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South America

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Maguire Residence

This mansion is one of the last remaining palace-like residences in Buenos Aires. It was built in the 1890s on a street with many other similar homes, Avenida Alvear. Many of these extravagant houses have been demolished or converted into hotels.

Teaching

Long Teaching Module: Inca Society

In South America in the centuries before 1500, the Peruvian coast and Andean highlands were home to a series of cultures that cultivated cotton as well as food crops. Of these, the largest empire was created by the Incas, who began as a small militaristic group and conquered surrounding groups.

Drawing shows two people harvesting grain and and one carrying it away in bushels
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Illustrations from Guaman Poma, El Primer Nueva Coránica y Buen Gobierno

These two illustrations come from El Primer Nueva Coránica y Buen Gobierno [The First New Chronicle and Good Government] (1615), a history of the Inca Empire and the Spanish conquest of the Andes written and illustrated by Filipe Guaman Poma y Ayala, an indigenous Peruvian Christian noble.

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Extract from Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru

This is an extract from the chronicles of Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noble woman, who grew up in Peru but left there as a young man and spent the rest of his life in Spain.

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Extract from Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru

This is an extract from the chronicles of Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noble woman, who grew up in Peru but left there as a young man and spent the rest of his life in Spain.

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Extract from Garcilaso de la Vega, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru

This is an extract from the chronicles of Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noble woman, who grew up in Peru but left there as a young man and spent the rest of his life in Spain.

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Pedro de Cieza de León, Crónicas

This is an extract from the chronicles of Pedro de Cieza de León (1520–1554), a Spanish soldier and writer who compiled a history of Peru during his seventeen years there.

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Report from the General Inspection of the Chupaychu

This is a report from a Spanish inspector dating from 1549, written by a European scribe, based on an Andean’s reading of a khipu, the collections of cords on which Incas recorded information.

A series of long, multi-colored strings hanging from another string. The hanging strings have knots at varying places along each string.
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Inca Khipu

Andean peoples, including the Incas, recorded information on khipus (also spelled quipu), collections of colored and knotted cords such as this one.

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Juan de Betanzos, Narrative of the Incas

This extract comes from Juan de Betanzos’ Narrative of the Incas, which was written in the sixteenth century but not published until 1880. Betanzos (1510-1576) was among the early conquistadors, and served as a military leader and official.