Whereas the chronicler Betanzos offers vivid accounts of Inca armies in the
Amazonian heart of darkness, he is silent about the incorporation of coastal
civilizations. Some sources suggest that military conquest was necessary to
annex the north coast Chimú Empire (see Chronology, Pre-Inca), and remove
its paramount ruler from power, and that extended campaigns requiring new
infrastructure and extended sieges brought kingdoms like Huarco in the Cañete
valley on Peru’s south coast, under Inca rule. Other sources emphasize the lack
of conflict in the incorporation of some coastal societies.
A destructive civil war overtook the Inca Empire in the early 1530s, and it
illustrates how much Inca military power changed over the course of a century.
Atahualpa, the military governor of Quito, rose up against his half brother
Huascar, who held ritual and administrative power in Cuzco (see Wars,
Dynastic). Atahualpa’s generals turned a seasoned frontier army onto the
interior of the empire, using the roads and way stations to march on the capital.
Huascar’s generals were able to raise several conscript armies that reportedly
outnumbered the Quito force, but they were cut to shreds and scattered
repeatedly before the frontier troops arrived at the capital and laid waste to the
households of royal lineages that had sided with Huascar. Pizarro’s small
expedition arrived shortly afterward, and made similar use of Inca infrastructure
in their invasion, and, as they brought down the mighty empire, adding the
support of unhappy Inca subjects and fighting in a manner that confounded Inca
frontier and conscript armies (see Invasion, Spanish).
Further Reading
Bauer, Brian S., and R. Alan Covey. “Processes of State Formation in the Inca Heartland (Cuzco, Peru).”
American Anthropologist 104, no. 3: 846–64, 2002.
Betanzos, Juan de. Narrative of the Incas. Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton and Dana Buchanan.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996 [1551–1557].
Bram, Joseph. An Analysis of Inca Militarism. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1941.
Covey, R. Alan. How the Incas Built Their Heartland: State Formation and the Innovation of Imperial
Strategies in the Sacred Valley, Peru. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Murra, John V. “The Expansion of the Inka State: Armies, Wars, and Rebellions.” In Anthropological
History of Andean Polities, edited by John V. Murra, Nathan Wachtel, and Jacques Revel, 49–58. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Ondegardo, Polo de. Relación de los fundamentos acerca del notable daño que resulta de no guardar a los
Indios sus fueros. Colección de Libros y Documentos Referentes a la Historia del Perú, series 1, vol. 3:
45–188. Lima: Sanmartí, 1916 [1571].
Rowe, John H. “Absolute Chronology in the Andean Area.” American Antiquity 10, no. 3: 265–84, 1945.
Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro. The History of the Incas. Translated and edited by Brian S. Bauer and Vania
Smith. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007 [1572].
■R. ALAN COVEY