verso y 419; “El lugar de Villar del Rey con el de Badajoz sobre el pasto de la bellota …,” various dates 1537–38, ACHGR, 3–780–12; Miguel Angel Orti Belmonte, “Cáceres bajo la Reina Católica y su Camarero Sancho Paredes Golfín,” REE 10 (1954):245; Le Flem, “Cáceres,” pp. 261–69; El Bachiller, “Como vivían,” pp. 520f; and Orti Belmonte, Vida en Cáceres, pp. 37–39.

31. The brothers Juan and Alfredo Calles Mariscal, both hog raisers from Trujillo, have published an extremely valuable little book describing the traditional Extremaduran system of swine herding, Ganado porcino extremeño (Madrid, 1946). Compare also the virtually identical system described in Corchón, Campo de Arañuelo, pp. 233f.

32. Ibid., and “Alonso de Tapia, vo de Trujillo, contra Francisco Sánchez Rosillo,” various dates, 1566–69, ACHGR, 3–998–6; Ricardo del Arco y Garay, La sociedad española en las obras dramáticas de Lope de Vega (Madrid, 1941), p. 863; Orti Belmonte, “Cáceres bajo la Reina Católica,” p. 245; Francisco Quirós, “Sobre geografía agraria del Campo de Calatrava y Valle de Alcudia, Estudios geográficos (Madrid) (henceforth EG) 26, no. 99 (mayo 1965):227.

33. “Bartolomé Serrano con el Co de la Cd. de Córdoba,” various dates 1573–74, ACHGR, 3–1493–9; James D. Parsons, “La economía de las montaneras en los encinares del suroeste de España,” EG 27, no. 103 (mayo 1966):309–29; “Venta que el Lic. de la Fuente Vergara otorgó al Doctor Hernando de Martos de Varreda,” 25 January 1591, Archivo General de Simancas, Contadurías Generales, legajo 371.

34. “El Rey Don Alonso el lo. Fuero que dió ala ciudad de Truxillo,” 27 July 1294, BN, MSS, 430, folios 49–52; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1609, ACHGR, 3–443–3.

35. See the copy of Trujillo's 1499 Ordenanzas de Montes in AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 December 1521; and a letter from the city to the Audiencia in 1578 in “La Cd. de Trujillo contra las villas y lugares de su tierra,” a bundle of documents of various dates 1522–1631 in ACHGR, 3–958–1. For the monte ordinances of other places, see “Los Concejos de los Pueblos del Márgen … con el Juez de residencia …” various dates in 1572, ACHGR, 508–1945–1; Fernando Jiménez de Gregorio, “La población en la zona suroccidental de los montes de Toledo,” EG 26, no. 98 (febrero 1965):94f; Esteban Rodríguez Amaya, “La tierra en Badajoz desde 1230 a 1500,” REE 7, nos. 3–4 (julio-diciembre 1951):438; and Arcadio Guerra, “Ordenanzas municipales de Felipe II a Los Santos de Maimona,” REE 8 (1952):506–8.

36. See the 1499 Ordenanzas cited above in note 35, and other documents in AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 December 1521.

37. “La Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1609, ACHGR, 3–443–3; Calles Mariscal, Ganado porcino, pp. 61–69; Corchón, Campo de Arañuelo, pp. 202–7, 234f.

38. See various expenditures for the year 1594 in AAT, 1–2–66, no. 1.

39. The 1294 Fuero de Trujillo, cited in note 9, provided for guards to patrol the montes. My information about mayordomos and guards was pieced together from a number of documents. See especially “La Cd. de Trujillo contra las villas y lugares de su tierra,” various dates 1552–1631, ACHGR, 3-958-1; “Alonso de Tapia, vo de Trujillo contra Francisco Sánchez Rosillo …,” various dates 1566–69, ACHGR, 3-998-6; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra el Lugar de Santa Cruz …,” various dates 1541–44, ACHGR, 3-1408-6; “Mateo Torres y consortes contra la Cd. de Trujillo …,” various dates, 1585–89, ACHGR, 3-1041-7; “Cuentas de Propios de 1594,” AAT, 1-2-66, no. 1; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1609, ACHGR, 3-443-3; and AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 August 1548.

40. The question of public and private property ownership in early modern Spain needs far more work, but an introduction to the characteristic institutions can be found in my two articles, cited in note 23.

41. Ibid., and various documents from the 1570s in AAT, 1-3-82; the 1575 Ordenanzas of Trujillo in AAT, 1-2-72, no. 13; “Hernán Pérez con la Cd. de Trujillo …,” various dates 1588–89, ACHGR, 3-1298-2; “Los Cavalleros y fijos dalgo del L. de Sta Cruz de la Sierra [juris. of Trujillo] con el Co del dho lugar …,” various dates 1515–16, ACHGR, 3-398-4; Naranjo, Solar, pp. 124f, 187f.

42. “El Rey Don Alonso el lo. Fuero que dió ala Cuidad de Truxillo,” 27 July 1294, BN, MSS, 430, folios 49–52; Naranjo, Solar, pp. 124–26; and various documents relating to propios in AAT, especially the Cuentas de Propios for 1594–1611 in ATT, 1-2-66, no. 1.

43. See Vassberg, “The Tierras Baldías,” pp. 389f; “El Rey Don Alonso el lo. Fuero …” (note 9); Naranjo, Solar, pp. 124f; Naranjo, Trujillo 1:132, 320f; Eugenio Escobar Prieto, “Los Reyes Católicos en Trujillo,” RE 6 (1904); 494; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra los Cos de las Villas y lugares de su tierra,” various dates 1552–1631, ACHGR, 3-958-1; AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 28 December 1500; “Mateo Torre y consortes contra la Cd. de Trujillo,” various dates 1585–89, ACHGR, 3-1041-7; “Alonso Lobo y consortes, vos de Logrusan, contra la Cd. de Trujillo,” various dates in 1593, ACHGR, 508-2107-4; “Cuentas de Propios de Trujillo,” 1594. AAT. 1-2-66. no. 1.

44. See Vassberg, “The Tierras Baldías,” and “The Sale of Tierras Baldías”; and “El Co de la Cd. de Trujillo contra D. Juan Alonso de Orellana,” various dates 1570–1608, ACHGR, 3-443-3; “La Cd. de Trujillo contra las villas y lugares de su tierra,” various dates 1552–1631, ACHGR, 3-958-1.

45. The interesting phenomenon of peasant attacks on the communitarian system, present throughout the kingdom of Castile, will be the subject of a future article. It would be tedious to cite all my sources for peasant usurpations. They abound in AAT and ACHGR, and many have been cited above. See particularly, however, “Visita de la Cd. de Trujillo, año de 1585,” AAT, 1-3-82, no. 54.

46. An identical and contemporaneous conflict between older established cities and newly independent towns in another part of Spain was reported by Antonio Higueras Arnal, El Alto Guadalquivir. Estudio geográfico (Zaragoza, 1961), p. 143. The major sources for Trujillo's conflict are the documents cited in note 44; “Escritura de Venta … a Juan de Vargas,” 13 October 1559, AAT, 1-3-82, no. 51; “La Cd. de Trujillo con Doña Ynés de Camargo,” various dates 1577–78, ACHGR, 3-1256-1; and a transcript of a meeting of the Council of Trujillo, 22 September 1536, AAT, 1-3-78, no. 1.

47. See a Carta de Poder from the Lugar of Burdalo to Pedro Alonso, 6 January 1552, ACHGR, 3-958-1; and “Ordenanzas de Trujillo, no. 70: Dehesa Boyal,” 1575, AAT, 1-2-72, no. 13; “Executoria contra el concejo de Garcíaz …,” 20 December 1530, AAT, 1-3-78, no. 1, folios 31ff.

48. Klein, The Mesta, pp. 113–16; documents from 1495 to 1589 in AM, Executorias, Trujillo; AM, Relaciones de los Alcaldes Entregadores, 1565, libro 5, folios 242–49.

49. For the background and geneaology of the Pizarro family, see Miguel Muñoz de San Pedro, ed., Crónicas trujillanas del siglo XVI (Cáceres, 1952), p. xxiii; Naranjo, Solar, pp. 143–47. See also the 1499 Ordenanzas copied in AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 December 1521.

50. The two examples cited are from AM, Relaciones de los Alcaldes Entregadores, 1565, libro 5, folio 251; and AM, Executorias, Trujillo, 16 November 1575. Other sources for Pizarro property can be found in the following documents in ACHGR: 3-443-3; 3-1520-11; 508-2025-1; 3-1136-4; 3-756-15; 507-1894-6; and 3-1682-2. See also Miguel Muñoz de San Pedro, “Las ultimas disposiciones del ultimo Pizarro de la Conquista,” Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 126 (enero-marzo 1950):387–425; and 127 (julio-septiembre 1950):527–60.

51. “Provança que va de la çibdad de trugillo al concejo de las hordenes sobre la geneología del capitan franco piçarro,” agosto de 1529, Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid), Ordenes Militares, Santiago, Expediente 6524.

52. It is true that Fernando Pizarro y Orellana affirmed the story in “Vida del ilustre varón D. Francisco Pizarro,” in Varones ilustres del Nuevo Mundo (Madrid, 1639), p. 128, but I suspect that he was excessively zealous in trying to establish the illustrious background of his antecessor. For example, he failed to mention either Francisco's illegitimate birth or the common origin of the conqueror's mother. Other sources for Francisco Pizarro's background are cited in notes 1, 2, and 3.

53. I hope to be able to do some work in this area sometime in the future, especially with regard to systems of communal property ownership.

54. My two baldío articles list some basic sources. See also my bibliographical-historiographical essay “Studies of Rural Life in Early Modern Castile: History and Other Disciplines,” Newsletter of the Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies 3, nos. 7–8 (Spring 1977).

55. On primary sources, see Angel Cabo Alonso, “Fuentes para lo geografía agraria de España,” EG 22, no. 82 (febrero 1961):223–49; and Michael R. Weisser, The Peasants of the Montes: The Roots of Rural Rebellion in Spain (Chicago, 1976), pp. 123–26.