CHAP. XVII. AND SILVER IN AMERICA. 



To this method of working may be attributed 

 the quantity of metallic treasure which Pizarro 

 was enabled to extort from the Inca Atahualpa as 

 his ransom, which, according to Garcilasso de la 

 Vega, is stated at the enormous sum of eight hun- 

 dred thousand pounds, or, according to Gomara, 

 at the more probable amount of one hundred and 

 forty thousand, or one hundred and fifty thousand 

 pounds. The plunder of Cuzco was also very 

 large, and though the amount of it is only given 

 by Herrera, a writer long posterior to the event, 

 and whose authority does not appear, may be 

 exaggerated at four hundred thousand pounds, 

 yet there is evidence sufficient to prove that the 

 treasure found in that city was more than could 

 have been collected if it had all arisen from 

 washings, and if the Indians had not worked some 

 of the mines. 



As soon as the Spaniards had secured their con- 

 quest, the greater part of the original inhabitants 

 were reduced to a kind of feudal slavery, known 

 by the name of repartimientos. The people of 

 the several mining districts were delivered over 

 to Spanish officers, who compelled them to labour 

 for their benefit either in cultivating the land, in 

 digging in the mines, or in any servile or domestic 

 labour. They were marched in bodies a long way 

 from their homes, to climates from their elevation 

 of intense coldness, and widely differing from those 



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