Internal and External Factors in the Fall of Tawantinsuyu PDF

# Internal and External Factors in the Fall of Tawantinsuyu ## R. Alan Covey When Europeans first reached the Andean region in the 1520s, the Inka Empire, or Tawantinsuyu (“The Unity of Four Parts”), already controlled territory that was unprecedented in its extent and the diversity of its landsca...

# Internal and External Factors in the Fall of Tawantinsuyu ## R. Alan Covey When Europeans first reached the Andean region in the 1520s, the Inka Empire, or Tawantinsuyu (“The Unity of Four Parts”), already controlled territory that was unprecedented in its extent and the diversity of its landscapes and peoples. Inka armies conquered northward from the Cusco highlands, extending imperial territory for 1500 km, to the modern border of Ecuador and Colombia. Campaigns to the south reached central Chile and northwest Argentina. To the west, the Inkas extended control over the desert kingdoms of the Pacific coast, and they pressed eastward through the slopes of the Andes Mountains and into the Amazonian lowlands (see chapter by I. Schjellerup). Inka subjects spoke multiple languages and they fished, farmed, and herded across some of the most diverse territories found on our planet. By the early 1500s, Tawantinsuyu encompassed a much more extensive territory than the kingdoms of Spain, and the population of Inka subjects, estimated to be around ten million was also larger. Europeans faced great difficulties in reaching the Inka territories. They had to outfit ships that could make the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, cross the tropical mountains of Panama on foot, and then arrange for ships to sail south along the Pacific coast. The successes of Francisco Pizarro and his men in 1532 raise questions about how a small number of invaders could reach the Andean highlands and survive there long enough to make Tawantinsuyu into a colony of Habsburg Spain. In the century following the political conquest of the Inka world, Spanish writers explained their accomplishments in religious terms, claiming that the Christian God performed miracles that d that Spain was chosen to conquer Native peoples and convert them to Catholicism. During the 1700s and 1800s, European claims of racial superiority became part of the explanation. More recently, American author Jared Diamond’s popular book Guns, Germs, and Steel has built indirectly on some of those claims, interpreting Francisco Pizarro’s capture of the Inka ruler, Atahuallpa at Cajamarca on November 16, 1532, as evidence that Western societies had superior technologies (firearms, advanced metallurgy, writing) and resistance to epidemic diseases, making Europeans unstoppable as they continued building colonial empires in the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and parts of Asia. Scholarly accounts acknowledge that Tawantinsuyu did not fall in a single day. Inka expansion created internal strains that made the empire vulnerable, and the invading Spaniards were able to take advantage of the effects of factional competition, provincial unrest, and epidemic disease. Pizarro and his men survived because Andean people saw them as useful allies, and the eventual imposition of Spanish colonial rule relied heavily on Indigenous elites, adapting some of the institutions that served as the foundations of Inka administration. It took decades for the Spanish Crown to establish control over most parts of the Andes, but the Inka legacy persisted as a powerful identity that mobilized Indigenous resistance to colonial rule. ## Internal Vulnerabilities At the time of the European invasion of the Andes, the Inkas were still engaged in campaigns of territorial expansion, as well as imposing imperial administration over subject populations. The diversity and extent of the Andean region, limited distribution of pre-Inka urbanism and statecraft, and speed of Inka territorial growth all presented challenges to maintaining imperial order. ## Maintaining the Universal Center As in early imperial China, the Inkas viewed their capital, Cusco, as a world center where the emperor bound together diverse regions and maintained relationships between the human and supernatural worlds. Tawantinsuyu lacked the strong sense of ethnic unity seen in imperial , and most Inka people resided in the capital region, from where they sent their soldiers and officials to conquer and govern hundreds of other Andean groups. Provincial lords and officials traveled to Cusco to interact with the Inka ruler, and their groups sent artisans, laborers, and human sacrifices to the capital, where they contributed to monumental construction projects and lavish ceremonies that celebrated the Inka unification of the Andean world. Some of the public celebrations in Cusco identified and ranked the different royal houses (panaqa) that constituted the Inka dynasty, while others distinguished the Inka population of the capital from provincial subjects. The Inka nobility initiated their young men as warriors in Cusco, and solar observations were made in the capital to maintain the imperial calendar and manage key agricultural cycles. During imperial ceremonies, the Inka ruler and his principal wife (the Coya) performed central roles, interacting with sacred objects (wak’a; see chapters by F. Acuto and S. Kosiba), ancestral mummies, and priestesses (mamakuna) who cared for them (Figure 1). The need for the royal couple to be present at the center of the Inka universe—to keep the Inka people and their Andean empire in order—presented challenges as the empire grew. Because the Inka emperor also possessed the sovereign authority to draft and command armies, extended campaigns in distant lands meant long periods spent away from ceremonial duties in Cusco. The ruler Tupa Inka Yupanqui campaigned in Bolivia and Chile for more than a decade without returning to the capital, and his son, Huayna Capac, moved his court permanently to the Ecuadorian frontier so that he could lead the fighting there (Figure 2). While those rulers were absent from the imperial center, they appointed close relatives to perform their ceremonial responsibilities there, hoping that their substitutes would be respected as they would be. ## Palace Intrigues Whereas the royal palace (wangchang) constituted the center of ancient Chinese capital cities like Xianyang, Xi’an, or Luoyang, Cusco had two central places. The Coricancha temple complex housed the golden statue of the midday Sun (Punchao) and other sacred objects, and was the point from which the network of shrines (wak’a) branched out into the surrounding valley. The nearby Haucaypata plaza was the location where imperial ceremonies and other important public gatherings took place, and the royal roads to the four main provincial regions departed from there. Surrounding the plaza were palaces built by the last generations of Inka emperors, which served as their urban residences. Spatially, Inka palaces were the origin places from which the Inka and Coya emerged onto the Haucaypata plaza in their performances of sovereign control over the Andes. Although Inka ancestral origin myths emphasize the pairing of royal men and women, they also describe the founding Inka (Manco Capac) and his descendants as rulers who took multiple secondary wives. In the generations before the Spanish invasion, imperial palaces were home to large numbers of powerful women, including the Coya and other royal wives who were members of noble panaqas and prominent provincial families. Some Spaniards estimated that the later emperors had dozens of secondary wives, who bore him hundreds of sons and daughters. The women of the imperial palace did not live in confinement, even though some European writers compared them with the harem women of some Asian societies. The Coya actively participated in public ceremonies and some political deliberations. Other Inka wives are known to have held formal administrative positions, such as Añas Collque andContarguacho, who oversaw 30,000 tributary households in the Callejón de Huaylas during the reign of their husband, Huayna Capac. Secondary wives of the Inka literally reproduced the next generation of imperial generals, governors, and priestesses, and many of them attempted to use their position to benefit their families of origin by placing sons and daughters in prominent positions. More than one Inka decided to suspend military campaigns in distant parts of the Andes, fearing that if he should die outside of Cusco, factional violence would destroy Tawantinsuyu. Rulers attempted to clarify succession by designating adult sons of the Coya and sending them out to command armies to show themselves worthy to reign (see chapter by S. Ramírez). Despite these efforts to reduce factional competition, Spanish writers tell of one Inka favorite who convinced the emperor to gamble away provinces to her son, while another secondary wife attempted to build support to recognize her son as Inka, instead of the acknowledged heir. That plot failed after the Coya, Mama Ocllo, assembled her own family and supporters to install her young son as ruler. That Inka, known as Huayna Capac (Boy King), reportedly became the ruler at such a young age that regents governed on his behalf for 10 years before he was considered old enough to make decisions of state. The accession of young boys as Inkas speaks to the power of Coyas and other royal women in manipulating royal succession. Similar processes can be seen in China during the Qing dynasty: the Shunzhi Emperor came to power in 1643 at age 5, and other emperors also received the imperial title at very young ages (e.g., Kangxi Emperor, age 6 [1661]; Tongzhi Emperor, age 5 [1861]; Guangzu Emperor, age 3 [1875], Xuantong Emperor, age 2 [1908]). ## Civil Service and Client Rulers When Inka imperial conquests began, there was considerable political variation across the Andean region. Outside of the Cusco region, highland groups were largely decentralized clusters of villages and towns that depended on clans (ayllus) to manage land tenure and maintain social order. Unlike the patrilineal clans of early China, the Andean ayllu recognized descent through both male and female lines, and there were not strongly pronounced gender hierarchies. Highland settlements at the time favored inaccessible ridges and hilltops that offered natural protection and local access to pastures and lands for growing potatoes, quinoa, and other crops. When the Inkas conquered local highland groups, they established marriage ties with some local leaders, making them hereditary lords. Over time, they governed many highland provinces with a sort of civil service organized into provinces (hunu) of 10,000 households. The upper level officials of the decimal hierarchy were called kurakas (curacas), while local officials overseeing fewer than 100 households were called kamayuq. Unlike the imperial civil service of China, there was no formal training for these officials, who were responsible for implementing demands of labor service conveyed to them by Inka officials who were usually close relatives of the emperor. The creation of a new political hierarchy in the highlands contrasts with the situation on the Pacific coast, where many populations lived in cities and had been governed by state institutions for centuries. The largest coastal polity at the time of Inka expansion was Chimor, an empire that was expanding along what is today the north coast of Peru. The capital of Chimor was Chan Chan, a city with an estimated population of 40,000 inhabitants dominated by the palace complexes (ciudadelas) of the ruling dynasty. Although the Inkas incorporated coastal polities into their empire, they typically established a more indirect approach, leaving rulers in place, or replacing them with local allies. To some extent, the coastal provinces looked more like the kingdoms established by Han dynasty rulers in areas once dominated by the Zhou dynasty; the highland Inka provinces were more bureaucratic, like early Chinese commanderies. Although the Inkas attempted to establish firmer provincial control over time, their administrative hierarchies were vulnerable to competition at different levels. The provincial governors in the highlands were royal men who might seek to become Inka if they became too powerful, while the most powerful highland lords came from non-Inka groups that might choose to break away from the empire if the opportunity arose. Coastal rulers controlled large populations and highly productive economies that remained largely independent, and they, too, weighed the costs and benefits of cooperating with Inka rulers who rarely visited the coast. ## Economic Considerations The limited Inka control over coastal economies hindered the imperial project of promoting Cusco as a universal center that bound together all Andean peoples. Under Inka hegemony, coastal economies continued to flourish, and their maritime trade routes became the first point of contact for Francisco Pizarro and his men, who captured a merchant vessel in 1525 and sailed southward with its crew to visit the coastal cities of Tumbes and Chincha. Like European voyagers in the nearby Caribbean, coastal Andean merchants bartered with local populations living beyond Inka territory, seeking exotic raw materials, such as the colorful Spondylus crassisquama shell. To the east of the Andes, the Inkas sent highland subjects to acquire feathers, wood, gold, and other goods that were abundant in the humid tropical landscapes of the Amazonian lowlands (see chapter by I. Schjellerup). In the highlands, however, the Inkas acted to limit the production and exchange of prestige goods. Scholars have noted the ways that the political economy of the central highlands differed from other early empires: money was not used in exchanges, and transport costs were high, owing to the absence of wheeled vehicles, strong draft animals, and navigable waterways. In the highlands, the Inkas required labor service from their subjects, rather than tribute paid in money or material goods. They invested labor in the improvement of infrastructure, as well as the intensification of valley-bottom farming and herding, which supported provincial administration and military expansion. Inka officials ensured that way-stations (tampu) and administrative centers along the royal road were well-stocked with food, clothing, and other supplies needed by those traveling on imperial business. While the Inkas encouraged local economic self-sufficiency and limited economic inequality in local communities, they attempted to channel fine craft goods and exotic raw materials to Cusco, where artisans would produce clothing, jewelry, and religious objects that set the imperial elite apart from the non-Inka peoples of the surrounding highlands. Inka economic intensification and infrastructure supported control over the Andean highlands, but the abundance of supplies along imperial roads would also help Inka rebels and Spanish conquistadores (conquerors) to travel quickly through provincial lands in the final days of the empire. The concentration of large amounts of gold, silver, and gems in Cusco and at important temples made those places attractive targets to plunder. If Inka palaces, temples and tombs had lacked the wealth desired by the Spaniards—and if there were no easy means of transporting tons of precious metals across the Andes to Spanish ships—the European invasion and colonization of the Andes would undoubtedly have unfolded differently. ## External Factors and the Sovereign Crisis In the mid-1520s, around the time that Francisco Pizarro began to explore the Pacific coast of Colombia and Ecuador, a pandemic spread through Inka territory, killing an unknown number of the population and upsetting the delicate balance of power across Tawantinsuyu. Most historians blame an Old World disease, perhaps smallpox, which the conquistadores brought from Europe and inadvertently spread into Indigenous communities that had no resistance to them. Inka witnesses say that those afflicted were covered in sores and became feverish before dying. Among the dead were the emperor Huayna Capac and members of his royal household living near Quito on the northern Inka frontier, as well as the governors he had left behind to represent him in Cusco (Figure 3). Because Huayna Capac had not designated an heir who was prepared to rule, the prominent Inka deaths in Quito and Cusco prompted high-ranking Inka survivors to reconfigure their factions and pursue powerful positions. One account of Huayna Capac's death states that Inka lords in Quito visited the dying emperor three times to identify a successor. The delirious Inka first named an infant son, who other writers say perished in the pandemic. Next, he designated his oldest son, Atahuallpa, who had accompanied him to Quito, but who had proven to be a poor military commander. Finally, the Inka named Huascar, a younger son who had remained in Cusco but had support of the nobility there. Although the Spanish accounts vary in many details, they agree that Huascar was recognized as Inka in Cusco, assuming the ceremonial power over the imperial center. During his short reign there, he attempted to curtail the wealth and power of the panaqas living in the capital, declaring his intent to confiscate royal estates and to reorganize the Inka nobility. As Huascar struggled to establish control over the capital, Atahuallpa remained in Quito with the experienced armies of the northern frontier under his command, despite receiving orders to return to Cusco to give his allegiance to Huascar. Relations between the two brothers deteriorated, eventually sparking a civil war that pitted Atahuallpa's frontier veterans against the large armies of inexperienced conscripts that Huascar assembled and sent against Quito. The main fighting of the Inka civil war took place along the royal road between Cusco and Quito, and Atahuallpa's captains defeated Huascar's forces repeatedly, driving them back toward Cusco. Losses on both sides were significant, reducing the number of Inka men with combat experience while also damaging key infrastructure (roads and bridges) and consuming food and supplies stored at imperial waystations along the route. As the Quito commanders neared Cusco, Huascar assembled his last available troops and finally took to the field, only to be captured easily when he charged into an ambush. Atahuallpa's commanders took Huascar prisoner and entered Cusco, taking control of the city. Acting on Atahuallpa's orders, they apprehended members of Huascar's household and attempted to capture other Inka nobles who were considered to be a threat. Mass executions and other violence followed, and some royal houses were almost totally destroyed. Local populations were caught between the two armies, and those that offered or withheld support for one brother faced reprisals. Atahuallpa followed behind his main army with his own troops, presiding over mass executions and seizing local women to punish coastal groups that had supported Huascar. In areas not affected by major battles, many provincial lords took advantage of the civil war to assert their independence from the Inka Empire. In some places, this probably consisted of no longer assembling labor tribute for Inka projects, but there are early accounts of violent uprisings as well. For example, Tumbalá, the lord of the island of Puná (located in the Gulf of Guayaquil), killed the Inka officials placed in his lands and sent a flotilla to attack and pillage the nearby Inka-controlled city of Tumbes. When Francisco Pizarro reached Tumbes with a single ship in 1526, the city was sending its vessels to fight against Puná; by the time the Spaniards returned to the area in 1532, Tumbes had been sacked and thousands of prisoners had been taken to Puná as slaves. ## The European Invasion and Colonization of Peru The spread of Old World disease into the Inka world triggered an imperial crisis in which Inka nobles and other Andean lords found themselves looking for advantages that would help them build or maintain their power. The Spanish conquistadores who were the source of the pandemic appeared at the margins of the Inka world at a time of unprecedented disruption, and a combination of luck and strategy allowed them to survive long enough to make alliances with Andean elites, eventually leading to the imposition of Spanish colonial rule. ## The Conquistador Model When rumors of a rich native lord reached Panama in the early 1520s, Francisco Pizarro and two partners (Diego de Almagro and Fernando de Luque) obtained permission from the Spanish governor there to mount an expedition along the Pacific coast to the south. By that time, Europeans had already been exploring, trading, and raiding in the Americas for more than 30 years. Those ventures built on the late medieval model that Catholic monarchs in Iberia used to take territory from Muslim rulers. Noblemen mounted military expeditions at their own expense, and when they were successful, they took prisoners and valuable plunder, offering conquered cities to Christian rulers in exchange for royal titles and economic considerations. Castile used this model in the conquest of the Canary Islands, as well as for the organization of early voyages to the Americas. By the early 1500s, there were numerous private ventures engaged in risky voyages, from trans-Atlantic merchants to Caribbean slave raiders, to expeditions like Pizarro’s, which had official permission to explore and conquer. Many of these ended in failure, leaving survivors economically ruined. Pizarro's first attempts to explore the Pacific coast were disastrous, costing the lives of most of the men who joined the expedition in the hopes of a share of treasure. Instead of becoming rich, they starved to death on the Colombian coast, died of smallpox and other diseases aboard their small, cramped ships, and fell in battle to Indigenous warriors defending their homes. At several points in the expedition, Pizarro and his men were left in inhospitable locations while Diego de Almagro returned to Panama for more food and recruits who could replace the dead. The first real success for the expedition occurred when Pizarro sent his navigator, Bartolomé Ruiz, to the south, while he waited with his men. Ruiz and his sailors succeeded in reaching a more hospitable coastline where local rulers recognized Inka sovereignty, and on their return, they captured a merchant vessel, which yielded the first significant treasure from the expedition. These new discoveries were not enough to convince Pizarro's men to continue with the expedition, and most of them returned to Panama at the first opportunity, leaving Pizarro with a single ship and a small company of supporters. They sailed south into Inka waters, reaching the city of Tumbes at a time when the conflict of the Inka civil war was beginning to erupt. The Spaniards explored the coast, finding the people of the local cities to be wealthy and eager to trade. They met Inka officials and priestesses, whose friendliness contrasted with the fighting they had faced farther to the north. As the time granted to his expedition came to an end, Pizarro returned to Panama with samples of Andean metalwork, textiles, and unfamiliar animals that proved the significance of his discoveries. ## Sovereign Aims The short-term goals of conquistadores like Pizarro contrasted with those of Spanish monarchs, who were interested in establishing successful Iberian settlements that would generate tax revenues, as well as extending sovereignty over Indigenous populations who would provide additional labor and tribute. After Pizarro was unable to obtain permission from Panama's governor to mount a new expedition on the Pacific, he returned to Spain in 1529 to try and convince the Spanish king, Charles V, to appoint him to establish a colony in the newly discovered land. Negotiations at court led to a royal contract (the "Capitulación de Toledo", Toledo Pact) that granted Pizarro permission to settle Spanish towns along the coast, to assign native labor grants (encomiendas) to Spanish colonists, and to develop natural resources, such as mines. Based on Pizarro's description of coastal cities, Charles V was convinced that Inka lords would receive the colonists peacefully and assist them, and he gave permission for just 250 Spaniards to accompany Pizarro to Peru. ## Advance to Cajamarca Pizarro repeatedly violated the terms of his royal contract on his journey back to the Andes. He sailed from Spain with fewer men than the contract required, took a different route from the one specified, and did not depart from Panama until the end of 1530, several months after he was supposed to have reached Peru and settled new towns. Pizarro's expedition took more than a year to reach Tumbes, the Inka city where he was supposed to establish the most important Spanish settlement. On their journey southward, the Europeans attempted to build alliances with coastal leaders. Where local people met them peacefully, they read the Requerimiento ("requirement"), a document that announced their intentions to carry out missionary work, and which demanded that Indigenous people cooperate or face total destruction. As the Spanish text was read, Andean interpreters who had been captured several years earlier translated it into languages that they knew, introducing some uncertainty about who the strange invaders claimed to be. The Requerimiento stated that the Spaniards were servants of the creator (i.e., the Christian notion of the almighty God) who had made the universe and its people, a claim that might have led some Andean people to associate the invasion with the return of Viracocha, the creator that the Inkas worshiped. Although this confusion could have developed innocently enough through mistranslation, the Spaniards also made active attempts to represent themselves as something more than human to Andean people. They fired guns and made displays of horsemanship to terrify people who had never seen such things, pretending that the horses were powerful beings that could cause great damage if they were angered. News of Pizarro's progress spread from the Ecuadorian coast to other parts of Tawantinsuyu, and some chroniclers say that both Atahuallpa and Huascar received updates as the Inka civil war progressed (Figure 4). Although Inka witnesses say that Atahuallpa entertained the possibility that the invaders had come from the creator Viracocha, signaling the end of the universe, they note that his advisors clearly identified the Spaniards as mortal men, violent outlaws who could easily be killed by Inka soldiers. Rather than dispatch troops to destroy Pizarro and his men on the Pacific coast, Atahuallpa instead invited them to meet with him at the highland Inka city of Cajamarca, hundreds of kilometers away from their ships and coastal allies. For his part, Pizarro learned about the Inka civil war as he traveled south along the Pacific coast, and, although he knew that Atahuallpa was not the legitimate lord of the Andes, he abandoned his efforts to settle a Spanish colony so that he could try to capture the Inka warlord and use him to take over the Andes. Pizarro established one small coastal town (San Miguel de Piura) with a few dozen of his men before setting out for Cajamarca. On November 15, 1532, a force of 168 Europeans entered Cajamarca, accompanied by an unknown number of enslaved men and women from Africa and Central America, as well as Andean porters and coastal allies. Atahuallpa was camped outside of the city, and the Spaniards entered it and occupied the palaces and temples surrounding the central plaza. As Pizarro's men set up defenses, he sent some of his high-ranking captains with their cavalry to meet Atahuallpa. The Spaniards said that they wished to be Inka allies and offered to fight against Atahuallpa's enemies. Atahuallpa confronted them with accounts of theft and abuse against coastal people whom he claimed as his subjects, and the meeting ended with an agreement that he would come to meet Pizarro in Cajamarca the next day. Anticipating the Inka arrival, the Spaniards in Cajamarca set up an ambush in the main plaza of the Inka city, and when Atahuallpa arrived there at the head of a ceremonial procession, the Spanish attacked and slaughtered the Inka soldiers and lords who were with him (Figure 6). Francisco Pizarro personally fought his way to where Atahuallpa was seated in a colorful litter, cutting down the men who carried him and taking him prisoner when he fell to the ground. ## Inka-Spanish Alliances After his capture, Atahuallpa offered a rich ransom of gold and silver to the Spaniards, knowing that it would take months to assemble the treasure (Figure 6). During that time, he remained a Spanish prisoner, but Pizarro allowed him to assemble a royal court in the palace where he was held. He sent out messengers to carry out his orders and received reports from his captains in Cusco and other lords who served him. The Spaniards wished to meet Huascar, the captive Inka sovereign, but news soon reached Cajamarca that he had been killed by Atahuallpa's captains, an act that Atahuallpa said he had not ordered. While Atahuallpa attempted to position himself to regain his freedom and take power as the Inka emperor, other Andean elites came to Cajamarca to make alliances with Pizarro. Some groups became Spanish allies as a way to increase their independence from Inka rule, while members of Cusco's Inka nobility offered valuable connections that could bring Tawantinsuyu under Spanish control. After several months of alliance-making in Cajamarca while waiting for Atahuallpa's ransom to arrive, Pizarro ordered the gold and silver to be melted down and distributed to his men. Within a few weeks, Atahuallpa was dead—executed by the Spaniards for allegedly conspiring to send an army against them from Quito—and the Spaniards had crowned his half-bother Tupa Huallpa in front of an assembly of Inka lords. The new Inka and his Spanish allies soon departed for Cusco, to drive Atahuallpa's captains from the city and restore sovereign control over Tawantinsuyu. As they traveled along the royal road, Tupa Huallpa fell ill and died, supposedly poisoned by a supporter of Atahuallpa. Within a few weeks, Pizarro had forged an alliance with another half-brother, Manco, who accompanied the conquistadores (conquerors) into Cusco. Manco became Inka in the capital of his ancestors, giving his allegiance to the Spanish crown and then setting out on campaign with Spanish cavalry, to drive the remnants of Atahuallpa's Quito forces from the central highlands (Figure 7). Manco Inka’s alliance with the invaders fell apart within a few years, as the Spaniards established a colonial settlement in Cusco, plundered royal palaces and tombs for their treasure, and began to divide the rural population into grants of tributary labor (encomiendas). Many of Manco’s supporters urged action to retain their property and privileges, and the Inka launched a war of reconquest in 1536, laying siege to the Spaniards in Cusco and Lima. Although Spanish writers later credited their survival to miraculous events, it was their Andean alliances that kept them alive. Inka princesses warned the Spaniards of the coming war, and they convinced their male relatives to support the conquistadores. Provincial groups like the Chachapoyas and Cañaris (from the northeastern region of the Inka Empire) fought and died alongside their Spanish allies. After several months of fighting failed to break the Spaniards, Manco abandoned his attempts to drive the invaders from his empire, and he retreated to the jungles of Vilcabamba, an inaccessible region to the northwest of Cusco where he established an independent kingdom. ## Andean Elite Strategies Manco Inka’s unsuccessful war of reconquest accelerated the interweaving of the leading Spaniards and the Andean nobility. Those who had stood with the conquistadores looked to Spain for rewards and recognition. By converting to Catholicism, they received recognition of their noble status, and some were awarded colonial titles and estates. Their new identity as Christian subjects allowed the Andean nobility to protect their property, as they could give sworn testimony in legal cases, have their marriages recognized, and make wills to pass their estates on to their children (Figure 8). The patriarchal organization of the Spanish legal system created more opportunities for Andean men to build and maintain elite statuses, and Inka noblewomen saw much of their power and influence disappear in the decades that followed. As Inka noblemen in Cusco became Christian subjects of Spain, many of their former imperial officials pursued similar strategies. By the late 1540s, men who had held kuraka or local kamayuq positions were recognized as noblemen who played crucial roles in mobilizing tribute for Spaniards who held encomienda grants. Spanish colonists were suspicious of the kurakas, blaming them for enriching themselves by collecting excess tribute, and for illegally keeping multiple wives and perpetuating idolatrous religious practices. At the same time, they acknowledged that older men in prominent social positions possessed information about population levels, land tenure, and agrarian productivity that Spaniards were unable to assess on their own. ## The New Political Economy In the early 1570s, a Spanish viceroy, Francisco de Toledo, sought to implement administrative policies that would bypass the Inka nobility and the Andean kurakas. He ordered new censuses—counted by Spanish officials—and widespread resettlement of dispersed, rural populations into Spanish-style towns that would be easier to supervise. While attacking the established practice of governing on the basis of Inka-era precedents, the viceroy sought to implement new labor practices that were modified from Inka ones. To provide labor for the rich silver mines of the Bolivian highlands, in particular, the famous Cerro Rico ("rich mountain") of Potosí, he created the mita, ordering tributary populations to make rotations of low-wage workers available for Spanish projects. Toledo also permitted Spaniards involved in commodity production (wool, wine, sugar, and other crops) to purchase the labor of yanaconas (long-term poorly paid laborers), who would be attached to their plantations and pasture lands in a manner similar to that of the Inka servants who once served the royal families of Cusco. Toledo’s administrative overhaul coincided with his attack on the Inka nobility and the Andean kurakas. He collected testimonies from old men that challenged the hereditary noble status of the kurakas and represented the Inkas as tyrants whose recent conquests did not reflect sovereign legitimacy. The viceroy viewed the Inkas of Cusco as illegitimate, not deserving the special privileges that they received from the Spanish Crown. The Inkas who still lived in the independent kingdom of Vilcabamba also presented a threat to his project, since the descendants of Manco Inka were seen as the heirs of the Inka imperial title. Although he had been instructed to ratify a treaty with Titu Cusi Yupanqui, the son of Manco Inka and ruler of Vilcabamba, Toledo used the murder of a Spaniard as a pretext to invade the kingdom, raze its capital, and carry the remaining Inka nobles and military commanders back to Cusco in chains. When the Spaniards took possession of Vilcabamba, they found that Titu Cusi Yupanqui was dead, so the viceroy treated his surviving brother, Tupa Amaru, as the Inka ruler. Unlike most of the Vilcabamba Inkas, Tupa Amaru had not yet converted to Christianity, and he was one of the last Inkas to be captured in the Vilcabamba campaign. The Spaniards dressed him in fine clothes, placed a golden chain around his neck, and marched him into Cusco, where they put him on trial and sentenced him to death (Figure 9). On September 24, 1572, Tupa Amaru was beheaded in Cusco’s central plaza in front of thousands of native Andeans, a public spectacle intended to perform the end of the Inka dynasty. ## “Inka” Resistance Francisco de Toledo designed the execution of Tupa Amaru to mark the end of the Inka dynasty, and in many ways, he was successful. The execution effectively ended debates over Inka sovereignty, and while the noble Inkas of Cusco retained some of their special privileges, their influence was reduced to municipal politics and the ceremonial performances of a now-lost ancestral greatness. The Inka nobles became devout Catholics, assisting in anti-idolatry campaigns in the Cusco region, establishing a religious confraternity to care for an image of Jesus, and forging strong alliances with the Jesuit order. They remained loyal Spanish subjects until the very last days of the Peruvian independence movement, sheltering the last viceroy in their former imperial capital. While colonial Inkas acted as exemplary subjects, the legacy of the Inka inspired other Andean people to resist Spanish rule. During the 17th and 18th centuries several men claiming Inka descent led uprisings in remote parts of the Andes. A Spaniard, Pedro Bohórquez, led an Indigenous revolt in Argentina’s Calchaquí Valley in 1659, claiming to be Inka Huallpa, the ruler of an unconquered Inka kingdom in the Amazonian jungle. In 1742, Juan Santos Atahualpa launched a religious movement against Spanish missions on the eastern Andean slope, claiming a connection to the Inka warlord executed at Cajamarca. Decades later, a highland nobleman named José Gabriel Condorcanqui adopted the name Tupac Amaru II, emphasizing his Inka descent as he led one of the most successful anti-Spanish uprisings in the Andean highlands. The fall of the Inkas did not occur at Cajamarca in 1532, or at the execution of Tupa Amaru in Cusco in 1572. As archaeologists and historians have collected more evidence about the growth and consolidation of Tawantinsuyu, it has become clear that the empire assembled by the Inkas was never as all-encompassing as Inka witnesses would later claim. It was a vast and impressive realm that extended an unmatched degree of state power, but it depended on elite men and women whose diverse identities and aims were not always aligned with the interests of the emerging Inka state. The pandemic that hit the Inka world in the 1520s was an unprecedented catastrophe that compromised the social practices and institutions intended to reduce the internal vulnerabilities of the empire. The resulting population losses and the destruction of the Inka civil war led to the loss of imperial power over some provincial regions. It is possible that Atahuallpa might have been able to reestablish imperial control after the civil war, but the arrival of Pizarro’s expedition and his capture and execution prevented that from taking place. Atahuallpa’s death was followed by several years where the Spaniards attempted to ally with the Inkas to reconstitute a Tawantinsuyu whose ruler would serve the Spanish king, but Manco Inka’s war of reconquest altered the relationship to one in which Spain focused instead on constructing a colonial government in Peru with strong administration over Andean and European populations. Elements of that administration reflected Inka-era practices, and Andean elites remained important for implementing colonial policies in rural areas. By the time of Toledo’s administrative overhaul, Tawantinsuyu had disappeared, with only echoes of the Inka imperial legacy remaining. ## Figure Captions **Figure 1:** The Inka and Coya presiding over an imperial ceremony in Cusco. El primer nueva corónica [y buen gobierno conpuesto por Don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, señor y príncipe], GKS 2232 folio, Royal Danish Library, p. 242[244]/drawing 93 (c. 1615). **Figure 2:** The Inka Huayna Capac leads his armies on campaign at the northern frontier. El primer nueva corónica [y buen gobierno conpuesto por Don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, señor y príncipe], GKS 2232 folio, Royal Danish Library, p. 333[335]/drawing 131 (c. 1615). **Figure 3:** The bodies of Huayna Capac and his family are carried from Quito to Cusco for burial after the pandemic. El primer nueva corónica [y buen gobierno conpuesto por Don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, señor y príncipe], GKS 2232 folio, Royal Danish Library, p. 377[379]/drawing 151 (c. 1615). **Figure 4:** Inka ambassadors meeting with the conquistadores. El primer nueva corónica [y buen gobierno conpuesto por Don Phelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, señor y príncipe], GKS 2232 folio, Royal Danish Library, p.