Inca
The Incas were a native South American people who ruled an expansive empire in the region of the Andes Mountains in western South America from the early 1400s to the mid-1500s.
They first appeared in southeastern Peru in the 1100s, but they remained only a small, organized state until the 1430s, when the great military leader Pachacuti became emperor of the Incas.
Spanish conquistadors, or conquerors, quickly destroyed the Incas while searching for riches in South America in the 1530s. Some of the survivors descendants continued such Inca traditions as weaving textiles and speaking the Incas' Quechua language.
Background
A creation myth of the Incas themselves told of the people's origins by an act of the sun god Inti. The god sent his son Manco Capac into the world through a cave. Once he arrived, Manco Capac killed his brothers and then wandered with his sisters through the wilderness before arriving in a lush valley near the city of Cusco in southeastern Peru in about 1200 C.E.
The Chanca people attacked Cusco in about 1438. Viracocha Inca left his son, Cusi Inca Yupanqui, to defend the city while he himself retreated to a safe haven. Cusi Inca Yupanqui displayed great skill in fending off the Chancas, and that year, he took the name Pachacuti and became the Incas' new emperor. Pachacuti's reign began what would become a golden age for the Incas, as the empire expanded significantly over the next several decades.
Their eventual extinction left the Incas with a great deal of leftover infrastructure on which to build their own civilization. This included principally highways and several forms of hydraulic machinery.
Pachacuti's successful invasions of foreign territory brought the Incas hundreds of miles of new land. The emperor usually attempted first to befriend other peoples, generally by giving gifts or making marriage offerings, and to annex their dominions peacefully. If the people rejected the Incas' peace terms, Pachacuti conquered them by force.
Overview
Cusco was the center of Inca civilization throughout the empire's expansion. Inca society was complex and hierarchical. Most Incas were commoners who worked as farmers, growing corn, potatoes, and squash while raising llamas, alpacas, and dogs.
The people took pride in their weaving of textiles, or fabrics, which usually featured colorful designs.
The Incas had a complex religious system that involved a range of gods. Viracocha was their creator god, while Inti was the god of the sun. Illapa was the god of thunder, and Pachamama was the mother of Earth. The Incas believed they had to appease their gods regularly through prayer, fasting, and animal and human sacrifice. The people sacrificed usually children and teens, whom they first fattened with rich diets of corn and meat.
The city, terraced on levels of land on the mountainside, featured homes, plazas, gardens, and religious temples for the Incas' elite leaders to enjoy. All the infrastructure of Machu Picchu was built of cut stone laid without mortar.
By the 1520s, the Inca Empire itself had become threatened by conquistadors from Spain. These explorers landed in South America and sought to explore the formerly unknown continent for riches. They carried with them European diseases such as smallpox, which quickly killed large numbers of Incas.
Little was heard of the Inca civilization again until the 1910s, when American explorer Hiram Bingham III discovered Machu Picchu by mistake. His reports on the site brought tourists to Peru by the thousands to see the remains of the once mighty Inca Empire.
Inca Military
The Incas were one of many South American tribes engaged in a power struggle in the Andean highlands from the thirteenth century through the middle of the fifteenth century. Prior to this time, this region had been occupied by many different tribes. Between 500 and 1000 c.e. the Tiahuanco and Huari cultures, for example, developed large urban settlements and organized state systems. During the years from 1000 to 1456, however, the region encompassing modern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile experienced a process of fragmentation that resulted in the development of small, regional states. Although warfare between different tribes was common, no one group was clearly dominant. The Incas were just one of the many tribes involved in warfare in the southern highlands near modern Bolivia. They were not especially strong at this time and had to form alliances to survive. The Chanca and Quechua tribes in the Apurímac Basin and the Lupaca and Colla tribes in the Titicaca Basin presented the biggest threats to the Incas, who, until the fifteenth century, dominated only a small area near Cuzco.
Military Achievement
Incas began to expand their territory by conquering other tribes. Under Pachacuti the Incas emerged as the strongest military power in the southern highlands, and their territory stretched as far south as the Maule River in modern south-central Chile.
Unlike other peoples, however, the Incas did not loot and abandon vanquished tribes, but rather they incorporated these former foes into their own military.
Pachacuti’s son, led attacks and extended the Incan Empire and maintained his father’s policy of incorporating the vanquished tribes into the military.
His son, Huayna Capac succeeded him as emperor and solidified the empire by conquering smaller areas throughout Ecuador, expanding Incan territory as far north as Colombia and establishing boundary markers to the Angasmayo River.
The Incas called their empire Tahuantinsuyu, meaning “the land of the four quarters.” The Incan territory was divided into four regions and subdivided into more than eight provinces.
Weapons, Uniforms, and Armor
The Incas had an advanced Bronze Age technology in the fifteenth century that served as the foundation of the military force. The sling was the deadliest projectile weapon.
Other effective weapons included bows and arrows , lances, darts, a short variation of a sword, battle-axes, spears, and arrows tipped with copper or bone. The weapons used by the Incan lords were decorated with gold or silver.
For protection military leaders wore casques, or helmets, made from wood or the skins of wild animals and decorated with precious stones and the feathers of tropical birds.
Soldiers wore the costume of the province from which they came; their armor consisted of a wooden helmet covered with bronze; a long, quilted tunic; and a quilted shield.
The soldiers, who jogged at a pace of about 3 miles per hour and traveled nearly 20 miles per day, carried only their own supplies, while an army of soldiers was responsible for carrying baggage on their backs.
Sacsahuamán, the site where the Incas defeated the Chancas, was the only fortress garrisoned by the Inca people.
Military Organization
The Incan military was highly organized and consisted of nearly 200,000 soldiers. The military served as a public service organization that brought food and materials from one region of the country to another and trained specialists who contributed to the growth of the empire.
In order to prepare future soldiers, military training took place on a bimonthly basis and began with boys as young as ten years old, who took part in physical activities such as wrestling, weight lifting, and sling shooting. This training enabled the Incan commanders to determine which soldiers could be used as specialists, such as builders, stonemasons, bridge experts, and assault leaders.
Village elders reported on the progress of the boys, whom the military drafted as either warriors, carriers, or craftsmen. Short-term service drafting ensured an ample supply of young men in each district.
The periods of service depended upon climatic conditions, and not all men returned to civilian life.
The commanders ordered the most outstanding soldiers, those who were the bravest, the most disciplined, and the most adept at fighting, to remain permanently in the military.
One of the demands placed upon the commanders, who had to deal with the logistical problems of the roads and supplies, was to calculate the most efficient way to move their military across the country.
Because the strategy was to fight only if absolutely necessary, the commanders had to ensure a deployment of soldiers superior to that of the enemy and would not waste manpower by sending too many.
On important occasions, the emperor personally assumed command of a campaign. Topa Inca Yupanqui, for example, took personal command of an effort to expand the empire by overseeing the extension of the main highways, a task too difficult for an army commander to handle alone.
Doctrine, Strategy, and Tactics
The primary aim of the Incan military was to spread the worship of the Sun and to seek harmony through the integration of so-called barbarians—who lacked military discipline, worshiped false gods, and practiced human sacrifices and cannibalism—into the Incan culture.
The Incas believed, therefore, that their conquests were justifiable and were motivated by a desire to improve the quality of life of their vanquished tribes.
Incas often showed mercy to the vanquished tribes and pursued peaceful resolutions whenever possible.
The principal strategy utilized by the Incas to defeat their enemies was to destroy harvests and inflict famine.
The skin of the captured leaders was often made into drums used at festivals celebrating Incan victories. After killing the leaders, the Incas ripped out their intestines, dried the bodies as carefully as possible, fitted the abdominal skin over a bentwood frame, and finally placed the skin on a carrying frame. Although these drums were not very musical, they served as amusement for the Incas and as a warning of the fate of those who dared to resist the Incan emperor.
The Incas roped their prisoners together and sacrificed a few to the Sun God. Most of the prisoners, however, were detained long enough to ensure that they would cooperate with the Incas and contribute to the empire.
This interval also gave the vanquished time to assimilate the Incan culture and to prepare to fight in the name of their new god.
Dressed in the colorful costumes of their provinces of origin, the people greeted their victorious ruler, who was borne aloft in a golden chair raised on the shoulders of his nobles, as he passed beneath arches erected along the route to the Temple of the Sun.
A large celebration followed in which music, dancing, and bonfires commemorated the addition of a new territory.
The Inca Empire, in reality, was a confederation of tribes with the Incas in control of a common government, a common religion, and a common language.
A council of rulers ruled each of the tribes, which pledged its allegiance to the emperor, who, as a descendant of the Sun God, was considered divine.