Early Inca History
Most early Spanish chroniclers agree that the Inca expansion occurred during the reigns of three Inca kings: Pachakuti Inca Yupanki, Thupa Inca Yupanki, and Wayna Qhapaq, kings 9, 10, and 11 on the conventional king list. (Inca names are spelled using Quechua orthography, while other terms use more traditional Spanish orthography.) It is with the reign of Pachakuti, designated as occurring around CE 1428, that the empire is said to begin. Their exploits will be recounted later. What is much less certain is what happened prior to this time, and in fact what the origins of the Inca as a distinct political and ethnic entity were.
Inca oral traditions state that the Incas were founded by the first king, Manqo Qhapaq, who emerged from a cave in the town of Pacariqtambo along with his three brothers and their wives, who, in some accounts, were also sisters. They traveled north to find a place to settle along with other people who came out of adjacent caves. When a golden rod was flung into the air and embedded itself deep in the ground, the Incas knew they had found their new home. They proceeded to displace the inhabitants of the region, and set up their capital of Cuzco. The history of the next seven kings is one of local affairs, often mentioning conflicts with groups nearby. Contradictory reports in different chroniclers’ accounts indicate that the actual triumphs and defeats that occurred for these early Incas may never be known.
It is precisely at this point that archaeology becomes useful. Two major pottery styles, Imperial Inca and Killke, or pre-Inca, are associated with sites in the Cuzco region. The former was associated with the last four Inca kings, beginning with Pachakuti. The Killke was said to date earlier, though it was only later after radiocarbon dating was invented that the dates of approximately CE 1000 for this style were assigned. The general idea was that the Killke style was associated with the first eight kings, and the imperial style with the later kings.
Archaeological research by Brian Bauer and Alan Covey in the Cuzco Valley and regions to the north and south has advanced our understanding of early Inca political history beyond the Spanish documents. In the Cuzco valley during the Late Intermediate Period, there are a few much larger settlements among the smaller ones, indicating a developed political landscape. In addition, the sites in the vicinity of Cuzco are located on low hills or in the valley itself, suggesting little concern for defense.
Outside the Cuzco Valley, Bauer and Covey’s work indicates that some regions, like Paruro, south of Cuzco, were incorporated early, without any evidence of conflict. Sites are not located in defensible positions, nor is there evidence of a marked change from pre-Inca to Inca times. Other areas, like the region of the Quilliscaches to the northwest, apparently fought the Incas until they were subjugated. Here, fortified sites are located on high ridge tops for defense. Taken together, the archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence argues for an earlier political development of the Killke people around Cuzco. The conclusion of these researchers is that the Incas used different strategies of coercion, alliance building, and marriage exchange to consolidate the region around Cuzco before they began their imperial expansion outwards. The lessons they learned set the stage for the imperial expansions of the fifteenth, or perhaps late fourteenth, century.
The Inca Expansion
Most sources on the Incas suggest that a critical battle fought at the capital of Cuzco between the Incas and their powerful neighbors from the west, the Chanka, was the critical point that set the Incas on the road to expansion. In this battle, Wiraqocha Inca and other lords had abandoned Cuzco in the face of the Chanka approach, and it was the prince Inca Yupanki who rallied support to drive the Chankas away. After the battle, Inca Yupanki took the political power from his father and also the new name Pachakuti Inca Yupanki.
Upon securing the throne, Pachakuti traveled south to secure the lands around Lake Titicaca, no doubt to prevent an attack from the powerful groups who lived there. Some sources suggest alliances with the groups in this region were already made by Wiraqocha Inca, in which case, it is possible that Pachakuti formalized the alliances. Others state that Pachakuti conquered them. He then conquered other groups farther south and east, before returning to Cuzco.
Subsequently, Pachakuti and his generals conquered north along the spine of the Andes, bringing the agricultural core of the central Andes into the empire. Sometime during this period, the mighty Chimu were defeated, and much of the central and north coasts were brought into the empire. At some point the chroniclers state that he turned the armies’ controls over to his designated heir, Thupa Inca, and returned to reorganize the capital of Cuzco. Upon his father’s death, Thupa Inca assumed the ‘fringe’ (a tassel worn on the forehead as symbol of the kingship) around CE 1470, and continued the expansion north with his generals into Ecuador, founding a second capital at Tumipampa. Around the time of his father’s death, Thupa began a series of expeditions into the eastern lowlands that generally were unsuccessful, due to the inhabitants’ habits of not facing the Inca armies head on, but by fighting and fleeing into the jungle. During one of these, the Altiplano groups staged a major rebellion, which brought Thupa Inca out of the jungle to face the threat. Over a series of campaigns and many years, the Qolla and Lupaka were defeated. Thupa then continued the conquests southward, annexing much of southeastern Bolivia and northwestern Argentina, then crossing over the Andes into Chile. The southward expansion stopped at the Maule River, either due to Thupa Inca’s desire to return to Cuzco after several years’ absence or sufficient resistance from groups south of the river. Much of the central and northern parts of Chile were conquered on the trip north, either by Thupa himself or his generals. Whether the far south coast of Peru and far northwestern Chile fell at this time or some other is not certain. There are relatively few ethnohis-torical documents that deal with this region, and the archaeology is likewise sparse.
Sometime during the final decade of the fifteenth century, Thupa Inca died and his heir, Wayna Qhapaq, succeeded him. This eleventh king spent most of his rule in the northern provinces, first subduing the fiercely resistant Chachapoyas of the northern Peruvian montafia, and then fighting the groups of central and northern Ecuador. It took him decades to move the northern border to its final location near modern Colombia. Sometime around CE 1528, he contracted a virulent disease, probably an introduced European one that had moved down into South America from Mexico, and died, along with his designated heir. This set up a war of succession between two rivals to the fringe, to be discussed in the final section.
Basic military gear consisted of spears, spear throwers, shields, slings, and war clubs. Bows and arrows, while known, were apparently not used in most instances. Andean warfare was mainly fought by hand-to-hand combat, so the group with the largest army was likely to emerge victorious. After a certain time, the Inca almost certainly could field a very large number of warriors, enough to tip the scale in their favor. They also had a series of excellent generals to lead their armies, and the chronicles are full of the stories of how these generals won battles through skillful strategies, trickery, and other means.
The Inca also practiced a carrot-and-stick approach to conquest. They would send emissaries into regions to be annexed, offering the terms of subjugation. The local groups could either submit or be conquered, and it is apparent that in some circumstances, diplomacy won the day.
The other factor that allowed the Incas to achieve their imperial success was their effective administrative system. It is one thing to conquer a large and powerful political enemy; it is quite another to keep that enemy subjugated and doing the activities you demand of them. The system to be described below, whose development is attributed to Pachakuti Inka, apparently was largely successful in this goal, though rebellions and resistance were frequent.
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