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The Political and Social Structure of the Inca

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Incas sharing coca leaf. The Indians of Andean America were organized in "ayllu," or clan divisions. Women worked in the fields with men and often had their children there. The Andean Indians, particularly those who lived in the higher elevations, customarily chewed coca leaf to help them adjust to the thinner air. Coca bags like the one shown here have been found in sites dating from 1400 B.C. and were seen as male status symbols.

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Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization.

High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, the Inca built a dazzling empire that governed a population of 12 million people. Although they had no writing system, they had an elaborate government, great public works and a brilliant agricultural system. In the five years before the Spanish arrival, a devastating war of succession gripped the empire. In 1532, Atahuallpa's army defeated the forces of his half-brother Huascar in a battle near Cuzco. Atahuallpa was consolidating his rule when Pizarro and his 180 soldiers appeared.

Francisco Pizarro was the son of a Spanish gentleman and worked as a swineherder in his youth. He became a soldier and in 1502 went to Hispaniola with the new Spanish governor of the New World colony. Pizarro served under Spanish conquistador Alonso de Ojeda during his expedition to Colombia in 1510 and was with Vasco Nunez de Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Hearing legends of the great wealth of an Indian civilization in South America, Pizarro formed an alliance with fellow conquistador Diego de Almagro in 1524 and sailed down the west coast of South America from Panama. The first expedition only penetrated as far as present-day Ecuador, but a second reached farther, to present-day Peru. There they heard firsthand accounts of the Inca empire and obtained Inca artifacts. The Spanish christened the new land Peru, probably after the Vire River.

Returning to Panama, Pizarro planned an expedition of conquest, but the Spanish governor refused to back the scheme. In 1528, Pizarro sailed back to Spain to ask the support of Emperor Charles V. Hernan Cortes had recently brought the emperor great wealth through his conquest of the Aztec Empire, and Charles approved Pizarro's plan. He also promised that Pizarro, not Almagro, would receive the majority of the expedition's profits. In 1530, Pizarro returned to Panama.

In 1531, he sailed down to Peru, landing at Tumbes. He led his army up the Andes Mountains and on November 15, 1532, reached the Inca town of Cajamarca, where Atahuallpa was enjoying the hot springs in preparation for his march on Cuzco, the capital of his brother's kingdom. Pizarro invited Atahuallpa to attend a feast in his honor, and the emperor accepted. Having just won one of the largest battles in Inca history, and with an army of 30,000 men at his disposal, Atahuallpa thought he had nothing to fear from the bearded white stranger and his 180 men. Pizarro, however, planned an ambush, setting up his artillery at the square of Cajamarca.

On November 16, Atahuallpa arrived at the meeting place with an escort of several thousand men, all apparently unarmed. Pizarro sent out a priest to exhort the emperor to accept the sovereignty of Christianity and Emperor Charles V., and Atahuallpa refused, flinging a Bible handed to him to the ground in disgust. Pizarro immediately ordered an attack. Buckling under an assault by the terrifying Spanish artillery, guns, and cavalry (all of which were alien to the Incas), thousands of Incas were slaughtered, and the emperor was captured.

Atahuallpa offered to fill a room with treasure as ransom for his release, and Pizarro accepted. Eventually, some 24 tons of gold and silver were brought to the Spanish from throughout the Inca empire. Although Atahuallpa had provided the richest ransom in the history of the world, Pizarro treacherously put him on trial for plotting to overthrow the Spanish, for having his half-brother Huascar murdered, and for several other lesser charges. A Spanish tribunal convicted Atahuallpa and sentenced him to die. On August 29, 1533, the emperor was tied to a stake and offered the choice of being burned alive or strangled by garrote if he converted to Christianity. In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahuallpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died.

With Spanish reinforcements that had arrived at Cajamarca earlier that year, Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, and the Inca capital fell without a struggle in November 1533. Huascar's brother Manco Capac was installed as a puppet emperor, and the city of Quito was subdued. Pizarro established himself as Spanish governor of Inca territory and offered Diego Almagro the conquest of Chile as appeasement for claiming the riches of the Inca civilization for himself. In 1535, Pizarro established the city of Lima on the coast to facilitate communication with Panama. The next year, Manco Capac escaped from Spanish supervision and led an unsuccessful uprising that was quickly crushed. That marked the end of Inca resistance to Spanish rule.

Diego Almagro returned from Chile embittered by the poverty of that country and demanded his share of the spoils of the former Inca empire. Civil war soon broke out over the dispute, and Almagro seized Cuzco in 1538. Pizarro sent his half brother, Hernando, to reclaim the city, and Almagro was defeated and put to death. On June 26, 1541, allies of Diego el Monzo-Almagro's son-penetrated Pizarro's palace in Lima and assassinated the conquistador while he was eating dinner. Diego el Monzo proclaimed himself governor of Peru, but an agent of the Spanish crown refused to recognize him, and in 1542 Diego was captured and executed. Conflict and intrigue among the conquistadors of Peru persisted until Spanish Viceroy Andres Hurtado de Mendoza established order in the late 1550s.

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Pizarro executes last Inca emperor | August 29, 1533 | HISTORY

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Atahuallpa, the 13th and last emperor of the Incas, dies by strangulation at the hands of Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors. The execution of Atahuallpa, the last free reigning emperor, marked the end of 300 years of Inca civilization. High in the Andes Mountains of Peru, the Inca built a dazzling empire that governed a population [...]

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This article is available in Spanish!

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The Incas controlled a vast empire which included four climate zones and, consequently, their agricultural produce was diverse. The people of the ancient Andes were largely vegetarian, occasionally supplementing their diet with camelid meat and seafood if they could get it. The Inca state developed a huge farming apparatus, where crops and herds were commandeered from conquered peoples and the people themselves were periodically commandeered to work on state-owned farms. More positively, a vast network of storage facilities was developed to insure against times of drought and disaster and foodstuffs were often given out as gifts by rulers seeking to make themselves popular.

Organization & Methods

At a micro-level each family unit produced its own food. Family units were part of a wider kin group or ayllu which collectively owned farmland. Ideally, an ayllu would posses at least some land in both the highlands and more temperate lowlands so that a diversity of foodstuffs could be cultivated. For example, the highlands could offer good pasture and permit potato and maize production, while coca could only be grown at lower altitudes. An area of land for maize cultivation (perhaps around 1.5 acres) called a tupu was given to newlyweds by their ayllu so that they might be self-sustainable. In addition, their first child entitled the couple to another half tupu. If the owner of land died without an heir, then the land was returned to the ayllu for future redistribution.

Land was worked using simple tools such as a hoe, clod breaker, and foot plough - the chakitaqlla, which consisted of a wooden or bronze pointed pole that was pushed into the ground by placing one's foot on a horizontal bar. Hoe blades were typically made using sharpened cobble stones. Agriculture was a community practice, and farmers worked in small teams of seven or eight, often singing as they worked with the men hoeing and women following behind, breaking up clods and sowing seeds. Meanwhile children and young adults were responsible for tending to the family herd of camelids.

Crops cultivated across the Inca Empire included maize, coca, beans, grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, ulluco, oca, mashwa, pepper, tomatoes, peanuts, cashews, squash, cucumber, quinoa, gourd, cotton, talwi, carob, chirimoya, lúcuma, guayabo, and avocado. Livestock was primarily llama and alpaca herds. These animals were vital to many aspects of Andean life as they provided wool, meat, leather, moveable wealth, transportation - especially for the army, and they were often sacrificed in religious ceremonies. Some of the larger state-owned herds could have tens of thousands of animals, and all herds were meticulously accounted for in a state census conducted each November.

The Incas were ambitious farmers and they transformed the landscape with terracing, canals, and irrigation networks.

The Incas were ambitious farmers, and to maximise agricultural production, they transformed the landscape with terracing, canals, and irrigation networks, whilst wetlands were often drained to make them suitable for farming. In addition, the Incas were fully aware of the values of regular crop rotation, and they also fertilized the land with dried llama dung, guano, or fish heads if these materials were available. Even so, the often harsh Andean climate could bring floods, droughts, and storms which, along with disease, meant that annual crop failures were not infrequent. In such cases the Inca talent for food storage came into its own.

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Food Storage

Foodstuffs (and other goods) were stored in storehouses ( qollqa) which were built in the tens of thousands across the empire, typically arranged in neat rows and near population centres, large estates, and roadside stations. State officials kept careful accounts of their stocks using the quipu, a recording device of strings and knots. Qollqa were single-roomed stone buildings, either circular or rectangular, which were built in a remarkably uniform manner. Placed on hillsides to take advantage of cool breezes, qollqa were designed to maximise the storage time of the perishable goods with which they were filled. They had drainage canals, gravel flooring, and ventilation in both the floor and roof in order to keep the interior as cool and dry as possible so that ordinary goods could be stored for up to two years and freeze-dried foodstuffs for up to four years. Archaeologists have ascertained that maize, potatoes, and quinoa were the most common foodstuffs stored in qollqa. Maize and coca from these stores were frequently given to the masses by popularity-seeking rulers and in times of crop failures.

Rituals, songs, and sacrifices were a vital part of farming for the Incas. In such ceremonies llamas and guinea pigs were sacrificed and chicha beer poured into the ground and near rivers and springs in order to win favour from the gods and the elements. In addition, the sometimes harsh Andean environment meant that agriculture was viewed as a form of warfare so that, as the historian T. N. D'Altroy eloquently put it, "The Incas approached farming with weapons in their hands and prayers on their lips" (276).

There were also many sacred fields in the Inca capital Cuzco. The harvest from these was used as offerings in shrines, and one particular field was reserved for the ceremonial planting of the year's first maize. It was here, in the month of August, that the Inca king ceremoniously tilled the first soil of the year with a golden plough. The sacred Coricancha, which had a temple to the Inca sun god Inti, even had a life-size field of corn made purely from gold and silver complete with precious metal animals and insects. When the Incas conquered a territory, they divided the land and livestock into three unequal parts - one for the state religion, one for the king, and one for the local inhabitants. Alternatively, as tax was often extracted in the form of labour ( mit'a), farmers were relocated to work the Inca ruler's lands or help in other state projects, such as road building and large buildings. The agricultural produce of the farmers' own land was largely left untouched, and they were also allowed to cultivate small plots alongside the state farms while performing their mit'a.

Inca Food & Drink

The Incas had two main meals a day, one early morning and another in the late evening, both taken while seated on the floor without a table. The Inca diet, for ordinary people, was largely vegetarian as meat - camelid, duck, guinea-pig, and wild game such as deer and the vizcacha rodent - was so valuable as to be reserved only for special occasions. More common was freeze-dried meat ( ch'arki), which was a popular food when travelling. A porridge made from quinoa was a staple food, and near the coasts fish was eaten, typically in stews. Using small reed boats, Inca fishermen hoped to catch anchovies, sardines, tuna, salmon, sea bass, and shellfish. Wild fruits available included sour cherries, custard apples, elderberries, cactus fruits, pineapples, and a type of banana.

Food was prepared on fires of wood or llama dung using a stone or clay stove so that most food was either boiled or roasted. Maize was either cooked in the form of small cakes or toasted, while popcorn was considered a special treat. Potatoes were another important staple, and these could be stored by drying or freeze-drying in the form of chuno. The grains quinoa and canihua were also important, along with the tubers oca, mashua, and maca. Grains were prepared by pounding them between stone mortars or with a pestle. Additional flavours were achieved by adding herbs and spices, especially chili peppers. The most popular drink was the mildly alcoholic chicha, a fermented beer-like drink which women prepared by chewing maize or other plants and then allowing the pulp to ferment for several days.

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The Incas controlled a vast empire which included four climate zones and, consequently, their agricultural produce was diverse. The people of the ancient Andes were largely vegetarian, occasionally supplementing their diet with camelid meat and seafood if they could get it.

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The city of Machu Picchu may have been a religious center during the Inca Empire.

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Chasquis counted the knots and strings on quipus, like the one pictured here, to relay messages about various matters, such as the number of people in a military troop or the amount of goods given in tribute to an Incan leader.

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The rise and fall of the Inca Empire - Gordon McEwan

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This article is available in Spanish!

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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This article is available in Spanish!