Incas in Central Chile
[1] The bulk of the people conquered by the Incas in Central Chile were Diaguitas and part of the Promaucae (also called Picunches).
[5][6] Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that Central Chile was conquered during the reign of Topa Inca Yupanqui and most early Spanish chronicles point out that conquest occurred in the 1470s.
[4] Beginning with 19th-century historians Diego Barros Arana and José Toribio Medina, various scholars have pointed out that the incorporation of Central Chile to the Inca Empire was a gradual process.
[4] Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that incorporation into the empire was through warfare which caused a severe depopulation in the Transverse Valleys of Norte Chico, the Diaguita homeland.
[7] Chronicler Diego de Rosales tells of an anti-Inca rebellion in the Diaguita lands of Coquimbo and Copiapó concurrent with the Inca Civil War.
[8] The traditional view based on the writings of Garcilaso de la Vega hold that the battle of the Maule halted Inca advance.
However, Osvaldo Silva suggest instead that it was the social and political framework of the Mapuche that posed the main difficulty in imposing imperial rule.
[12] This defiance gave them their distinctive name of Purumaucas from the Quechua words purum awqa meaning "savage enemy".
The Incas tried diplomacy, offering peace and friendship, claiming they were not going to take their land and property but to give them a way to live as men.
The fifth and sixth days were passed in the same manner but by the seventh the Purumaucas and their allies retired and returned home claiming victory.
This view was first presented by William Prescott in 1847 and then followed by Miguel Luis Amunátegui, Diego Barros Arana, Ricardo E. Latcham, Francisco Antonio Encina and Grete Mostny.
[8] Contrary to this, a frontier at Maipo River was first argued in modern times by José Toribio Medina in 1882, being joined later by Jaime Eyzaguirre and Osvaldo Silva.
[4][16] Beginning with José Toribio Medina historians have made a distinction between the places reached by the Incas and the actual zone incorporated to imperial rule.
[8] While historian José Bengoa concludes that Inca troops apparently never crossed Bío Bío River,[16] chronicler Diego de Rosales gives an account of the Incas crossing the river going south all the way to La Imperial and returning north through Tucapel along the coast.
[14] Inca influence is possibly evidenced as far south as Osorno Province (latitude 40–41° S) in the form of Quechua and Quechua–Aymara toponyms.
[7] The Inca Empire appear to have uprooted so-called Tomatas copiapoes from the Diaguita lands and settled this group near Tarija in southern Bolivia.
[23] Gold and silver bracelets and "sort of crowns" were used by Mapuches in the Concepción area at the time of the Spanish arrival as noted by Jerónimo de Vivar.
[29] The Longitudinal Andean Inca Road allowed to access several mining districts and had plenty of water.
