Description
The Incas were an indigenous people who, from the thirteenth century onward, lived in an area surrounding their capital, Cuzco, in present-day Peru. From 1438, when Pachacuti ascended the throne as the ninth Sapa Inca (the name for the Inca ruler), the Incas began an unprecedented expansion into the difficult Andean region. Eighty years later, during the reign of Huayna Capac, Inca power stretched from the far south of Colombia to northwestern Argentina and Chile, a length of 4,000 kilometers. This made the Inca Empire the largest in the world in terms of territory. Estimates of the population vary between 7 and 12 million. A characteristic of the Inca Empire was the high degree of political and cultural integration, with the Sapa Inca as the unifying force as absolute ruler. Aided by an extensive road network, the Inca rulers maintained control over their empire. Their religion, based on the worship of the sun god Inti, spread throughout the empire. This also applied to their language, Quechua, and cultural expressions such as weaving and pottery. Using forced labor, the Inca rulers constructed large-scale structures, of which Machu Picchu is the most famous example. The Incas had no formal writing system, but messages were transmitted via knotted ropes (quipus). The discovery of America in 1492 by Columbus ultimately led to the fall of the empire. In 1532, several hundred Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro managed to capture the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage in Cajamarca, thus paralyzing the empire. Due to the ruler's divine status, his subjects initially dared not resist his conquerors. However, it was not until 1572 that the Spanish finally settled the matter with the execution of the last Inca ruler, Túpac Amaru. Meanwhile, infectious diseases from the Old World had had a devastating effect on the native populations (see Columbian Exchange).
