Contrary to popular belief, the Inca weren't easily conquered. It took over 100 years for the Spanish to conquer the Incas, the Spanish did have hundreds of years of military experience of weapon/military development that was a result of hundreds of years of imperialism, warfare and fighting off invaders like other Euro Empires and the Moors, The Inca on the other hand, did go on mini conquest, but did not focus their existence on warfare, Inca's did have a huge military of tens of thousands, but relied mostly on hand to hand combat. The Inca did have advanced metallurgy, but mostly used it to develop tools, jewelry and ornaments. Although the Inca did have weapons of bronze and hardened alloys, most of the Inca weaponry were made of wood and stone that were used for hand to hand combat and/or to capture people rather than kill and conquer. The Inca were in the middle of political problems when the Spanish arrived with the spread of disease put the Inca State at a extreme disadvantage, nether the less, the Inca did go toe to toe with the Spanish in many military battles. The Spanish used all kinds of backstabbing, killing women and children and destroying inter-trade, but the biggest weapon the Spanish had was disease which caused the Inca population of 20 million to drop to a few million. The social structure of the Inca Empire varied from area to area, but still had the same basic structure, On top was the Sapa Inca, or the emperor. Then came the nobles, these were often the priests and relatives of past emperors or the current ones. After, there were craftsmen and architects, they were very high on the social ladder because of the skill that they had was required by the Empire for such buildings. then came the working class, farmers and laborers that were kept in their social groupings (Some were slaves) The Inca Empire was a federalist system which consisted of a central government with the Inca at its head and four quarters, or suyu: Chinchay Suyu (NW), Anti Suyu (NE), Kunti Suyu (SW), and Qulla Suyu (SE). The four corners of these quarters met at the center, Cusco. These suyu were likely created around 1460 during the reign of Pachacuti before the empire assumed it largest territorial extent. It is probably the case that at the time the suyu were established they were roughly of equal size and only later changing their proportions as the empire expanded north and south along the Andes. The Inca state had no separate judiciary or codified set of laws. While customs, expectations, and traditional local power holders did much in the way of governing behavior, the state, too, had legal force, such as through tokoyrikoq (lit. "he who sees all"), or inspectors. The highest such inspector, typically a blood relation to the Sapa Inca, acted independently of the conventional hierarchy, providing a point of view for the Sapa Inca free of bureaucratic influence

• published: 24 Nov 2012
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