History of the Inca Realm

History of the Inca Realm by Maria Rostworowski de Diez Canseco is a major study of the Inca Empire by an important Peruvian scholar. Rostworoski's scholarly contributions include careful research in the colonial archive for insights on political, economic, and social arrangements in precolonial Peru, particularly the coastal region. This work is a culmination of sorts of this scholarship, highlighting how the very specific conditions that enabled a rapid rise of the Incas as the largest state in the Americas were also the reasons for its rapid fall to Pizarro and the Spanish. For Rostworoski, the Andean tradition of reciprocity as the basis for one ruler to demand labor tribute or service from others meant that as the Incas expanded their state with Pachacuti and his successors, they required additional conquests to receive the necessary gifts, luxuries and women to receive service from vassal or conquered lords. In other words, due to the relations of reciprocity that required the Inca to have gifts, women, and feasts for the Inca nobility and provincial elites in order to extract labor and tribute, the state had to continue imperial expansion for additional areas to extract labor from. But, as the Inca state expanded, they needed more luxury goods, gifts, etc. to give to the newly conquered provincial elites in exchange for their tribute/labor. 

This created a situation in which the Lords of Cusco had to continue to conquer or incorporate other areas to maintain relations of reciprocity with areas they had recently incorporated. In order to counterbalance this tendency, the Incas used yana administrators who were entirely loyal to the Inca, thereby avoiding the expectations of reciprocity. But this administrative move would have angered or alienated some of the conquered peoples, who were already discontent with the the forced relocations of mitmaq laborers and tribute burdens. Ultimately, the discontented provincial elites and commoners, in addition to the competition for the throne among the Inca elites who could justify seizing the throne based on ability, meant that the vast Inca state system had not unified its heterogeneous population and fell as indigenous peoples opposed to Cusco joined or supported the Spanish.

Rostworowoski endeavors to support this thesis with a broad analysis of Inca imperial expansion's social, political, and economic conditions. To understand how the Inca state became a great empire from its humble beginnings as one Andean chiefdom among many, the historian draws on ethnographic evidence, the chronicles, archival sources and reports, and archaeology to make sense of the general patterns of Andean socio-political organization. With this background, one can then develop plausible models for understanding how the Incas, whose final victory against the Chancas during the reign of Pachacuti, paved the way forward for expansion. Intriguingly, Rostworowski suggests that it was via the plunder seized from the Chancas that Pachacuti was able to expand his state by receiving enough goods, gifts, and supplies to bequeath to Cuzco-area and neighboring chiefs and vassals for tribute. Then, with this system of reciprocity requiring further gifts in which the Inca had to provide food and goods to allies and subjugated leaders, the Inca state developed into a vast empire over the reigns of his successors. Throughout the text, Rostworoski proposes a number of interesting theories about this process and even early Inca origins, illustrating how much they were part of a broader Andean civilization. Indeed, perhaps the very name Pachacuti was derived from the Wari past in the highlands? The Incas also certainly borrowed from coastal societies in terms of importing artisans, and clearly built their state on past Andean practices that included coastal trade, herding, irrigated agriculture, and infrastructure projects.  

Despite its achievements in administrative efficiency, roads and census-keeping, and producing surpluses, the Inca state was unable to survive an ambush from a small Spanish party led by Pizarro. This part of Rostworoski's analysis focuses on internal factors rather than external for understanding the fall of the Incas. Since, as mentioned previously, the Inca state was not a cohesive one in which conquered peoples felt themselves a part of the state, it was no surprise they joined or supported the Spaniards. However, the other internal factor, dissension within the Inca ruling elite, was equally disastrous. The brutal civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa over succession to the throne after Huayna Capac's death exposed how fragile the political system was. According to Rostworoski, the conflict between the half-brothers reflected their different ayllu affiliations and how matrilineal ayllu ties were key for royal succession. The fact that succession could be justified by ability and the competition among various ayllus or panacas for the throne added another dimension to the collapse of the Incas. These competing factions with the Inca elites, plus the willingness of some provincial lords and conquered peoples to support the Spanish, helped seal the fate of the Incas.