The Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)

Core Idea

The Inca Empire, called Tawantinsuyu ("the four parts together") by its people, was the largest state in the Americas before European arrival. From their capital at Cuzco in the Andes, Inca rulers beginning with Pachacuti in the mid-1400s conquered a realm that ran along western South America from today's Ecuador to central Chile. The state ran without money or a conventional writing system: subjects paid taxes in labor through the mit'a, officials kept records on knotted cords called khipu, and a vast road network tied the provinces together. Weakened by epidemic disease and a civil war, the empire fell to Spanish forces led by Francisco Pizarro after 1532.

How It's Best Learned

Trace the road system on a relief map and ask how a state could govern mountains, coast and rainforest edge at once. Compare the Inca labor tax with the Mexica tribute system to show two ways of extracting resources. Handle images of khipu and discuss what counts as record keeping when a society does not write texts.

Common Misconceptions

• The Inca had no way to keep records because they had no writing. (Inca officials recorded census counts, tribute and other data on khipu, knotted cords whose colors, positions and knots carried information.)
• Inca subjects paid taxes in money or goods, like subjects of other empires. (The main tax was labor, the mit'a, in which households took turns farming state lands, building roads, serving as soldiers or doing other work.)
• Pizarro's small force defeated the Inca at full strength. (European diseases had spread ahead of the Spanish, likely killing the ruler Huayna Capac, and a civil war between his sons Huáscar and Atahualpa had just divided the empire.)

Explainer

The Andes are one of the hardest places on Earth to build a state. Steep mountains, high cold plateaus, a dry coastal desert and tropical valleys sit within short distances of one another. Earlier Andean societies had already learned to farm on terraces, herd llamas and alpacas, and freeze-dry potatoes for storage. The Inca built on these traditions.

In the early 1400s the Inca were one of many groups around Cuzco. Under Pachacuti, who took power around 1438, they began a rapid expansion. His son Topa Inca and grandson Huayna Capac pushed the borders north into Ecuador and south into Chile. In less than a century the Inca ruled millions of people speaking many languages.

The empire was held together by labor and roads. Instead of paying taxes in money, households owed the mit'a: turns of work on state farms, building projects, mines or military campaigns. The state stored the results in thousands of storehouses and gave food and cloth back to workers and soldiers. Roads ran for tens of thousands of kilometers, with rope bridges over gorges and way stations at intervals. Relay runners called chasqui carried messages along them. Officials kept accounts on khipu, cords with knots in set positions. The state also moved whole communities, called mitmaq, to new regions to secure loyalty or break up resistance.

Religion supported the ruler. The Sapa Inca claimed descent from Inti, the sun god, and Cuzco's Coricancha temple was covered in gold. Royal estates such as Machu Picchu showed the wealth of the ruling family.

The empire's end came quickly. Diseases from Europe reached the Andes before the Spanish did, and Huayna Capac died around 1527, probably in an epidemic. His sons Huáscar and Atahualpa fought a civil war. Atahualpa had just won when Francisco Pizarro and fewer than two hundred men captured him at Cajamarca in November 1532. Atahualpa paid a huge ransom in gold and silver, but the Spanish executed him in 1533. Inca resistance continued from the mountain stronghold of Vilcabamba until 1572.