The Rise and Fall of the Inca Empire: A Short History

Did you know that the Inca had one of the most sophisticated road networks and messenger systems in history? Stick around to learn all about the Inca Civilization. Hello and welcome to World History Encyclopedia. My name is Kelly and in today's video we are going to explore the history of the Inca Civilization. Don't forget, the easiest way to support us is by giving this video a thumbs up and so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. The Inca Civilization flourished in Peru and surrounding areas between 1400 and 1533 CE. Prior to the Inca being dominant in western South America, the Chimu occupied the area until 1470, when the Inca defeated them. The Inca, who started as a small settlement in Cusco, ended up expanding along the Andes and the Pacific South Coast, as far north as Quito in modern-day Ecuador, and as far south as Santiago de Chile, which made it the largest empire in the Americas at that time. Although the environment of the Andes, which was the area they inhabited, was often quite harsh, the Inca utilized the natural landscape to construct mountaintop settlements, complex road networks, and terraces and canals for diverting and moving water. Their most famous site today is the ruins of Machu Picchu, but the capital city of the Inca civilization was Cusco, where the laws were decreed and spread throughout their empire along their sophisticated messaging system, but more on that later. For the Incas, the world was made by the creator god Viracocha, who emerged from Lake Titicaca. Viracocha created a race of giants, but he found them too large, so he destroyed them and made humans on a smaller scale, as well as creating the sun, the moon, and the stars. After creating humans and leading the founding couple to Cusco to live, and teaching the people civilized arts, he walked across the sea to the west and promised that one day his messengers would return. The Inca believed they were all descended from the sun god Inti, who was also among the most important gods in their pantheon, and also believed their ancestors emerged from places in the natural landscape, such as a tree or a spring, known as Pacarinas. There was no difficulty in reconciling the belief in the sun as people's origin with an earthly one as descending from a tree, because all things were considered part of the divine. The Incas were polytheistic, and their deities dwelt in one of three realms, the Hanunpacha, which was the upper realm, and home to the Inti, the sun god, and the moon goddess and sister to Inti, Hila, the middle world, or Quepacha, which was the home to humans, animals, and vegetation, and Ucupacha, the underworld, and overseen by Supe, the god of death. They believed that the natural world was controlled by the gods, and so their belief in the gods informed their daily lives significantly. In the Inca religion, there were three rules, which were considered a single rule – do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy – and if you followed this rule after you died, you would go to the upper realm, also known as the land of the sun. If you didn't follow these rules, you would go to the underworld after you died, where it was always cold and your soul would be lonely forever in eternal darkness. Bleak, I know. The souls who were neither perfect nor terrible in life would get to go back and have another chance at life, trying again and again until they got life right. The Inca also practiced mummification, and buried their dead with grave goods, but instead of placing the corpse lying down, the mummies were buried sitting up. Why the Inca practiced this method of burial is still unclear. The Inca Empire was huge, and at its height, it reached over 4,000 km, or 2,500 miles. With this in mind, how did they keep that whole territory in order? The government of the Inca Empire and central power was focused at their capital city, Cusco, and this centralized government ended up being in charge of over 10 million subjects who spoke over 30 languages, and to manage that kind of scope, they had around 40,000 Inca governors. When the Inca conquered a group, they would impose their administration, religion, and even their art onto the conquered regions. And while they received tribute from these peoples, and integrated them into their empire, the Inca would provide them with food, better storage facilities, military assistance, luxury goods, and access to the roads, and state-sponsored religious festivals. The Inca had a king known as the Sapa Inca, which means unique Inca, who was the absolute ruler, and was considered divine, and a living descendant of Inti, legitimizing the Inca divine right of rule. The king was in charge of politics, society, the food stores of the empire, and was even the commander-in-chief of the army. The king would marry on his accession to the throne, with his wife sometimes being his own sister. The queen, or Coya, was known as Mamangkik, our mother, and held some power over her husband via her kin group, especially when it came to selecting which son would be the heir. At the top of the ruling hierarchy, just below the king, was his high priest, Wilak Umu, and ten royal kindred groups of nobles called Tainaka. Below them was another ten kindred groups, and below them another ten. Then at the bottom of the administration were the locally recruited administrators who looked over the settlements, and the smallest Andean population unit known as the Eilu, which was a collection of households, which was often a group of related families who lived together, worked an area of land, and Eilu was governed by a small number of nobles, or curacas, a role which could include women. The local administrators would report to a group of around 80 regional-level administrators, and they would report to the four administrators of the four quarters of the empire, who in turn would report to the king. As you might have already noticed, it was an intricate affair, and it needed to be in order for such a large empire to be successfully governed. Although super intricate, it was an incredibly efficient system, and information travelled quite quickly as it was passed down through the layers of administrations, and this process was aided by the sophisticated roads constructed by the Inca. The network of roads covered over 40,000 kilometres, or 25,000 miles, within their territory, which made it easier to move goods for trade with the use of llamas, since they didn't have wheeled vehicles, as well as easy movement for armies and administrators. Also along these roads lived pairs of messengers, whose entire responsibility was to receive and then deliver messages, and they lived in pairs, so while one slept, the other was awake to deliver the messages. There were stations, inns and storage depots along this roadway to supply troops, give travellers a rest, and maintain those who worked for the messenger systems. And now, imagine getting all this done without writing anything down. The Inca didn't develop an alphabet or a writing system, but what they did develop was a sophisticated system of record keeping called a quipu. A quipu used colourful knotted strings to signify certain information, but what that information was is still unknown. Interestingly, there was also no currency in the Inca Empire, and things like taxation would have been paid in foodstuffs, precious metals, and textiles. Looking at the ruins of Inca sites such as Machu Picchu, it's hard to believe that they were constructed without the use of wheels, steel tools, or mortar to stick the stones together. The Inca created these buildings out of such tightly shaped stones that even through earthquakes the buildings stay standing. The land which the Inca lived on was mountainous, but this did not stop them from constructing buildings, walls, and fortifications. The Inca created terraces in order to grow crops, and these terraces often included canals and underground water irrigation systems, which were also used for fountains. As part of their extensive road system was the suspension bridges, which connected parts of the Inca territory and were made out of woven fibres. This practice of constructing suspension bridges out of grass and woven fibres is still practiced today, even though there are metal bridges for cars. This refined fibre working, perfected by the Inca, was even used to construct boats. Inca were also known for their sophisticated artistic style, especially their textiles. They created highly polished metal work out of precious materials such as gold and silver. The king lived in luxury and would drink out of gold and silver cups, and wear silver on his feet. Gold was considered the sweat of the sun, and silver was the tears of the moon. And they created objects such as jewellery, figurines, ceremonial knives, and everyday objects for nobility. Ceramics were made out of clay by hand, since they didn't have potter's wheels, and they were decorated in abstract plants, zigzags, geometric shapes, and dots. In spite of these crafts, the Inca were most revered for their textiles. The finely worked and highly decorated textiles were signs of wealth and status, and the colours they used were from natural sources such as mollusks, minerals, plants and insects. One of the most popular designs was the checkerboard, and one of the reasons for the repetition of designs was that pottery and textiles were often produced for the state as a tax. And so, artworks were representative of specific communities and their cultural heritage, much like national currencies nowadays. In 1528, Francisco Pizarro and his partner Diego de Almagro were adventurers and treasure seekers looking for gold. Since their companions found so much of it in Mexico from the Aztec world decades earlier. In 1528, the expedition's pilot Bartolome Ruiz captured a raft off the coast which was filled with treasure. And so, with 168 men, 138 veterans, 27 cavalry, and one friar, they set off for the Andes. Later, they got some reinforcements which bumped their number up to 260, which includes 67 cavalry. And as they moved, they pillaged. They formed a settlement at San Miguel, and by the end of 1532, Pizarro was ready to make contact with the ruler of what seemed to be a large and wealthy empire. On November 15th, the Spaniards approached the Inca town of Cajamarca, and the king Atahualpa, who felt fairly safe surrounded by 80,000 of his men, agreed to meet. After the formal meeting with speeches and drinks, the next day, Pizarro planned an ambush for when Atahualpa arrived in the square. It turned out that clubs, spears, and arrows were no match for firearms, and Atahualpa was hit on the head and captured alive. Atahualpa continued to rule from captivity during the eight months it took for the Inca to come up with the ransom Pizarro demanded, which was a room measuring 6.2 by 4.8 meters filled with all the treasures the Incas could provide, up to a height of 2.5 meters. Then, even though he got his ransom, Pizarro killed Atahualpa anyway. Although the collapse of the Inca civilization is often credited to the Spanish, namely the conquistadors under Francisco Pizarro in 1533, the civilization was already in a state of decline prior to the arrival of the Spanish. This decline was caused by rebellions from the people they conquered, since the Inca forced their religion, art, and taxes on them, as well as fighting within the empire and the decimation of up to 90% of the Inca population due to disease, most likely smallpox, brought to the Americas by the Spanish. So it's safe to say that if Pizarro hadn't come along and exploited the unrest already brewing in the population of the Inca, who saw their conquerors as oppressors, they would have eventually collapsed anyway. What form this collapse may have taken can't really be guessed at, but it's a pretty good bet it wouldn't have involved the kind of cruelty and destruction of the indigenous culture that resulted from the Spanish conquest of the 16th century. How much did you know about the Inca empire before this video, and what did you find most interesting? Let us know down in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to give it a thumbs up, and subscribe to our channel so you don't miss out on our new videos every Tuesday and Friday. This video was brought to you by World History Encyclopedia. For more great articles and interactive content, head to our website via the link below. World History Encyclopedia is a non-profit organization, so if you'd like to support our work, you can head to our Patreon via the pop-up in the top corner of the screen, or via the Patreon link down below. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you soon with another video.