Rethinking the Inca Empire: Why Spanish Conquistadors Weren’t Impressed
Modern narratives often elevate the Inca Empire as a symbol of indigenous brilliance, an advanced civilization that achieved monumental feats in engineering, governance, and agriculture. Their stone temples, expansive road networks, and ability to govern millions without money or a written language are frequently highlighted as evidence of sophisticated development. Yet despite these accomplishments, the Incas remained far behind Old World civilizations in fundamental ways.
Expecting Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s to be amazed by Inca achievements is like expecting someone in 2025 to be blown away by a society that just discovered the printing press.
The Inca Empire: Impressive but Incomplete
At its peak, the Inca Empire stretched across large portions of modern-day Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile. It boasted an extensive road system, massive stone architecture like Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuamán, and a tightly controlled economy. The empire was centralized, hierarchical, and surprisingly efficient in some respects. But for all its order and scale, it lacked several foundational technologies that had long been in use in Europe, Asia, and North Africa.
The Incas had no formal written language. Instead, they used a system of knotted strings called quipu to record numbers and possibly some narrative information. This system may have been functional for accounting, but it was no substitute for a script that could record philosophy, law, literature, or science. Without writing, there were no books, no formal historical records, and no intellectual class equivalent to what existed in ancient Greece, Rome, or China.
They also didn’t use the wheel, not for carts, not for machines, not even for toys. Despite their ability to carve massive stones with remarkable precision, they transported materials without the use of wheeled transport. Even though they understood some basic mechanical principles, they failed to apply them in practical ways that other civilizations had mastered centuries earlier.
Practices That Shock the Modern Mind
Technological limitations aside, many of the Inca’s cultural practices would strike modern sensibilities and certainly 16th-century Spanish ones as deeply disturbing. The most notable example is child sacrifice. In rituals such as Capacocha, children were ritually intoxicated and then either buried alive or beaten to death to appease the gods. These weren’t isolated acts of desperation during famine or crisis. They were routine ceremonies carried out to mark festivals or imperial milestones.
There’s also archaeological and textual evidence of ritualistic cannibalism. Though not a daily practice, it was performed in ceremonial contexts and justified through religious belief. These actions were not unique to the Incas. Many civilizations have dark chapters, but they undermine any simplistic notion of a noble or enlightened indigenous utopia.
Why the Spanish Weren’t Impressed
When the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s, they came from a world that had already experienced the Renaissance. Europe had printing presses, formal universities, advanced metallurgy, and written legal systems. The Roman Empire, which had collapsed 1,500 years earlier, left behind aqueducts, amphitheaters, public baths, and roads that in many cases surpassed what the Inca had built.
The Spaniards were products of this long civilizational lineage. To them, massive stone temples built without writing, wheels, or iron tools were intriguing, but not awe-inspiring. In their minds, the presence of human sacrifice and cannibalism overshadowed any architectural or administrative accomplishments.
To modern eyes, it's easy to project value backward and celebrate the ingenuity of the Inca in isolation. But seen through the lens of global civilizational development, their society was a remarkable local peak, still far below the plateau reached by others centuries earlier.
The Dangers of Romanticizing the Past
In recent decades, there’s been a trend to glorify pre-Columbian civilizations as peaceful, spiritual, or ecologically wise. While there’s nothing wrong with honoring cultural heritage, this view too often downplays or ignores practices that were brutal and regressive. The truth is more complex: the Incas were capable administrators and impressive builders, but also adherents of a worldview that accepted horrific violence as divine necessity.
Historical analysis should strive for balance. We can recognize the achievements of indigenous civilizations without pretending they were more advanced than they were. A civilization can be both sophisticated and savage, capable and cruel.
The past should be understood in context but not whitewashed. If we wouldn't be impressed by a society in 2025 that just discovered the printing press, we shouldn't expect Spanish conquistadors to be impressed in 1530 by a society that had only just mastered stonework. The comparison is harsh, but it’s historically honest.