ABSTRACT
Andean historians recount that from the time of Sir Walter Raleigh, a prediction had persisted among Andean nobility that the English would come to South America to restore the Inca dynasty.1 When this prophecy appeared in print in 1723, in the prologue to a new edition of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Royal Commentaries of the Incas, the book was banned by colonial authorities because of its potential insurrectional effects on the native elites. The fact that in the eighteenth century, a book written in Spanish (quoting a prophecy written in Latin) could be seen as likely to agitate the Inca nobility in Cuzco suggests both the extent to which the native elite had maintained an identity as an adversarial caste, and the extent of their interconnectedness with the cultural institutions of the conquerors. Over 250 years since the conquest, they had adapted to Spanish rule, intermarrying with Spanish colonialists and sharing the fruits of colonial exploitation, and had maintained independent identities and political aspirations.
