History of South America

These are resources predating Christopher Columbus' discovery of the Americas. South America's oldest civilizations were centered in Peru and spread north and south into Ecuador and Bolivia. The earliest civilization which sprang up on the coast near Supe can be traced back to 2000 BC. At Chavin there are ruins of a fortress-temple complex dating from about 600 BC. This period was followed by the parallel development of the Nazca tribes in the south, and the Mochica in the north (between 150 and 800 AD). The Nazca lived in the coastal deserts south of Lima and were responsible for the Nazca lines (huge geometrical lines and outlines of birds and animals marked on the desert floor that are so big that they can only be properly seen from the air) and cemeteries, fortresses and aqueducts. It is thought that this civilization was at its peak between 400-800 AD. The Mochica lived in the area around modern Trujillo, between 170-700 AD. They constructed the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, the largest pre-Colombian structures in South America. They are similar to the Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico but are made of adobe bricks rather than stone.

These coastal cultures gradually spread inland into the high Andes: their descendants are thought to have founded the Tihuanaco civilization at the southern end of Lake Titicaca (in Bolivia) between 9th and 13th centuries. From the 11th century AD, the Chimu and Inca civilizations began. The Chimu ruled over 1000 km of the coastal zone north of Lima from Trujillo, to Guayaquil in Ecuador. The ruins of their main city are at Chan Chan, covering about 28 km2 and consisting of palaces, temples, workshops, warehouses, irrigation canals, reservoirs and step pyramids.

The Inca civilization began in the Urubamba valley in the Andes (near Cuzco). Their empire expanded to cover much of Peru and also parts of the Andes in Ecuador and Bolivia. They conquered the Chimu in the mid-1400s but were themselves conquered and their civilization eventually destroyed by the Spanish between 1500 and 1600. The Incas founded many settlements using a unique method of building (without cement or mortar) by carving the building blocks to fit each other exactly. They also built paved roads linking the settlements and elaborate terraces and irrigation systems. Their gold and silver treasures and art works were plundered by Spanish and many Inca buildings destroyed (the stone was used to construct Spanish colonial towns) but some superb sites still remain (e.g. Machu Picchu). These are mainly centered in Peru, but some are in Ecuador and a few in Bolivia.

World Discovery" in 1492, a chain of events began which transformed the western hemisphere. The Spanish founded many colonial towns in the region between 1500 and 1600 and some have survived almost intact with many churches, former mansions and narrow medieval streets. The Spanish brought Christianity to the region though the modern Indian population celebrate their fiestas with strong traces of their pre-Colombian pagan traditions. Age-old American cultures, some of high-attainment levels, were shattered almost overnight. European nations established colonies and introduced their value systems and their political, economic, and social organizations. All mother countries employed the mercantalistic philosophy toward their colonies which, along with usurpation of native-held lands and enslavement of Indians, formed the basic foundation of the colonial economy. South America, that part of the western hemisphere south of the United States, felt the brunt of the European conquest a century or more before European presence was significant in Anglo-America. To a large degree, the present differences between Latin America and Anglo-America are a result of differences in colonial mother countries, British and French mainly in Anglo-America, and Spanish and Portuguese in Latin America.

At the time of Spanish and Portuguese conquests, some 75 to 100 million Indians inhabited south America. Most lived within the densely settled realms of high-culture groups: Inca and Chibcha . These groups had a well-developed social, political, and economic organization, although the Inca civilization was declining and had lost some of its internal cohesiveness. Agriculture formed the livelihood base, and advanced land-management techniques were common. Irrigation, land drainage, fertilization, terracing, and crop and land rotation were widely practiced. Crops used by these and other groups within Latin America apparently had been largely developed independently from the outside world. The more well-known cultigens included maize (corn), manioc, sweet and white potatoes, pineapple, cacao, tomato, avocado, cotton, tobacco, and peanuts. To this list is added a number of plants such as beans and squash varieties which were also cultivated in many other parts of the world. Few domestic animals were found in Latin America The dog was ubiquitous, and the Incas had the guine, pig as a pet and food source, the llama as a beast, burden, and the alpaca as a source of fiber.

The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of South America was both rapid and devastating. The Spanish quickly carved out a vast colonial empire extending from California to Tierra del Fuego. In the space of sixty to seventy years, they explored, established sovereignty, and organized politically and economically an area of about 9.5 million square miles (24.6 million square kilometers). The Portuguese moved less quickly onto the east coast of South America, where they found few Indians.

The location of large, high culture Indian groups was especially attractive to the European conquerors. These groups possessed the elements needed to satisfy the conquerors' wants: accumulated stores of ,gold and silver, an abundant and well trained labor supply for work in the fields and mines, and a large population for the church to convert to Catholicism.

The early Portuguese and Spanish rarely brought their families. Indeed most Europeans apparently intended to return to their European homes. Miscegenation between Spanish and Portuguese men and Indian and African women was widespread, contributed to retarding population decline, and gave rise to two new racial groups: the mestizo (part European, part Indian) and the mulatto (part European, part African). Of these two groups the mestizo became the more numerous, One lasting effect of racial mixing has been the lack of significant racial prejudice in Latin America. These racial groups varied in their distribution and have given rise to distinct differences among the various parts of the region .