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Inca Empire
The Inca, sometimes called peoples of the sun, were originally
a warlike tribe living in a semiarid region of the southern
sierra. From 1100 to 1300 the Inca moved north into the fertile
Cusco Valley. From there they overran the neighboring lands.
By 1500 the Inca Empire stretched from the Pacific Ocean east
to the sources of the Paraguay and Amazon rivers and from
the region of modern Quito in Ecuador south to the Maule River
in Chile. This vast empire was a theocracy, organized along
socialistic lines and ruled by an Inca, or emperor, who was
worshiped as a divinity. Because the Inca realm contained
extensive deposits of gold and silver, it became in the early
16th century a target of Spanish imperial ambitions in the
Americas.
In November 1995 anthropologists announced the discovery of
the 500-year-old remains of two Inca women and one Inca man
frozen in the snow on a mountain peak in Peru. Scientists
concluded that the trio were part of a human sacrifice ritual
on Ampato, a sacred peak in the Andes mountain range. Artifacts
from the find unveiled new information about the Inca and
indicated the use of poles and tents rather than traditional
stone structures. The arrangement of doll-size statuettes
dressed in feathers and fine woolens provided clues about
Inca religious and sacrificial practices.
Spanish Rule
In 1532 the Spanish soldier and adventurer Francisco Pizarro
landed in Peru with a force of about 180 men. Conditions were
favorable to conquest, for the empire was debilitated by a
just-concluded civil war between the heirs to the Inca throne,
Atahualpa and Huascar, each of whom was seeking to control
the empire. This internal dissension, plus the terror inspired
by Spanish guns and horses—unknown to the indigenous
peoples until then—made it relatively easy for only
a handful of Spaniards to conquer this vast empire.
The Spaniards met Atahualpa, the victor in the civil war,
and his army at a prearranged conference at Cajamarca in 1532.
When Atahualpa arrived, the Spaniards ambushed and seized
him, and killed thousands of his followers. Although Atahualpa
paid the most fabulous ransom known to history—a room
full of gold and another full of silver—for his freedom,
the Spaniards murdered him in 1533.
The Spanish destroyed many of the irrigation projects and
the north-south roads that had knit the empire together, speeding
the disintegration of the empire. By November 1533 Cuzco had
fallen with little resistance. In addition, the indigenous
population declined rapidly as a result of new diseases brought
by the Spaniards, diseases to which the Inca had no immunity.
Members of the Inca dynasty took refuge in the mountains and
were able to resist the Spaniards for about four decades.
However, by 1572 the Spaniards had executed the last Inca
ruler, Tupac Amaru, along with his advisers and his family.
In 1535 Pizarro founded on the banks of the Rímac River
the Peruvian capital city of Ciudad de los Reyes (Spanish
for "City of the Kings"; present-day Lima). Subsequently,
disputes over jurisdictional powers broke out among the Spanish
conquerors, or conquistadors, and in 1541 a member of one
of the conflicting Spanish factions assassinated Pizarro in
Lima. The Inca civilization had unified what are now Peru,
Ecuador, and Bolívia and created an integrated society.
The Spanish, whose main aims were plunder and the conversion
of native tribes to Christianity, stopped the development
of the indigenous civilization. The Spaniards treated the
Inca ruthlessly, using their labor to produce the minerals
needed in Spain. The result was the creation of a psychic
chasm between the Inca and the Europeanized population, a
chasm that has endured for more than 400 years.
The Spanish introduced a system of land tenure consisting
of European landlords and indigenous workers. This system
succeeded in solidly establishing a privileged and wealthy-landed
aristocracy early in the colonial period. Little was done
to educate the masses of peoples. As a result, colonial Peru
was a divided society, consisting of a small class that owned
the land and controlled education, political, military, and
religious power, and of a large, mostly indigenous class (about
90 percent of the total population) that remained landless,
illiterate, and exploited.
In 1542 a Spanish imperial council promulgated statutes called
New Laws for the Indies, which were designed to put a stop
to cruelties inflicted on the Native Americans. In the same
year Spain created the Viceroyalty of Peru, which comprised
all Spanish South America and Panama, except what is now Venezuela.
The first Spanish viceroy arrived in Peru in 1544 and attempted
to enforce the New Laws, but the conquistadores rebelled and,
in 1546, killed the viceroy. Although the Spanish government
crushed the rebellion in 1548, the New Laws were never put
into effect. In 1569 the Spanish colonial administrator Francisco
de Toledo arrived in Peru. During the ensuing 14 years he
established a highly effective, although harshly repressive,
system of government. Toledo’s method of administration
consisted of a government of Spanish officials ruling through
lower-level officials made up of Native Americans who dealt
directly with the indigenous population. This system lasted
for almost 200 years.
Revolts for Independence In 1780 a force of 60,000 Native
Americans revolted against Spanish rule under the leadership
of Peruvian patriot José Gabriel Condorcanqui, who
adopted the name of an ancestor, the Inca Túpac Amaru.
Although initially successful, the uprising was crushed in
1781. The Spanish tortured and executed Condorcanqui and thousands
of his fellow revolutionaries. The Spanish suppressed another
revolt in 1814.
Subsequently, however, opposition to imperial rule grew throughout
Spanish South America. The opposition was led largely by Creoles,
people of Spanish descent born in South America. Creoles grew
to resent the fact that the Spanish government awarded all
important government positions in the colonies to Spaniards
born in Spain, who were called peninsulares.
Freedom from Spanish rule, however, was imported to Peru
by outsiders. In September 1820 the Argentine soldier and
patriot José de San Martín, who had defeated
the Spanish forces in Chile, landed an invasion army at the
seaport of Pisco, Peru. On July 12, 1821, San Martín’s
forces entered Lima, which had been abandoned by Spanish troops.
Peruvian independence was proclaimed formally on July 28,
1821. The struggle against the Spanish was continued later
by the Venezuelan revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar,
who entered Peru with his armies in 1822. In 1824, in the
battles of Junín on August 6, and of Ayacucho on December
9, Bolívar’s forces routed the Spanish. See Ayacucho,
Battle of; Junín, Battle of; See Latin American Independence.
Succession of Rulers Independence brought few institutional
changes to Peru aside from the transfer of power. Whereas
before independence peninsulares held the important government
posts, after independence Creoles monopolized power. The economic
and social life of the country continued as before, with two
groups–Europeans and indigenous people–living
side by side but strongly divided. In 1822 leaders of the
colony’s independence movement created a centralized
government consisting of a president and a single-chambered
legislature. However, Spain's refusal to allow Peruvian-born
citizens a voice in the colonial administration had done little
to prepare Peru for democracy.
The years following independence were extremely chaotic.
Bolívar left Peru in 1826, and a series of military
commanders who had served under him ruled over the nation.
Andrés Santa Cruz served until 1827, when he was replaced
by José de La Mar, who was in turn supplanted by Agustín
Gamarra in 1829. Gamarra ruled until 1833. In the meantime
Santa Cruz had become president of Bolivia, and in 1836 he
invaded Peru, establishing a confederation of the two countries
that lasted three years. After that, Gamarra took power again.
The country, however, enjoyed no peace until 1845, when Ramón
Castilla, seized the presidency. Fortunately, he proved to
be an able ruler, who during his two terms in office (1845
to 1851 and 1855 to 1862) initiated many important reforms,
including the abolition of slavery, the construction of railroads
and telegraph facilities, and the adoption in 1860 of a liberal
constitution. Castilla also began exploitation of the country’s
rich guano and nitrate deposits, which were highly valued
as an ingredient in fertilizer. In 1864 these deposits involved
Peru in a war with Spain, which had seized the guano-rich
Chincha Islands. Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile aided Peru, defeating
the Spanish forces in 1866. The resulting treaty of 1879 constituted
the first formal Spanish recognition of Peruvian sovereignty.
In 1873 Peru signed a secret defensive alliance with Bolivia,
the purpose of which was to defend Bolivia's nitrate interests
against Chile. When a quarrel arose between Chile and Bolivia
over the Atacama nitrate fields along the disputed border
of the two nations, Peru was drawn into the War of the Pacific,
fighting against Chile on the side of its ally, Bolivia. Chile
defeated its opponents, occupied Lima, and, under the Treaty
of Ancón (1884), was awarded Peru's nitrate province
of Tarapacá. Chile also occupied the provinces of Tacna
and Arica. A plebiscite was supposed to decide ten years later
which country would get these provinces, but the dispute did
not end until 1929, with Chile keeping Arica and Peru regaining
Tacna.
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