It had been this way for nearly 300 years.īetween 1527 and early 1532, the Inca Empire had been locked in just such a struggle. The best and strongest claimant to the throne would win, and lead the empire going forward. To be fair, the Old World was hardly better at this tradition, but the Inca expected for succession to plunge the empire into civil war. Inca also did not have was a tradition of a peaceful succession of power when the emperor died. On top of it all, they had no money, the economy was based on bartering and exchanging of goods and services. The Inca overcame handicaps in arable land, with advances in agriculture, and were incredibly efficient in the management of resources and personnel.

Lacking writing, they developed a way to use knotted strings to keep amazingly accurate records and facilitate communication. The Inca built an empire featuring monumental stonework and architecture, with an intricate road system spanning their lands. And, amazingly, they achieved this without the wheel or animals to ride or plow. By 1532, this tribe, the Inca, had assembled the largest empire in the western hemisphere, encompassing 770,000 square miles of territory.

Cover to Kim MacQuarrie’s “The Last Days of the Incas”īetween 1200-1230CE, a small tribe in the Andean highlands settled and began a new city-state named Cusco.

The last days of the incas