THE INCAS OF PERU 31
tive precedents for conquest and the consolidation of
conquest through a variety of political and socioeco-
nomic techniques. Like other imperialist nations of
antiquity, the Incas had a body of myth and legend
that ascribed a divine origin to their rulers and gave
their warriors a comforting assurance of supernatu-
ral favor and protection.
True imperial expansion seems to have be-
gun in the second quarter of the fi fteenth century,
in the reign of Pachacuti Inca, who was crowned
in 1438. Together with his son Topa Inca, also a
great conqueror, Pachacuti obtained the submis-
sion of many provinces by the skillful use of claims
of divine aid, fair promises, threats, and brute force.
Reputed to be a great organizer as well as a mighty
warrior, Pachacuti is credited with many reforms
and innovations, including the establishment of the
territorial divisions and elaborate administrative bu-
reaucracy that made the wheels of the Inca Empire
go round. By 1527, the boundary markers of the
Children of the Sun rested on the modern frontier
between Ecuador and Colombia to the north and on
the Maule River in Chile to the south. A population
of perhaps 9 million people owed allegiance to the
emperor. When the Spaniards arrived, the ruler was
Atahualpa, who had just won the imperial mantle
by defeating his half-brother Huascar.
The Incas maintained their authority with an
arsenal of devices that included the spread of their
Quechua language (still spoken by fi ve-sixths of the
indigenous peoples of the central Andean area) as
the offi cial language of the empire, the imposition
of a unifying state religion, and a shrewd policy of
incorporating chieftains of conquered regions into
the central bureaucracy. An important factor in
the Inca plan of unifi cation was the policy of reset-
tlement, or colonization. This consisted of deport-
ing dissident populations and replacing them with
loyalmitimaes (colonists) from older provinces
of the empire. An excellent network of roads and
footpaths linked administrative centers and made
it possible to send armies and messengers quickly
from one part of the empire to another. Some roads
were paved, and others were cut into solid rock.
Where the land was marshy, the roads passed over
causeways; suspension bridges spanned gorges,
and pontoon bridges of buoyant reeds were used
to cross rivers. The Incas had no system of writ-
ing, but they possessed a most effi cient means of
keeping records in a memory aid called the quipu, a
stick or cord with a number of knotted strings tied
to it. Strings of different colors represented different
articles, people, or districts; knots tied in the strings
ascended in units representing ones, tens, hun-
dreds, thousands, and so on.
The economic basis of the Inca Empire was its
intensive irrigation agriculture capable of support-
ing without serious strain not only the producers
but the large Inca armies, a large administrative
bureaucracy, and many others engaged in non-
productive activities. The Incas did not develop
this agriculture. By the time of their rise, the origi-
nal coastal irrigation systems had probably been
extended over all suitable areas in coastal andBorn Kusi Yupanqui, Pachacuti Inca, whose name
means “Redeemer of Worlds,” succeeded his father,
Inca Viracocha, as the ninth emperor of the King-
dom of Cuzco. [Alamy]