Success and Power through Networking: Lessons from Chancay Elites in the Huaura Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Indigenous Stories of the Inka Empire: Local Experiences of Ancient Imperialism" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the LIP, the north-central coast of Peru was inhabited by small but dynamic polities that were actively engaged in interregional networks of trade, intermarriage, and warfare. However, we know little about how these groups interacted with or were incorporated into the Inca Empire and it has long been assumed that they meekly submitted to Inca advances. This paper seeks to reexamine how some small-scale polities engaged with the Inca through a critical rereading of colonial period documents related to the Chancay, a group that rose to prominence in the Huaura and Chancay valleys between 900 and 1570 CE. Drawing from a combination of archaeological data from the Chancay, Huaura, and Huanangue Valleys together with a reanalysis of data from documents such as the 1549 and 1583 Visitas to the Huaura Valley, the Justicia 396, and the Historia Anonima de Trujillo, this paper will argue that a faction of Chancay elites based in the Huaura Valley actively built relationships with the Inca that they then leveraged to shift power away from the traditional elites based in the Chancay Valley. Through doing so, this paper will show how small-scale groups were often able to “manipulate” the Inca to gain local advantages.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Indigenous Stories of the Inka Empire: Local Experiences of Ancient Imperialism

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33446