Inca Empire

Lost Empire & the Inca Civilization: Originally a warlike tribe from the Andes mountains above Cuzco.

The Inca Empire (called Tawantinsuyu in modern spelling Aymara and Quechua, or Tahuantinsuyu in old spelling Quechua, which means Land of the Four Corners), was an empire located in South America from 1438 CE to 1533 CE. Over that period, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate in their empire a large portion of western South America, centred on the Andean mountain ranges. The Inca empire proved short-lived: by 1533 CE, Atahualpa, the last Sapa Inca, was killed on the orders of the Conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule.

The official language of Tahuantinsuyu was Quechua, although over seven hundred local languages were spoken. The Inca leadership encouraged the worship of their gods, the foremost of which was Inti, the sun god.

The meaning of the phrase tawantin suyu in Quechua is "the four regions between", which referred to the four provinces whose corners met at the empire's capital, Cusco (Qosqo).

The foreign name Inca Empire is derived from the word Inca, which means "Emperor." Today the word Inca still refers to the emperor, but can also refer to the people or the civilization, and is used as an adjective when referring to the beliefs of the people or the artifacts they left behind.

The History

Emergence and expansion

The Inca people began as a tribe in the Cuzco area around the 12th century. Under the leadership of Manco Capac, they formed the small city-state of Cuzco (Quechua Qosqo), shown in red on the map. In 1438 they began a far-reaching expansion under the command of Sapa Inca (paramount leader) Pachacuti, whose name literally meant "world-shaker". Nearly the entire Andes mountain range was under Inca control.

Pachacuti reorganized the kingdom of Cuzco into an empire, the Tahuantinsuyu, a federalist system which consisted of a central government with the Inca at its head and four provincial governments with strong leaders: Chinchasuyu (NW), Antisuyu (NE), Contisuyu (SW), and Collasuyu (SE). Pachacuti is also thought to have built Machu Picchu, either as a family home or as a retreat.

Pachacuti sent spies to regions he wanted in his empire; they brought reports on the political organization, military might and wealth. He would then send messages to the leaders of these lands extolling the benefits of joining his empire, offering them presents of luxury goods such as high quality textiles, and promising that they would be materially richer as subject rulers of the Inca. Most accepted the rule of the Inca as a fait accompli and acquiesced peacefully. The ruler's children would then be brought to Cuzco to be taught about Inca administration systems, then return to rule their native lands. This allowed the Inca to indoctrinate the former ruler's children into the Inca nobility, and, with luck, marry their daughters into families at various corners of the empire.

It was traditional for the Inca's son to lead the army; Pachacuti's son Túpac Inca began conquests to the north in 1463, and continued them as Inca after Pachucuti's death in 1471. His most important conquest was the Kingdom of Chimor, the Inca's only serious rival for the coast of Peru. Túpac Inca's empire stretched north into modern day Ecuador and Colombia.

Túpac Inca's son Huayna Cápac added significant territory to the south. At its height, Tahuantinsuyu included Peru and Bolivia, most of what is now Ecuador, a large portion of modern-day Chile, and extended into corners of Argentina and Colombia.

Tahuantinsuyu was a patchwork of languages, cultures and peoples. The components of the empire were not all uniformly loyal, nor were the local cultures all fully integrated. For instance, the Chimú used money in their commerce, while the Inca empire as a whole had an economy based on exchange and taxation of luxury goods and labour (it is said that Inca tax collectors would take the head lice of the lame and old as a symbolic tribute). The portions of the Chachapoya that had been conquered were almost openly hostile to the Inca, and the Inca nobles rejected an offer of refuge in their kingdom after their troubles with the Spanish.

Spanish conquest and Vilcabamba

Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro explored south from Panama, reaching Inca territory by 1526. It was clear that they had reached a wealthy land with prospects of great treasure, and after one more expedition (1529), Pizarro travelled to Spain and received royal approval to conquer the region and be its viceroy.

At the time they returned to Peru, in 1532, a war of succession between Huayna Capac's sons Huascar and Atahualpa and unrest among newly-conquered territories-- and perhaps more importantly, smallpox, which had spread from Central America-- had considerably weakened the empire.

Pizarro did not have a formidable force; with just 180 men, 1 cannon and only 27 horses, he often needed to talk his way out of potential confrontations that could have easily wiped out his party. Their first engagement was the battle of Puná, near present-day Guayaquil, Ecuador; Pizarro then founded the city of Piura in July 1532. Hernando de Soto was sent inland to explore the interior, and returned with an invitation to meet the Inca, Atahualpa, who had defeated his brother in the civil war and was resting at Cajamkarca with his army of 80,000 troops.

Pizarro met with the Inca, who had brought only a small retinue, and through interpreters demanded that he convert to Christianity. Atahualpa was handed a Bible and threw it on the floor, which the Spanish interpreted as adequate reason for war, though some chroniclers suggest that Atahualpa simply didn't understand the notion of a book. The Spanish attacked the Inca's retinue (see Battle of Cajamarca), capturing Atahualpa.

Atahualpa offered the Spaniards enough gold to fill the room he was imprisoned in, and twice that amount of silver. The Incas fulfilled this ransom, but Pizarro refused to release the Inca. During Atahualpa's imprisonment Huascar was assassinated. The Spanish maintained that this was at Atahualpa's orders; this was one of the charges used against Atahualpa when the Spanish finally decided to put him to death, in August 1533.

The Spanish installed his brother Manco Inca Yupanqui in power; for some time Manco cooperated with the Spanish, while the Spanish fought to put down resistance in the north. Meanwhile an associate of Pizarro's, Diego de Almagro, attempted to claim Cusco for himself. Manco tried to use this intra-Spanish feud to his advantage, recapturing Cusco (1536), but the Spanish retook the city.

Manco Inca then retreated to the mountains of Vilcabamba, where he and his successors ruled for another 36 years, sometimes raiding the Spanish or inciting revolts against them. In 1572 the last Inca stronghold was discovered, and the last ruler, Túpac Amaru, Manco's son, was captured and executed, bringing the Inca empire to an end.

After the Spanish Conquest

After the fall of Tahuantinsuyu, the new Spanish rulers brutally repressed the people and their traditions. Many aspects of Inca culture were systematically destroyed, including their sophisticated farming system. The Spanish used the Inca mita (mandatory public service) system to literally work the people to death. One member of each family was forced to work in the gold and silver mines, the foremost of which was the titanic silver mine at Potosí. When a family member died, which would usually happen within a year or two, the family would be required to send a replacement.

Inca Empire Links

Maya/Aztec/Inca of the Lords of the Earth
Until the source of the arrow is discovered, there can be no sensible explanation of the culture.

Inca the history
Between 1200 and 1535 AD, the Inca population lived in the part of South America extending from the Equator to the Pacific coast of Chile. The beginning of the Inca rule started with the conquest of the Moche Culture in Peru.

Inca Civilization
As with all ancient civilizations, its exact origins are unknown. Their historic record, as with all other tribes evolving on the planet at that time, would be recorded through oral tradition, stone, pottery, gold and silver jewelry, and woven in the tapestry of the people.

Inca Mummies: Pictures, Maps, Links
Get information about mummies found beneath a Peruvian shantytown, see photos of them, unwrap a virtual mummy, download Inca Empire maps, and more.

Ancient Inca
Inca Civilization History and Images.

Inca Civilization of the Andes Mountains
one of many pre-Columbian societies that arose in western South America. Because the Inca were the dominant group at the time of European discovery and subsequent conquest by Francisco Pizzaro in 1532, we know more about them then all of their predecessors.

Incas
The Mesoamerican civilization known as the Inca Empire was located in the Andes mountains of what is now Peru, Ecuador, and Chile. It's earliest beginnings date to 1100 A.D. when a small warlike tribe began to move into the valley of Cuzco.

Inca Religion
The Inca worshipped the dead, ancestors, founding culture heroes, their king whom they regarded as divine, nature and its cycles. The worship of nature and its cycles suggest that for them time and space were sacred, and consequently the calendar was religious and each month had its own festival.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas
At dawn, a hazy mist covers the route from Cuzco to the Sacred Valley and soon Cuzco, with all its vestiges of Inca antiquity and colonial grandeur, is lost from sight. The mist, however, does not prevent one from making out the cyclopean silhouettes of the Sacsayhuaman fortress...

Spaniards v. Incas and the Fall of the Inca Empire by Shannon N. White
At the time of the Spanish conquest of what is now Peru, the empire that the Incas had built up was the largest and most sophisticated to be found in the New World. Before Pizarro's capture of the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, there had been little contact between the new and old worlds of Europe and the Andean region.

Inca Empire
Conquering South America's western edge, the Incas ruled three distintic geographic regions that Spanish soldier-chronicler Pedro Cieza de León termed uninhabitable : rainless coastal deserts, mountain ranges towering more than 22,000 feet, and steamy rain forests. On slopes rising four vertical miles, climates in the empires varied from tropical to polar.

The Civilization of the Incas by Alex H. Ashley-Britt H. and Jae Min A.
The Incas ruled a land that is a little larger than Peru, most of which was made up of two parallel mountain ranges with high plateaus. Most of the land is 3,000 meters above sea level. Here is where the Amazon jungle lies.

The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
What makes the Inca Trail a magnet for hikers from all over the world?

Resources:
The Inca Civilization - The Incas were originally a warlike tribe from the Andes mountains above Cuzco. Around 1000 AD this tribe successfully conquered neighboring tribes and began moving down into the valley of Cuzco.	Inca: Children of the sun - In the early decades of the 15th century, an obscure people whose rulers claimed descent from the sun embarked on a series of conquests that would enable them to dominate the last hundred years of Andean history.

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