The Inca Empire was a large indigenous empire in South America that existed from 1438 to 1533, ruling over the Andes. Centered at the city of Cuzco in Peru, the Incans ruled lands from southern Colombia in the north to northern Chile and Argentina in the south, and the Inca grew to be the largest Native American empire. Its strong armies succeeded in taking over much of western South America, but the arrival of Spain's armies in 1533, commanded by Francisco Pizzaro Gonzalez, led to the downfall of the empire. Defeated at the Battle of Cajamarca, the Incan Empire disintegrated into smaller city-states (known collectively as the Neo-Inca State), with the last stronghold falling in 1572. Many of its 20,000,000 people were massacred or died of disease, while the survivors entered interracial marriages with Spanish settlers, creating mestizos.
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