American Demons

Armored Gods

Let us briefly turn to Francisco Pizarro, who in the fall of 1531 descends from a ridge in the Peruvian Western Cordillera into a high valley on an exhausted horse. His goal is a well-established marketplace. No man in his entourage expected such strong fortifications somewhere in the middle of nowhere (from a European perspective). Occasionally someone dares to appear frightened. Pizarro is not frightened. He promises every unstable man a sudden and embarrassing death. He coins a key sentence in space travel:

El fracaso no es una opción - Failure is not an option.

The conquistador is currently penetrating the territory of the Inca Atahualpa. He wants to bring the Cacique under his control, imitating his colleague Cortéz, who ten years earlier made Aztec leader Moctezuma in Mexico a prisoner and then a pawn for his interests.

Pizarro is followed by a hundred and eleven men on foot and sixty-seven horsemen. That is not much. The willingness of the 'savages' to be slaughtered has diminished considerably. In general, the superstitious fear of the armored gods is disappearing. Pizarro knows that. Riding in his entourage is an Italian who experienced the dreary night of 1521 - when the Cortés gang had to flee from Moctezuma's capital Tenochtitlán.

Bruno Carrera comes from Genoa, like quite a few Italians in Spanish service. His parents' circumstances were so poor that he did not acquire the notorious basic skills of reading and writing. Bruno was put on a ship as soon as he was weaned. He earned many a beating as a child laborer. He was pushed around until he was able to defend himself. The governor of Cuba made Bruno a baggage hand for an expedition that was almost completely wiped out by the Caribs.

Bruno was taken prisoner. In his memoirs, he describes the years of captivity as a pleasant time of starting a family and catching up on his schooling under the pedagogical care of a navigator who had fallen into the hands of the Caribs long before Bruno. Never had he fared better, never had he received more recognition. Then another conqueror came and demanded that the local cacique hand over all the Europeans. Bruno was not the only one who had come to appreciate the benefits of being so far removed from civilization that he regretted his reintegration into the expedition.

The conquistador was under the control of the Cuban governor and when he ordered Cortés to steal the Mexican treasury, he sent Bruno with him. Bruno is now a man of merit. He has seen more than most of the followers of famous conquistadors. But his fame as a writer is still written in the stars.