Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LATE HORIZON - THE INCA
The period between 900 and 1475 is known as the Late Intermediate Horizon. After the fall
of Tiwanaku, regionalized city-states such as Chan Chan in Peru and the Aymará kingdoms
around the southern shores of Lake Titicaca came to power. However, it was the rise and
fall of the Inca empire that would truly define the pre-Columbian period.
The Inca inhabited the Cuzco region (in present-day Peru) from the 12th century. They
were renowned for their great stone cities and their skill in working with gold and silver.
The Inca set up a social welfare scheme, taxed up to two-thirds of produce and worked in a
system primarily based on the communal ownership of property. Through the
mita
system
(where short-term forced labor was used to build public projects) they were able to create a
complex road network and communication system that defied the difficult terrain of their
far-flung empire.
Around 1440 the Inca started to expand their political boundaries. The eighth Inca king,
Viracocha (not to be confused with the Tiwanaku deity of the same name), believed the
mandate from their sun god was not just to conquer, plunder and enslave, but to organize
defeated tribes and absorb them into the realm of the benevolent sun god.
Between 1476 and 1534 the Inca civilization
managed to extend its influence over the Ay-
mará kingdoms around Lake Titicaca. They
pushed their empire from its seat of power in
Cuzco eastward into present-day Bolivia, south-
ward to the northern reaches of modern Argen-
tina and Chile, and northward through present-
day Ecuador and southern Colombia.
The people of the Aymará kingdoms were
permitted to keep their language and social traditions, and never truly accepted Inca rule.
Today you can still see these linguistic and cultural splits in the Quechua, Aymará and
myriad other indigenous groups of Bolivia.
By the late 1520s internal rivalries began to take their toll on the empire with the sons of
Inca Huayna Capac - Atahualpa and Huáscar - fighting a bloody civil war after the death
of their father. Atahualpa (who controlled the northern reaches of the empire) won the war.
While he was traveling south to Cuzco to claim his throne, he ran into the conquistador
Francisco Pizarro, who captured, ransomed and eventually beheaded him. This left a power
vacuum, making it easy for the Spanish to conquer the lands and peoples of the Inca em-
pire.
DISEASES
Smallpox and other European diseases killed off up
to 90% of the indigenous population in some areas.
These epidemics continued on 20-year cycles well
into the 17th century.
