The Inca at War
From the moment war was proclaimed, the Peruvian monarch used all possible expedition in assembling his forces, that he might anticipate the movements of his enemies and prevent a combination…
From: Unknown To: 1532 C.E.
Location: Peru
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From History of the Conquest of Peru by William Prescott, 1855.
From the moment war was proclaimed, the Peruvian monarch used all possible expedition in assembling his forces, that he might anticipate the movements of his enemies and prevent a combination with their allies. It was, however, from the neglect of such a principle of combination that the several nations of the country, who might have prevailed by confederated strength, fell one after another under the imperial yoke. Yet, once in the field, the Inca did not usually show any disposition to push his advantages to the utmost and urge his foe to extremity.
In every stage of the war, he was open to propositions for peace; and, although he sought to reduce his enemies by carrying off their harvests and distressing them by famine, he allowed his troops to commit no unnecessary outrage on person or property. “We must spare our enemies," one of the Peruvian princes is quoted as saying, ''or it will be our loss, since they and all that belongs to them must soon be ours." It was a wise maxim, and, like most other wise maxims, founded equally on benevolence and prudence. The Incas adopted the policy claimed for the Romans by their country-man, who tells us that they gained more by clemency to the vanquished than by their victories.
In the same considerate spirit, they were most careful to provide for the security and comfort of their own troops; and when a war was long protracted, or the climate proved unhealthy, they took care to relieve their men by frequent reinforcements, allowing the earlier recruits to return to their homes. But while thus economical of life, both in their own followers and in the enemy, they did not shrink from sterner measures when provoked by the ferocious or obstinate character of the resistance; and the Peruvian annals contain more than one of those sanguinary pages which cannot be pondered at the present day without a shudder.
It should be added that the beneficent policy which I have been delineating as characteristic of the Incas did not belong to all, and that there was more than one of the royal line who displayed a full measure of the bold and unscrupulous spirit of the vulgar conqueror.
The first step of the government after the reduction of a country was to introduce there the worship of the Sun. Temples were erected, and placed under the care of a numerous priesthood, who expounded to the conquered people the mysteries of their new faith, and dazzled them by the display of its rich and stately ceremonial.
Yet the religion of the conquered was not treated with dishonor. The Sun was to be worshipped above all; but the images of their gods were removed to Cuzco and established in one of the temples, to hold their rank among the inferior deities of the Peruvian Pantheon. Here they remained as hostages, in some sort, for the conquered nation, which would be the less inclined to forsake its allegiance when by doing so it must leave its own gods in the hands of its enemies.
The Incas provided for the settlement of their new conquests, by ordering a census to be taken of the population and a careful survey to be made of the country, ascertaining its products and the character and capacity of its soil. A division of the territory was then made on the same principle with that adopted throughout their own kingdom, and their respective portions were assigned to the Sun, the sovereign, and the people. The amount of the last was regulated by the amount of the population, but the share of each individual was uniformly the same. It may seem strange that any people should patiently have acquiesced in an arrangement which involved such a total surrender of property. But it was a conquered nation that did so, held in awe, on the least suspicion of meditated resistance, by armed garrisons, who were established at various commanding points throughout the country.
It is probable, too, that the Incas made no greater changes than was essential to the new arrangement, and that they assigned estates, as far as possible, to their former proprietors. The curacas, in particular, were confirmed in their ancient authority or, when it was found expedient to depose the existing curaca, his rightful heir was allowed to succeed him.
Every respect was shown to the ancient usages and laws of the land, as far as was compatible with the fundamental institutions of the lncas. It must also be remembered that the conquered tribes were, many of them, too little advanced in civilization to possess that attachment to the soil which belongs to a cultivated nation. But, to whatever it be referred, it seems probable that the extraordinary institutions of the Incas were established with little opposition in the conquered territories.
Yet the Peruvian sovereigns did not trust altogether to this show of obedience in their new vassals; and, to secure it more effectually, they adopted some expedients too remarkable to be passed over in silence. Immediately after a recent conquest, the curacas and their families were removed for a time to Cuzco. Here they learned the language of the capital, became familiar with the manners and usages of the court, as well as with the general policy of the government, and experienced such marks of favor from the sovereign as would be most grateful to their feelings and might attach them most warmly to his person.
Under the influence of these sentiments, they were again sent to rule over their vassals, but still leaving their eldest sons in the capital, to remain there as a guarantee for their own fidelity, as well as to grace the court of the Inca.
Another expedient was of a bolder and more original character. This was nothing less than to revolutionize the language of the country. South America, like North America, had a great variety of dialects, or rather languages, having little affinity with one another. This circumstance occasioned great embarrassment to the government in the administration of the different provinces with whose idioms they were unacquainted.
It was determined, therefore, to substitute one universal language, the Quichua—the language of the court, the capital, and the surrounding country—the richest and most comprehensive of the South American dialects. Teachers were provided in the towns and villages throughout the land, who were to give instruction to all, even the humblest classes; and it was intimated at the same time that no one should be raised to any office of dignity or profit who was unacquainted with this tongue.
The curacas and other chiefs who attended at the capital became familiar with this dialect in their intercourse with the court, and, on their return home, set the example of conversing in it among themselves. This example was imitated by their followers, and the Quichua gradually became the language of elegance and fashion, in the same manner as the Norman French was affected by all those who aspired to any consideration in England after the Conquest.
By this means, while each province retained its peculiar tongue, a beautiful medium of communication was introduced, which enabled the inhabitants of one part of the country to hold intercourse with every other, and the Inca and his deputies to communicate with all. This was the state of things on the arrival of the Spaniards. It must be admitted that history furnishes few examples of more absolute authority than such a revolution in the language of an empire at the bidding of a master.
Yet little less remarkable was another device of the Incas for securing the loyalty of their subjects. When any portion of the recent conquests showed a pertinacious spirit of disaffection, it was not uncommon to cause a part of the population amounting, it might be, to ten thousand inhabitants or more, to remove to a distant quarter of the kingdom, occupied by ancient vassals of undoubted fidelity to the crown.
A like number of these last was transplanted to the territory left vacant by the emigrants. By this exchange the population was composed of two distinct races, who regarded each other with an eye of jealousy, that served as an effectual check on any mutinous proceeding. In time, the influence of the well-affected prevailed, supported as they were by royal authority and by the silent working of the national institutions, to which, the strange races became gradually accustomed. A spirit of loyalty sprang up by degrees in their bosoms, and before a generation had passed away the different tribes mingled in harmony together as members of the same community.
Yet the different races continued to be distinguished by difference of dress; since, by the law of the land, every citizen was required to wear the costume of his native province. Neither could the colonist who had been thus unceremoniously transplanted return to his native district. For, by another law, it was forbidden to anyone to change his residence without license. He was settled for life. The Peruvian government prescribed to every man his local habitation, his sphere of action, nay, the very nature and quality of that action. He ceased to be a free agent; it might be almost said that it relieved him of personal responsibility.
In following out this singular arrangement, the Incas showed as much regard for the comfort and convenience of the colonist as was compatible with the execution of their design. They were careful that the mifimaes, as these emigrants were styled, should be removed to climates most congenial with their own.
The inhabitants of the cold countries were not transplanted to the warm, nor the inhabitants of the warm countries to the cold. Even their habitual occupations were consulted, and the fisherman was settled in the neighborhood of the ocean or the great lakes, while such lands were assigned to the husbandman as were best adapted to the culture with which he was most familiar. And, as migration by many, perhaps by most, would be regarded as a calamity, the government was careful to show particular marks of favor to the mitimaes, and, by various privileges and immunities, to ameliorate their condition, and thus to reconcile them, if possible, to their lot.
The Peruvian institutions, though they may have been modified and matured under successive sovereigns, all bear the stamp of the same original—were all cast in the same mould. The empire, strengthening and enlarging at every successive epoch of its history, was in its latter days but the development, on a great scale, of what it was in miniature at its commencement, as the infant germ is said to contain within itself all the ramifications of the future monarch of the forest. Each succeeding inca seemed desirous only to tread in the path and carry out the plans of his predecessor. Great enterprises, commenced under one, were continued by another, and completed by a third. Thus, while all acted on a regular plan, without any of the eccentric or retrograde movements which betray the agency of different individuals, the state seemed to be under the direction of a single hand, and steadily pursued, as if through one long reign, its great career of civilization and of conquest.
The ultimate aim of its institutions was domestic quiet. But it seemed as if this were to be obtained only by foreign war. Tranquillity in the heart of the monarchy, and war on its borders, was the condition of Peru. By this war it gave occupation to a part of its people, and, by the reduction and civilization of its barbarous neighbors, gave security to all.
Every Inca sovereign, however mild and benevolent in his domestic rule, was a warrior, and led his armies in person. Each successive reign extended still wider the boundaries of the empire. Year after year saw the victorious monarch return laden with spoils, and followed by a throng of tributary chieftains to his capital. His reception there was a Roman triumph. The whole of its numerous population poured out to welcome him, dressed in the gay and picturesque costumes of the different provinces, with banners waving above their heads, and strewing branches and flowers along the path of the conqueror.
The Inca, borne aloft in his golden chair on the shoulders of his nobles, moved in solemn procession under the triumphal arches that were thrown across the way, to the great temple of the Sun. There, without attendants—for all but the monarch were excluded from the hallowed precincts—the victorious prince, stripped of his royal insignia, barefooted, and with all humility, approached the awful shrine and offered up sacrifice and thanksgiving to the glorious Deity who presided over the fortunes of the Incas. This ceremony concluded, the whole population gave itself up to festivity; music, revelry, and dancing were heard in every quarter of the capital, and illuminations and bonfires commemorated the victorious campaign of the Inca, and the accession of a new territory to his empire.
Prescott, William H. History of the Conquest of Peru. G. Routledge and Co., 1855.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
