Pachacuti and the Rise of the Inca Empire (c. 1438)

Pachacuti (also Pachacutec), born Inca Yupanqui, was the Inca ruler who, according to tradition, saved Cusco from the Chanka around 1438, seized the throne from his father and launched the conquests that created the Inca Empire. Under him and his son Topa Inca Yupanqui, a small highland kingdom became Tawantinsuyu, “the four parts together”, the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas. His reign also saw Cusco rebuilt as an imperial capital and the beginnings of the institutions that held the empire together.

Background: Cusco before Pachacuti

In the 14th and early 15th centuries the central Andes were divided among many regional kingdoms and ethnic groups. The earlier Wari and Tiwanaku states had collapsed centuries before, and no single power dominated the highlands.

The Incas were one group among many in the valley of Cusco, in the southern Peruvian highlands. Inca tradition traced their rulers back to the legendary founder Manco Capac, who was said to have emerged with his siblings from a cave at Pacaritambo. Pachacuti appears as the ninth ruler in the traditional list, but the earlier reigns are known only from later oral history, and the details of the first rulers are largely legendary.

Archaeology shows that the Cusco region was becoming more unified and prosperous in the decades before 1400. By the early 15th century the Incas had begun to dominate their immediate neighbours through raids, marriage alliances and agreements, but their power did not extend far beyond the valley.

Their main rivals included the Lupaca and Colla kingdoms around Lake Titicaca and the Chanka, a confederation of peoples based around Andahuaylas, to the west of Cusco.

The Chanka war

The story of Pachacuti’s rise was told in the 16th century by Spanish chroniclers who drew on Inca informants, notably Juan de Betanzos, married to a noblewoman of Pachacuti’s lineage, and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. Their accounts agree on the outline.

The Chanka, the story goes, marched on Cusco with a large army. The elderly ruler Viracocha Inca and his chosen heir, Inca Urco, judged the city indefensible and withdrew to a fortified site outside the valley. A younger son, Inca Yupanqui, refused to abandon the city. With a small group of loyal nobles and allies, he organised its defence.

In the battle that followed, Inca Yupanqui defeated the Chanka. According to legend he was helped by the pururaucas, stones that turned into warriors to fight on his side, a story that shows how Inca tradition gave his victory a sacred character. A second battle, sometimes linked to a place called Yawarpampa, the “plain of blood”, completed the Chanka defeat.

Inca Yupanqui then presented the spoils of victory to his father, demanding that Viracocha recognise him. After a period of tension, the old ruler was sidelined, and Inca Urco was killed or removed from the succession. Inca Yupanqui took the throne and the title Pachacuti, “he who overturns the world”.

Modern historians treat this narrative cautiously. It was preserved by Pachacuti’s own descendants, who had every reason to glorify him and to blacken his rivals. The Chanka threat may have been real, but the dramatic story of a lone hero saving the city has the features of a political legend.

Building an empire

After securing Cusco, Pachacuti turned to expansion. His armies, often commanded by his brothers, especially Capac Yupanqui, and later by his sons, campaigned in several directions.

• The south-east: the wealthy kingdoms around Lake Titicaca, including the Colla and Lupaca, were conquered or brought into alliance, giving the Incas vast herds of llamas and alpacas.
• The west and north-west: the Chanka homeland and the central highlands, as far as the region of Cajamarca, were brought under Inca control.
• The coast: later in his reign, campaigns led by his son Topa Inca Yupanqui reached the great coastal kingdom of Chimor, whose capital was Chan Chan.

The Incas combined military force with diplomacy. Local lords who submitted were often confirmed in power, given gifts and linked to the Inca royal family by marriage. Those who resisted could face harsh punishment, including the resettlement of whole communities.

Around 1463, according to the conventional chronology, Pachacuti handed command of the armies to Topa Inca Yupanqui. The son’s sweeping campaigns, described in Topa Inca Yupanqui’s conquests, carried Inca rule north into Ecuador and south into Chile. Pachacuti formally made him co-ruler and successor, and died around 1471.

Rebuilding Cusco

Pachacuti is credited with rebuilding Cusco as a city fit to be the centre of the world. The old town was redesigned with great plazas, palaces for the royal lineages and temples built of finely fitted stone, a technique that became a hallmark of imperial Inca architecture.

The most important temple was the Coricancha, the “golden enclosure”, dedicated to Inti, the sun, and other deities. Its walls were later described by the Spanish as covered with sheets of gold. The Dominican monastery of Santo Domingo was built on its foundations after the conquest, and parts of the Inca walls still stand.

Work began on the massive complex of Sacsayhuaman, above the city, with its zigzag walls of enormous stones, though it was completed under later rulers. Some chroniclers wrote that Cusco was laid out in the shape of a puma, with Sacsayhuaman as its head; this idea is popular today but scholars debate how literally it should be taken.

Pachacuti also created royal estates in the valleys around Cusco. The most famous is Machu Picchu, above the Urubamba River, which is widely believed to have been built for him. Other estates included Pisac and Ollantaytambo.

Organising Tawantinsuyu

Pachacuti is traditionally credited with many of the institutions that held the empire together, though some probably developed over several reigns.

• The four quarters. The empire was divided into four suyus (regions) that met at Cusco: Chinchaysuyu to the north-west, Antisuyu to the north-east, Collasuyu to the south-east and Cuntisuyu to the south-west.
• Labour tax. Instead of money, subjects owed the state labour, known as mit’a, working on state farms, roads, buildings and in the army. In return the state provided food, drink and goods at work feasts.
• Resettlement. Groups called mitmaqkuna were moved from one region to another to secure frontiers, break up resistant groups and develop new farmland.
• Records. Officials kept accounts with the khipu, knotted strings that recorded numbers and probably other information.
• Roads and storehouses. A road network, described in the Inca road system, and thousands of storehouses supported armies and administrators.

Religion was reorganised as well. The cult of the sun, from which the Inca rulers claimed descent, was elevated. The mummies of dead rulers were preserved and kept by their panaqa, or royal kin group, which continued to own the ruler’s estates. This custom gave each new ruler a strong incentive to conquer new lands for himself.

Chronology and debate

The date 1438 for Pachacuti’s accession comes from the chronology of the 16th-century writer Miguel Cabello Valboa, adopted by the American archaeologist John Rowe in the 1940s. It became the standard framework for Inca history.

Since then, radiocarbon dates from Inca sites have challenged this timeline. Studies at Machu Picchu, at Inca sites in Chile and Argentina, and elsewhere suggest that Inca expansion may have begun several decades before 1438, perhaps around 1400 or earlier. Some historians therefore see the rise of the empire as a more gradual process than the chronicles imply, with Pachacuti’s role magnified by later tradition.

What is not in doubt is the scale of the change. In less than a century, Cusco went from the centre of a regional power to the capital of an empire stretching about 4,000 km along the Andes.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Pachacuti single-handedly created the Inca Empire. His reign was decisive, but expansion continued under Topa Inca Yupanqui and Huayna Capac, and some institutions probably predated him.
• Myth: the date 1438 is exact. It is a conventional date from one colonial chronology, not a recorded year, and archaeology suggests an earlier start to expansion.
• Myth: Pachacuti personally built Machu Picchu as a secret city. Machu Picchu was a royal estate and religious retreat, built by thousands of labourers, not a hidden city; it was simply unknown to the Spanish.

Timeline

• Early 15th century: The Incas dominate the Cusco valley under Viracocha Inca.
• c. 1438 (traditional): The Chanka attack Cusco; Inca Yupanqui defends the city and takes power as Pachacuti.
• 1440s–1450s: Conquest of the Lake Titicaca region and the central highlands.
• Mid-15th century: Rebuilding of Cusco and the Coricancha; construction of royal estates such as Machu Picchu.
• c. 1463: Topa Inca Yupanqui takes command of the Inca armies.
• c. 1470: Inca forces conquer the coastal kingdom of Chimor.
• c. 1471: Death of Pachacuti; Topa Inca Yupanqui succeeds him.
• 1532: Spanish arrival at Cajamarca, as the empire is weakened by civil war.

Why it matters

Pachacuti stands at the turning point of Andean history, when a regional kingdom became an empire of millions. Whether or not every detail of his story is true, the Inca remembered him as the ruler who remade their world, and the city, roads and estates associated with him, including Cusco and Machu Picchu, remain among the most remarkable monuments of the Americas.