Garcilaso de la Vega (El Inca)

Garcilaso de la Vega
Garcilaso de la Vega
Born	12 April 1539 Cusco, New Castile (current Peru)
Died	23 April 1616(1616-04-23) (aged 77) Córdoba, Spain
Nationality	Spanish Peruvian
Occupation	Writer, historian
Parent(s)	Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega (father) Isabel Chimpu Ocllo (mother)

Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616), born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa and known as El Inca or Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, was a chronicler and writer born in the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru. Sailing to Spain at 21, he was educated informally there, where he lived and worked the rest of his life. The son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noblewoman born in the early years of the conquest, he is recognized primarily for his histories about Inca history, culture, and society. His work was influential and well-received. It was as the first literature by an author born in the Americas to enter the western canon.

After his father's death in 1559, De la Vega moved to Spain in 1561, seeking official acknowledgement as his father's son. His paternal uncle became a protector, and De la Vega lived in Spain for the rest of his life, where he wrote his histories of the Inca culture and Spanish conquest, as well as an account of de Soto's expedition in Florida.

Born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, in Cusco, Peru, in 1539, he was the illegitimate son of a Spanish aristocrat and a royal Inca mother. He was born during the early years of the Spanish conquest. His father was Spanish captain and conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas (d. 1559). His mother was an Inca princess, Palla Chimpu Ocllo, who was baptized after the fall of Cuzco as Isabel Suárez Chimpu Ocllo. She was descended from Inca nobility, a daughter of Túpac Huallpa and a granddaughter (not a niece) of the powerful Inca Tupac Yupanqui. Because he was illegitimate and the ravages of the conquest were underway, the boy was given only his mother's surname. Under the Spanish system of caste that developed, he would have been classified as a criollo (for being of Spanish descent, born in South America) and mestizo (for his mixed parents).

Gómez lived with his mother and her Inca family for the first ten years of his life. His first language was Quecha, but he also learned Spanish from his early years. His father took the boy into his household and gave him some education. Suárez de Figueroa received an inheritance when his father died in 1559. The next year, at 21, he decided to travel to Spain.