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Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the

Incorporation of Chincha Into the Inca Empire

Daniel H. Sandweiss & David A. Reid

To cite this article: Daniel H. Sandweiss & David A. Reid (2015): Negotiated Subjugation:
Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha Into the Inca Empire, The Journal of Island
and Coastal Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2015.1105885

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 Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 0:1–15, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1556-4894 print / 1556-1828 online
DOI: 10.1080/15564894.2015.1105885

Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade

and the Incorporation of Chincha Into
the Inca Empire
Daniel H. Sandweiss1 and David A. Reid2
1
Department of Anthropology/Climate Change Institute, University of Maine,
Orono, Maine, USA
2
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Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois-Chicago, Chicago, Illinois,

USA

ABSTRACT

Before Francisco Pizarro began the conquest of the Inca empire in AD

1532, he had already heard of the great maritime trading power of Chin-
cha, a privileged Inca client state on the central Peruvian coast. Here,
we review relevant ethnohistoric and archaeological data about late
prehispanic Chincha with particular reference to maritime trading and
recent work on pre-industrial economies. Our analysis supports an ear-
lier proposal that Chincha was not engaged in long-distance exchange
of Spondylus (a ritually powerful mollusk) prior to incorporation into
the empire, contrary to others’ assertions. Rather, the data strongly sug-
gest that Spondylus trade was formerly in the hands of the rival north
coast Chimu empire. After conquering Chimu ∼ AD 1470 (a few years
before incorporating Chincha), the Inca carefully dismantled Chimu
territory and privileges. The source of Spondylus was the Ecuadorian
coast, which remained free of Inca control until the 1520s. We propose
that the Inca offered Chincha the Spondylus franchise in exchange for
peaceful incorporation into the empire and to cut Chimu contact with
unconquered peoples. This made geopolitical sense: Chincha’s size and
location nearer to the Inca heartland meant that it posed no threat
while at the same time it was perfectly situated to transship cargo from
southbound rafts to porters headed inland to Cusco, the Inca capital.

Keywords Andes, economy and subsistence, coastal, complex society, seafaring, states

Maritime adaptations are as old as the human plexity began to emerge in this region
presence on the Peruvian coast—at least before 4,000 BP in a context in which marine
14,000 years (Sandweiss 2014). Social com- resources played an important, if debated,

Received 15 July 2015; accepted 9 September 2015.

Address correspondence to Daniel H. Sandweiss, Department of Anthropology/Climate Change Institute,
University of Maine, South Stevens Hall, Orono, ME 04469, USA. E-mail: Dan Sandweiss@umit.maine.edu
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at
http://www.tandfonline.com/uica.

1
 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
role (Moseley 1975, 1992; Sandweiss 2009).
The influence of coastal opportunities in hi-
erarchical social organization did not end
with the first complex societies, however,
but continued through the entire prehistoric
period up to and including the conquest of
the coast by the Inca in the late fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries AD. In this con-
text, the ethnohistoric record indicates that
when the Spaniards first arrived in the Andes,
the southern coastal polity of Chincha held
a privileged role in the Inca Empire based
largely on their maritime prowess.
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Utilizing the ethnohistoric and archaeo-
logical records, we contextualize Chincha’s
incorporation into the Inca Empire as one
of negotiated subjugation; wherein Chincha
elites surrendered political autonomy to the
Inca state in exchange for a greatly expanded
role in maritime trade with as-yet uncon-
quered Ecuador. Specifically, we argue that
Chincha negotiated for this privilege by of-
fering to provide the sacred Spondylus shell
and perhaps other high-status goods from the
north, acting as raft-borne merchant-agents
for the highland Inca state. Although the
extent of Chincha’s long-distance trading sta-
tus prior to the Late Horizon is less clear, we
suggest it was only after their special relation-
ship with the Inca that they became a ma-
jor inter-regional trading polity. This has im-
plications for broader topics of pre-Hispanic
systems of exchange, mercantilism, and Inca
political-economic strategies in the imperial
peripheries.
OVERVIEW AND PREVIOUS WORK
In the 1520s, the future Conquistador of
Peru, Francisco Pizarro, made two explo-
ratory expeditions along the west coast of
northern South America. By the end of the
second voyage, he already knew about the
Kingdom of Chincha (Figure 1), a small
polity some 200 kilometers south of mod-
ern Lima, Peru. Chincha appears on a map
made in 1529, three years before the Con-
quest. Already it was considered a bound-
ary place in dividing the territory to be con-
quered by the Spaniards (Porras 1954). Ac-
cording to the early chronicler Pedro Cieza
2 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
de León (1984 [1553]:218), before beginning
the conquest of the Incas, Pizarro had heard
that the province of Chincha “was the biggest
and best of all.” During the encounter be-
tween the Inca ruler Atahuallpa and the Span-
ish Conquistadores in Cajamarca in 1532,
Francisco’s brother Pedro Pizarro (1965
[1571]) noted in his memoirs that the Lord
of Chincha was the only person beside the
Inca himself allowed to be carried on a litter
in the Inca’s presence.1 Asked why this was
so, Atahuallpa explained that the Chincha
ruler was once the greatest lord of the coast
and had “one hundred thousand rafts on
the sea.” Although this number is undoubt-
edly an exaggeration, Pizarro’s account indi-
cates the close relationship between Cuzco
and Chincha as well as the latter’s maritime
significance.
Much of our information on Chincha
comes from the ethnohistoric record, in par-
ticular two documents that refer extensively
to Chincha. First is the 1558 “Relación” of
Castro and Ortega Morejón (Crespo 1975).
Second is the anonymously written “Aviso”
of the mid-1570s published by Peruvian eth-
nohistorian Marı́a Rostworowski (e.g., 1970,
1977). According to the Aviso, there were
30,000 tribute-payers in Chincha, including
12,000 farmers, 10,000 fishermen, and 6,000
merchants, with the remaining 2,000 tribute-
payers unassigned in the document (Rost-
worowski 1970:170–171). “Mercaderes” or
“merchants” almost never appear in early
documents from the central Andes, though
they are more commonly mentioned for the
northern Andes (e.g., Salomon 1986). Those
from Chincha were said to have traded south
to Cuzco and the Altiplano and north to
Puerto Viejo and Quito in Ecuador. Accord-
ing to the Aviso, the merchants used cop-
per as a medium of exchange, another rarity
in the Andes, and brought gold beads and
emeralds from the north to sell to the lords
of the neighboring Ica Valley. Rostworowski
has argued that both documents are based on
a lost manuscript dating to the early 1540s
written by Domingo de Santo Tomás, who
founded the first monastery in Chincha just
a decade after the Conquest, and therefore
that they are drawn from first-hand indige-
nous accounts.
 Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha
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Figure 1. Map of western South America showing places mentioned in the text. The dashed line
shows the maximum extent of the Inca empire.

Archaeological information on Late Inca presence is marked by an administra-

Prehispanic Chincha comes from early
twentieth-century excavations by Uhle
(1924; Kroeber and Strong 1924; Lumbreras
2001), mid-twentieth-century survey by Wal-
lace (1971, 1998), and late twentieth-century
excavations by Morris and Santillana (e.g.,
2007) at the capital site of La Centinela,
by Sandweiss (1992; Sandweiss et al. 2004)
at the fishing site of Lo Demás, and most
recently by Nigra and colleagues (2014). The
tive center attached to the largest Chincha
mound at La Centinela, by Inca-style adobes
in a compound at Lo Demás, and by Inca pot-
tery found in graves as well as middens. Prior
to the Inca incursion, the Chincha Valley con-
tained one of the largest Late Intermediate Pe-
riod coastal polities south of the Chimú Em-
pire (see Nigra et al. 2014 for recent investi-
gations). Menzel and Rowe’s (1966) analysis
of available documents and archaeological

JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY 3

 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
remains available through the 1960s suggests
that Chincha capitulated peacefully to the
Inca in AD 1476, a conclusion that still stands.
THE UNUSUAL CASE OF CHINCHA
MERCHANTS
Rostworowski (1970, 1977) has shown that
Chincha at the time of the Conquest had a
category of people called “mercaderes” or
“merchants.” This account of a pre-Hispanic
merchant class has been a source of con-
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siderable debate since institutionalized mer-
chants and commercial enterprise is typ-
ically thought to be rare or non-existent
in most of the Andes. This has led some
scholars to doubt the accuracy of the
Aviso and the technological limitations of
maritime-based exchange during this period
(e.g., Hocquenghem 1993). Others, such
as Morris and Santillana (2007), suggest
the Aviso may have been a template for
future Inca strategies rather than an historical
account. In order to discern fact from fiction,
we need to first ask what was the nature of
Chincha’s natural wealth? What did Chincha
merchants trade and was this trade maritime
or land-based? What long-distance exotic
goods have been archaeologically recovered
from Chincha, and what are their temporal
contexts? Even with the limitations of his-
torical documents that may reflect European
biases and misunderstandings, we show that
the archaeological record of Chincha does
support the assertion of long-distance mer-
chants and state-sponsored trade under Inca
rule.
The Wealth of Chincha
Spanish soldier and chronicler Pedro
Cieza de León, considered one of the more re-
liable early witnesses, wrote that Chincha “is
one of the largest [valleys] of all Peru: and it is
a beautiful thing to see its groves and canals,
and how many fruits there are throughout it”
(Cieza 1984 [1553]:220]). But Cieza seems
to have been impressed with many of the
valleys he traversed less than two decades af-
ter the Conquest. In the mid-twentieth cen-
tury, Chincha ranked only sixth among the
4 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
coastal valleys in agricultural production, al-
though it was first among valleys south of
Lima (Romero 1953:96). Menzel and Rowe
(1966:68) observed that “Chincha had a
notable reputation for wealth in precious
metals, especially silver.” The members of
Pizarro’s expedition picked up a report,
recorded by Jerez (1862 [1534]:335), that
the richest mines of precious metals were at
Quito and Chincha. Although this is not in
fact true, Chincha had acquired significant
wealth in metal from elsewhere as well as
from small copper mines likely in the middle
valley, for instance at Huancor in the middle
San Juan valley (Uhle 1924:91).2 Another of
Pizarro’s brothers, Hernando, received Chin-
cha in encomienda from his brother Fran-
cisco (Rostworowski 1977:174–175) and
sent two Spaniards to Chincha where, ac-
cording to the “Aviso”, they looted native
tombs to recover “one hundred thousand
marks of silver in large vessels and small ones
and other bugs and snakes and little dogs and
deer all in gold and silver . . . . And after that
much gold and silver has been taken from
that valley”3 (Rostworowski 1970:171–172).
As Rostworowski (1977:175) points out, the
encomienda grant refers to “tratantes” or
traders, something apparently peculiar to the
Chincha grant and not part of the usual for-
mula for such documents (C. Julien cited by
Lumbreras 2001:25).
Marco Curatola (1997) suggests that
Chincha’s wealth derived from guano de-
posits on the Chincha islands. This is the
same source that fueled the guano boom
of the mid-nineteenth century. In an arid
coastal desert made fertile by irrigation,
guano fertilizer was, indeed, highly valuable.
Fish were another renewable resource that
could be dried and traded. The Late Hori-
zon (Inca Period) fishing site of Lo Demás
had evidence of several methods of fish
salting and drying, perhaps similar to the
nearby modern fishing village of Tambo de
Mora. Given the presence of camelid dung
at Lo Demás (but no camelid faunal remains
or woolen textiles), dried fish and other
goods were likely transported inland by cara-
van along well-established prehistoric roads
(Sandweiss 1992:140; Wallace 1991). Mar-
cus, Sommer, and Glew’s (1999) excavations
 Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha
and analysis of several structures at Cerro
Azul, in the neighboring Cañete Valley, show
that even in the years immediately prior to
the Spanish Conquest, large-scale produc-
tion and distribution of dried fish was an im-
portant feature of south coast polities.
Spondylus: Securing the Thorny Oyster
Trade
Rostworowski (1970, 1977) also argues
that the Chincha merchants brought Spondy-
lus shell, native to the warm waters of
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Ecuador and northernmost Peru and highly
prized throughout the Central Andes as a rit-
ual offering related to water (Blower 1996,
2001; Murra 1975; Pillsbury 1996; inter alia).
Others disagree. Anne-Marie Hocquenghem
(1993) points out that the Aviso does not
mention Spondylus and that it is rare in the
Chincha valley. She argues instead that the
Spondylus trade went by land along the inte-
rior of the coastal plains and into the high-
lands, a claim also supported by Curatola
(1997).
Why, then, is Rostworowski convinced
that the Chincha traded Spondylus? In 1526,
on his second expedition down the coast
of western South America, Francisco Pizarro
sent a boat from Colombia south to what
is now Ecuador under the pilot Bartolomé
Ruiz. Ruiz captured a trading raft near mod-
ern Tumbes on the Peru-Ecuador border.
With large cotton sails and a capacity esti-
mated at 25 tons, this vessel indicates the po-
tential scale of pre-Hispanic maritime-based
exchange. The crew of 20 was transporting
a mixed cargo of high-value goods: precious
metal objects, gems, fine textiles, and above
all “some shells . . . of which they make red
and white beads and the vessel was almost
full of them”4 according to the Relación of
Sámano-Xérez (1967 [1528]), a 1528 docu-
ment. Since the first publication of this doc-
ument in the 1930s, most scholars have be-
lieved that the raw material of the beads was
the Spondylus shell.
Regardless of the cargo, the Sámano-
Xérez (1967 [1528]) account confirms that
the pre-European inhabitants of western
South America had the large watercraft nec-
essary for a thriving coastal trade. Heyerdahl
JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
(1952:513–537) reviews this account and
other early records of balsa log rafts along
the Pacific coast of the Andes; he also used
experimental archaeology to demonstrate
the seaworthiness of these craft (Heyerdahl
1950, 1957). Large reed boats carrying cargo
appear in late Moche iconography during the
mid-first millennium AD (McClelland 1990).
The Moche were the predecessors of the
Sicán and Chimu in northern Peru; McClel-
land’s close study of Moche ceramic iconog-
raphy indicates a shift to maritime themes
between Moche Phases IV and V, prefiguring
the predominant maritime theme of Chimu
art. Only in Phase V are the rafts shown car-
rying cargo, both people and a variety of jars
below the main deck (e.g., Kutscher 1983:
figures 314A-C, 316A-B, 318A, 319; McClel-
land 1990:figures 2, 3, and 9). By early Sicán
(after AD 800), Hosler (1988) has shown that
maritime trade from northern Peru extended
to west Mexico.
In the early 1990s, experiments with
double-sterned reed rafts built following
the design shown on Moche pottery ves-
sels showed them to be very seaworthy
(Capelotti 2001:180–182). The larger of the
two, the Chimok, was able to sail completely
around the Lobos Islands before being aban-
doned due to a combination of political is-
sues and seasickness on the part of the Ger-
man film crew that had sponsored the voyage
(Heyerdahl 1995:222).
Cordy-Collins (1990) notes the tremen-
dous increase in the presence of Spondylus
in imperial Chimu sites compared to earlier
epochs, but she also points to the presence
of Spondylus diver scenes in Lambayeque (or
Sicán) art that is contemporary with the start
of Chimu in the Moche Valley and centered
in the Lambayeque Valley ca. 160 km to the
northwest. In addition to the iconographic
evidence noted by Cordy-Collins, Shimada
(1990:367) found “a surge in the amount of
Spondylus shell used by the Middle Sicán cul-
ture” (ca. AD 900–1050), probably the result
of a trade network later taken over by the
Chimu.
Rostworowski (1970, 1977) has argued
that the balsa log raft captured by Ruı́z may
have been from Chincha. Others suggest that
it was from Tumbes in northern Peru or
5
 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
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Figure 2. Spondylus beads tipped with green
Colonial glass beads (183 mm),
reprinted from Kroeber and Strong
(1924:plate 15). ⃝
C Phoebe A. Hearst
Museum of Anthropology and the Re-
gents of the University of California
(photography by Phoebe A. Hearst
Museum of Anthropology, Catalogue
No. 4-3975b).
from Salango in Ecuador (Alcina Franch et al.
[1987] accept Szaszdi’s [1978] Salango argu-
ment), and this seems likely. Regardless, the
6 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
raft clearly shows that large trading vessels
operated along the western Andean coast
prior to the arrival of the Europeans and that
Spondylus was an object of maritime trade.
Further, the Ruiz raft carried gold and gems,
items that were mentioned by the Aviso as ob-
jects of Chincha trade, yet most of its cargo
was Spondylus.
Were the Chincha Merchants Pre-Inca?
Rostworowski (1970, 1977) believed
that the Chincha merchants existed prior
to the Inca Conquest, and that they sur-
rendered peacefully to preserve their fran-
chise. Similarly, Shimada (1991:LIV) suggests
that from the thirteenth century AD, “the
Chimu state probably came to be the princi-
pal north coast sponsor of maritime trade . . .
while the specialized Chincha traders . . .
managed the actual operation of the trade,
including navigation.” Hosler (1988) has ar-
gued that a shift from northern Andean to
southern Andean sources for metallurgical
traditions imported from South America to
western Mesoamerica at ca. AD 1200–1300
corresponds to the initiation of long-distance
trading by Chincha. These ideas, however,
require that Chincha had long-distance
traders before being conquered by the Inca.
We argue that this was not the case.
As Sandweiss (1992) has previously
argued (see also Morris and Santillana
2007:136–137; Pillsbury 1996:320–321), a
pre-Inca Chincha trading franchise is sus-
pect. First, the Chimu were extensively in-
volved in the Spondylus trade, as Joanne Pills-
bury (1996) has convincingly demonstrated
through multiple lines of evidence. As Cordy-
Collins (1990:396) argues, “The Chimu elite
utilized the shell [Spondylus] in unprece-
dented quantity . . . a management impor-
tation and distribution system would have
been necessary to handle effectively the vast
amounts of shell demanded by the Chimu
aristocracy.” She concludes that such a sys-
tem was developed in Lambayeque late in the
first millennium AD and “later was co-opted
by the Chimu imperium.” Spondylus shell is
ubiquitous in north coast sites, art, museums,
and local collections.
 Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha
Geopolitical considerations also argue
against Chincha running the Spondylus
trade network. They would have had to
bypass the extensive Chimu Empire on their
way to Ecuador, a significant barrier unless
they were, indeed, working for the Chimu.
This seems unlikely: it makes little sense for
a powerful polity located almost 700 km
closer to the source of Spondylus and heir to
a multi-centennial tradition of maritime trade
to employ Chincha raftsmen. Furthermore,
there is clear evidence of a long-standing
relationship between the north coast and
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the pilgrimage center of Pachacamac (near
Lima and closer than Chincha) (Shimada
1991); the south coast metallurgical tra-
ditions brought to Mesoamerica after AD
1200–1300 (Hosler 1988) could have come
from Pachacamac via Chimu.
In contrast, in the Chincha Valley,
Spondylus is exceedingly rare in the archae-
ological record, even in the contemporary
collections of looted antiquities; one does
not stumble over it in plowed or looted
sites, and it appears very infrequently in ex-
cavations. When archaeologists have found
Spondylus in Chincha, it has predominantly
been associated with burials or contexts with
Inca affiliation. In their study of the late pre-
hispanic gravelots excavated in Chincha by
Uhle, Kroeber and Strong (1924:31) write:
spondylus [sic] and fine beads are
characteristic of the Inca graves.
They are virtually lacking from [pre-
Inca Chincha] graves. . . . Evidently,
the trade in spondylus, which was
brought from the far north, did not
attain considerable proportions un-
til the Inca period.
Furthermore, all of the “foreign” pottery
from further north found by Uhle in his
Chincha gravelots dates to Inca times. The
deposits excavated at Lo Demás are exclu-
sively Inca in date, and the impoverished ce-
ramic inventory also includes both northern
and Inca imports (Sandweiss 1992). Were
the Chincha working for the Chimu state,
we would expect some of the high-value
trade goods to stay in Chincha—the physi-
cal power of the Chimu stopped hundreds
JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
of kilometers to the north of Chincha, so any
relation with Chincha traders would have to
be based at least in part on material payment
of high-status items such as Spondylus and
ceramic finewares. Thus, Chincha involve-
ment in the northern Spondylus trade is un-
likely prior to Inca involvement. The expan-
sion of Chincha mercantilism under Inca sub-
jugation allows us to consider broader eco-
nomic processes and variability during the
Late Horizon.
CHINCHA MERCHANTS,
COMMERCIALISM, AND THE INCA
STATE
Greatly influenced by the substantive ap-
proach of Karl Polanyi (1957) and the ver-
ticality model of Murra (1972, 1985), pre-
Hispanic Andean economies have tradition-
ally been considered dependent on systems
of reciprocity, redistribution, and to a lesser
degree market exchange. Due to the Andes’
unique topography, traditional perspectives
on reciprocity and redistribution often focus
on elite direct control of different resource
zones rather than less reliable processes of
trade or commercial market systems for re-
source provisioning (see La Lone 1982). Yet,
recent critiques of Polanyi’s economic mod-
els as applied to the archaeological record
have highlighted the false dichotomy be-
tween redistribution vs. market exchange
in the Americas (e.g., Feinman and Garraty
2010; Garraty and Stark 2010; Hirth and Pills-
bury 2013). Archaeological testing of Murra’s
vertical archipelago model (see Stanish 1992;
Van Buren 1996) have also led to a critical
reevaluation of its ubiquitous use and pro-
jection into the past (see Mayer 2013). As
a wider variety of economic forms in An-
dean prehistory are being recognized, we
reexamine the ethnohistoric and archaeo-
logical records pertaining to a Chincha mer-
chant class and its articulation with the Inca
political-economy.
Chincha Market Exchange
One of the most unusual descriptions
of the Chincha economic system in the
7
 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
Aviso is that out of the entire Inca empire,
Chincha merchants were the sole users of a
form of copper “marks” or currency; “among
themselves they bought and sold with cop-
per what they had to eat and to clothe
[themselves]”5 (Rostworowski 1970:171).
Rostworowski (1975:337–338) also cites the
Pizarro encomienda written at the Tambo
of Pachacamac in 1534, which mentioned
silversmiths, mitimas, and tratantes from
Chincha.6 Using the Dictionario de la
Lengua Castellana of 1791, a tratante is
defined as one “who buys goods and co-
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mestibles wholesale and sells them retail.”7
If the historical sources are accurate, the
Chincha market system also included addi-
tional price-fixing mechanisms, as the Aviso
states that exchange rates between gold and
silver (1:10) relied on fixed weights (Rost-
worowski 1970:171).
Although the ethnohistoric accounts
are intriguing, the archaeological data
from Chincha are less clear as to how/if
a monetary-based market system articu-
lated with the domestic and institutional
economies under Inca rule. We know that
vast amounts of precious metals, mainly
silver and gold, were looted from Chin-
cha following the Spanish Conquest (Men-
zel and Rowe 1966; “Aviso”, Rostworowski
1970:171–172), but no indubitable evidence
of copper “marks” or currency have been ar-
chaeologically discovered.8 Yet, excavations
by Sandweiss (1992:71–73) and local collec-
tions from the Chincha fishing settlement of
Lo Demás indicate a predominance of cop-
per items, mainly pieces of sheet metal and
broken copper objects. Among this collec-
tion are 53 copper artifacts (1/4th of the
original find) found within a cloth bag that
had eroded from the quebrada wall near Lo
Demás and was discovered by local residents.
While this odd collection of copper pieces
may relate to a form of local currency, their
presence in a non-elite domestic fishermen
sector of Chincha is intriguing.
The weighing of goods in economic
transactions at Chincha is also indicated by a
number of small balance scales discovered by
Uhle within burial contexts (Hu 2013; Kroe-
ber and Strong 1924:38–39; Morris and Santil-
lana 2007:157). In her subsequent analysis,
8 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
Menzel (1966:124) argues that the balance
beams and scales were buried with Chincha
individuals engaged in agriculture and met-
alworking rather than those related to Inca
administration.9 Similar balance scales are
described by Bartolomé Ruiz (Sámano-Xérez
1967:66 [1528]) in his account of the
balsa trading raft first encountered by the
Spaniards off the north coast near Tumbes,
and were thought to have been used to mea-
sure gold. The predominant presence of bal-
ance beams in non-administrative contexts
as well as the presence of odd copper arti-
facts at Lo Demás may support the assertion
of a domestic market system separate from
the Inca-controlled institutional sector.
Rostworowski (1970) and others have
argued that Spondylus shell was the main
Chincha incentive for long-distance trade
with Ecuador. Both whole and worked
Spondylus shell have been recovered from
Inca-related contexts at Chincha, includ-
ing numerous Spondylus beads and pen-
dants from burial contexts excavated by
Uhle (Kroeber and Strong 1924:30–31). In
the ethnohistoric record, worked Spondy-
lus beads were also referred to as mullu,10
and were associated with Inca ritual and
sacrifice (Blower 2001). In Ecuador, mer-
chants known as mindaláes used the red and
white beads of Spondylus as a kind of bead
wealth, sometimes in the form of stringed
beads or “chaquira” that served as primi-
tive currency among other social functions
(Salomon 1987:66). The commercial signifi-
cance of Spondylus continued into the Colo-
nial Period; Arriaga (1968[1621:211]) wrote
in the early seventeenth century that “Indi-
ans on the coast, and even the Spaniards,
make a profit out of selling these shells
to the Indians of the sierra.”11 The use
of bead wealth continued into the Colo-
nial Period and incorporated newly avail-
able glass beads from Europe (Cieza 1984
[1553]:154). At Chincha, Uhle recovered
individual Spondylus beads as well as in
stringed form, predominantly from Late Hori-
zon Inca-Chincha burial contexts. As Morris
and Santillana (2007:137) point out, many
of Uhle’s Spondylus finds came from “at
least four high-prestige Late Horizon- or
Early colonial-period burials” (see Kroeber
 Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha
and Strong 1924:31). One of these, burial
E13, contained “loops” of Spondylus beads
tipped with green Colonial glass beads (Fig-
ure 2) (Kroeber and Strong 1924:30). If
Chincha agents dealt with Ecuadorian mer-
chants and systems of payment, it is possible
that the strings of Spondylus and glass beads
from burial E13 were originally chaquira ac-
quired in Ecuador, known also to function as
elite ornamentation.12 The presence of Colo-
nial glass beads also suggests trade between
Ecuador and Chincha may not have ended
abruptly with the Spanish Conquest. In fact,
Downloaded by [University of Maine - Orono] at 08:35 24 November 2015
as the funneling of Spondylus shell toward
Inca-Cuzco would have ceased, local Chin-
cha elites may have had greater access to the
highly desired shell.
In the immediately pre-Inca (LCa I) buri-
als excavated by Uhle (1924) and studied
by Kroeber and Strong (1924:30–31), the
few identifiable shells (mussels and a cockle)
were all taxa that can be found locally. Some
of the mussels were painted red, perhaps an
attempt to replicate Spondylus. Sandweiss
(1992:96–97) found several painted mussels
in the elite sector at Lo Demás, along with one
Spondylus bead. This sector had a piece of
imperial Inca pottery and a compound built
of massive rectangular adobes (Sandweiss
1992:142), a distinctly Inca feature in coastal
sites such as the Inca compound at La Cen-
tinela (Santillana 1984); the inhabitants of
this sector had a close relation with the em-
pire. Nevertheless, even Inca-allied Chincha
elites apparently did not have ready access to
Spondylus and had to resort instead to local
knockoffs.
Inca Political Economy
Taking a “dual economy” approach,
we can investigate the articulation of the
Chincha domestic economy with the insti-
tutional sector managed by Chincha elites
and Inca administrators. As previously dis-
cussed, a large part of the Chincha do-
mestic sector may have relied on market
exchange for the provisioning of house-
holds beyond their own labor. Such a sys-
tem would be one solution to the problem
of provisioning in a society composed of
endogamous producer-specialists, as Chin-
JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
cha (and much of the coast) seems to have
been (e.g., Rostworowski 1970; Sandweiss
1992; Shimada 1982). Although the Inca
often left the domestic economies of sub-
jugated groups largely intact, strategies of
reciprocity and redistribution were still es-
tablished and relied on obligatory rela-
tionships in which elites received labor
and/or material goods from which they then
provided political, economic, and/or reli-
gious services (D’Altroy 1992:149). Though
Chincha was allowed greater political auton-
omy compared to other subjugated polities,
they were still subject to Inca economic re-
organization such as conforming to the Inca
decimal system, appropriation of agricultural
land for state purposes, mit’a service, the re-
location of silversmiths to somewhere out-
side of the valley, perhaps to Cuzco itself
(Rostworowski 1977:234), and intensifica-
tion of the pre-Inca maritime specialization
with evidence for exporting dried marine
goods inland (Sandweiss 1992). While the
ceramic record as well as exotic items such
as Spondylus indicate long-distance trade be-
tween Chincha and its northern neighbors
during the Late Horizon, questions remain as
to how much of this exchange was based on
institutional strategies versus independent
merchant activity.
Contrary to accounts of Chincha mer-
cantilism, it has been argued that the Inca
state suppressed commercial activity of sub-
jugated groups, explaining the lack of mar-
ket exchange observed by the first Span-
ish chroniclers (Hirth and Pillsbury 2013;
Mayer 2013; Patterson 1987). Following
Mann (1984:127), territorial states lose the
power of centralization and the ability to re-
distribute goods for political favors under
market-centric systems. Even when states
attempt to administer commercial activity,
a wealthy merchant class can emerge as a
threat to the political establishment (such
as the pochteca of the Aztec empire [Berdan
and Smith 1996:212]). It has also been argued
that the suppression of market systems by
Andean states may have resulted in lower ur-
ban population densities acknowledged for
Andean cities (Stanish 2010). Yet, we must
be careful not to exaggerate Inca control
of local economies and overlook evidence
9
 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
that suggests the Inca encouraged certain
market activities at the peripheries of the
empire.
Alongside agricultural intensification in
the Inca heartland, wealth finance was a
supporting component of state expansion
that included the acquisition and produc-
tion of prestige items related to the legit-
imization and reproduction of a state hier-
archy (D’Altroy and Earle 1985; Earle 1997).
As such, the Inca took great efforts to con-
trol the means of production and access to
specific goods and crafts. Ultimately, these
Downloaded by [University of Maine - Orono] at 08:35 24 November 2015
items, such as the sacred Spondylus shell,
formed essential components of a material
state ideology (DeMarrais, Castillo, and Earle
1996). Colonial accounts describe the use
of mullu during the Inca calendric cere-
monial cycle as well as in capacocha sacri-
fice offerings (Molina 2011 [1574]), which
have been archaeologically supported (e.g.,
Gibaja Oviedo et al. 2014). Since state ritual
is important in the reproduction of elite po-
litical and religious hierarchies, maintaining
access and control of related ideological ma-
terials, such as the sacred Spondylus shell,
would have been a priority. Where the di-
rect acquisition of exotic goods was not pos-
sible, such as at state peripheries or regions
outside of Inca direct rule, decentralized eco-
nomic strategies allowed for the movement
of goods into the heartland.
Inca reliance on commercial market sys-
tems is most clearly identified in the tolera-
tion of politically sponsored traders, called
mindaláes, in their northern peripheries
of Ecuador and Colombia. Known to have
used bead wealth (chaquira) and gold but-
tons (chagual) as currency, mindaláes were
sponsored by established dynastic elites,
some of whom were later incorporated into
the Inca empire (Salomon 1986, 1987). Like-
wise, Ramirez-Horton (1982) has argued that
people called “merchants” in early docu-
ments about northern Peru were not in fact
entrepreneurial traders but instead agents of
the lords who acquired distant goods on be-
half of the state (see also Netherly 1977). Fol-
lowing Ramirez-Horton (1982), Sandweiss
(1992) has also argued that the Chincha
“merchants” were agents of the empire. Un-
der this scenario, Spondylus would not ap-
10 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
pear frequently in Chincha sites because the
Chincha were not the end users—unless
they were trading in Spondylus before the
arrival of the Inca, when Chincha was a
local, independent power. If long-distance
exchange came only with Inca conquest,
when Spondylus appears at all, it should
be in association with the Inca—as is the
case.
Although Chincha’s domestic economy
may have relied on some form of commer-
cial market system as previously discussed,
there is no evidence of horizontal exchange
of Spondylus in the valley. At the fishing site
Lo Demás, Spondylus is exceedingly rare,
and includes one spine fragment from Sector
I and one worked bead and spine fragment
from Sector IV, an elite area thought to be
closely associated with the Inca administra-
tion (Sandweiss 1992:97–98). Although the
dual rule of Chincha elites and Inca admin-
istrators allowed for greater political oppor-
tunities for intermediate elites (see Morris
and Covey 2006), the possession of Spondy-
lus by non-elite social classes was likely con-
stricted. Blower (1996:70) notes that the
Inca had specialized workers, mullu chasqui
camayoc, at the island of La Plata off the coast
of Ecuador, to harvest Spondylus. Rather
than having competing Chincha merchants
also acquire Spondylus for the state, he sug-
gests that they may have been responsible for
transportation rather than administration of
its acquirement and distribution. No matter
how formal Chincha’s role was in the acquisi-
tion of northern exotic goods, anthropologi-
cal perspectives of trade highlight the agency
of such merchants, who often conduct com-
mercial side transactions for personal benefit
outside of state purview (Nielsen 2013; Van
Buren 1996). This may further explain the
great wealth of Chincha. The cache of cop-
per pieces found near Lo Demás (Sandweiss
1992:71–73) could be a merchant’s personal
stock for private trading. The Aviso tells
us that of the 6,000 “merchants”, “he who
had the least trade traded with five hundred
golden pesos and many of them traded with
two thousand and three thousand ducats”13
(Rostworowski 1970:171). Closer inspec-
tion of possible Inca motivations for spon-
soring Chincha trade may explain the unique
 Negotiated Subjugation: Maritime Trade and the Incorporation of Chincha
economic processes that operated in the
Chincha Valley.
DISCUSSION: STATE-SPONSORED
TRADE AND INCA GEOPOLITICAL
STRATEGY
The Chimu with their expanding north coast
empire were the greatest rivals to the Inca in
the Andean world. As Netherly (1977, 1988)
and others have shown through early doc-
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uments, the Inca systematically dismantled
the Chimu empire, generation by genera-
tion, ultimately reducing the reach of the
former rulers to one side of one valley. The
coastal lords further lost access to inland
coca fields and their citizens were restricted
from carrying arms, likely as punishment
for their defiance toward the Inca (D’Altroy
2002). The archaeological record supports
the documents—at the huge Chimu capital
of Chan Chan, after the Inca conquest, use
of the vast palaces of the lords is limited to
squatter occupations among the abandoned
ruins (e.g., Moseley and Deeds 1982). If the
Inca felt it impolitic to allow the Chimu rulers
to retain significant power under Inca tute-
lage, a privilege the Inca had allowed to many
conquered groups, would they have let the
Chimu keep control over the vital Spondylus
trade into unconquered coastal Ecuador?
Following the standard chronology,
Chincha joined the Inca Empire shortly after
the defeat of the Chimu and almost 50 years
before incorporation of the Ecuadorian coast
just a decade prior to the Spanish Con-
quest. In 1988, Patricia Netherly (1988:111)
remarked that “it would be of great interest
to know the deal that was made” to ensure
Chincha’s peaceful capitulation. We suggest
that the Chincha lord negotiated with the
Inca for both a privileged position and the
northern trading franchise in exchange for
voluntary subjugation and payment of trib-
ute. With their large number of fishermen,
Chincha had experience with the sea. The
Aviso states specifically that the fishermen
would go out on their “balsas” or rafts al-
most every day (Rostworowski 1970:170).
As a small valley of only local power, Chin-
JOURNAL OF ISLAND & COASTAL ARCHAEOLOGY
cha was no rival to fear compared to the
north coast polities. Dual rule of Chincha by
local elites and newly installed Inca admin-
istrators left preexisting hierarchies intact,
retained the local ideology centered around
the oracle Chinchaycamac, and is reflected
in the relatively light Inca presence in the
valley (Morris and Covey 2006; Morris and
Santillana 2007). This negotiation may also
have left intact preexisting economic struc-
tures based on market-exchange and mercan-
tile enterprise that only grew with Chincha’s
increasing role as state-sponsored maritime
agents.
Chincha is also well situated to be
the transshipment point from southbound
rafts to southeast-heading caravans. The
Aviso states that some of the “merchants”
“went with their purchases and sales from
Chincha to Cuzco all through Collao”14 (Rost-
worowski 1970:171). By the time the Inca ar-
rived on the south coast, Chincha controlled
at least part of the neighboring Pisco Valley
(Menzel and Rowe 1966). Pisco is the natu-
ral inland route to the southern highlands in-
cluding Cuzco. The Inca built elaborate sites
along this route, such as Tambo Colorado and
Huaytará. Even today, the Libertadores high-
way runs inland through Pisco (Figure 1). So
long as the object of Chincha long-distance
exchange was to provide Spondylus and
other goods for the Inca, Chincha was the
ideal agent. No wonder, then, that at Caja-
marca, Chincha’s Lord of the Littoral was lit-
erally the only litter-borne leader other than
Atahuallpa himself.
CONCLUSION
Prior to becoming Inca subjects, Chincha
was for hundreds of years an autonomous
señorio or small kingdom. If our version of
Chincha history is correct, the Chincha of-
fered to surrender their autonomy and pro-
vide the Inca with safe access to an essen-
tial ritual emolument: Spondylus shell. The
alternative was death and destruction, well
known from the famous example of neigh-
boring Guarco, whose population was deci-
mated for having resisted Inca authority (Ros-
tworowski de Diez Canseco 1988). Chin-
11
 Daniel H. Sandweiss and David A. Reid
cha’s negotiated subjugation into the Inca
Empire is one example of the near end of this
spectrum of imperial policy on conquest, in-
corporation, punishment, and privilege. In
exchange for subjugating themselves, Chin-
cha negotiated for some of the benefits of
trade—witness the gold and silver found by
looters. More important, they held a privi-
leged place in the Empire, as demonstrated
by the position of the Chincha lord in Caja-
marca. In an Inca-centric world, this meant
imperial favor and high status. So Chincha is,
perhaps, not an example of rise but of arriv-
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istes, of resistance through profitable incor-
poration achieved by trading on their mar-
itime skills and the value of a ritual shell.
END NOTES
1. During the capture of Atahuallpa at Caja-
marca, Pizarro also recounts how the Lord
of Chincha was slain in his litter during the
Spanish attack (Pizarro 1965 [1571]).
2. The Chincha Valley is watered by the San
Juan River, which bifurcates into the Chico
and the Matagente Rivers just after the San
Juan exits the foothills onto the coastal plain.
3. “Cien mil marcos de plata en vasijas grandes y
pequeñas y otras sabandijas y culebras y per-
rillos y benados todos en oro y plata . . . Y de-
spués de ésto se ha sacado mucho oro y plata
en aquel balle” (Rostworowski 1970:171–
172).
4. “Por unas conchas de pescado de que ellos
hazen quentas coloradas como corales y blan-
cas que trayan casy el navı́o cargado dellas”
(Sámano-Xérez 1967 [1528]).
5. “ . . . entre ellos compraban y vendı́an con co-
bre lo que avian de comer y vestir . . . ” Aviso
(Rostworowski 1970:171)
6. “Os encomiendo el valle de Chincha con to-
dos sus yndios e caciques e prencepales que
le pertenecen y sus sujetos, con todos sus my-
timaes y tratantes e plateros que tienen fuera
de su tierra, sus sujetos y naturales del dicho
valle . . . ” (Rostworowski 1975:337).
7. “El que compra por mayor géneros y co-
mestibles, para venderlos por menor” (Ros-
tworowski 1975:338)
8. Archaeological evidence of pre-Hispanic
metal currency in other regions of the An-
12 VOLUME 0 • ISSUE 0 • 2015
des is rare with the possible exception of
northern Peru and Ecuador with the pres-
ence of bundled, double-T shaped copper ob-
jects known as naipes or “feathers.” While
Shimada (1985:386) initially considered the
occurrence of naipes within Middle Sican
contexts (AD 900–1050) as a form of “prim-
itive money,” recent critique suggests these
artifacts were burial offerings rather than a
form of exchange currency (Topic 2013:350–
351).
9. Menzel (1966:124) notes that 11 examples
of balance beams were found in local Chin-
cha burials associated with agricultural items,
whereas only one small balance beam was as-
sociated with local imitations of Inca pottery.
10. The term “mullu” can also refer to other
worked materials of shell, bone, stone, and
precious metals (Blower 2001).
11. Arriaga claimed that even a piece of Spondy-
lus smaller than a fingernail could be pur-
chased for four reales (1968 [1621]).
12. Cieza de León (1984 [1553]:154) described
the multiple functions of chaquira beads
used to trade for metals such as gold, religious
offerings, and elite ornamentation.
13. “ . . . el que menos trato tenı́a trataba con
quinientos pesos de oro y muchos de ellos
trataban con dos mil o tres mil ducados” (Ros-
tworowski 1970:171).
14. “ . . . con sus compras y ventas iban desde
Chincha al Cuzco por todo el Collao” (Rost-
worowski 1970:171).
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