Aztecs and Incas

1. Aztecs and Incas DBQ

2. Contextualization • From 1200-1450 the civilization of the Americas on the eve of the Encounter were able to engineer an empire. Overcoming tremendous geographic obstacles like the highlands of the Andes (Inca) or the lowlands of the central valley of Mexico in a swam (Aztecs) or in the thorny jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula (Maya), these civilizations would not just survive but thrive. Through competitive military prowess, strong tribute through labor or goods, a strong North/South trade network would develop amongst the Cahokia, Anasazi, Mesa Verde to the Aztecs, Maya and Teotihuacan. The Incas in the Andean altiplano would establish a labor tribute empire connected through an intricate networks of roads, canals and suspension bridges.

3. Document #1illustrated tribute paid to the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan which was created by Jesuit missionary priests for the purpose of identifying Aztec riches for the Spanish coffers

4. Document #2 illustrates the power of religion perhaps to justify the power of rules, priest-kings and provide a unifying worldview for the people of the Aztec Empire

5. Document #3 illustrates the government sponsored civil calendar to organized a cooperative effort to maintain the growing seasons and establish ceremonies and traditions for the purpose of reminding the people of the power of the Emperor

6. Document #4 Illustrates the importance of rituals and traditions in the Aztec Empire to control affairs of state and attempt to unify an ostensibly decentralized empire

7. Document #5 depicts human sacrifice in the Florentine codex perhaps for the purpose of this Franciscan Friar showing the brutality and savagery of the Aztec to convert the masses to Catholicism

8. Document #6 ,again, illustrates the tribute paid throughout the Aztec empire but compiled by Spanish priests to provide notice to Spain of the great riches of the Aztecs.

9. Diaz de Castillo in Doc #7 is thoroughly impressed with this Aztec marketplace for the purpose of establishing some ties with the Aztecs.

10. The purpose of Document #8 is to educate about the engineering expertise of Chinampa building by the Aztecs .

11. The purpose of Document #9 is to illustrate the expert engineering of the Inca without the use of mortar or cement indicating its greater advancement than any Afro-Eurasian societies.

12. The picture in Document #10 is meant to indicate the seemingly impossible task of developing suspension bridges using the Mita system at the height of the Andes

13. Document #11 is a Spanish Chronicle of the Inca identifying the lack of a written language perhaps to facilitate conquer of Inca.

14. Document #12 is from another Spanish chronicler identifying the naitivity of the Inca and their lack of advancement for the purpose of claiming their land and Christianize them.

15. Document #13 illustrates the pristine , untainted by Spanish Colonization Old Mountain in Quechua. It was discovered in 1911 by archaeologit Hiram Bigham and shows an unadulterated view of Inca engineering and served as the summer retreat for Emperor Atahualpa.

17. Synthesis • Today, many native inhabitants of the Americas ( who survived the great dying) were enslaved, coerced and , when freed, were limited in terms of their interaction in governments. Today, Native Americans continue to face discrimination and have the highest alcoholism and suicide rates, Their history stolen, their land taken and their identity diffused into that odf their captors. These were the first “Americans”, the trailblazers and those who domesticated and established governments, toiled the land and fell pray to disease, and had their land, labor and capital exploited.