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Power concedes nothing without a demand. Name: Date: Mr. Carey/Mr. Clarke Zooming Out: Aztecs and Incas Zooming Out: Aztecs and Incas I. Overview While the “Mongol moment” was happening—and coming to a close—over in Eurasia, the Americas were going through a civilization moment of their very own. While centers of civilization had long flourished in Mesoamerica and South America, the 1400s witnessed new, larger, and more politically organized versions of those civilizations, as seen in the Aztec and Inca empires (see map). Both were the work of previously small peoples who had taken over and absorbed older cultures, giving them new energy, and both were destroyed in the 16th century at the hands of Spanish conquerors and their diseases (more on that later). Directions: Actively read and annotate the provided texts on the Aztec and Inca empires. While you read, keep the question below in mind. When you finish reading, respond to this question in the “Homework” section of your AP World History notebooks. 1. Contrast the political and economic structures of the Aztec and Incan Empires. Support your response with at least two pieces of evidence from each text. Use the SPICE fragments at the end of this handout to support your reading. II. The Aztec Empire The empire known to history as the Aztec empire was largely the work of the Mexica people, a seminomadic group from northern Mexico who had migrated south and by 1325 had established themselves on a small island in Lake Texcoco. After forming a series of alliances with surrounding peoples, the Mexica people launched an aggressive campaign of conquest, and in less than 100 years, brought most of Mesoamerica under a single empire: the Aztec Empire. (1) With a population of roughly 5 to 6 million people, the Aztec Empire had a loosely structured government that experienced frequent rebellions from conquered people. Conquered peoples and cities were required to provide labor for Aztec projects and to deliver to their Aztec rulers large amounts of textiles and clothing, military supplies, jewelry and other luxiries, foods, animal products, building materials, rubber balls, paper, and more. This process was managed by local tribute collectors, who sent the required goods on to Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the empire, where all goods were carefully stocked and recorded. (2) As a center of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan featured numerous canals, dikes, causeways, and bridges. A central walled area of palaces and temples included a pyramid almost 200 feet high. Surrounding the city were “floating gardens,” or islands created from swamplands that supported agriculture. Vast marketplaces marked Technotitlan as a center of trade. (3) Beyond tribute from conquered peoples, ordinary trade, both local and long-distance, was a main activity of the Aztec Empire. Virtually every part of the empire, from Tenochtitlan to the smallest village, had a marketplace that hummed with activity during weekly market days. The largest marketplace was Tlatelolco, near the capital city, which stunned many with its huge size, good order, and range of goods available. Professional merchants, known as pochteca, often gained great wealth and rose to the upper classes of Aztec society. (4) Power concedes nothing without a demand. Among the “goods” that the pochteca traded in were slaves, many of whom were destined for sacrifice in the bloody rituals so central to Aztec religious life. Human sacrifice assumed a huge rule in Aztec public life and thought during the 15th century. The Aztecs believed that their god, Huitzilopochtli, was locked in a fight against evil forces. If he did not receive enough energy, he would lose this battle, and the Aztec world would be destroyed. The Aztecs came to believe that one of the only ways to provide Huitzilopochtli with this much-needed energy was through human sacrifice. This set of beliefs drove Aztec expansion, as conquering other peoples provided the Aztecs with more people for human sacrifice. Aztec priests and rulers, who worked hand-in-hand at the top of Aztec society, actively supported this process. (5) III. The Inca Empire While the Aztec Empire was developing in Mesoamerica, a relatively small community of people—known as Incans—began to build the largest empire in the Americas of the time along the Andes Mountains of South America. The Inca Empire was much larger than the Aztec; it stretched some 2,500 miles along the Andes and contained perhaps 10 million people. Although the Aztec Empire controlled only a part of the Mesoamerican region, the Inca state contained practically the whole of Andean civilization during its short life in the 15th and early 16th centuries. (1) In the Aztec Empire, Aztec rulers largely left their conquered people alone, so long as they paid tribute. No complex government system existed to connect the conquered territories. The Incas, on the other hand, created a more organized government. At the top reigned the emperor, and each of the provinces within the empire had an Inca governor. The Incan government was said to own all the land and resources of the empire. In the central regions of the empire, people were grouped in units of 10, 50, 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 10,000 people, each headed by local officials, who were appointed and supervised by an Inca governor or the emperor himself. A separate set of “inspectors” provided the emperor with a check on local officials. Births, deaths, marriages, and other population data were carefully recorded on quipus, the knotted cords that served as an accounting device. Newly conquered peoples were expected to learn the Incan language of Quechua in order to further connect peoples throughout the empire. (2) Like the Aztec Empire, the Inca state represented an especially dense and extended network of economic relationships, but these relationships took shape in a quite different fashion. Inca demands on their conquered people were expressed not in terms of tribute, but as labor service, known as mita, which was required of every Incan household. What people produced at home usually stayed at home, but almost everyone also had to work for the government. Some worked on large state farms or “sun farms,” which supported temples and other religious institutions; others herded, mined, served in the military, or toiled on state-directed construction projects. (3) Political Economic The political elements of a society/civilization often concern the groups/individuals that control a society/civilization, as well as how that society/civilization is built to run. What kind of government exists within the society/civilization in question? Is the society/civilization in question stable, or is it prone to revolts and revolutions? How does the society/civilization in question approach outside societies/civilizations around it? The economic elements of a society/civilization often concern the systems of trade/exchange at work within that society/civilization. How does a society/civilization in question get its resources or accumulate wealth? How does this society/civilization then trade these resources for other resources, or use the wealth it gains?