Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (birth name, Gómez Suárez de Figueroa), (April 12, 1539-April 23 1616), was born in Cuzco, Nueva Castilla, later the Republic of Peru, the

son of the notable Spanish conquistador, Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega (distant cousin of the Spanish poet, Garcilaso de la Vega) and the Incan princess and concubine Isabel Chimpu Ocilo.

Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is considered the first Incan-Spanish mestizo who was able to integrate his two separate cultural heritages. Also a creative writer, particularly of poetry, his histories of Peru, both pre-Hispanic and colonial, are of primary significance. The distinguished Peruvian intellectual and first vice president of the Republic of Peru, Luis Alberto Sánchez (1900-1994), considers him the “first Incan-Spanish biological and spiritual mestizo of the Americas. . .the first produced in the Americas of universal significance.” He interacted often with the Franciscans, Dominicans, and especially the Jesuits.