Vicente de Valverde
From Freepedia
Vicente de Valverde was a Spanish bishop. He was born in Segovia, Spain about 1490 and most sources claim he died in Oropesa, Peru, in 1543. He was a Dominican friar, and went to Peru about 1530, although it is not certain whether he accompanied Francisco Pizarro from Spain or arrived at San Miguel de Piura in 1531 with re-enforcements from Panama. Accompanying the army on its march to southern Peru towards Cajamarca, he was sent by Pizarro, after the occupation of Cajamarca, to speak with Atahualpa, whom he saluted by means of an interpreter, and, handing him a Bible, explained that he had come in the name of the Spanish Crown to convert the Inca to the true religion, Christianity. After quickly observing a couple of pages of the Bible, Atahualpa threw the holy book on the floor and only demanded a full account of the Spaniards in his land. Friar Valverde considered this a sign of disrespect and refusal, and soon left to inform Pizarro of these events, which only led the Spaniards to take the Main Square of Cajamarca by force and afterwards took Atahualpa captive in the so-called ransom room.
Following the death of Atahualpa, Pizarro saw no further obstacles to his conquest and decided to march into Cuzco on November 15, 1533, bringing Friar Vicente de Valverde along with him and his followers. By March 23, 1534, a new church was erected in Cuzco and became Friar Valverde's cathedral. Pizarro also gave him a large native commandery, which Valverde only proved to mistreat them. Later in 1534, friar Valverde headed back to Spain to assist Pizarro's brother, Hernando Pizarro, in his negotiations at court. While in Spain, friar Valverde was also named by the empress-regent the bishop of Cuzco and Peru, since the original appointee, Fernando de Luque, had died in Panama in 1531.
By 1536 Valverde was yet again named protector of the Natives and inquisitor, and, being confirmed by the pope, he came back to Peru in the beginning of 1538, just before the execution of Diego de Almagro, which he had vainly tried to prevent.
Negative side
By far Friar Valverde's negative and contradictory side was his mistreatment of the natives of Peru which, instead of preaching the gospel, he oppressed, enslaved, and forced to work for the church. (This was the complete opposite to what Bartolomé de Las Casas, another Spanish priest, did years later by defending the native's rights in works he published and in visits to Spain to inform King Philip II of the abuses committed against the local natives by the Conquistadors.)
Valverde was later appointed by Pizarro on the commission to apportion lands and natives to the royal officers, and the licentiate, Antonio de Game, whom Pizarro had appointed supreme judge of Cuzco. The latter charged Valverde in a letter to the emperor, dated March 10, 1539, with arbitrary acts and insisted that instead of protecting the natives, he only mistreated them and sought to confiscate their lands, and always gave the greater part to himself and his assistant. Despite the charges, on March 11, 1540, Friar Valverde officiated at the consecration of the new cathedral of Lima. He then headed back to Spain, where he presented to the emperor, by order of Pizarro, a memorial about the conquest under the title of "Relacion de la Conquista de los Reynos de Peru," in which he claimed that the natives could scarcely be considered as human beings, as they had no souls.
During the temporary occupation of Cuzco by Almagro's son, Valverde retired to one of his commanderies at Oropesa, and was murdered there in a rising of the oppressed Indians.
