Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The history of Bolivia involves thousands of years of human habitation.Lake Titicaca had been an important center of culture and development for thousands of years. The Tiwanaku people reached an advanced level of civilization before being conquered by a rapidly expanding Inca Empire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Inca state was known as the Kingdom of Cuzco before 1438. Over the course of the Inca Empire, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate the territory of modern-day Peru, followed by a large portion of western South America, into their empire, centered on the Andean mountain range.
Western Bolivia became one of the four Incan territories within its empire known as Qullasuyu, with an estimated one million inhabitants. [ 9 ] The highest official of Qullasuyu ruled on behalf of the "Inca" (the emperor) and supervised a group of provincial governors, who in turn controlled the members of the Aymara nobility.
The Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu, [14] "the suyu of four [parts]". In Quechua, tawa is four and -ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case the four suyu ("regions" or "provinces") whose corners met at the capital.
But even before the arrival of the Europeans, the Inca Empire was floundering. Pizarro enjoyed stunning successes in his military campaign against the Incas, who were defeated despite some resistance. In 1538, the Spaniards defeated Inca forces near Lake Titicaca, allowing Spanish penetration into central and southern Bolivia.
Like the later Inca, the Tiwanaku had few commercial or market institutions. Instead, the culture relied on elite redistribution. [ 24 ] That is, the elites of the state controlled essentially all economic output but were expected to provide each commoner with all the resources needed to perform his or her function.
Isla del Sol was the first land that appeared after the flood waters began to recede and the Sun emerged from Titi Qala to illuminate the sky once again. A temple was built at this rock and later expanded by the 10th Inca Tupac Inca Yupanqui. He built a convent for mamaconas (chosen women) and a tambo (inn) for visiting pilgrims.
A counterattack by the Incas failed to dispossess the Chiriguanos who remained to settle in Samaipata and its vicinity. An Inca building destroyed by fire at Samaipata gives credence to this story. [9] The date of the war is uncertain, although many authorities date the beginning of Chiriguano attacks on the Inca's eastern frontiers to the ...