Meiji-style Inca Empire
- Thread starter Grey Wolf
- Start date
Sure. The conquest of the Incas was pretty much a fluke as it was. If Pizarro had not been fortunate enough to come in the middle of a civil war he would likely have been killed. In fact, the civil war was due to the last emperor's death by smallpox - prevent that, and Pizarro would have faced a united Incan front. After that, they might have a good chance of hanging on. The Mayans remained unconquered for hundreds of years in their jungles - the Andean peoples would likely be able to pull off something similar.
Not sure: if conquest fails, the Spanish would try to get Incan stuff through trade (mainly gold, at first, but also other stuff a bit later). Unlike the Aztecs, which had a lot of rich privata merchants, the Incan state regulated trade heavily. But they certainly would be interested in Spanish goods, such a iron tools and other stuff. Even if Spanish authorities discourage this, Spanish individuals would evade regulations and try to make a fortune selling stuff to the Incas. Some would even settle there.
Also, friars would try to go (even disguised as traders) in order to try to convert them to the Christian Faith.
At some point, other European nations would come, and would also try to trade with the Incas. If the empire can hold toghether, it can profit all this to modernize, learning to make its own steal weapons and instruments, and rearing its own horses.
wolf_brother
Banned
Considering that 'modernizing' at the time mostly meant gaining firearms and steel, it wouldn't be that far fetched. The bigger issue is how we're playing a disease butterfly net around the Inka. You just don't handwave away +50% die-off and say they'll pull a Meiji, somehow.
twovultures
Donor
The more I read about the Incan economy, the less I see them capable of really having an industrial revolution with the system they had. Absolutist monarchy, lack of trade and money, and a planned economy would all stand in the way of building factories for anything other than what would please the Inca's court (weapons manufacture, I can see-if they manage to kidnap Spaniards and learn how to make guns and iron weapons from them, as per The Guns of the Tawantinsayu).
A Meiji reform would require massive reforms of the Inca system, which would probably have to come gradually to avoid destabilizing the empire.
The problem is, if that's all the Incas can manage, that's not really enough for being a modern society. Just a pre-modern society with early guns.
Agreed on the disease - I'm just looking at the parts of this scenario in particular.
Yes, but if they can achieve this in the XVI century, and survive (even if as a pre-modern society), maybe they can eventualy "pull a Meiji" in the mid XIX century. Going suddenly from a society which had the tech level of the Ancient Egyptians to an industrialized society (something that didn't exist in the XVI century) is way harder, not to say impossible
Maybe. That would require some serious development just to reach the equivalent of the 16th century first (before the 16th to later jump).
Grey Wolf
Donor
This is what I was concerned about - lack of a written tradition, for a start, plus that the state whilst run well was run well for what it was, not necessarily for what it could be.
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
A lack of conquest by Spain doesn't mean that the Inca's will stay the same. Perhaps their society will develop in different directions than they would IOTL.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Tawantinsuyu has potentially destabilizing and constricting factors that would make it more likely that it would bureaucratically ossify over time. In particular the way it handled the funereal cult thing is precisely the kind of thing that makes its long-term fate more like that of Austria-Hungary than what would go into a Meiji-style nationalist revolt, while this being a multi-ethnic empire also makes nationalism a major problem.
Considering the Incan obsession with assimilation, I doubt it'd be very multi-ethnic, given enough time.
Indeed. In addition to the planned economy, the Empire was Stalinist in other ways - particularly how they practiced mass deportations to mix up the peoples of the empire in order to assimilate them into a Quechua milieu.
Actually, the very centralized state and economy might allow them to industrialize, at least to the early stages, if given a sufficiently forward looking ruler. Stalinism industrialized the USSR, after all (Central planning seems to be sufficient to run the relatively simpler early industrial economies - they may have a very hard time transitioning past that point, though, like the USSR). The tradition of the funerary cult might give a ruler just such an incentive, in fact. According to Tihuantinsuyu tradition, the Inca never really 'died' - his mummified corpse was taken to one of his palaces to be venerated and his estate was given to his descendants, who ran its holdings and used them to play politics in the capital. Thus, there was no hereditary property in succession - each ruler had to accumulate palaces, wealth, etc, from scratch. A sufficiently worldly Inca might view industrialization as a fruitful path to his own wealth...
They already had metallurgy (bronze) and sort-of writing (interaction with the Spanish might inspire the to develop their own full writing system from quipu or simply adopt the Latin alphabet.) The centralized nature of the state allows reforms to be easily propagated throughout the empire if a ruler so chooses. Indeed, the decentralization of Japan was one of the main things Meiji had to fight against.
Faeelin
Banned
I wonder about this. Doesn't it turn out now that Pizarro had plenty of Indian allies? And while the empire was autocratic in theory, running a state the size of the Incan empire without horses and with no real bureaucracy is still a bit much to be considered truly centralized.
TL effects on Socialism?
It would also be interesting to see how the Incans, or whatever their name of their nationstate will become, effect the writings of Marx and Engels. As such a large "pre-capitalist" society that is still surviving would be worth mentioning, even as declining. It would probably spark as if not larger migration of social conscious workers to South America from Europe in order to cue up to take part in the few remaining civilizations centered around communal sharing.
The Incans had really well organized currior service in which there were way stops where food, clothes and other goods were provided for the societies' good. It also seemed these places went to aid any traveler who had the beeds (as a certain pattern you wore to perhaps convey a level of caste or citizenship) to prove they were contributing to Incan society. Hence, some comparisons between their economy and certain ways of implementing socialist policy in a modern sense.
It would also be interesting to see how the Incans, or whatever their name of their nationstate will become, effect the writings of Marx and Engels. As such a large "pre-capitalist" society that is still surviving would be worth mentioning, even as declining. It would probably spark as if not larger migration of social conscious workers to South America from Europe in order to cue up to take part in the few remaining civilizations centered around communal sharing.
The Incans had really well organized currior service in which there were way stops where food, clothes and other goods were provided for the societies' good. It also seemed these places went to aid any traveler who had the beeds (as a certain pattern you wore to perhaps convey a level of caste or citizenship) to prove they were contributing to Incan society. Hence, some comparisons between their economy and certain ways of implementing socialist policy in a modern sense.
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The Incans have a good possibility of holding out against Europeans for a long time, due to exceptionally defensible territory.
What I don't think a lot of people here fully appreciate is how young the Incan empire was at the time it made contact with Europeans. And still fluid. The Incan expansion started around 1438. They met Pizarro in 1526.
Still looking for solutions to the problems of empire, the lack of old and ossified traditions could be a great advantage to the Incas, who could be expected to change more from extended contact with Europeans than older peoples, such as the Maya.
Also, the centralized structure could work in their favor, a single ruler who decided that European knowledge of wars and metals were worth assimilating could help considerably. I expect conversion would happen, back then you'd have christianity arrive with pretty much any cultural exchange.
Notion: Monks bring a considreable amount of Roman philosophy, history and thought? What young Inca would not recognize the history of the Roman empire as relevant? A young heir who takes Marcus Aurelius to heart?
That is indeed a problem. Maybe a person-to-person transmitted cowpox?
What I don't think a lot of people here fully appreciate is how young the Incan empire was at the time it made contact with Europeans. And still fluid. The Incan expansion started around 1438. They met Pizarro in 1526.
Still looking for solutions to the problems of empire, the lack of old and ossified traditions could be a great advantage to the Incas, who could be expected to change more from extended contact with Europeans than older peoples, such as the Maya.
Also, the centralized structure could work in their favor, a single ruler who decided that European knowledge of wars and metals were worth assimilating could help considerably. I expect conversion would happen, back then you'd have christianity arrive with pretty much any cultural exchange.
Notion: Monks bring a considreable amount of Roman philosophy, history and thought? What young Inca would not recognize the history of the Roman empire as relevant? A young heir who takes Marcus Aurelius to heart?
That is indeed a problem. Maybe a person-to-person transmitted cowpox?