Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616), born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa and known as El Inca, was a chronicler and writer born in the Viceroyalty of Peru. Sailing to Spain at 21, he was educated informally there, where he lived and worked the rest of his life. The natural son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noblewoman born in the early years of the conquest, he is known primarily for his chronicles of Inca history, culture, and society. His work was widely read in Europe, influential and well received. It was the first literature by an author born in the Americas to enter the western canon. After his father's death in 1559, Vega moved to Spain in 1561, seeking official acknowledgement as his father's son. His paternal uncle became a protector, and he 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. Early life Born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa in Cuzco, Peru, in 1539, he was the natural son of a Spanish conqueror and encomendero 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 elite Inca woman, 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 his parents were not married in the Catholic Church, he was illegitimate and the boy was given only his mother's surname. Under the Spanish system of caste that developed, he would have been classified as a mestizo (for his mixed parents). When Gómez was young, his father abandoned his mother and married a much younger Spanish woman. As such, Gómez lived with his mother, her husband Juan de Pedroche, her Inca family and had two daughters, De la Vega's half-sisters Ana Ruíz, who went on to marry Martín de Bustinza, and Luisa de Herrera, who married Pedro Márquez de Galeoto (one of their children was Alonso Márquez de Figueroa). His first language was Quechua, but he also learned Spanish from early boyhood. He lived with his