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This is the thread for the Glossary and other ancillary links which relate to events, books, places, people etc. mentioned in the book or prevalent during the time period of this book. No self promotion please.

by Kim MacQuarrie

Thanks for posting this information about Las Casas, Kathy. He was certainly a man way ahead of his time.

I had not heard of Aristotle's arguments about "natural" slaves. If you accepted that, it seems to me that it would be hard to argue strongly for conversion of these supposedly inferior peoples, but humans always seem able to hold many contradictory beliefs at the same time.

Las Casas presents the case against the Spanish for the inhumane treatment of the Indians, but the Spanish government was not always brutal towards the natives, and seems to have a better record than the English and Americans.

We recently returned from a trip to Texas where we visited the Spanish missions near San Antonio. When these were established in the 1700's, the Spanish government was trying to convert the native population into Spanish citizens to protect the frontier, due to a dearth of Spanish and Mexican colonists. The Indians were taught religion, trades and had their own self-government. They had to give up their own cultures, of course. The experiment didn't work out so well because so many of the natives died of European diseases.

Very interesting post Ann - I am sure that Kathy will also respond.
It is always remarkable how everyone tried to convert the old culture or native culture to reflect their own.

Kathy, I think that the national park ranger said that disease wiped out 70% of the natives. I never read about the huge significance of disease in destroying native cultures when I was young, but the figures are just devastating,

Bentley,
And the Spanish thought they were doing the natives such a huge favor by converting them to their religion and customs!

I guess no one had heard of multiculturalism in those days. :-) We have made some real progress, probably in large part because so many of us are now in actual contact with different cultures due to changes in communication and transportation.

MacQuarrie helps me imagine how very strange the Spanish and Incas appeared to each other in a time where few people traveled outside their own areas.

Another book which might shed additional light about the Incas and their modus operandi is the following:

by Terence N. D'Altroy (no photo)

I think that it is hard to fathom how huge this empire was - on a smaller scale - but similar to the Roman Empire.



By 1532, when Pizarro invaded, the Inca Empire stretched from what is now southern Colombia all the way to central Chile

D'Altroy states: "It stretched 300,000 square miles - It was about 2,400 miles from north to south. That would take us from the area just at the border of Ecuador and Colombia down to about 50 miles south of modern Santiago, Chile. In terms of square miles, we're probably talking something like 300,000 square miles. In population, estimates range from maybe six to 12 million people; my own estimate would put it somewhere around 10 to 12 million. That would make it perhaps the biggest empire in all of the indigenous Americas before the Spanish arrival."

Kathy in terms of your question - D'Altroy stated: "The Incas - worked very hard in diplomacy, negotiating relationships with neighbors or with people who were targets for incorporation into their expanding territory, and they tried to work out amicable relationships through gift exchanges, marital exchanges, or political alliances. Failing that, they would threaten those people with military conquest, and that having failed, they would actually undertake military conquest. So there was a combination of diplomacy and inducement, coercion, and militarism all wrapped up into one strategic package.

I think there is a major difference - the Incas actually did use relationship building and diplomacy first and did try to maintain the cultures and the local infrastructures - they became like local lords - the Incas actually laid a structure of imperial rule on top of an existing system of local societies, and then tried to argue that it was really nothing more than the local community in a grand expansive pattern.

Now the Spaniards - at least in terms of what we have learned so far - were more interested in taking everything by force it wanted and dividing the spoils but whatever means necessary with killing and execution being the option of first resort versus the last option on the table - they came for spoils and their percentage of whatever they could obtain by force, They did not at least so far appear to want to assist the Incas or the local peoples in developing a better life for themselves at the same time that they were assuming control - what they had their eye on was how much richer they would be at the end of this conquest.

Glad you like it. I thought it was a good visual.

Very true and for many South America is a mysterious place and not as universally visited as Europe.

I appreciate the map, Bentley. I was having trouble visualizing where the empire was in relation to current borders. My kids studied South America in 6th grade, but the area was completely ignored when I was young.

You are most welcome Ann, I agree with both of you although I consider myself much much younger (lol).

I think it is still a mysterious and dangerous sounding place for many.

Thought you folks might find this interesting - on the United States Senator Web Site:

Lost City of the Incas
Hiram Bingham (2003)

In 1948, Senator Hiram Bingham published the best-selling Lost City of the Incas, chronicling his accidental discovery of Machu Picchu in 1911. For hundreds of years, Machu Picchu (which means "Old Mountain" in the local Quechua language) had sat undisturbed high in the Andes, hidden beneath moss and tangled vines. It had not been discovered by the Spanish conquistadors who defeated the Incas. No one knew of its existence other than a few indigenous families who farmed amidst the ruins.

In 1909, the young explorer Hiram Bingham decided to retrace the steps of Simon Bolivar and follow the old Spanish trade route from Buenos Aires to Lima. During the course of his travels, in Cusco, ancient capital of the Inca Empire, Bingham heard about Vilcabamba, "last resting place of the Incas.� Intrigued by stories of Vilcabamba, Bingham returned to the United States to fund an expedition to find the city. He returned to Peru in 1911 with a seven-man expedition sponsored by Yale University and the National Geographic Society. Using 17th-century writings, Bingham set out from Cusco on foot and by mule, with a local policeman for his guide and interpreter. While encamped by a place called Mandor Pampa, a local farmer named Melchor Arteaga informed the group that there were extensive ruins high up on a nearby mountaintop.

“The morning of July 24th dawned in a cold drizzle. Arteaga shivered and seemed inclined to stay in his hut. I offered to pay him well if he showed me the ruins. He demurred and said it was too hard a climb for such a wet day [but] he finally agreed to go. When asked just where the ruins were, he pointed straight up to the top of the mountain.�

After a hard two-hour climb up a steep mountain path, BIngham finally reached the site and was amazed by what he saw: “Suddenly I found myself confronted with the walls of ruined houses built of the finest quality of Inca stone work. It was hard to see them for they were partly covered with trees and moss, the growth of centuries, but in the dense shadow, hiding in bamboo thickets and tangled vines, appeared here and there walls of white granite ashlars carefully cut and exquisitely fitted together. . . . Dimly I began to realize that this wall and its adjoining semicircular temple over the cave were as fine as the finest stonework in the world. It fairly took my breath away. What could this place be?"

Bingham had discovered the well-preserved ruins of Machu Picchu, which are thought to be the summer retreat of the Inca rulers, abandoned when the empire fell to the Spanish. Today Machu Picchu is a Historic National Sanctuary, protected by the Peruvian Government, and given the status of a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1983. It is considered one of the archaeological wonders of the world and is visited by tourists from every part of the globe.

When the road from Cusco to Machu Picchu was opened in 1948, it was named the Hiram Bingham Highway, and at the entrance to Machu Picchu today is an engraved marker dedicated to the American explorer. The hundreds of objects Bingham excavated at Machu Pichhu are the subject of a traveling exhibit sponsored by Yale University’s Peabody Museum.

Hiram Bingham, explorer, professor, and archaeologist (who bears a resemblance to the fictional Indiana Jones), went on to become an aviator during World War I. His career in public service began as lieutenant governor of Connecticut in 1922. He was elected governor in 1924, and immediately afterward ran in a special election for the seat of Senator Frank Brandegee, who had committed suicide. This made Bingham the only person to serve as lieutenant governor, governor, and Senator within twelve hours.

Bingham, who was elected to a full Senate term in 1926, championed legislation concerning the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and aviation. The accomplished Bingham appeared destined for a distinguished Senate career, but then he made a poor decision. In 1929, the Senate censured Bingham for allowing a lobbyist to sit in on a closed committee meeting. After leaving the Senate following the 1932 Democratic landslide, he explored new careers, including that of lobbyist.

Source:


Note: there are some interesting links to other pages on the Senate website

by Hiram Bingham (no photo)



Hiram Bingham - Republican

BINGHAM, Hiram, (father of Jonathan Brewster Bingham), a Senator from Connecticut; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, November 19, 1875; educated at Punahou School and Oahu College, Hawaii, 1882-1892, Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., 1892-1894, Yale University 1894-1898, University of California at Berkeley 1899-1900, and Harvard University 1900-1905; professor of history and politics at Harvard and then Princeton Universities; South American explorer, credited with the discovery of the Incan ruins at Machu Picchu; delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile, in 1908; captain, Connecticut National Guard 1916; became an aviator in the spring of 1917; organized the United States Schools of Military Aeronautics in May 1917; served in the Aviation Section, Signal Corps, and attained the rank of lieutenant colonel; commanded the flying school at Issoudun, France, from August to December 1918; lieutenant governor of Connecticut 1922-1924; elected Governor of Connecticut on November 4, 1924 but served only briefly; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate on December 16, 1924, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Frank B. Brandegee in the term ending March 3, 1927; reelected in 1926 and served from December 17, 1924, to March 3, 1933; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932; chairman, Committee on Printing (Seventieth Congress), Committee on Territories and Insular Possessions (Seventieth through Seventy-second Congresses); censured by the Senate in 1929 on charges of placing of a lobbyist on his payroll; appointed a member of the President’s Aircraft Board by President Calvin Coolidge 1925; engaged in banking and literary work in Washington, D.C.; during the Second World War, lectured at naval training schools 1942-1943; chairman of the Civil Service Commission’s Loyalty Review Board 1951-1953; died in Washington, D.C., June 6, 1956; interment in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va.

Source:

Bentley,
Thanks for the interesting information on Hiram Bingham. I had no idea he had such an interesting career outside of academia and archeology.

Kathy,
It sounds like most of the gold and silver sent to the crown from the New World was spent on Charles V's continental wars.

You are welcome Ann - he seemed to be a jack of all trades.

Interesting Kathy

Kathy,
Thanks very much for that. It provided some very interesting information.

The Japanese also believed that their emperor was descended from the sun god, or more correctly, sun goddess.

The young women living in the temples also reminded me of Roman practices.

Isn't it a pity that so much beautiful art was destroyed to turn it into portable money!

Thanks for the additional information on de Soto. It wasn't just wealth that motivated him because he was already wealthy before he went to Peru and became much richer after he participated in the conquest.

Too bad for him that he didn't settle down and enjoy what he had.

Very interesting, Kathy. Cuzco is 10,800 ft above sea level. It is amazing that such a large empire centered in such high altitudes.

I didn't realize that the Inca "empire" had only been in existence about 100 years when they were defeated by the Spanish. Of course, the Incas themselves had been around for a lot longer.

I also found this statement intriguing:
"Up to a third of the population was moved from their traditional homelands. By breaking up local communities, the Incas not only had a source of labor, they also had a way to reduce the potential for uprisings." There must have been considerable resentment. I wonder if Inca enemies helped the Spanish.

The glossary entries that you are adding Kathy are invaluable aides for those folks wanting to read more on any subject. Thank you for your hard work.

Thanks so much, Kathy. The pictures of the knots are so helpful. It's very interesting that this is also a decimal based system, with the 100's, ten's and single digits identifiable because they occupy different locations on the string, much as our own numbers represent these depending on the place of the digit in the number.

Wouldn't it be something if they discovered the equivalent of the Rosetta Stone for this system! I guess this won't happen because most of the quipu were destroyed during the Spanish occupation.

It appears to have been a very ingenious system. So many of human being accomplishments have been lost to us - like all that gold and silver Inca art melted down to ship back to Spain so it could be wasted on wars.

The idea of trial marriages might not have been such a bad idea, but I guess pregnancy might have complicated the whole concept. Love the pictures. They make me want to go to Peru.

I have read that the Inca emperors liked to marry their half-sisters in order to have "pure" Inca children. The ancient Egyptians and the Hawaiian royalty also followed this custom. This inbreeding must have created some problems.

Very interesting, Kathy.

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

It's also interesting that Hernando married the daughter of his half-brother Francisco. I had thought that marriages between uncle/niece were forbidden, but I recently read a short history of Spain and was shocked to find that a couple of Spanish kings did the same thing.