The Incas

The origin of the Incas, the native rulers of Peru, is purely traditional. We have no authorities on the subject save the traditions of the Indians, gathered by the early Spaniards. From these traditions, it appears that Manco was the name of the first Inca (Child of the Sun).

He founded the city of Cuzco, instructed the men in agriculture and the arts, gave them a comparatively pure religion, and a social and natural organization; while his wife taught the women to sew, to spin, and to weave. Thus the Inca was not only the ruler of his people, but also the father and high priest.

After introducing wise laws among his people, and ruling over them for forty years, "he ascended to his father the Sun;" the year generally assigned as that of his death being A.D. 1062.

The progress of the Peruvians was slow: they invented no alphabet, and could therefore keep no written records. Thus it is that we have no exact history of the Incas farther back than about one hundred years before the conquest of the country by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century.

Three distinct historical eras are manifested in Peru. The Pre-Incarial period, of unknown duration, during which a highly civilized people lived in large cities, had a language and a religion more advanced than even those of the Incas who succeeded them. Whence these people came, and to what branch of the human family they belonged, still remain unanswered questions. Their existence, however, is clearly attested by vast architectural remains.

Then follows the period of the Incas, which attained its greatest extent and the height of its glory when Huayna Capac ascended the throne, in 1475.

About the year 1516, and ten years before the death of Huayna Capac, the first white man landed on the western shore of South America; but it was not until the year 1532, that Pizarro, at the head of a small band of Spanish adventurers, invaded and conquered Peru. From that date to the present may be considered the third historical era of Peru. Atahualpa was the last Inca of Peru : when his father, the Inca Huayna Capac, died, he left his throne to his eldest son, Huascar, and gave Atahualpa the government of Quito, of which his mother had been princess. This division of the empire led to civil war; and, after a long and bloody struggle, Huascar was taken prisoner, and Atahualpa became Inca.

It was at about this time that Pizarro invaded Peru; and Atahualpa ordered that he should be treated kindly, and gave him quarters in one of his cities.

A meeting between the two having been arranged, Atahualpa approached the Spanish camp with a retinue of unarmed followers, when he was treacherously seized by Pizarro, and thrown into prison.

Atahualpa offered as his ransom to fill the room in which he was confined as high as he could reach with gold. Pizarro accepted the ransom; but, while the Peruvians were bringing in the gold from all parts, he was plotting to kill the Inca, and seize his vast treasure.

At length, when the ransom was paid, and Atahualpa demanded his liberty, Pizarro refused to grant it, falsely accusing him of plotting against the Spaniards.

After much base treachery on the part of Pizarro, Atahualpa was brought to a mock trial, and condemned to be burned; but, upon his consenting to be baptized, the sentence was commuted to strangulation, Aug. 29, 1533. This most romantic history has been given by William H. Prescott in his "Conquest of Peru."