Expansion of the Inca Empire

Also called: Tawantinsuyu, Pachacuti’s conquests

At Cusco in the Andes, Pachacuti became king and set out to conquer. The Inca state became an empire stretching some 4,000 km from Ecuador to Chile.

The Inca were a small state in the Cusco basin of southern Peru. According to tradition, around 1438 a prince who had beaten off an invasion by the neighbouring Chanka became king under the name Pachacuti (“he who overturns the world”), rebuilt Cusco and began to conquer. The date rests on records written after the Spanish conquest, and other dates have been proposed. Under his son Topa Inca and grandson Huayna Capac it became Tawantinsuyu, “the land of the four quarters”, reaching from Ecuador in the north to central Chile in the south.

The emperor was revered as son of the sun god Inti. There was no writing, but knotted cords (quipu) recorded population and tribute, and mountain roads and bridges, with relay runners (chasqui) carrying messages, bound the empire together. Subjects paid taxes in labour (mit’a), grew potatoes and maize on terraced fields and herded llamas. Machu Picchu is thought to have been built as an estate of Pachacuti. While two sons of Huayna Capac were fighting over the throne after his death, Pizarro’s Spaniards arrived in 1532.