The Andean Kingdom of Chuquito in 1567

So today we move south into the Andes Mountains region of South America to examine the Inca empire on the eve of invasion. The Inca Empire began in 1438 when Incan armies subdued their home area of Cuzco in the highlands of southwestern Peru and ended with the conquest of Quito [Ecuador] in the 1520s. By the early 16th cenury, the Incan Empire stretched from Quito in the north to Chile in the south. The majority of the empire's 6 million inhabitants lived in the ares of present-day Peru and Bolivia. Three hundred years earlier the Incas were a small village community competing with other villages in the highlands of Cuzco. During the expansionary period, the Incas employed their traditional highland social practices as the model for imperial organization. The ayllu, the smallest Andean social unit, functioned on the basis of communal ownership of land, communal work practices and strong traditions of mutual aid for those unable to work. But ayllus, for many generations before the Incas began their imperial expansion, were also part of larger units, or chiefdom's. The organization of the chiefdom reflected a strong awareness of the economic potential of diverse ecological zones in the Andean area and revealed how the patterns of obligations to the chief enable maximum exploitation of these areas. In the highlands (altiplano) staple products consisted of potatoes, quinua [a type of grain that only thrives in highland areas and is also known as Altiplano rice], and llama and alpaca products. In lower areas on the Pacific coast and in semitropical valleys off the eastern escarpment of the Andean range, staple products consist of maize, cotton, fruits, and coca (used for chewing and in rituals). The economic goal of a highland chiefdom was to control as many ecological zones as possible. This same goal lay behind the Incan system of governance. The noteworthy characteristics of the Inca Empire, including forced migrations of people, road and bridge building, served not only to unite the empire but also to produce and distribute good from all ecological zones.

The Kingdom of Chuquito was a pre-Inca chiefdom located on the western shore of Lake Titicaca that was subsequently incorporated into the Inca Empire. A Spanish governmental inquiry of 1567 that I would like you to read clearly showed how the traditional patterns of obligations owed to the chief contributed to exploitation of various ecological zones. In order to verify accounts, Spanish officials took testimony not only from the chief but also from his subjects. You can read excerpts from this document by clicking here. Once you have read the document, I would like you to think about and discuss: What types of work and goods constituted tribute in Chuquito? What practices indicated that the relationship between the subjects and the chief was reciprocal? Compare Aztec methods of acquiring tribute to the methods used by the chiefs of Chuquito. What are the differences? What might account for the differences? A tribute system reveals the basic forms of social stratification. What are they in Chuquito? How do they compare to social stratification in Babylonia, India, Mediterranean area and China? Your thoughts...