Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- 1 Testimonies: The Making and Reading of Native South American Historical Sources
- 2 Ethnography in South America: The First Two Hundred Years
- 3 The Earliest South American Lifeways
- 4 The Maritime, Highland, Forest Dynamic and the Origins of Complex Culture
- 5 The Evolution of Andean Diversity: Regional Formations (500 B.C.E.–C.E. 600)
- 6 Andean Urbanism and Statecraft (c.E. 550–1450)
- 7 Chiefdoms: The Prevalence and Persistence of “Señoríos Naturales” 1400 to European Conquest
- 8 Archaeology of the Caribbean Region
- 9 Prehistory of the Southern Cone
- 10 The Fourfold Domain: Inka Power and Its Social Foundations
- 11 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: The Caribbean (1492–1580)
- 12 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: Andean Area (1500–1580)
- 13 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: Coastal Brazil in the Sixteenth Century
- Index
10 - The Fourfold Domain: Inka Power and Its Social Foundations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction
- 1 Testimonies: The Making and Reading of Native South American Historical Sources
- 2 Ethnography in South America: The First Two Hundred Years
- 3 The Earliest South American Lifeways
- 4 The Maritime, Highland, Forest Dynamic and the Origins of Complex Culture
- 5 The Evolution of Andean Diversity: Regional Formations (500 B.C.E.–C.E. 600)
- 6 Andean Urbanism and Statecraft (c.E. 550–1450)
- 7 Chiefdoms: The Prevalence and Persistence of “Señoríos Naturales” 1400 to European Conquest
- 8 Archaeology of the Caribbean Region
- 9 Prehistory of the Southern Cone
- 10 The Fourfold Domain: Inka Power and Its Social Foundations
- 11 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: The Caribbean (1492–1580)
- 12 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: Andean Area (1500–1580)
- 13 The Crises and Transformations of Invaded Societies: Coastal Brazil in the Sixteenth Century
- Index
Summary
At the time of the Spanish invasion (c.E. 1532), the Inka ruled the largest empire the New World had ever seen. It extended from the sacred center of Qusqu, now called Qosqo, Cusco or Cuzco, northward along the spine of the Andes through what are today Peru, Ecuador, and southernmost Colombia, as well as southward into Bolivia, northern Chile, and northwestern Argentina (Map 10.1). Its domains also covered the Pacific seaboards of nearly all these lands, and parts of western Amazonia. From a European perspective many areas ruled by the Inka looked inhospitable, even marginal. Yet the Inka controlled a land rich with varied natural resources and domesticated plants and animals. Andean peoples developed the sophisticated management and redistribution mechanisms required to utilize this wealth effectively centuries before the Inka rose to power. Although the Inka based much of what they wrought on technologies and institutions developed centuries earlier, the size of the Inka enterprise made it unique in the Americas.
Inka wealth in its owners’ eyes consisted supremely of richly woven textiles, herds of llamas and alpacas, and thousands of storehouses. To the Spanish invaders, however, gold was the most immediate and measurable sign of Andean wealth. The last Inka emperor, Atawallpa (written Atahuallpa, Atawalpa, etc.; his name may mean ‘Fortunate in Creative Works’), sensed the Spaniards’ gold lust and amassed vast quantities of gold and silver in a vain attempt to buy his freedom. Eyewitnesses recorded the amount of the ransom to have been nearly ten tons of gold and seventy tons of silver. But the Spanish conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizarro, killed Atawallpa shortly after the delivery of the great treasure. Even this was only a fraction of the total amassed by the Spaniards.
The rapid rise of Tawantinsuyu (written Tahuantinsuyu, etc.), as the Inka called their empire, was as spectacular as its geographic extent. The Quechua name could be glossed ‘four parts united among themselves’ or ‘fourfold domain’. From their center in Cusco the Inka built a logistics network of administrative centers, waystations manned by relay runners, storehouses, and religious shrines, all linked by daringly constructed roads. As they expanded, by diplomacy or by force, if necessary, the Inka encouraged ethnic diversity. At the same time, they propagated their administrative language, Quechua, and superimposed their solar religion and their administration onto the older societies whose heterogeneity is emphasized shortly.
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- The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas , pp. 769 - 863Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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