The Inca by

The Inca

nshoman — 2013-04-17 03:30:42 UTC

The Inca ruled an empire in the Andes and Pacific coast of South America, with a capital in Cuzco in the 12th century. At that time, their population was about 12,000,000. They left no written record of their civilization before the Spanish conquest. The founder of the Inca dynasty Was Manco Capac. Mayta Capac was their 4th emperor under whom the Inca began to expand. To manage the new areas, the Incas forced resettlement of many of the conquered people and set up local governors responsible for gathering taxes. When the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1532, the leadership of the Inca was in trouble, so within three years, the invaders conquered the Inca.

Geography

nshoman — 2013-04-17 04:02:52 UTC

The Inca Empire was located on the West Coast of South America. Their civilization was in the Andes Mountain Range and the Amazon Jungle. Even though the Inca Empire was huge, it could be divided into three distinct areas; Jungles, Mountains, and Deserts. The mountains were worshiped as gods by the Incas. The mountains made it very hard to travel through the mountains from desert to jungle. The Incas solved this problem by making bridges across these vast gorges and valleys. If they were invaded they could run and across and burn their bridges behind them.

Culture

nshoman — 2013-04-23 21:08:40 UTC

The Inca system of rule was basically a monarchy. Their social structure went like this: First comes sapa Inca, who is the emperor. Almost everything the emperor wanted, he got. After sapa Inca came the nobles. The nobles had special privileges like not having to pay taxes, recieving gifts, and having more than one wife. The Nobles were not all equally ranked, as there were three groups of nobles; The capac Incas, hahua incas, and the curaca incas. The capac was the highest ranked. After the nobles were the commoners. most of the incas were commoners. Commoners were farmers, herders, and servants. The incas did not practice slavery, but the commoners were required to support the government.

Economy

nshoman — 2013-04-25 00:40:48 UTC

There were many different jobs the Inca people had, like herders, craftsmen, weavers, and even sorcerers. Some boys were trained as artisans. Others were trained to be the servants and temple assistants of the royals, nobles, priests. Some actually rose to rather high positions in governmental service, but they were the exceptions. The Inca's had the least advanced class structure of their time. The Maya and Aztecs were more advanced. However, the Inca split their social structure up in to 3 classes. At the top was the emperor, who ruled the land. Next were the nobles who were highly ranked people that helped keep control of the vast empire with the emperor. Finally, there were the commoners, the every day Inca's. The warriors were also considered a class of their own, but did not fit in the social pyramid beause of their unique jobs.

The Inca civilization was very short but accomplished some things in Peru’s history. The period was 1430 to 1530 when the military was its most successful in building the Empire under the rule of both Sapa Inca Parachuti and his son Sapa Inca Yupanqui.

The belief system of the Incas was polytheistic. Inti, the Sun God, was the most important god, which the Incas believed was the direct ancestor of the Sapa Inca, the title of the hereditary rulers of the empire.

The Inca society did not practice slavery.

Language

nshoman — 2013-04-29 18:54:18 UTC

The Inca spoke Quechua. It was derived from a common ancestral language. There are about 8 to 10 million people who speak it.

Decline

nshoman — 2013-04-29 21:01:36 UTC

The Inca fell in 1532 by a man called Francisco Pizarro. When Pizarro arrived, the Inca were just ending a civil war between two brothers.Their names were Atahuallpa and Huascar. When the war ended, Atahuallpa killed his brother and became emperor. Pizarros priests asked Atahuallpa to give up the Inca religion and accept christianity, and the king of Spain becoming ruler. When Atahuallpa refused, Pizarro took him prisoner. To be free again, Atahuallpa promised Pizarro lots of silver and gold. After Atahuallpa gave the gold and silver to Pizarro, Pizarro had Atahuallpa executed. The spaniards destroyed the Inca civilization and made slaves of the Inca people.