Inca Garcilaso de la Vega | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 12 April 1539 |
| Died | 23 April 1616(1616-04-23) (aged 77) |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, historian |
| Parent(s) | Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega (father) Isabel Chimpu Ocllo (mother) |
| Writing career | |
| Language | Early Modern Spanish |
| Genres | Chronicle Autobiography |
| Notable works | Comentarios Reales de los Incas La Florida del Inca |
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Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616), bornGómez Suárez de Figueroa and known asEl Inca, was achronicler and writer born in theViceroyalty of Peru.[1] Sailing to Spain at 21, he was educated informally there, where he lived and worked the rest of his life. The natural son of a Spanishconquistador and anInca noblewoman born in the early years of theconquest, he is known primarily for his chronicles ofInca history, culture, and society. His work was widely read in Europe, influential and well received.[2] It was the first literature by an author born in the Americas to enter the western canon.[3]
After his father's death in 1559, Vega moved to Spain in 1561, seeking official acknowledgement as his father's son. His paternal uncle became a protector, and he lived in Spain for the rest of his life, where he wrote his histories of the Inca culture and Spanish conquest, as well as an account ofDe Soto's expedition in Florida.
BornGómez Suárez de Figueroa inCuzco, Peru, in 1539, he was the natural son of a Spanish conqueror andencomendero and a royal Inca mother.[4] He was born during the early years of the Spanish conquest. His father was Spanish captain andconquistadorSebastián Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas (d. 1559).[4] His mother was an elite Inca woman,Palla Chimpu Ocllo, who was baptized after the fall of Cuzco asIsabel Suárez Chimpu Ocllo. She was descended from Inca nobility, a daughter ofTúpac Huallpa and a granddaughter (not a niece) of the powerful IncaTupac Yupanqui.[4] Because his parents were not married in the Catholic Church, he was consideredillegitimate and the boy was given only his mother's surname. Under the Spanish system ofcaste that developed, he would have been classified as amestizo (for his mixed parents).
When Gómez was young, his father abandoned his mother and married a much younger Spanish noblewoman,doña Luisa Martel, who was only four years older than Gómez.[5] As such, Gómez lived with his mother, her husband Juan de Pedroche, her Inca family and her two daughters, De la Vega's half-sisters Ana Ruíz, who went on to marry Martín de Bustinza, and Luisa de Herrera, who married Pedro Márquez de Galeoto (one of their children was Alonso Márquez de Figueroa)[citation needed]. His first language wasQuechua, but he also learnedSpanish from early boyhood.[6] He lived with his mother's family for the first ten years of his life before his father took the boy into his household and gave him an education. Garcilaso received an inheritance when his father died in 1559. The next year, at the age of 21, he left Peru for Spain.[6]
Suárez de Figueroa reached Spain in 1561 while there was still fighting in his native country under the conquest. He may have studied Latin in Seville under the tutelage of Pedro Sánchez de Herrera.[5] The Spanish did not achieve their final victory until 1572. He traveled toMontilla, where he met his father's brother, Alonso de Vargas, who acted as the young man's protector and helped him make his way.[6] The younger man soon traveled to Madrid to seek official acknowledgement as his father's son from the Crown, and he was allowed to take the name of Garcilaso de la Vega.[6] Also referred to as"El Inca" or "Inca Garcilaso de la Vega", he received an informal education in Spain. Together with his uncle's support, gaining his father's name helped him integrate into Spanish society.
He remained in Spain and did not return to Peru. As warfare continued in the conquest, he was at political and even physical risk there because of his royal Inca lineage. It is recorded that he died in Córdoba on 23 April 1616, but it could have been up to two days earlier because of the inaccuracy of the existing documents.
He had at least two sons, born of relationships with different servants. One son was recorded as being born in 1570; he might have died at a very young age. With another servant, Garcilaso had a second son, Diego de Vargas, born in 1590, who helped his father copy theRoyal Commentaries and survived him until at least 1651.
It is possible that his eldest son was the 'Admiral' Lope de Vega, who commanded a ship in the fleet ofÁlvaro de Mendaña, on his 1595 expedition to theSolomon Islands. Lope de Vega was lost at sea when his ship parted from Mendaña's fleet in a fog.[7]
De la Vega entered Spanish military service in 1570 and fought in theAlpujarras against theMoors after theMorisco Revolt. He received the rank of captain for his services to the Crown.
He received a first-rate but informal European education in Spain after he moved there at age 21. His works are considered to have great literary value and are not simple historical chronicles. He wrote from an important perspective, as his maternal family were the ruling Inca. He portrays the Inca as benevolent rulers who governed a country where everybody was well-fed and happy before the Spanish came. Having learned first-hand about daily Inca life from his maternal relatives, he was able to convey that in his writings. As an adult, he also gained the perspective to describe accurately the political system of tribute and labor enforced by the Incas from the subsidiary tribes in their empire.
Baptized and reared asRoman Catholic, he portrayedIncan religion and the expansion of its empire from a viewpoint influenced by his upbringing.[citation needed] He did not acknowledge or discuss the human sacrifices that are now known to have been part of Inca practice. It is unknown whether that was an effort to portray his Inca ancestors in a more positive light to a Spanish audience or his ignorance of the practice having lived most of his life in Spain.
De la Vega's first work wasLa Florida del Inca, an account ofHernando de Soto's expedition and journey in Florida. The work was published inLisbon in 1605 and became popular. It describes the expedition according to its own records and information Garcilaso gathered during the years. He defended the legitimacy of imposing the Spanish sovereignty in conquered territories and submitting them toCatholic jurisdiction. At the same time, he expresses and defends the dignity, the courage, and the rationality of theNative Americans. It was translated and published in English in 1951.
Historians have identified problems with usingLa Florida as an historical account.Jerald T. Milanich andCharles M. Hudson warn against relying on Garcilaso, noting serious problems with the sequence of events and location of towns in his narrative. They say that "some historians regard Garcilaso'sLa Florida to be more a work of literature than a work of history."[8] Lankford characterizes Garcilaso'sLa Florida as a collection of "legend narratives," derived from a much-retold oral tradition of the survivors of the expedition.[9]
While in Spain, Garcilaso wrote his best-known work,Comentarios Reales de los Incas, published in Lisbon in 1609. It was based mostly on stories and oral histories told him by his Inca relatives when he was a child in Cusco, but also on the remnants of the history byBlas Valera which was mostly destroyed in the sacking ofCadiz in 1596. TheComentarios have two sections and volumes. The first was primarily about Inca life. The second, about theconquest of Peru, was published in 1617. It was first published in English in London in 1685, translated by Sir Paul Rycaut and titledThe Royal Commentaries of Peru.[10] More than a century and a half after its initial publication, in the 1780s, as the uprising against colonial oppression led byTupac Amaru II was gaining momentum,Charles III of Spain banned theComentarios from being published in theQuechua language inLima or distributed there on account of its "dangerous" content.
The book was not printed again in the Americas until 1918, but copies continued to be circulated secretly.[11] It was translated and printed in English in 1961 in the United States asThe Incas, and in another edition in 1965 asRoyal Commentaries of the Incas. (See below)
Works by or aboutInca Garcilaso de la Vega atWikisource
