In addition to being known as the cradle of the Inca empire, Peru is the home of many indigenous ethnic groups. It is therefore a country with major historical and cultural standing.
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Over the following 3000 years inhabitants switched to cultivating land, as evidence from sites such as Kotosh and Huaca Prieta shows. Cultivation of plants such as corn and cotton(Gossypium Barbadense) began, as well as the domestication of animals. Inhabitants practiced domestic crafts such as spinning and knitting of cotton and wool, basketry and pottery.
Some of the more advanced Andean civilizations that appeared in 900 BC were:
These cultures developed relatively advanced techniques of cultivation, gold and silver craft, pottery, metallurgy, and knitting. Around 700 BCE, they appear to have developed systems of social organization that were the precursors of the Inca civilization.
Minor civilizations on the edge of the eastern Andes that were largely assimilated into the Incan empire include:
Not all Andean cultures were willing to offer their loyalty to the Incas as they expanded their empire, and many were openly hostile. The people of the Chachapoyas culture were an example of this, but they were eventually conquered and integrated into the Inca Empire.
The Incas created the most vast and powerful empire of pre-Columbian America. The Tahuantinsuyo—which is derived from Quechua for "The Four United Regions"—reached its greatest extension at the beginning of the 16th century. It dominated a territory that included from north to south Ecuador, part of Colombia, the northern half of Chile, and the north-east part of Argentina; and from west to east, from Bolivia to the Amazonian forests.
The empire originated from a tribe based in Cuzco, which became the capital. Pachacuti was the first ruler to considerably expand the boundaries of the Cuzco state. His offspring later ruled an empire by both violent and peaceful conquest.
In Cuzco, the royal city was created to resemble a puma; the head, the main royal structure, formed what is now known as Sacsayhuaman. The Empire's administrative, political, and military center was located in Cuzco. The empire was divided into four quarters: Chinchasuyo, Antisuyo, Contisuyo, and Collasuyo.
Quechua was the official language, imposed on the citizens. It was the language of a tribe neighbouring the original tribe of the empire. Conquered populations—tribes, kingdoms, states, and cities—were allowed to practice their own religions and lifestyles, but had to recognize Inca cultural practices as superior to their own. Inti, the sun god, was to be worshipped as one of the most important gods of the empire. His representation on earth was the "Inca", the Emperor .
The Tahuantinsuyo was organized in dominions with a stratified society, in which the ruler was the Inca. It was also supported by an economy based on the collective property of the land. In fact, the Inca Empire was conceived like an ambitious and audacious civilizing project, based on a mythical thought, in which the harmony of the relationships between the human being, nature, and gods was truly essential.
Many strange and interesting customs were observed, for example the extravagant feast of Inti Raymi which gave thanks to the God Sun, and the young women who comprised the Virgins of the Sun, sacrificial virgins devoted to the Inti. The empire, being quite large, also had an impressive transportation system of roads to all points of the empire called the Inca Trail, and chasquis, message carriers who relayed information from anywhere in the empire to Cuzco.
Machu Picchu (Quechua: Old Peak; sometimes called the "Lost City of the Incas") is a well-preserved pre-Columbian Inca ruin located on a high mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley, about 70 km (44 mi) northwest of Cuzco. Elevation measurements vary depending on whether the data refers to the ruin or the extremity of the mountain; Machu Picchu tourist information reports the elevation as 2,350 m (7,711 ft)[1]. Forgotten for centuries by the outside world, although not by locals, it was brought back to international attention by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, who rediscovered it in 1911 and wrote a best-selling work about it. Peru is pursuing legal efforts to retrieve thousands of artifacts that Bingham removed from the site.
From the European rationalist perspective, the Inca Empire has been seen like the utopia state. Nevertheless, this pragmatic interpretation tends to forget that the collision between two antithetic Weltanschauungs had a destructive impact on the harmony of the IncaWeltanschauung superiority, who took advantage of the Inca civil war triggered by two pretenders to the throne.
Francisco Pizarro and his brothers were attracted by the news of a rich and fabulous kingdom. In 1531, they arrived in the country, which they called Peru. (The forms Biru, Pirú, and Berú are also seen in early records.) According to Raul Porras Barrenechea, Peru is not a Quechuan nor Caribbean word, but Indo-Hispanic or hybrid.
At that moment, the Inca Empire was sunk in a five years civil war between two princes, Huáscar and Atahualpa. Taking advantage of this, Pizarro carried out a coup d’état. On November 16, 1532, while the natives were in a celebration in Cajamarca, the Spanish in a surprise move captured the Inca Atahualpa during the Battle of Cajamarca, causing a great consternation among the natives and conditioning the future course of the fight. When Huascar was killed, the Spanish tried and convicted Atahualpa of the murder, executing him by strangulation.
For a period, Pizarro maintained the ostensible authority of the Inca, recognizing Tupac Huallpa as the Inca after Atahualpa's death. But the conqueror’s abuses made this façade too obvious. Spanish domination consolidated itself as successive indigenous rebellions were bloodily repressed. The situation was complicated by a power struggle between the Pizarro family and Diego de Almagro. A long civil war developed, from which the Pizarros emerged victorious at the Battle of Las Salinas.
Despite this, the Spaniards did not neglect the colonizing process. Its most significant milestone was the foundation of Lima in January, 1535, from which the political and administrative institutions were organized. The necessity of consolidating Spanish royal authority over these territories, led to the creation of a Real Audiencia (Royal Audience). In 1542, the Spanish created the Viceroyalty of New Castilla, that shortly after would be called Viceroyalty of Peru. Nevertheless, the Viceroyalty of Peru was not organized until the arrival of the Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in 1572.
Toledo ended the indigenous state of Vilcabamba, executing the Inca Tupac Amaru. He also sought economic development through commercial monopoly and mineral extraction, mainly from argentiferous mines of Potosí. He exploited the Inca institution called “mita”, that is mandatory public service, to put the native communities under a cruel economic enslavement.
The economic crisis favored the indigenous rebellion from 1780 to 1781. This rebellion was headed by Túpac Amaru II. At this time, the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and the degradation of the Royal power took place. The Creole rebellion of Huánuco arose in 1812 and the rebellion of Cuzco arose between 1814 and 1816. These rebellions defended the liberal principles sanctioned by the Constitution of Cadiz of 1812.
Supported by the power of the Creole oligarchy, the Viceroyalty of Peru became the last redoubt of the Spanish dominion in South America. This Viceroyalty succumbed after the decisive continental campaigns of Simón Bolivar and Jose de San Martin. San Martin, who had displaced the royalists of Chile after the magnificent battle of the Andes, and who had disembarked in Paracas in 1819, proclaimed the independence of Peru in Lima on July 28, 1821. Three years later, the Spanish dominion was eliminated definitively after the battles of Junín and Ayacucho. Its first elected president, however, wasn't in power until 1827.
War and reconstruction
In 1879, Peru entered the War of the Pacific which lasted until 1884. Bolivia invoked its alliance with Peru against Chile. The Peruvian Government tried to mediate the dispute by sending a diplomatic team to negotiate with the Chilean government, but the committee concluded that war was inevitable. Chile declared war on April 5, 1879. Almost five years of war ended with the loss of the department of Tarapacá and the provinces of Tacna and Arica, in the Atacama region.
After the war, an extraordinary effort of reconstruction began. Political stability was achieved only in the early 1900s. The civilist movement headed by Nicolas de Piérola opposed the military caudillismo that arose from the warlike defeat and the economic collapse. He arrived to power with the 1895 revolution. The reformist character of Pierola’s dictatorship had continuity in Augusto B. Leguía’s.
During Leguia’s government periods (1908–1912 and 1919–1930, this last one was well-known as “the Oncenio”—The eleventh), the entrance of American capitals became general and the bourgeoisie was favored. This politics along with the increase of the foreign capital dependency, contributed to generate opposition focuses between the landowner oligarchy as much as the most progressive sectors of the Peruvian society.
In 1929, Peru and Chile signed a final peace treaty, the Treaty of Ancon by which Tacna returned to Peru and Peru yielded permanently the rich provinces of Arica and Tarapaca, but kept certain rights to the port activities in Arica and decisions of what Chile can do on those territories.
After the world-wide crisis of 1929, numerous brief governments followed one another. The APRA party had the opportunity to cause system reforms by means of political actions, but it was not successful. Represion was brutal in the early 1930's and tens of thousands of "APRISTA" followers were executed or imprisoned. By this time, it begins a sudden population growth and an urbanization increase. During World War II, Peru was the first South American nation to align with the United States and its allies against Germany and Japan.
General Manuel A. Odría led a dictatorial military government that lasted for eight years (1948–1956). Inequitable land tenure (latifundia), wide-spread social marginalization and the Cuban example provided the impetus in the early 1960s for the emergence of Peru's armed left. But this resurgence was brief and gave the pretext for the armed forces to increase their control of the country and gather the strength and alternative ideology necessary for a coup d'etat
Meanwhile, the reformist attempt of Fernando Belaunde Terry’s first government failed to address the structural nature of social pathology, which continued to plague Peru. Belaunde's Government embraced numerous projects, including the Carretera Marginal de la Selva, a highway linking Chiclayo on the Pacific coast with previously "isolated" northern regions of Amazonas, San Martín, and Loreto. However, Belaunde was saddled with the popular perception that he was too close to foreign capital, moreover his economic decisions lead to the devaluation of the sol, and generalized unrest—both in the countryside and in Lima.
In 1968, General Juan Velasco Alvarado’s lead a coup d'etat replacing the Belaunde government. Under the title of "President of the Revolutionary Government", the nationalist and left-leaning tone of Velasco was manifest by his government's promulgation of Peru's first substantial agrarian reform, which was aimed at stemming the tide of civil unrest, particularly in the Andes where land ownership patterns were profoundly inequitable. Velasco's government is credited with promoting peasant's rights, including the recognition of Quechua as a national language, communal land ownership, and populist social mobilization (SINAMOS).
Invariably, this gave rise to conflict with Peru's small elite, those with foreign capital interests and local oligarchs. Velasco's failing health, changed global conditions and poor planning resulted in a counter-reaction to Velasco's nationalist program. In 1975, General Francisco Morales Bermúdez’s lead a coup d’etat, replacing Velasco as President. Morales Bermúdez's regime was characterized by a return to elite-oriented politics, which did little to stem civil unrest from a populace largely excluded from the social benefits of national citizenship.
Frustrated by their inability to "rule" Peru, the Peruvian Armed Forces were forced to call for elections. Meanwhile, as a background to the return to elected government two events that would deeply influence the next two decades of peruvian history took place. The first was a constitutional convention that resulted in a new national constitution in 1979. The second was the start in 1980 of the armed struggle against the government by Shining Path, a breakaway faction of the Communist Party of Peru. It was not by coincidence that this struggle started in one of the poorest regions of the country while the new constitution was hammered out in the capital and away from the focus of disenfranchisement.
So, with great hope Fernando Belaúnde Terry was re-elected in 1980 to the Presidency. However, by the end of his term in 1985, Peru yet again faced a crisis that has gripped Peru for the past two decades: mounting external debt has stymied the actions of successive Peruvian governments. Moreover, Belaúnde was impotent in halting the progressive impoverishment of the vast majority of population, and incapable of halting the massive increase in drug trafficking operations, or the insurgent revolts of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA).
With much optimism, the leader of Peru's APRA Party, Alan Garcia was elected President in 1985. After a promising start, the Peruvian economy was crippled by hyperinflation, isolated from the international financial community, and was in the throes of a bloody civil-war pitting the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement against the State and its allies. In a climate of generalized chaos, terror, and political violence, the electoral victory of Alberto Fujimori took place in 1990, when the virtually unknown University Rector narrowly defeated the famous Peruvian novelist and cultural icon Mario Vargas Llosa. Like his predecessor, García relinquished power leaving the country, according to many Peruvians, in a worse state than when he entered office.
Two years after he was elected; and in constant deadlocks with the Parliament, President Alberto Fujimori summarily closed Congress and convened a referendum for elaborating a new Constitution (1992). Credited by some sectors of Peruvian society and the international financial community with restoring macroeconomic "stability" to Peru after the turbulent Garcia years, Fujimori was widely criticized for what his opponents describe as an authoritarian regime, aided by the now imprisoned Vladimiro Montesinos, the former head of Peru's intelligence service, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN).
Following a controversial third "re-election", mounting corruption, wide-spread political violence and gross human rights violations, Fujimori was forced to call for early elections. After his party lost control of the Peruvian Parliament, he was forced to resign from the Presidency of Peru. Returning from the APEC summit in Brunei, Fujimori requested political asylum in Japan on the grounds of his Japanese citizenship.
In the turmoil following Fujimori's precipitous fall from power, Valentín Paniagua was selected as the transitional President. Following a hotly contested election, Alejandro Toledo became President (2001-2006), narrowly defeating Alan García (2006).
In 2006, Alan García was once again elected President, defeating nationalist candidate Ollanta Humala. After his political defeat, Ollanta Humala has faced several trials for his involvement in the fight against Sendero Luminoso and his role as opposition leader has faded away. Former President Alberto Fujimori (currently in Chile) is awaiting extradition proceedings against him by the Peruvian government [1], while at the same time his political party Alliance for the Future gathered an important number of parliament members in the last elections. Former Presidents Alejandro Toledo and Valentín Paniagua are represented in congress with the Peru Possible-Center Front Alliance.
At 1,285,220 km²[2] (496,193 mi²) , Peru is the world's 20th-largest country (after Mongolia). It is comparable in size to Chad, and is nearly twice the size of the US state of Texas.
Peru's territory has an area of 1,285,216 km². It is bordered by Ecuador and Colombia on the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east, and finally Chile and Bolivia to the south. To the west lies the Pacific Ocean. Its population has more than 27 million inhabitants that speak Spanish, with others bilingual in Quechua or Aymara and other native languages.
Eastern Peru consists mostly of the moist tropical jungles of the Amazon Rainforest, the largest on Earth. In the southeast along the border with Bolivia lies Lake Titicaca — the highest navigable lake in the world. The Altiplano plateau is a dry basin located along the slopes of the Andes in southeastern Peru. Along the border with Chile, the Atacama Desert is the driest place on the planet.
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