Picts

Legendary inhabitants of Britain, the Picts dyed themselves blue in an effort to scare off enemies, a strategy that solidified their place in myth.

The origins of the Picts remain unknown. They appeared in history as one of the neolithic peoples who inhabited northern Britain and modern-day Scotland in the centuries before the Romans arrived at the end of the first century A. D. When the Romans under Hadrian conquered much of Britain from 78 to 142, they eventually built an enormous structure known as Hadrian’s Wall to separate the Romanized, and thus civilized, parts of the island from those the Romans deemed barbaric, such as the Picts.

The Picts eventually faded into obscurity as a people, but they remained in British history. When Thomas Harriot published the illustrated edition of his Briefe and True Report of the Newe Found Land of Virginia in London in 1590, he included a series of pictures by the Flemish engraver Theodor de Bry of the Picts. In the de Bry engravings the Picts appeared bellicose and savage; men and women alike were naked, heavily tattooed, and holding weapons, and one man was shown holding the head of an enemy still dripping blood while another head lay at his feet. Harriot added these renderings of a bloodthirsty people at the end of the illustrations of Carolina Algonquians, who seemed peaceful by comparison. He did so to demonstrate to his audience that the Native peoples of North America might seem unlikely converts to European “civilization,” but in fact they were no more “savage” than the Picts had been. The lesson? If the Picts could become modern-day Britons, then Indians could also be converted to English ways.

Further reading: Thomas Harriot, A Briefe and True Report of the Newe Found Land of Virginia (New York: Dover, 1972).

Pigafetta, Antonio (fl. 1480s?-1532?)

Antonio Pigafetta’s account of Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe is the most important contemporary account of the voyage.

Little is known about Pigafetta’s life. His birth is placed variously in the 1480s and 1490s, and the date of his death

Is unknown, although most scholars believe he died young, perhaps by 1532. An Italian, Pigafetta apparently joined Magellan’s expedition in search of adventure. During the voyage Pigafetta was loyal to Magellan, eulogizing him after his death as “our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.”

Pigafetta’s account of the peoples he encountered provided vivid, sometimes accurate, geographic and ethnographic information. He described the Tupinamba Indians of Brazil, claimed to have seen giants in Patagonia, and provided a detailed account of the peoples of the Philippines.

Pigafetta’s account of the journey was first published in French in 1525. It was translated into Italian in 1536 and into English in 1555. Because Magellan’s papers, letters, charts, and logs were lost or destroyed, Pigafetta’s work is of immense value as the most valuable of the few surviving sources on the voyage.

Further reading: Samuel Eliot Morison, The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); J. H. Parry, The Discovery of South America (London: Paul Elek, 1979); Donald Payne, Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the World (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974); Antonio Pigafetta, The First Voyage Around the World: An Account of Magellan's Expedition, ed. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr. (New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1995).

—Martha K. Robinson

Pizarro, Francisco (ca. 1478-1541) conquistador Pizarro is the conquistador who led the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 1530s.

Born in the town of Trujillo of Extremadura, Spain, around 1478, Francisco Pizarro was the illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro, who had several illegitimate sons with different women. Because of his illegitimacy, Pizarro never received an education and eventually sought his destiny in military affairs. While still young he probably served with Spanish forces in Italy in the late 15th century. Eventually, Pizarro made his way to Hispaniola in 1502.

Pizarro garnered considerable experience in the Caribbean as a conquistador. He participated in the Spanish exploration of the Gulf of Uraba in 1509 and 1510 and went with VASco Nunez de Balboa across Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Pizarro helped found Panama in 1519 and was eventually rewarded with an encomienda. He also acted as an administrator at various levels for the city of Panama.

Finally, with Diego de Almagro and Hernando de Luque, Pizarro began to make preparations for the expedition that would make him famous, the conquest of Peru. Not really knowing what lay below Panama, he moved into

Francisco Pizzaro (Hulton/Archive)

South America for the first time in 1524. He did not find much during this first foray, but in his second effort in 1526-27, Pizarro survived a mutiny on the Isla del Gallo and made contact with the northern border of the Inca Empire. Realizing what potentially lay before him, he returned to Spain to get financial support for his entrada into the Inca Empire, acquire additional soldiers he could depend upon, and clear his title to the territory he would conquer. By doing so, Pizarro effectively cut his erstwhile partners out of the spoils he planned to garner.

In 1530 Pizarro’s expedition set off for Peru. In 1532 Pizarro encountered the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, at the city of Cajamarca. After Atahualpa rejected the Requerimiento, the Spanish attacked the Incan entourage and took the ruler captive. To ransom his freedom, Atahualpa promised Pizarro to fill a room with GOLD and silver. It took several months to meet this goal. In 1532, after the Inca delivered the ransom, Pizarro decided Atahualpa no longer served a purpose and had him executed. Pizarro then marched on the Inca capital of Cuzco and seized it.

The Spanish were able conquer the Inca Empire, numbering approximately 14 million subjects, because they appeared on the scene immediately after the empire had suffered a major SMALLPOX epidemic that killed tens of thousands, including Atahualpa’s father and his older brother, the heir to the throne. As a result of this situation, Atahualpa and his brother, Huascar, fought a civil war over their claims to the throne. Additionally, many of the people whom the Inca had conquered were willing to side with the Spanish to rid themselves of Incan rule. All of these elements came together to help the Spanish gain the upper hand.

After seizing control of a majority of the empire, Pizarro decided to move the administrative center from Cuzco to the newly created Spanish city of Lima, which was closer to the coast and easier for the Spanish to control. He also began granting encomiendas to his supporters and brought in missionaries to convert the Spanish Empire’s newest subjects. Pizarro’s former partner, Almagro, eventually reached the Andes as the governor of New Toledo, which was located to the south of Pizarro’s territory. Conflict continued between Almagro’s faction and Pizarro’s faction until Pizarro defeated Almagro at Salinas in 1538 and had him executed. In 1541 followers of Diego de Almagro the Younger broke into Francisco Pizarro’s home in Lima and assassinated him.

Further reading: Pedro de Cieza de Leon, The Discovery and Conquest of Peru: Chronicles of the New World Encoutner, eds. and trans. Alexandra Parma Cook and Noble David Cook (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1998); John Hemming, The Conquest of the Incas (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973); James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532-1560: A Colonial Society (Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press, 1968);-, The Men of

Cajamarca: A Social and Biographical Study of the First Conquerors of Peru (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, 1972).

—Dixie Ray Haggard