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Inca Heartland
Peru stands historically at the heart of Andean America. Before the Spanish conquest, it was the center of the sprawling Inca Empire, with its highland capital at Cuzco, and afterward, the principal area of Spanish colonization in South America. The Spanish relocated the capital to the coast at Lima to facilitate communication with Spain. The Viceroyalty of Peru originally controlled the entire southern part of the continent, including modern-day Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile. In 1776, the creation of a new viceroyalty with its capital at Buenos Aires severed much of this territory from the control of Lima and struck the Peruvian economy a mortal blow. On the eve of independence, Peru was in full decline, completely eclipsed by Mexican wealth, population, and prestige. Independent Peru never recovered the prominence of its colonial heyday.
Peruvian geography follows a basic Andean layout: coastal plain, highlands, eastern lowlands. In the case of Peru, the entire coastal plain is a desert of looming sand dunes, interrupted occasionally by small valleys where rivers rush to the ocean, creating flat and fertile alluvial fans and opportunities of irrigation. These veritable oases that dot the coast were scenes of indigenous civilizations that far antedated the Incas, and they have continued to be important scenes of Peruvian agriculture ever since. But the majority of Peruvians lived in the vast Andean highlands that rise steeply from the coast. Here indigenous people predominated in the rural areas, and mestizos in the cities and towns. Finally, the eastern lowlands of Peru, the country's Amazonian region, has been the last part incorporated into national life. The isolation of forest-dwelling indigenous tribes in the Peruvian Amazon was broken first by the rubber boom around 1900. The late twentieth century saw accelerating migration into the region from the Andean highlands. At the same time, a larger migration from the highlands to the coast, especially to Lima, was transforming Peru's coastal capital into an Andean city.
Topics:
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- Peru was one of the last strongholds of Spanish colonial power. It was not until the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824 that independence would come to Peru. What motivated Spanish bureaucrats and local Creole elites to resist the independence wave for so long?
- The development of national identity in twentieth-century Peru was closely connected to indigenous roots. What are some examples—ranging from literature of the early part of the century to social and political movements of the 1990s—that illustrate the link between the indigenous population and what it means to be Peruvian?
Country Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
** Dobyns, Henry F., and Paul L. Doughty. Peru: A Cultural History. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1976.
This overview of Peruvian history is meant for the undergraduate student and the nonspecialist reader. Politics and economics get their share of attention—especially since the wars of independence—but students will appreciate the emphasis on social and cultural history. Maps, a chronology, a guide to further reading organized thematically and chronologically, and an index are included.
** Klarén, Peter Flindell. Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000.
Klarén's survey of Peruvian history is also part of Oxford's series of Latin American histories for a general audience. Political history takes the lead, but the narrative will hold the reader's attention. Maps, tables, a bibliographical essay, and an index are included.
Hunefeldt, Christine. A Brief History of Peru. New York: Facts On File, 2004.
This general history is concise, detailed, and up-to-date, with the feel of an introductory textbook. A chronology, list of suggested further readings, and an index accompany the narrative.
Maps:
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