Inca civilization

The Andean civilizations made up a loose patchwork of different cultures that developed from the highlands of Colombia to the Atacama Desert. They are mainly based on the cultures of Ancient Peru and some others such as Tiahuanaco. The Inca Empire was the last sovereign political entity that emerged from the Andean civilizations before conquest by Spaniards. Tahuantinsuyo was a patchwork of languages, cultures and peoples. The components of the empire were not all uniformly loyal, nor were the local cultures all fully integrated. For example, the Chimú used money in their commerce, while the Inca empire as a whole had an economy based on exchange and taxation of luxury goods and labor, and it is said that Inca tax collectors would take the head lice of the lame and old as a symbolic tribute. The portions of the Chachapoya that had been conquered were almost openly hostile to the Inca, and the Inca nobles rejected an offer of refuge in their kingdom after their troubles with the Spanish.

The Inca society was the society of the Inca civilization in South America. The Inca Empire, which was centred in what is now Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and southern Colombia and lasted from 1438 to 1533 AD, represented the height of this civilization. The Inca state was known as the Kingdom of Cusco before 1438. Over the course of the Inca Empire, the rulers used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate in their empire a large portion of western South America, centred on the Andean mountain ranges. The empire proved relatively short-lived however: by 1533, Atahualpa, the last Sapa Inca (emperor) of the Inca Empire, was killed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule. The last Inca stronghold, the Neo-Inca State in Vilcabamba was conquered by the Spanish in 1572.