Agenda – 2/5

• Talk about the essay

• Aztec and Inca!!

• Conquest of the Americas

• Homework: Quiz Friday! Notes due!

Colonization of the TheThe Americas

Empires and Encounters 1450-1750

What is the image of the Pre-Columbian Americas?

Think about it in your brains. How are native cultures viewed and taught in history

classes?

The reality: Description of Tenochtitlán by Hernando Cortés.

"This great city of Tenochtitlán is built on the salt lake, and no matter by what road you travel there are two leagues from the main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very wide, there are bridges. . . . There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or houses for their idols. They are all very beautiful buildings. . . . Amongst these temples there is one, the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe, for it is so large that within the precincts, which are surrounded by very high wall, a town of some five hundred inhabitants could easily be built. All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors where their priests live. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville. . . ."

The Aztec• The city featured

numerous canals,causeways, and bridges.

• Public works projects such as extensive temple projects and the agricultural innovation of chinampas.

• Aztec leaders waged wars to gain territory renowned for their extensive artificial island gardens and utilized their construction techniques to encircle and expand the city of Tenochtitlan.

The Aztec

The Aztec

THE INCA

Aka, Mrs. Pool’s Favorite Empire of All Time

The Inca • Inca means “elite” – the

people are the Quechua people

• The Inca had no slaves.Or currency. Or written language. Or law code outside of three basic principles. o -Those who broke one of the three main

principles - don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat -were publicly executed in city squares.

• 15 million people at the civilizations height, and they made do with bartering and the mit’asystem, which was a mandatory system of labor to the state.

The Inca • Inca stone work – made

without mortar

• Buildings could withstand earthquakes

• Made them all without significant beasts of burden - only the llama and alpaca, which both can only carry 40 pounds

• The Inca figured out the earth was round and that it rotated around the sun far before Galileo and Copernicus!

The Inca: cultural

• Inca rarely practiced human sacrificeo Only after bad natural disasters or on

the holiest day (winter solstice)

• Sacrifices came exclusively from the Inca classo Elite were closer to the gods and

could better appease them.

• Sacrifices were “humane”o Sedation and exposure - leave them

on the mountain to succumb to the elements (or, in some cases, would sedate and then club the person to bring about quicker death).

The Inca: cultural

• The three holiest animals in Inca religion are the puma, the condor, and the snake.

o Puma represents this earth and power.

o Condor represents the heavens and freedom

o Snake represents the underworld and wisdom.

The Inca: cultural

• Cusco, the political head of the Inca, was designed to resemble a puma. Machu Picchu, the Vatican City to Cusco’s Rome, was designed to resemble a condor in flight. The Urubamba River, mirrored by the muya, or the “celestial river” of the Milky Way, connect the two, representing the snake.

The Inca: health

• The average Inca lived to be 70 years old in the 1400s. The average European lived to be 40 during that time. o Healthy diet of plant based foods (they only

meat they ate was cuy, alpaca, and fish) and baked cooking

No oil in the new world

• The Inca walked everywhere, which is why all their streets (and the Inca trail) are completely paved!

The Inca: beginning of the end

• Inca had one spouse for their whole life

• The last Incan king had one son in wedlock and one with a concubine -which was not allowed.o Huasca v. Atahualpa

o Atahualpa won. But then… Pizarro

The Inca: The End

• It took the Spanish 16 days to round up all the gold in the city of Cusco, and an additional 6 days to melt it all down and make it into bricks to be shipped back to Spain

Conquest of the Aztec Empire

“History is written by the winners.”

How did a group of 400 Spaniards decimate the

biggest empire in central America?

Let’s start with a prophecy

A prophecy?

I am Quetzalcoatl, and I vow to return

and exact my vengeance in

1-Reed

Did Moctezuma initially believe Cortés was Quetzalcoatl returning after 600 years?

Maybe?

• The only surviving sources that tell this story are written by the Spanish.

•Why might the Spanish want to portray the Aztec emperor as a superstitious native who believed Cortés was a god?

Maybe?

•Or – why might the Aztec have created this story?

Who were the barbarians?

Both?AZTECS

• Human sacrifice

SPANISH

• Conquest through deceit and use of wholesale terror

Question: How did 400 Spaniards take down an empire

of 11 million people?

Question: How did 400 Spaniards take down an empire

of 11 million people?

Answer: In terms of development, Europe simply had a head start.

How did 400 Spaniards take down an empire of 11 million people?

• Advanced weaponryo Guns, steel

• Military tacticso To the Aztecs, “battle

was ideally a sacred duel between matched warriors”

o The Spanish fought “cowardly” (shot weapons at a distance, avoided hand-to-hand combat, hid behind their cannons)

How did 400 Spaniards take down an empire of 11 million people?

• Allies

• DISEASEo Introduced before

Cortés even arrived

o Between 90-96% of humans living in the Americas died of disease

The Spaniards viewed the Indians in one of two ways…

As barbaric, evil animals who don’t deserve to be treated like human beings.

As innocent, naïve children who don’t know any better.

• What types of Spaniards might choose to believe the first? The second?

The Spaniards viewed the Indians in one of two ways…

As barbaric, evil animals who don’t deserve to be treated like human beings. - Conquistadores

As innocent, naïve children who don’t know any better. – Priests/Missionaries

• Which of these is worse?