The Republic of Peru has one of the longest histories of civilization in the world dating back to 10,000 BCE. The Caral-Supe people, Nazca culture, Wari and Tiwanaku empires, the Kingdom of Cusco and the mighty Inca Empire are the major civilizations hailing from this region.
Bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, the east by Brazil, the south by Bolivia and Chile, and the west by the Pacific Ocean, Peru is the epitome of megadiversity. The landscape boasts the Amazon basin rainforest, the peaks of the Andes mountains and the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region.
Size
Peru is the third largest country in South America with a population of over 32 million souls. Its capital and largest city is Lima. Peru’s population includes Mestizos, Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechuan languages, Aymara, or other indigenous languages.
Economy
The sovereign state of Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, along with growing sectors such as telecommunications and biotech. The country forms part of The Pacific Pumas. The Pumas are a political and economic grouping of countries along Latin America’s Pacific coast that share common trends of positive growth, stable macroeconomic foundations, improved governance and an openness to global integration.
History
The name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a local ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama City, in the early 16th century. Spanish conquistadors, who arrived in 1522, believed this was the southernmost part of the New World until Francisco Pizarro invaded the regions farther south.
An alternative history is provided by contemporary writer Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. De la Vega, the son of an Inca princess and a conquistador, claimed Birú was the name of an Amerindian who was encountered by the crew of a ship on an exploratory mission for governor Pedro Arias Dávila of Spain.
The Incas
The Inca Empire was a South American civilization that originated in the Peruvian highlands in the early 13th century. Through military conquests and peaceful assimilation tactics, the Incas established the largest ancient civilization in pre-Columbian America.
At its largest, the empire encompassed modern-day Peru, western Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, the southwestern tip of Colombia and a large portion of modern-day Chile. The official language was Quechua. However, seven hundred local dialects were also spoken as a result of the vast territory the empire occupied. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was the city of Cusco.
Officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts, the Incas flourished from approximately 1200 to 1533 AD.
Founding
According to tradition, the empire started as a small tribe in the village of Paqari-tampu around the year 1200. The lack of arable land and the aggression of neighboring tribes proved a huge problem for the nascent empire. To escape these issues, the founder and governor of the Incas, Manco Capac, decided they should relocate. He ultimately settled on a site 15 miles south, in the city of Cusco. As leader, Capac was given the official title of Sapa Inca and became a god in the Inca religion. The Sapa Inca ruled and owned everything and was believed to be a direct descendant of the sun god, Inti.
Inca is the Quechua word for “emperor.” Sapa Inca means “the only emperor.”
The rulers of this city-state were also called Sapa Inca. The term Sapa Inca would continue to be applied to the main leader of the Inca as they expanded from city-state to empire.
The making of an empire
There was little to distinguish the Inca from other tribes inhabiting the Andes until the 14th century. It was during that time that the fourth emperor, Mayta Capac, began to expand the empire by attacking and looting neighboring villages. The fifth emperor, Capac Yupanqui, was the first to conquer territory outside the valley of Cusco. By the reign of the eighth emperor, Viracocha Inca, the Inca had begun a program of permanent conquest by establishing garrisons in their conquered territories. The conquests began in the early 15th century and within 100 years the Incas had gained control of an Andean population of approximately 12 million people.
Quipus
Despite the fact that the Inca kept excellent census records using their quipus, we have only estimates of their total population. This is because knowledge of how to read the quipus was lost. Almost all quipus either fell into disuse and disintegrated over time or were destroyed by the Spaniards.
The quipu was an intricate system of recordkeeping that used knotted strings of various colors which stored and conveyed information. The word quipu means “knot” in Quechua.
The Economy
The economy was based on agriculture with staples being corn (maize), white and sweet potatoes, squash, tomatoes, peanuts (groundnuts), chili peppers, coca, cassava, and cotton. The people raised guinea pigs, ducks, llamas, alpacas, and dogs. Clothing was made of llama wool and cotton. Houses were of stone or adobe mud. Practically every man was a farmer, producing his own food and clothing.
Trade and the movement of goods fed into what is called the vertical archipelago. This system meant that all goods produced within the empire were immediately property of the ruling elites. These elites, such as the emperor and governors, then redistributed resources across the empire as they saw fit.
Taxes and goods were collected from four distinct districts, or suyus, and sent directly to the emperor in Cusco. This highly organized system was most likely perfected under the emperor Pachacuti around 1460.
This system also required a minimum quota of manual labor from the general population. This form of labor taxation was called mita. The populations of each district were expected to contribute to the wealth of the empire by mining, farming, or doing other manual labor. Precious metals, textiles, and crops were collected and redistributed using the the road system that snaked across the land, from the ocean to the Andes.
Religion
The Inca religion combined features of animism, fetishism, and the worship of nature gods. The pantheon was headed by Inti, the sun god, and included also Viracocha, a creator god and culture hero, and Apu Illapu, the rain god. Under the empire, the Inca religion was a highly organized state religion. While worship of Inti and the rendering of service were required of all subjects but their native religions were tolerated. Inca rituals included elaborate forms of divination and the sacrifice of humans and animals.
Descendants
The descendants of the Inca are the present-day Quechua-speaking peasants of the Andes, who constitute perhaps 45 percent of the population of Peru.
Masters of engineering
Despite not having a written language, the Incas accomplished incredible engineering feats. They constructed suspension bridges and roads to cross steep Andean valleys. The Incas were masters of masonry, erecting large stone buildings without the use of mortar. The pieces fit together with such precision mortar was unnecessary. The ancient complex of Machu Picchu is one of the most magnificent examples of their architectural ingenuity and skill.
The Inca road system was also exceptional. It was the most extensive and advanced transportation system in pre-Columbian South America measuring approximately 25,000 miles long. The network was composed of formal roads carefully planned, engineered, built, marked, maintained and paved where necessary. The Incas also utilized stairways to gain elevation and accessory constructions such as retaining walls and water drainage systems. In modern times, a remnant of the roads continue to see heavy use from tourism, such as the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
Spanish Rule
In 1526, Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizarro, arrived in Peru and was regaled with stories of a great ruler who had riches in the mountains. In an avarice fueled fit, he returned home to get permission to claim the land for Spain. King Charles of Spain agreed to Pizarro’s request and promised him that he would be governor of any lands he conquered.
Capitulacion de Toledo
Under the Capitulacion de Toledo of 1529, Charles V designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Once again, colonizers at work, naming a territory they claim to have discovered. How do you discover land that someone else is already inhabiting? My apologies, I digress, back to the story.
The overthrow of Atahualpa
In late 1531, the conquistador returned to present-day northern Peru in search of a conquest. Pizarro and his men took advantage of an ongoing civil war and were able to overthrow the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, in the city of Cajamarca. With a force of 168 men, including 62 on horseback, they were able to outnumber and outmatch the 80,000 Inca troops camped nearby. Within 24 hours, more than 7,000 Inca warriors were dead, and Atahualpa was in chains.
Pizarro then demanded a ransom from the emperor, which became the largest in history. Atahualpa offered to fill a room with treasure as ransom for his release, and Pizarro accepted. Eventually, some 24 tons of gold and silver were brought to the Spanish from throughout the Inca empire.
The treachery of Pizarro
Despite making the payment, Pizarro treacherously put Atahualpa on trial for plotting to overthrow the Spanish. A Spanish tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death. No surprise here. On August 29, 1533, the emperor was tied to a stake and offered two modes of death. The options were being burned alive or strangled, if he converted to Christianity. In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahuallpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died.
Spanish reinforcements had arrived at Cajamarca earlier in the year. Pizarro bolstered his current troops with the reinforcements and marched on Cusco. The Inca capital fell without a struggle in November 1533.
The Viceroyalty of Peru
In 1542, Charles V established a viceroyalty with the official name of the Kingdom of Peru. The Viceroyalty of Peru was an imperial administrative district that originally contained modern-day Peru and most of the Spanish Empire in South America, governed from the capital of Lima. To give you some context of how large this district was: it encompassed all or part of modern-day Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and even some of Brazil. It was the largest viceroyalty in the Spanish Americas.
In 1561, a rebel named Lope de Aguirre had had enough of Spain’s interference. He declared himself the “Prince” of an independent Peru. Needless to say, the Spanish crown was not amused and he was duly arrested and executed. Over the next few decades, the Spanish put down several Inca rebellions and gained complete control of the region by 1572.
Peruvian Independence
Peru formally proclaimed independence from Spain in 1821, following the military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, and the battle of Ayacucho. Peru completed its independence in 1824 and became known as the Peruvian Republic. In 1979, the nation adopted its current name, Republic of Peru.
After declaring its independence, the country suffered from political instability. Oddly, a period of economic and political stability was ushered in as a result of the exploitation of guano. This ended with the War of the Pacific that lasted from 1879–1884. Throughout the 20th century, Peru grappled with political and social instability, including the internal conflict between the state and guerrilla groups.
Implementation of Plan Verde shifted Peru towards neoliberal economics under the authoritarian rule of Alberto Fujimori and Vladimiro Montesinos in the 1990s. The former’s political ideology of Fujimorism left a lasting impression on the country’s governance that remains to this day.
Current Day
The 2000s marked economic expansion and poverty reduction, but the subsequent decade revealed long-existing sociopolitical vulnerabilities, exacerbated by a political crisis instigated by Congress and the COVID-19 pandemic, precipitating the period of unrest beginning in 2022.
Up Next: Peru: Lima and Cusco
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