Figure 1.--For cenuries after the Spanish conquest (16th century), two separate socities emerged in Peru. One was the Spanish speaking urban society of Europeans (mostly Spanish) and Hispanisized mestizos. The other society was the conquered Native Anericans who the Spanish turned into a laboring feudal serf class. Most did not speak Spanish, but Quechuan and other Native American languages. Here we have what looks like a honor guard of boys for the Native American council in Pisac during 1954.

Peru is one of the great world cradels of civilization. It like Mesoamerica is where civilzation occurred indeendently (Egypt and India) had the example of Mesopotamia. Peru of all the cradels of civilzation is surely the most unlikely. Here civilzation developed in the cold Andean highlands and the arid coast. It was one of the great accomplishmets of mankind--an amazing technical achievement. Although still a stone-age people, pre-literate people, they had many important achievements. The most significant was the domestication of the lowly potato which was to transform Europe. The best known Peruvian Native American civilization is of course the Inca. The Inca Empire was the largest such civilization, but rested on a cultural and technological base including many earlier cultures. The Empire lasted on a short period before being cut short by the arrival of Franciso Pizarro and his Spanish Conquistadores. The Spanish wanted gold, but it was the potato that was Peru's great contribution to human society. Inca society was destroyed in the collision with the Conquistadores and the Catholic Church. The Spanish Conquest of Peru is one of the great epics of history. Europeans diseases ravaged the Native American peoples. The pre-Conquest population and the extent of the resulting pagues is still debated by historians, but population estimates have risen in recent yeas as are estimates of the totality od the size of the population disaster. Peru languished within the Spanish Empire for over three centuries. Thus much of the history of Peru is the Spanish colonial history. It is largely a feudal history with the country's much-diminished Native American population held as serfs on large rural estates owned by the Spanish ruling class. There was very little economic development and even less social development. Much of the population did not enter the moneyed economy until the 20th century. Peru was the center of Spanish royalist support during the Wars of Independence. Sucre fought the last major battle of the independence struggle, defeating the last important royalist army in the Sierra near Ayacucho (1824). Independence did not, however, bring prosperity to the Peruvian people. There are large areas of Peru today that support smaller populations than during the pre-Conquest era. Peru fought a damaging war with Chile--the War of the Pacific (1879-83).

Pre-history

A generation ago, the story behind the peopling of the Armericas was thought to be known and widely settled. It began with a small group of of East Asians and Siberian hunters over the Bearing Sea land bridge and after a period limited to Beringa, slowly followed a steady move east and south, ultimrely reaching the souther tip of South America. The story has in recent years become much more complicated. Very old sites of human habitation have been found south of Peru, the bestknown in southern Chile. There are also indications of very old settled socities in the Amazonian Basin. nd recently minute traces of Melonesian people hve been found amomng South americn Native Americans. How Peru fits into this complex mosaic, is not well estanlished. What is well documented is that the first evidence of civilization in South America emerged along the coast of northern Peru. An early connections with the amazonian Basin areapparent.

Native American Civilizations

Peru is one of the great world cradels of civilization. It like Mesoamerica is where civilzation occurred independently (Egypt and India) had the example of Mesopotamia. Peru of all the cradels of civilzation is surely the most unlikely. Here civilzation developed in the cold Andean highlands and the arid coast. Whilethe Andean people are the best knwn, civilization first appeared along the northeastern coast. It was one of the great accomplishmets of mankind--an amazing technical achievement. Although still a stone-age people, pre-literate people, they had many important achievements. The most significant was the domestication of the lowly potato which was to transform Europe. The best known Peruvian Native American civilization is of course the Inca. The Inca Empire is the largest and best-studdied pre-Colombian civilization, but rested on a cultural and technological base including many earlier cultures. The pre-Columbian cultures along the northern coast preceded the Incas by millennia. One author points out that Incas are merely the tip of the archaeological iceberg. Peru�s pre-Columbian civilizationsleft no written recrd, although some authors beliee that the still underciphered quipus contain much more infirmatin than commonly assumed. This our knowledge of the pre-Colombian cultures has been obtained entirely from archaeological work. Archaeologists have had to build a historical picture from realistic and expressive decoration found on ancient ceramics, textiles and other artifacts as well as architecture and tomb escavations. Some of the coastal people had particularly important ceramic work.

Spanish Conquest

The Inca Empire lasted only a short period before being cut short by the arrival of Franciso Pizarro and his Spanish Conquistadores. The Spanish wanted gold, but it would be the lowly potato that was Peru's great contribution to human society. The feats of the Spanish Conquistadores are some of the most dramatic accounts in history. The conquest of Peru is one of these epic feats. Here we can not begin to do justice to the story other than outline it for the casual reader. A great empire was destroyed by a handful of Spanish adventurers led by an obscure, illiterate commander who grew up illegitimate and poor. Francisco Pizarro landed on the Pacific coast of South America with a force of only 167 soldiers. The Incas had constructed a great empire stretching from modern day Ecuador south to Chile. The Incas had not yet developed technologies common in the West such as metal tools, the wheel, and a written language, but they had developed a rich culture and agriculture which in many ways was more productive than modern Peruvian agriculture. The Inca Empire fielded vast armies and constructed powerful fortifications. Pizarro knew relatively little about the Inca, but he considered Cortez's strategy in Mexico and had decided to pursue a similar approach. Pizarro on arriving in the Inca Empire sent message to the Inca Emperor Atahualpa and like Cortez in Mexico managed to take him prisoner and destroy a great empire. Pizarro was able to succeed with even a smaller force than Cortez. As in Mexico, the story is one of courage and audacity mingled with avarice, treachery, and cruelty and stands in sharp contrast to that of North America where colonization was largely based on the desire for religious expression and land to farm. The gold and silver from Peru combined with that from Mexico turned Spain with its powerful army into a European super power. Inca society was destroyed in the collision with the Conquistadores and the Catholic Church. The Spanish Conquest of Peru is one of the great epics of history. Europeans diseases ravaged the Native American peoples. The pre-Conquest population and the extent of the resulting plagues is still debated by historians, but population estimates have risen in recent yeas as are estimates of the totality od the size of the population disaster.

Spanish Colonial Era (16th-18th centuries)

Peru languished within the Spanish Empire for over three centuries. Thus much of the history of Peru is the Spanish colonial history. The Inca capital of Cuzco was magnificet, but did not meet the needs of the Spanish. Thewhole purpose of the Spanish empire was to obain wealth for Spain. And the only way of getting wealth back to Spain was by sea. Thus a voastal city was needed by the Spanish. A costal city away from the Inca heartland was also more secure. Pizarro thus founded Lima as the 'City of Kings' on the Feast of Epiphany (1535). It became the capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, as the new colony was named. Peru was the Sanicized version of Birú, a Panamanian Native America chieftan. At the time Pizarro launched his expedition, Birú contolled the most southerly Pacific region known to the Spanish. Conditions in Peru were usttle for sevrl decades as the Incas continued to resist in the interior and the Spanish fought among themselves. Manco Inca launched an uprising in the Sierra which almost sceded (1536). After Manco ws finally killed, the Spanish ruled over a relatively tranquil colony. Peru became a key componet of the Spanish Empire. The Inca gold was soon gold, but then the Spanish essentially found a silver mountain. Huge quantities of silver flowed from Potosí in Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) to Europe which huge consequences for the European economy. Silver also flowed east through the Philippines to China, to financing trade betwen Europe and China. Lima became the political, social and commercial center of not only what is modern Peru, but eof the Spanish-controlled Andean refion. Cuzco became a backwater, both politically and economically. The only imortant impact on colonial Peru was the founding of the escuela cuzqueña, the Cuzco school of art which over time blended Spanish and indigenous forms. Spanish colonial Peru was a largely a feudal history with the country's much-diminished Native American population held as serfs on large rural estates owned by the Spanish ruling class. There was very little economic development and even less social development. Peru was ruled by viceroys appounted by the Crown which always chose Spanish-born aristocrats. The Crown was always concerned that local crillolos would break away from Spain and thus appointing native-born Spainards was a major way of maintaining control. There were no locally elected legislatures as was the case in the English North American colonies. Immigrants from Spain were given the most prestigious appointments. Spaniards born in the colony called criollos were intrusted with positions of lesser importance. Mestizos meaning mixed Spanish-Native American ancestry might acquire Spanish culture, but had even less social standing. At the bottom rung of colonial society was the indigenous Native American people. Much of the population did not enter the moneyed economy until the 20th century. The Native Americans became peones, attached to the land like medieval serfs under the encomienda system. This feudal system granted Spanish colonists land titles that included as property all of the indigenous people living within that area. The peace of the colony was shattered by an indigenous uprising, led by Túpac Amaru II (1780). Túpac had been educated by Jesuits. He was a cuzqueño of royal Inca descent. He at first served the Spanish colonial masters while attempting to improve conditions for indigenous workers, especially mine workers who toiled in unbelievably horific conditions. His politics gradually became more radical as he realized that the Spanish were not gong to change. Túpac Amaru II adopted his great-grandfather's Incan name and launched a serious rebellion. The Spanish defeated the rebellion and brutally executed the rebllion leaders in Cuzco. Túpac was drawn and quartered in Cuzco's Main Plaza. This was where his great-grandfather had been executed. The Inca Royal line Appers to have ended with Túpac .

War of Independence (18??-24)

Peru was the center of Spanish royalist support during the Wars of Independence. Peru and rest of South America fought wars of independence with the coloniasl mother country like the United States, but it was not a revolutionary war. Sucre fought the last major battle of the independence struggle, defeating the last important royalist army high in the Sierra near Ayacucho (1824).

Independent Republic

Independence did not as expected by many bring prosperity to the Peruvian people. There are large areas of Peru today that support smaller populations than during the pre-Conquest era. Peru emerged from Spanish control as new nation badly damaged by the wars ofindependence. The infrastructure that existed was badly damaged. The population was divided. The Royalists were defeated at Ayachucho (1824), but still an important part of the population. One author describes the political system 'as unstable as water'. 【Duffield, p.9.】 Peru had proven to be a Royalist stronghold. Revolutionary armies under Bolívar and San Martin had to be assembled from the North and South to finally defeat the Royalists. The new Peruvian Government was left heavily indebted to British bankers who had financed much of the Revolution.

Guano (1840-70)

Latin American counties have experienced a series of short term economic booms. The first such boom was played out in Peru. And it was of all things based on guano--bird droppings. It was not only the fiorst such bonanza, but arguably the most devestating, atbleast since Chavez and Maduro turned oil rich Venezuela into a ciuntry of poverty and hunger. It seems astomishing that the colony founded on gold and silver would be replaced by an independent republic based on bird droppings. 【Duffield】 German geographer Alexander von Humboldt durung the ciourse of his travels stumbled accross a unique substance--guano. The Inca had used in as part of their agricuktural system. The Soanish almost lost the knowledge and was used on a small scale in cilonial Peru. Humboldt found that it significantly increased plant growth (1840). He took some back to Germany and had it analized. Rather than a curiosity, itproved to be a value substance of immense imortance. Britain had launched the Industrial Revolotion (mid-18th century), but by the mid 19th century it had soread to Continental Europe (Germany, Franmce, and the Low Countries) and the United States and was changing ghe face of thise countries. People were leaving farms and pouring into rapidly growing cities. This was creating a demand for foodstuffs, especially grains at the same time the rural work was falling and the productivity of over-worked soils was declining. The Peruvian guano that Humboldt had discovered was the sollution to declining farm yields. The very next year the first shipment to Europe occurred (1841). As a result of what is now called the Humboldt current and the greatest population of fish (anchovies) in thw world, the coast of Peru was an amazing engine generating the deposit of guano. It lay caked in mounds at various locations along the ciast, especially off-shore islands. The single largest deposits were found on the Chincha Islands off southern Peru. There were mounds 50 meters high. The Boom, which lasted saw the mining of 12 million tons of guano valued at US $0.5 billion (1840-70). British and North American interests competed for the miracle fertilizer and oprizes soared. The U.S. Congress passed the Guano Act (1856). The Peruvian Government created atrocities enslaving people to mine the guano under horific conditions. The most apauling action was enslaving the male population of Easter Island (1862). Guano for nearly three decades broughtv prosperity to impoverished Peru. The Government made no effort to invest the bonanza wisely. Instrad a variety of vanity projects occurred. Much of the wealth went to a few induividuals. The urban eliete enjoyed a luxurious era of free spending. 【Hunt, p. 5.】 As the guano started to run out, the Government began borrowing money to maintain its wasteful spendinmg. As a result after three decaded, Peru had next to noothing to show for Latin Aneruica's first Boom. Something that would be repeated in the regionn time and again.

War of the Pacific (1879-83)

Peru fought a damaging war with Chile--the War of the Pacific (1879-83).

Liberal and Conservative Struggle

World War I (1914-18)

Both Peru and Bolivia broke relations with Germany. The two countries had fought Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879) and lost territory to that country. Both countries hoped that supporting U.S. policy might gain support for their claims to lost territory. This did not occur, but Peru benefitted economically from the War. Peru substantially increased copper, cotton, rubber, oil and guano production to supply war orders. The engendered a short burst of prosperity that lasted while the War continued. A German U-boat sunk the Peruvian ship Lorton off Spain (February 1917). Germany refused to pay reparations. Peruvians were insulted that the Germans had offered Argentina compensation in similar circumstances. The implication was that the Germans did not see Peru important enoough with which to bother. The Peruvian Congress voted to break relations with Germany. An indication of the public outrage was the 105-6 vote. The Government seized nine German ships, but not before the crews had disabled them. Peru's main contributions to the Allies were the mineral and other raw material exports. There were fund raisingdrives for the Red Cross. The Peruvian Navy patrolled the west coast of South America for German U-boats and surface raiders.

Inter-War Era

World War II (1939-45)

German U-boats tended to dominate Latin American attitudes toward the War and generated a great deal of anti-German feeling as their economies were so dependent on exporting raw materials. This was a factor in World War II, but not as intense. A major change here was that, trade with the United States was more important than during World War I and thus their trade was less exposed to U-boat attacks. This was especially for the Pacific coast states like Peru. Thus when war broke out in Europe, Peru took no action other than declare its neutrality (September 1939). Peru had a more diversified economy than many other Latin American countries. It exported both metals and cotton. The United States was especially interested in Peru's cotton. American policy was to offer Latin American countries a high premium for strategic materials in exchange for further barganing and open market training. Peru and Ecuador fought a war over a border dispute (1941). A peace treaty negotiated in Rio de Janeiro gave Peru control over most of the disputed terrtory, including the northern sections of the departments of Amazonas and Loreto. Ecuador never accepted this border and fire fights occurred occassinal for five decades. The border was not finalized for years. Ecuador continued to claim a large area of the Amazionian basin. Peru finally granted Ecuador access to the Amazon and turned over a small area to Ecuador. The countries are now finally at peace, although unexploded ordinance (UXO) is still a problem. Peru received some Lend Lease Aid which could have destabilized the regionl balance because rival Chile did not break with the Axis and thus did not qualify for Lend Lease aid (1941). This did not develop into a serious situation because by 1943 the American Navy dominated the Pacific and both Peru and Chile became a low priority. Peru did act after the Pearl Harbor attack and Germny's declration of war on the United States. Peru broke off relations with the Axis -- Germany, Italy and Japan (January 24, 1942).

Post-War Era

Shining Path (1980s)

The Maoist Sendero Lumioso (Shining Path) guerilla seized control of subsantial areas in the southern Aierra. The Government seemed ineffectual in resisting them. Rather than launching a major militry effort, with the Peruvian rmy was illequipped to do, the Government declaredan 'emergeny zone' in Ayachucho, Huancavelica, and Apurimac. This effectively conceded control over a substntial part of the country to the Senderl Luminoso. They essentially had police power in the region and could arrest anyone tey considered suspicious without any legal cause. And this is exactly what they did. People were arrested, interogated, and tortured. Some were shot. This was dne without any legal controls. The Senderos ecalaed the violence, killing people believed to oppose them and mountng terror attcks and sabtging the infrastructure in Lima. The Serderos dominated the coutryside in large areas of eru and estabihing themselves in Lima (1991). The vilence f the Senderos adversely affected thir popularity. Sendeo Lumioso pursued its goals with unprecdented brutality. Attacks targeted peasants, trade union organizers, elected officials and the civilian population. President Fujimoro oversaw a campaign against them. Government actions defeated and isolated guerilla groups. Their revolution failed. The Government managed to arrest the Sendero leader, Abimael Guzm�n (1992). leader,

Sources

Duffield, A.J. Peru in the Guano Age: Being a Short Account of a Recent Visit to the Guano Deposits, with Some Reflections on the Money They Have Produced and the Uses to Which It Has Been Applied, (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1877).

Hunt, Shane, J. "Growth and Guano in Nineteenth Century Per." Research Program in Economic Development Vol 34 (1973), pp.1-123.

Created: 7:08 AM 7/3/2014
Last updated: 10:50 PM 10/25/2022