2.29 America: a.d. 1501 to 1600  (Page 10/12)

Besides the empire of the Incas, South America had the Chimu Kingdom, with a capital at Chan Chan and then some less complex societies, called chiefdoms. Two types of the latter existed: (1) A militaristic society, with hereditary classes governed by war chiefs and with usually four classes; caciques or chiefs; people of rank; farmers; and slaves. (2) Theocratic societies under a shaman who officiated in a temple. War was necessary to maintain cannibal practices and to procure trophy heads, which were important symbols in the magic rituals of Chavin, Paracas, Nazca and Tiahuanaco religions. This rite disappeared in the Inca civilization, which seems to have taken over the area previously occupied by the Chimu princes. The explorer Pizarro does not even mention Chan Chan, but those people left many cultural developments in the central Andes, including administrative organization, communications by road, agriculture, long canals allowing intensive farming and perhaps trade and navigation. Their princes dominated only a few valleys, however, and the Incas exerted a much greater influence on the region as a whole. (Ref. 62 )

In the Peruvian coastal areas which had been irrigated, there was already considerable salting of the soil and the population was collapsing. In addition, the small-pox which the Spaniards had brought to Mexico and the West Indies had spread even faster than they did and it was ravaging Peru by 1525. The reigning Inca, Huayna Capa, died of the disease and civil war followed between his two sons. It was into this wreckage of an empire that in 1532 Francisco Pizarro arrived with 106 foot soldiers and 62 horses. As when the Europeans landed in Mexico, Pizarro was at first mistaken for a god, but late in the year he moved his troops inland and seized one of the warring Inca princes, Atahualpa, in the midst of his vast army at Cajamarca. Intimidated by the horses and the obvious fire-power, the Indians put up no resistance, but the prince obtained his temporary release by paying the most fabulous ransom in history - a chamber 8 feet high filled with various objects of gold and jewelry along with 2 similar sized rooms filled with silver. After Pizarro had melted the metal down and distributed part of it among his men, he conveniently garroted Atahualpa on a false charge and appointed still another- royal brother, Tupac Hualpa, as the slain emperor's successor. He did not last long either and was succeeded by Manco. It is no wonder that relations between the two peoples steadily deteriorated so that by late 1535 the situation had become intolerable, from the Inca standpoint.

Manco escaped and assembled an army 100,000 strong to start a resistance to the Spaniards that was to last 36 years. The latter had now been reinforced and were strongly entrenched at Cuzco so that the Incas were unable to reclaim that city. Manco retreated to the juncture of the Andes and the Amazon basin and when pursued even there by a Spanish force, he retreated to Vitcos in the Vilcabamba River valley. Attacked again, he retreated once more while the spoils of Vitcos fell to the Spaniards, including some 20,000 prisoners and 50,000 head of llamas and alpacas. Hidden in the upper Vilcabamba, Manco recouped his forces, while in the meantime Pizarro had been murdered in his palace by some of his own disgruntled soldiers. Some of these then ran and took refuge with Manco and his Incas, where they taught the Indians the Spanish fighting techniques and horseback riding. Later these same Spanish renegades turned on Manco and slew him (1544) leaving the resistance against the Spanish to be led by Manco's son, Sayri Tupac. Some years later Sayri was offered a pardon by the Spanish crown and early in 1558 he married his sister, Cusi Huarcay