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15

Empires and Alternatives in the Americas 1430–1530

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World in the Making Perched on a granite ridge high above Peru’s Urubamba R iver, the Inca site of Machu Picchu continues to draw thousands of visitors each year. First thought to be the lost city of Vilcabamba, then a convent for Inca nuns, Machu Picchu is now believed to have been a mid-fifteenth- century palace built for the Inca emperor and his mummy cult. It was probably more a religious site than a place of rest and recreation.

Many Native Americas FOCUS What factors account for the diversity of native American cultures?

Tributes of Blood: The Aztec Empire, 1325–1521

FOCUS What core features characterized Aztec life and rule?

Tributes of Sweat: The Inca Empire, 1430–1532

FOCUS What core features characterized Inca life and rule?

COUNTERPOINT: The Peoples of North America’s Eastern Woodlands, 1450–1530

FOCUS How did the Eastern Woodlanders’ experience differ from life under the Aztecs and Incas?

backstory By the fifteenth century the Americas had

witnessed the rise and fall of numerous

empires and kingdoms, including the classic

Maya of Mesoamerica, the wealthy Sicán

kingdom of Peru’s desert coast, and the

Cahokia mound builders of the Mississippi

Basin. Just as these cultures faded, there

emerged two new imperial states that

borrowed heavily from their predecessors.

The empires discussed in this chapter, the

Aztec and Inca, were the largest states ever

to develop in the Americas, yet they were

not all-powerful. About half of all native

Americans, among them the diverse peoples

of North America’s eastern woodlands, lived

outside their realms.

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In 1995, archaeologists discovered a tomb on a peak overlooking Arequipa, Peru. Inside was the mummified body of an adolescent girl placed there some five hun- dred years earlier. Evidence suggests she was an aclla (AHK-yah), or “chosen woman,” selected by Inca priests from among hundreds of regional headmen’s daughters. Most aclla girls became priestesses dedicated to the Inca emperor or the imperial sun cult. Others became the emperor’s concubines or wives. Only the most select, like the girl discovered near Arequipa, were chosen for the “debt-payment” sacrifice, or capacocha (kah-pah-KOH-chah), said to be the greatest honor of all.

According to testimonies collected after the Spanish conquest of the Incas in 1532 (discussed in the next chapter), the capacocha sacrifice was a rare event preceded by rituals. First, the victim, chosen for her (and rarely, his) physical perfection, trekked to Cuzco, the Inca capital. The child’s father brought gifts from his province and in turn received fine textiles from the emperor. Following an ancient Andean tradition, ties between ruler and ruled were reinforced through such acts of reciprocity. The girl, too, received skirts and shawls, along with votive objects. These adorned her in her tomb, reached after a long journey on foot from Cuzco.

As suggested by later discoveries, at tomb-side the aclla girl was probably given a beaker of maize beer. In a pouch she carried coca leaves. Coca, chewed throughout the Andes, helped fend off altitude sickness, whereas the maize beer induced sleepi- ness. Barely conscious of her surroundings, the girl was lowered into her grass-lined grave, and, according to the forensic anthropologists who examined her skull, struck dead with a club.

W hy did the Incas sacrifice children, and why in these ways? By combining ma- terial, written, and oral evidence, scholars are beginning to solve the riddle of the Inca mountain mummies. It now appears that death, fertility, reciprocity, and imperial links to sacred landscapes were all features of the capacocha sacrifice. Although such deadly practices may challenge our ability to empathize with the leaders, if not the common folk, of this distant culture, with each new fact we learn about the child mummies, the closer we get to understanding the Inca Empire and its ruling cosmology.

The Incas and their subjects believed that death occurred as a process, and that proper death led to an elevated state of consciousness. In this altered state a person could communicate with deities directly, and in a sense join them. If the remains of such a person were carefully preserved and honored, they could act as an oracle, a conduit to the sacred realms above and below the earth. Mountains, as sources of springs and rivers, and sometimes fertilizing volcanic ash, held particular significance.

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In part, it was these beliefs about landscape, death, and the afterlife that led the Incas to mummify ancestors, including their emperors, and to bury chosen young people atop mountains that marked the edges, or heights, of empire. Physically perfect noble children such as the girl found near Arequipa were thus selected to communicate with the spirit world. Their sacrifice unified the dead, the living, and the sacred mountains, and also bound together a far-flung empire that was in many ways as fragile as life itself.1

But this fragility was not evident to the people gathered at the capacocha sacrifice. By about 1480, more than half of all native Americans were subjects of two great empires, the Aztec in Mexico and Central America and the Inca in South America. Both empires subdued neighboring chiefdoms through a mix of violence, forced relocation, religious indoctrination, and marriage alliances. Both empires demanded allegiance in the form of tribute. Both the Aztecs and Incas were greatly feared by their millions of subjects. Perhaps surprisingly, these last great native American states would prove far more vulnerable to European invaders than their nonimperial neighbors, most of whom were gatherer-hunters and semi-sedentary villagers. Those who relied least on farming had the best chance of getting away.

1. In what ways was cultural

diversity in the Americas related

to environmental diversity?

2. Why was it in Mesoamerica

and the Andes that large

empires emerged around 1450?

3. What key ideas or practices

extended beyond the limits of

the great empires?

OVERVIEW QUESTIONS

The major global development in this chapter: The diversity of societies and states in the Americas prior to European invasion.

As you read, consider:

Many Native Americas

FOCUS What factors account for the diversity of native american cultures?

Scholars once claimed that the Western Hemisphere was sparsely settled prior to the arrival of Europeans in 1492, but we now know that by then the population of the Americas had reached some sixty million or more. A lthough vast open spaces

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remained, in places the landscape was more intensively cultivated and thickly populated than western Europe (see Map 15.1). Fewer records for nonimperial groups survive than for empire builders such as the Incas and Aztecs, but scholars have recently learned much about these less-studied cultures. Outside imperial boundaries, coastal and riverside populations were densest. This was true in the Caribbean, the Amazon, Paraguay-Paraná, and Mississippi R iver Basins, the Pacific Northwest, and parts of North America’s eastern seaboard.

Ecological diversity gave rise in part to political and cultural diversity. A merica’s native peoples, or A merindians, occupied two ecologically diverse continents. They also inhabited tropical, temperate, and icy environments that proved more or less suitable to settled agriculture. Some were members of egalitarian gatherer-hunter bands; others were subjects of rigidly stratified imperial states. In between were traveling bands of pilgrims led by prophets; chiefdoms based on fish- ing, whaling, or farming; regional confederacies of chiefdoms; and independent city-states.

Political diversity was more than matched by cultural diversity. The Aztecs and Incas spread the use of imperial dialects within their empires, but elsewhere hundreds

of distinct Amerindian lan- guages could be heard. Modes of dress and adornment were even more varied, ranging from total nudity and a few tattoos to highly elaborate ceremonial dress. Lip and ear piercing, tooth filing, and molding of the infant skull between slats of wood were but a few of the many ways human appearances were reconfigured. Architecture was just as varied, as were ceramics and other arts. In short, the Americas’ extraor- dinary range of climates and nat- ural resources both reflected and encouraged diverse forms of ma- terial and linguistic expression. Perhaps only in the realm of reli- gion, where shamanism persisted, was a unifying thread to be found.

Canadian War Club This stone war club with a fish motif was excavated from a native A merican tomb in coastal British Columbia, Canada, and is thought to date from around 1200 to 1400 C.E . Such items at first suggest a people at war, but this club was probably intended only for ceremonial use. Modern Tsimshian inhabitants of the region, who still rely on salmon, describe the exchange of stone clubs in their foundation myths.

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0

0 650 Kilometers

650 Miles

PACIFIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

Caribbean Sea

Rio de la Plata

Gulf of Mexico

Lesser A ntilles

Greater Antilles

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MESOAMERICA

Main areas of se�lement, c. 1492

Major trade route

Main Se�lement Areas in the Americas, c. 1492

Principal crops Amaranth

Beans

Cacao

Chilies

Co�on

Maize

Manioc

Potatoes, sweet potatoes

Quinoa

Squash, pumpkins, gourds

Sun�owers

Tobacco

Tomatoes

Peanuts

NORTH AMERICA

SOUTH AMERICA

Tropic of Cancer

Tropic of Capricorn

Equator

30ºN

120ºW 90ºW 60ºW 30ºW 0º

30ºS

MAP 15.1 Main Settlement Areas in the Americas, c. 1492 Most native Americans settled in regions that supported intensive agriculture. The trade routes shown here linked peoples from very different cultures, mostly to exchange rare items such as shells, precious stones, and tropical bird feathers, but seeds for new crops also followed these paths.

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Shamanism consisted of reliance on healer-visionaries for spiritual guidance. In imperial societies shamans constituted a priestly class. Both male and female, sha- mans had functions ranging from fortune teller to physician, with women often acting as midwives. Still, most native American shamans were males. The role of shaman could be inherited or determined following a vision quest. This entailed a solo journey to a forest or desert region, prolonged physical suffering, and controlled use of hallucinogenic substances. In many respects Amerindian shamanism resem- bled shamanistic practices in Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Often labeled “witch doctors” by Christian Europeans, shamans maintained a body of esoteric knowledge that they passed along to apprentices. Some served as historians and myth keepers. Most used powerful hallucinogens to communicate with the spirits of predatory animals, which were venerated almost every where in the Americas. Animal spirits were regarded as the shaman’s alter ego or protector, and were consulted prior to important occasions. Shamans also mastered herbal remedies for all forms of illness, including emotional disorders. These rubs, washes, and infusions were sometimes effective, as shown by modern pharmacological studies. Shamans nearly always administered them along with chants and rituals aimed at expelling evil spirits. Shamans, therefore, combined the roles of physician and religious leader, using their knowledge and power to heal both body and spirit.

The many varieties of social organization and cultural practice found in the Americas reflect both creative interactions with specific environments and the visions of individual political and religious leaders. Some Amerindian gatherer-hunters lived in swamplands and desert areas where subsistence agricul- ture was impossible using available technologies. Often such gathering-hunting peoples traded with—or plundered—their farming neighbors. Yet even farming peoples did not forget their past as hunters. As in other parts of the world, big-game hunting in the Americas was an esteemed, even sacred activity among urban elites.

Just as hunting remained important to farmers, agriculture could be found among some forest peoples. Women in these societies controlled most agricultural tasks and spaces, periodically making offerings to spirits associated with human fertility. Amerindian staple foods included maize, potatoes, and manioc, a lowland tropical tuber that could be ground into flour and preserved. With the ebb and flow of empires, many groups shifted from one mode of subsistence to another, from planting to gathering-hunting and back again. Some, such as the Kwakiutl (K WA H-kyu-til) of the Pacific Northwest, were surrounded by such abundant marine and forest resources that they never turned to farming. Natural abundance combined with sophisticated fishing and storage systems allowed the Kwakiutl to build a settled culture of the type normally associated with agricultural peoples.

shamanism  Widespread system of religious belief and healing originating in Central Asia.

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Thus, the ecological diversity of the Americas helped give rise to numerous cul- tures, many of which blurred the line between settled and nomadic lifestyles.

Tributes of Blood: The Aztec Empire 1325–1521

FOCUS What core features characterized aztec life and rule?

Mesoamerica, comprised of modern southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and western Honduras, was a land of city-states after about 800 C.E . Following the decline of Teotihuacán (tay-oh-tee-wah-KAHN) in the Mexican highlands and the classic Maya in the greater Guatemalan lowlands, few urban powers, with the possible exception of the Toltecs, managed to dominate more than a few neighbors.

This would change with the arrival in the Valley of Mexico of a band of former gatherer-hunters from a northwestern desert region they called Aztlán ( ost-LAW N), or “place of cranes.” As newcomers these “Aztecs,” who later called themselves Mexica (meh-SHE-cah, hence “Mexico”), would suffer humiliation by powerful city-dwellers centered on Lake Texcoco, now overlain by Mexico City. The Aztecs were at first regarded as barbarians, but as with many conquering outsiders, in time they would have their revenge (see Map 15.2).

Humble Origins, Imperial Ambitions Unlike the classic Maya of preceding centuries, the Aztecs did not develop a fully phonetic writing system. They did, however, preserve their history in a mix of oral and symbolic, usually painted or carved, forms. Aztec elders maintained chronicles of the kind historians call master narratives, or state-sponsored versions of the past meant to glorify certain individuals or policies. These narratives related foundation myths, genealogies, tales of conquest, and other important remembrances. Though biased and fragmentary, many Aztec oral narratives were preserved by young native scribes writing in Nahuatl (NA H-watt), the Aztec language, soon after the Spanish Conquest of 1519–1521 (discussed in the next chapter).

W hy is it that the Spanish victors promoted rather than suppressed these narratives of Aztec glory? In one of history’s many ironic twists, Spanish priests arriving in Mexico in the 1520s taught a number of noble Aztec and other Mesoamerican youths to adapt the Latin alphabet and Spanish phonetics to vari- ous local languages, most importantly Nahuatl. The Spanish hoped that stories of Aztec rule and religion, once collected and examined, would be swiftly discredited

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and replaced with Western, Christian versions. Not only did this quick conver- sion not happen as planned, but an unintended consequence of the information- gathering campaign was to create a vast body of Mesoamerican literature written in native languages.

The Aztecs were a quick study in the production of written historical docu- ments, and most of what we know of Aztec history relies heavily on these hybrid, sixteenth-century sources (see Seeing the Past: An Aztec Map of Tenochtitlán). Aside from interviews with the elders, several painted books, or codices, marked with precise dates, names, and other symbols, survive, along with much archaeo- logical and artistic evidence. In combining these sources with Spanish eyewitness accounts of the conquest era, historians have assembled a substantial record of Aztec life and rule.

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150 Miles

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Gulf of Mexico

Caribbean Sea

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Sierra Madre Del Sur

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YUCATAN PENINSULA

VALLEY OF MEXICO

MAYA HIGHLANDS

TA�SCAN MAYA

ZAPOTEC

MIXTEC

MEXICA (AZTEC)

TLAXCALAN

COLHUA OTOMI

Chichén Itzá

Tenochtitlán See inset map

TABASCO

By 1440

Added by 1481

Added by 1521

�e Aztec Empire, 1325–1521 Aztec territory

100ºW 90ºW

20ºN

Tropic of Cancer

Lake Texcoco

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Xochimilco Coyoacán

Tlacopán

Tenayuca

Tenochtitlán Atzcapotzalco

Xaltocán

Ixtalapapa

Chalco

Valley of Mexico

Causeway Dike

MAP 15.2 The Aztec Empire, 1325–1521 Starting from their base in Tenochtitlán (now Mexico City), the Aztecs quickly built the most densely populated empire in the A mericas. Their first objective was the Valley of Mexico itself. A lthough a line of kings greatly extended the empire, not all peoples fell to the Aztec war machine, including the Tlaxcalans to the east of Tenochtitlán and the Tarascans to the west. A lso unconquered were the many nomadic peoples of the desert north and the farming forest peoples of the southeast.

SEEING THE PAST

An Aztec Map of Tenochtitlán Named for Mexico’s first Spanish viceroy, the

Codex Mendoza was painted by Aztec artists

about a dozen years after the Spanish Conquest

of 1519–1521. It was commissioned by the viceroy

as a gift for the Holy Roman emperor and king

of Spain, Charles V. After circulating among the

courts of Europe, the Codex Mendoza landed in

the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England, where it

remains. Much of the document consists of trib-

ute lists, but it also contains an illustrated history

of Aztec conquests, crimes and punishments, and

even a map of Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. This

symbol-filled map is reproduced here.

According to legend, the Aztec capital came into ex-

istence when an eagle landed on a cactus in the middle

of Lake Texcoco. This image, now part of the Mexican

national flag, is at the center of the map. Beneath the

cactus is a picture of a stone carving of a cactus fruit, a

common Aztec symbol for the human heart, emblem

of sacrifice. Beneath this is a third symbol labeled after-

ward by a Spanish scribe “Tenochtitlán.”

The city, or rather its symbol, marks the meeting

of four spatial quarters. In each quarter are various

Aztec nobles, only one of whom, Tenochtli (labeled

“Tenuch” on the map), is seated on a reed mat, the

Aztec symbol of supreme authority. He was the

Aztecs’ first emperor; the name “Tenochtli” means

“stone cactus fruit.”

The lower panel depicts the Aztec conquests of

their neighbors in Colhuacan and Tenayuca. Framing

the entire map are symbols for dates, part of an

ancient Mesoamerican system of timekeeping and

prophesying retained by the Aztecs. Finally, barely

legible in the upper left-hand corner is the somewhat

jarring signature of André Thevet, a French priest

and royal cosmographer who briefly possessed the

Codex Mendoza in the late sixteenth century.

Examining the Evidence 1. W hat does this map reveal about the Aztec worldview? 2. How might this document have been read by a common Aztec subject?

Tenochtitlán, from the Codex Mendoza

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The Aztecs apparently arrived in the Valley of Mexico some- time in the thirteenth century, but it was not until the early fourteenth that they established a permanent home. The most fertile sites in the valley were already occupied, but the Aztecs were not dissuaded; they had a reputation for being tough and resourceful. Heeding an omen in the form of an eagle perched on a cactus growing on a tiny island near the southwest edge of Lake Texcoco, the refugees settled there in 1325. Reclaim- ing land from the shallow lakebed, they founded a city called Tenochtitlán (teh-noach-teet-LAW N), or “cactus fruit place.” Linked to shore by three large causeways, the city soon boasted stone palaces and temple-pyramids.

The Aztecs transformed Tenochtitlán into a formidable capital. By 1500 it was home to some two hundred thousand people, ranking alongside Nanjing and Paris among the world’s most populous cities at the time. At first the Aztecs developed their city by trading military services and lake products such as reeds and fish for building materials, including stone, lime, and timber from the surrounding hillsides. They then formed mar- riage alliances with regional ethnic groups such as the Colhua, and by 1430 initiated imperial expansion.

Intermarriage with the Colhua, who traced their ancestry to the warrior Toltecs, lent the lowly Aztecs a new, elite cachet. At some point the Aztecs tied their religious cult, focused on the war god Huitzilopochtli (weetsy-low-POACH-tlee), or “hummingbird-on-the-left” to cults dedicated to more widely known deities, such as the water god Tlaloc. A huge, multilay-

ered pyramid faced with carved stone and filled with rubble, now referred to by archaeologists as the Templo Mayor, or “Great Temple,” but called by the Aztecs Coatepec, or “Serpent Mountain,” became the centerpiece of Tenochtitlán. At its top, some twenty stories above the valley floor, sat twin temples, one dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, the other to Tlaloc. Coatepec was built to awe and intimidate. In the words of one native poet,

Proud of itself Is the City of Mexico-Tenochtitlán Here no one fears to die in war This is our glory This is Your Command Oh Giver of Life

B

A

D

C

0

0 0.5 km

0.5 mi

Lake Texcoco

Tlatelolco

Tenochtitlán

Causeway Major road Major canal Aqueduct

Great Temple Ritual center Palace Assembly hall

A B C D

Lake Texcoco and Tenochtitlán, c. 1500

Lake Texcoco and Tenochtitlán, c. 1500

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Have this in mind, oh princes W ho could conquer Tenochtitlán? W ho could shake the foundation of heaven?2

The Aztecs saw themselves as both stagehands and actors in a cosmic drama centered on their great capital city.

Enlarging and Supplying the Capital With Tenochtitlán surrounded by water, subsistence and living space became serious concerns amid imperial expansion. Fortunately for the Aztecs, Lake Texcoco was shallow enough to allow an ingenious form of land reclamation called chinampa (chee-NA HM-pah). Chinampas were long, narrow terraces built by hand from dredged mud, reeds, and rocks, bordered by interwoven sticks and live trees. Chinampa construction also created canals for canoe transport. Building chinampas and massive temple-pyramids such as Coatepec without metal tools, wheeled vehicles, or draft animals required thousands of workers. Their construc- tion, therefore, is a testimony to the Aztecs’ power to command labor.

Over time, Tenochtitlán’s canals accumulated algae, water lilies, and silt. Workers periodically dredged and composted this organic material to fertilize maize and other plantings on the island terraces. Established chinampa lands were eventually used for building residences, easing urban crowding. By the mid- fifteenth century the Aztecs countered problems such as chronic flooding and high salt content at their end of the lake with dikes and other public works.

Earlier, in the fourteenth century, an adjacent “twin” city called Tlatelolco (tlah-teh-LOLE-coe) had emerged alongside Tenochtitlán. Tlatelolco was the Aztec marketplace. Foods, textiles, and exotic goods were exchanged here. Cocoa beans from the hot lowlands served as currency, and products such as turquoise and quetzal feathers arrived from as far away as New Mexico and Guatemala, re- spectively. Though linked by trade, these distant regions fell well outside the Aztec domain. A ll products were transported along well-trod footpaths on the backs of human carriers. Only when they arrived on the shores of Lake Texcoco could trade goods be shuttled from place to place in canoes. Tlatelolco served as crossroads for all regional trade, with long-distance merchants, or pochteca (poach-TEH-cah), occupying an entire precinct.

Aztec imperial expansion began only around 1430, less than a century before the arrival of Europeans. An alliance between Tenochtitlán and the city-states of Texcoco and Tlacopan led to victory against a third, Atzcapotzalco (otts-cah- poat- SAUL-coh) (see again Map 15.2). Tensions with Atzcapotzalco extended back to the Aztecs’ first arrival in the region. The Aztecs used the momentum of this vic- tory to overtake their allies and lay the foundations of a regional, tributary empire.

chinampa A terrace for farming and house building constructed in the shallows of Mexico’s Lake Texcoco by the Aztecs and their neighbors.

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Within a generation they controlled the entire Valley of Mexico, exacting tribute from several million people. The Nahuatl language helped link state to subjects, although many subject groups retained local languages. These persistent forms of ethnic identification, coupled with staggering tribute demands, would eventually help bring about the end of Aztec rule.

Holy Terror: Aztec Rule, Religion, and Warfare A series of six male rulers, or tlatoque (tlah-TOE-kay, singular tlatoani), presided over Aztec expansion. W hen a ruler died, his successor was chosen by a council of elders from among a handful of eligible candidates. Aztec kingship was sacred in

Aztec Human Sacrifice This image dates from just after the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, but it was part of a codex about Aztec religious practices and symbols. Here a priest is removing the beating heart of a captive with a flint knife as an assistant holds his feet. The captive’s bloody heart, in the form of a cactus fruit, ascends, presumably to the gods (see the same icon in Seeing the Past: A n Aztec Map of Tenochtitlán, page 539). At the base of the sacrificial pyramid lies an earlier victim, apparently being taken away by noble Aztec men and women responsible for the handling of the corpse.

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that each tlatoani traced his lineage back to the Toltecs. For this, the incorporation of the Colhua lineage had been essential. In keeping with this Toltec legacy, the Aztec Empire was characterized by three core features: human sacrifice, warfare, and tribute. A ll were linked to Aztec and broader Mesoamerican notions of cosmic order, specifically the human duty to feed the gods.

Like most Mesoamericans, the Aztecs traced not only their own but all human origins to sacrifices made by deities. In origin stories male and female gods threw themselves into fires, drew their own blood, and killed and dismembered one another, all for the good of humankind. These sacrifices were considered essential to the process of releasing and renewing …

Introduction World History? Since 1500? History 111 – World History since 1500

Spring 2022

Jorge Minella ([email protected])

An Empire’s Map On Exactitude in Science Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fiction

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