Chapter

12, Part 2
The Inca
Poli%cal Map of South America
 Geography of a Mountain Empire
The Inca lived in the Andes Mountain in what is today
Peru, and believed they created from Lake TiAcaca .

The Inca capital was Cuzco, which is located 11,000

feet above sea level.

Quechua was the language of the Inca, and in

Quechua Cuzco means center.

In 1438, Pachacu% (pah-chah-koo-tee) became the

ruler of the Inca, which conquered Peru and the
surrounding lands.

By 1500, the Inca governed an empire that extended

2,500 miles along the west coast of South America.

The Inca empire included parts of what is now

Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and
ArgenAna.

WATCH Mankind Rise of the Inca

 Governing the Empire
WATCH Travel to Cusco by Expedia
Unlike the Valley of Mexico, the Andes
Mountains did not have locaAons or enough
farmland for large ciAes.
Machu Picchu never had more than 1,000
people, and Cuzco had only about 25,000.
The total populaAon of the Cuzco Valley
was about 100,000.
People in the Inca Empire had to learn to
speak Quechua and worship the Inca gods.
The Inca used terrace farming and built
irrigaAon systems to grow corn, potatoes,
and animals because they lived in areas
with steep mountains.
Since the Andes Mountain were at a high
elevaAon and cold climate the Inca raised
llamas and alpacas.
WATCH Travel to Machu Picchu by Expedia
 Daily Life in the Empire
Inca built more than 14,000 miles of roads
across the Inca empire.

Runners called chasquis carried messages up
and down the Inca empire.

To repair the roads the Incan government

required its subjects to perform a number of
days of labor each year.

The Inca had an economy that did not have

money. The Inca economy was based on the
exchange of goods and services.

Trade was limited to the harvest season and

local. Any trade between regions was
controlled by the emperor.

WATCH Inca Roads (1:12) and Hiking to Machu Picchu
 Incan Society
Inca society had 2 main groups.
1) Nobles ran the government and controlled the
army.

2) Commoners were farmers, shermen, and

soldiers.

The Inca government regulate who would farm,
who would trade goods, who would be soldiers,
and who could marry.

In Inca society, most people stayed in the class

they were born in for life.

The Inca did not have a system of wriAng, but

used a counAng tool called quipu to keep
records.

WATCH Sacred Valley
 Incan Beliefs
Inca believed the emperors were divine.

The Inca believed their rst emperor was born

from Lake TiAcaca and the son of InA, the god of
the sun.

The Inca society was based on agriculture, and

believed the sun was the source of life.

The priests would perform daily prayers and

rituals, such as animal sacrices for a good
harvest.

To the Inca human sacrices were rare.

Before making important decisions, the emperor

would have priests perform special rituals they
believed would help priests read the future.
 The Inca Fall to the Spanish
A leader named Atahualpa (ah-tuh-wahl-puh)
became the Incan emperor a]er defeaAng his
brother in civil war.

In 1532, as the Incan civil war was ending

Francisco Pizarro arrived in South America.

During a meeAng between the Inca and Spanish,

Atahualpa was taken prisoner. Pizarro later had
Atahualpa executed.

By 1535, the Spanish conquered most of the

Incan lands, enslaved many, and millions of Inca
died from diseases.

The last Incan ruler (Tupac Amaru) was defeated

in 1572.

WATCH Francisco Pizarro History Channel