# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Incidents of War

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INCIDENTS OF WAR
IN reading the history of South America it seems as if its normal state for three centuries had been that of war. Originally the people were lovers of peace. Such were the thirty million Inca Indians to whom Manco Capac, son of the Sun, preached gentleness and justice on the bank of Lake Titicaca, for whom he built roads like those of the Romans, one of them extending from Cuzco to Quito, almost two thousand miles, and for whom he erected a temple of the sun with its roof of seven hundred gold plates, each of them a burden for four men. Among these people—the first successful communists—Pizarro and his Spaniards wrought havoc. Though teaching Christianity and promising rewards after death for an intolerable patience in this life, the invaders were false to every tenet of their own faith, for they ​robbed, enslaved, tortured, and slew the natives, and showed them easy ways to self-destruction through sins and vices. Greatest of these vices was war. Uneducated, priest-ridden, swindled, and oppressed, the people arose from time to time, yet never won a real or lasting liberty. The arts found meagre expression, industries never became important, road-building lapsed into a forgotten art, and caste, implanted by the Spaniards, was inherited by the republics. Revolutions were not accomplished by votes, but by the sword. The idol of one decade was in the next the prisoner, the fugitive, the suicide. Victories were celebrated by pillage and massacre. The policy toward the purely Indian tribes was destructive. When Mendoza marched against the Araucanians—those fierce soldiers, who took nightly courage from the heavens, for they believed that the stars were their dead but still conquering brothers—he defeated, but could never subdue them. He gathered a large company of these Indians into his fort by making them believe his men to be asleep and at their mercy; then, closing his gates, he fell upon and killed them every one. Their chief, Caupolican, being cap-tured alive, was solemnly and benignantly baptized, then flung upon sharp spikes and there allowed to die.
Barbarous, inexcusable as many of these wars have been, they seem to have tended toward a higher liberty and a sounder, if more boastful, ​national strength. They have developed heroes and heroic attributes, and they have abolished crowns from the Western hemisphere. Among the incidents of battle that one contemplates with a more admiring disposition than is inspired by the usual savagery is the exploit of General Pringle at Chancai. The war for Peruvian liberation was desperately waged, and no fighters were more stern than the troops from the Argentine, some of them of English descent, who had climbed over the Andes and come up from the Chilian cities in ships to engage the Spaniards. At Chancai, where the rebel army was outnumbered ten to one, the defeat was total, yet the battle was fought so stoutly that of all the Argentines but three were left uncaptured and un-hurt. One of these was Pringle, who, crying to his companions, "We will not be taken; follow me!" rode along the sea-wall until he reached deep water, then leaped in, heading the horses toward a beach. The click of locks sounded along the Spanish line, and fifty muskets covered them; but before trigger could be drawn, the Spanish general, Alvarado, cried to his men, "Stop! Not another shot! These men are soldiers worthy the name. Their courage shall be respected." Then, calling to the horsemen, he told them they might return in safety and leave the field unchallenged. The Argentines gained a landing-place, and, with a salute and a cheer on either side, they dashed away. They had gained a victory in defeat.