The Wages of ‘Perfidy’: Peru’s Pizarro and America’s Trump

“One act of perfidy fully established becomes the ruin of its author. The man who relinquishes confidence in his good faith gives up the best basis for future operations. Who will knowingly build on a quicksand?”—American historian William H. Prescott (1796-1859), The History of the Conquest of Peru (1847)

In the dark annals of the Spanish conquistadores, Francisco Pizarro (1471–1541), pictured here, looms large, not just for his cruelty but for the treachery that underlay it. Centuries later, historians are still coming to terms with how, against all odds, on alien ground, he subjugated the numerically superior, longstanding Inca civilization in Peru.

In these days, following the midterms, Americans face a far more overwhelming task—figuring out, in real time, how to stem an onslaught that surpasses Pizarro’s in audacity: the assault of Donald Trump on virtually every norm and institution that have supported the American democratic republican experiment. But in a sense, that attempt at understanding revolves ultimately around what made it all possible—Trump’s “perfidy”—and its damage to America, at home and abroad.

“Perfidy” has an old-fashioned ring to it, much like “mendacity,” but it covers even more about Trump than it did about Pizarro. The synonyms associated with it encapsulate the full range of the horror of Trump’s past rise and current reign of folly and madness: duplicity, deceit, double-dealing, untrustworthiness, breach of trust, and, in Trump's baldfaced use of hacked messages supplied by Russia in the 2016 election, treason.

At this point, it is useless to expect the President to crack a book (let alone one featuring Latin American history). But, if he were inclined to do so, Trump might learn much from the history of Pizarro. 

For all the comfort he might derive from the initial to middle portions of this narrative, in which Pizarro overcomes grave doubts at the Spanish court about the perils and costs of discovering and conquering the Inca civilization, the President would be unsettled by its denouement: a fractious atmosphere in which the Spanish victors turn on each other, in a murderous fallout over the division of the spoils.  

Even more disturbing to the President would be the cause of the unrest: Pizarro’s “ruling motives”—in the words of the author of this magisterial history, William H. Prescott, the Inca conqueror’s “avarice and ambition.” Peru existed to be exploited for the benefit of Pizarro, his brother Hernando and his illegitimate children, not unlike how Trump family has monetized the American Presidency for their own company.

In one of the most vivid catchphrases of the last few weeks, Trump, contrasting his administration with President Obama’s, spoke of “Promises made, promises kept.” In terms of specific vows to the conservative wing of the Republican Party—on Supreme Court justices, tax cuts, and increased military spending—that might be the case.

In terms of vows to the nation as a whole, however, the string of broken promises is immense: “draining the swamp” of corruption; health-care benefits as generous but less costly than Obamacare; “the best people” to staff his administration; infrastructure projects that would put people to work at long last; and greater respect abroad.

Throughout his Presidency, even throughout his career, Trump has displayed an abiding appreciation for foreign strongmen who flagrantly disregard human life: Vladimir Putin, of course, but also North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Saudi Arabia’s murderous prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

In the domain he carved out for himself within the Spanish Empire, Pizarro exhibited these same tendencies. Most notoriously, in 1533, he kidnapped the Incas’ chief Atahualpa, assured him of his release if he received a ransom in gold (enough to fill an entire room), then permitted his men to execute the chief after a mock trial. “Like many an unprincipled politician, he wished to reap the benefit of a bad act, and let others take the blame of it,” Prescott writes. Who does that sound like?

From start to finish, Prescott judged roughly but all too accurately, Pizarro’s conduct toward his victim was “stamped with barbarity and fraud.”

If one defines “ruthlessness” as a willingness to crush anyone who stands in the way of one’s personal needs, Pizarro fulfills the criteria to a remarkable degree, as does Trump.

The results of Pizarro’s strategies disproved historian Arnold Toynbee’s claim that civilizations die not by murder but by suicide. Everything achieved by the proud native Incas was destroyed by the conqueror and his soldiers.

For all the hordes of gold that Pizarro and his associates sought for themselves, they could not place a commensurate amount of trust in each other. How could they, when they had watched how Pizarro had taken advantage of Atahualpa’s trust?

In fact, a split with Pizarro’s longtime partner, Diego de Almagro—swindled at the court of the Spanish king out of a major leadership role in Peru—led to civil war, Almagro’s defeat and execution by Pizarro’s brothers (the only people the conquistador could trust).

Pizarro’s end—assassination at the hands of an armed band, led by Almagro’s son and namesake, that overcame resistance at his palace in 1541—lies, justifiably, beyond the boundaries of a law-based, democratic society like the United States. But a less violent, though equally possible, outcome is well within the realm of possibility.

Without a common enemy—and sometimes, even with one—a band of thieves and usurpers, lacking faith in each other, exhibit no loyalty free from fear. Paranoia then becomes the order of the day. 

Having grasped so desperately for power, Donald Trump can never live another easy day while in office. He will forever be wondering who will turn on him in a court of law. At the same time, American allies are, even now, wondering which international treaty that Trump will break, and whether he will share intelligence with a foreign power, as the President did by divulging to Russia classified information provided by Israel. 

The question then becomes if he will wreck the American system and the worldwide Pax Americana that has held sway since the end of WWII, as Pizarro did to destroy the Incas.