Pop quiz, hotshot. You’re the Sapa Inca, absolute ruler and monarch of the mighty Inca Empire. In your hands you hold ultimate power over your kingdom, able to send thousands off to war, build gigantic fortresses, and are the living embodiment of the sun itself.
But today you’ve got a trickier decision on your hands than usual. You want to assimilate a new group of people into the Inca Empire. So what do you do first? You don’t need any historical knowledge to figure this one out, just put yourself in the (probably very fancy) boots of the Sapa Inca and think about your options.
Done that? Let’s see how you stack up against the real thing.
Time to choose
After you send your delegate to tell the tribe you have your eye on that you want them (or, to be more specific, their valuables and land) as part of the Inca Empire you give them a choice.
Option A: Join the Inca Empire and live in peace, security, and harmony for the rest of your days.
Upsides: protection against invaders, increased intra-imperial cultural, material, and trading opportunities, relatively cohesive set of laws, and a system of government.
Downsides: You now have an almighty King you must pay tribute to. Your unique cultural identity is probably going to disappear. Your men will probably get called up to war.
Or maybe you’ll go with Option B! Fight the mighty Inca Empire and its god-king leader!
Upsides: You get to go out like a real one.
Downsides: You all die. The Inca Empire gets all your stuff anyway.
Most tribes picked Option A. And those that didn’t? Well, they were steamrollered so thoroughly into oblivion that there’s no trace of them left in the historical or archaeological record. Is there a lesson here? Well, if the Sapa Inca and his boys come calling, consider your next move very very carefully.