Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the Spanish poet and soldier, see Garcilaso de la Vega.
Garcilaso de la Vega, (b. Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, c. 1539 in Cuzco, Peru) was an illustrious Peruvian poet and acclaimed writer on the subject of the Incas. He is more commonly known as "El Inca" Garcilaso de la Vega, or simply "El Inca".
Born of Spanish aristocratic and royal Inca roots, he was the son of Spanish conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega and Inca princess Isabel Suárez Chimpu Ocllo, who was a niece of the powerful Inca Huayna Capac. A native Quechua speaker born in Cuzco, Garcilaso wrote accounts of Inca life, history, and the conquest by the Spanish.
Garcilaso was educated in Spain after his father's death in 1560. At the time, marriages between the Spanish and native people of the Americas were not recognized in Spain. Garcilaso had to present his case in the Spanish courts in order to receive payment for his service to the crown. Embittered by his illegitimacy in Spain and proud of his Inca heritage, Garcilaso took on the name "El Inca" (in this context, "Inca" refers to the old ruling lineage group, not the general people).
He remained in Spain and did not return to his native country (now Peru) due to the danger his royal Inca lineage presented in uncertain times. He entered the Spanish military service in 1570, and received the rank of captain.
[edit] Works
It was in Spain that Garcilaso wrote his famous Comentarios Reales de los Incas (1609) based on stories he had been told by his Inca relatives when he was a child in Cusco. The Comentarios contained two sections: the first about Inca life, and the second about the Spanish conquest of Peru. Many years later, when the guerilla Tupac Amaru II gained traction, a royal edict by Carlos III of Spain banned the Comentarios from being published in Lima due to its "dangerous" content. The book was not printed again in the Americas until 1918, but copies continued to be circulated.
Even before the Comentarios Reales, Garcilaso had also written his popular Historia de la Florida, an account of Hernando de Soto's expedition and journey of Florida. The work was published in Lisbon in 1605, becoming better known as the La Florida del Inca. It contains the chronicles of de Sotos's expedition according to information Garcilaso gathered during various years, and defends the legitimacy of imposing the Spanish sovereignty in conquered territories and submit them to Christian jurisdiction.
"El Inca" Garcilaso de la Vega died in April 23, 1616 at the age of 77, at the same date of the death of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (author of Don Quixote) and William Shakespeare. Notice that since the Spanish Empire followed the Gregorian calendar and England, the Julian calendar, these deaths did not happen on the same day.
Cusco's main stadium, Estadio Garcilaso de la Vega, was named after him in 1950.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- More extensive biography of "el Inca Garcilaso de la Vega"
- Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega - Peruvian University named in his honor
