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AP WORKING WITH EVIDENCE

State Building in the Early Modern Era

mperial states — Mughal India, the Ottoman Empire, France, the Inca Empire, and
IMing dynasty China — were invariably headed by kings or emperors who were the
ultimate political authority in their lands. Those rulers sought to govern societies divided
by religion, region, ethnicity, or class. During the three centuries between 1450 and
1750, all of these states, and a number of nonimperial states as well, moved toward greater
political integration through more assertive monarchs and more effective central bureau-
cracies, which curtailed, though never eliminated, entrenched local interests. The growth
of empire accompanied this process of political integration, and perhaps helped cause it.
The documents that follow allow us to catch a glimpse of this state-building effort in
several distinct settings.

L O OK IN G A H E A D As you read through the documents in this collection, consider
what actions rulers take, or intentionally do not take, to increase
AP DBQ PRACTICE their control over the territories they rule.
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DOCUMENT 1 An Outsider’s View of the Inca Empire
Pedro de Cieza de León (1520–1554), a Spanish chronicler of the Inca Empire of the
early sixteenth century, took part as a soldier in a number of expeditions that established
Spanish rule in various parts of South America. Along the way, he collected a great deal of
information, especially about the Inca Empire, which he began to publish on his return
to Spain in 1550. Despite a very limited education, Cieza wrote a series of works that
have become a major source for historians about the workings of the Inca Empire and
about the Spanish conquest of that land. The selection that follows focuses on the tech-
niques that the Incas used to govern their huge empire.

Source: Spanish conquistador Pedro de Cieza de León on Incan rulers, from Chronicles
of the Incas, ca. 1550.
One of the things most to be envied in these rulers is how well they knew to conquer such
vast lands. . . .
[T]hey entered many lands without war, and the soldiers who accompanied the Inca were
ordered to do no damage or harm, robbery or violence. If there was a shortage of food in the
province, he ordered supplies brought in from other regions so that those newly won to his
service would not find his rule and acquaintance irksome. . . .
In many others, where they entered by war and force of arms, they ordered that the crops
and houses of the enemy be spared. . . . But in the end the Incas always came out victorious,
and when they had vanquished the others, they did not do them further harm, but released
those they had taken prisoner . . . and put them back in possession of their property and
Uncorrected proofs have been used in this sample. 247
Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.

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