The Americas on the Verge of Change WHAP/Napp

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“In 1519, Hernán Cortés began his expedition from Veracruz with 600 Spaniards, a few guns, and sixteen horses. Because the Aztecs under Moctezuma II engaged in frequent wars and collected extensive tribute from various tribes living in the region. Cortés was joined by thousands of Native Americans from the various states through which he passed, who wished to overthrow the powerful Aztec empire at Tenochtitlán, modern-day Mexico City. Cortés’ small force entered the city without a struggle on November 8, 1519, possibly helped by a woman, Malinche or Marina, who became his mistress and translator. The peace didn’t last, however, and after the Spaniards massacred several Aztec leaders during a festival, the population revolted. They killed Moctezuma believing that he had collaborated with Cortés, and they forced the conquistadors to leave the city on June 30, 1520. Cortés suffered heavy losses, perhaps as many as two-thirds of his men and several horses, but the Spaniards reached Tlaxcala, where their new Native American allies nursed them back to health and helped them plan to retake Tenochtitlán. The Spaniards conquered the capital city again on August 13, 1521, after a bitter four-month siege, and the empire fell to them. In the next twenty years they captured the Yucatán and most of Central America, although revolts continued in the region. Cortés became ruler of the Kingdom of New Spain, reorganized in 1535 as the Vice-Royalty of New Spain.

In South America, the Inca Empire of the west coast and Andes Mountains became accessible to Spanish conquistadors after Vasco Núñez de Balboa found a portage across the Isthmus of Panama in 1513. Now the Spanish could transport their ships from the Atlantic coast overland across the Isthmus and sail south along the Pacific Coast to Peru. Rumors of great stores of gold encouraged these voyages. Like the Aztecs, the Inca were divided. In 1525, after the death Huayna Capec, possibly from smallpox, a civil war broke out between two of his sons – Huáscar and Atahualpa – over who should rule the empire. Fighting was fierce and ended only in 1532, when Atahualpa captured Huáscar and executed him. In the same year, Francisco Pizarro, leading a force of some two hundred men, captured Atahualpa. Although given a room full of gold as ransom for the emperor’s life, Pizarro nevertheless feared a revolt and killed him. In 1533 he captured the Inca capital, Cuzco. The Spanish conquistadors fought among themselves for years until Spain established the Vice-Royalty of Peru in the mid-sixteenth century. Revolts against the Spaniards continued until they captured and beheaded the last Inca emperor, Túpac Amaru in 1572.” ~ The World’s History

1-What did Cortés’ bring on his expedition to the Aztecs? ______

2-How and why was Cortés able to conquer the Aztecs? ______

3-What “discovery” made it possible for the Spaniards to arrive in the Incan Empire? ______

4-How and why was Pizarro able to conquer the Incas? ______

5-Who was Túpac Amaru and what did his death signify? ______

6-What role did smallpox play in the conquest of the Americas? ______

I. Aztec Civilization
  1. Mexica people, seminomadic from northern Mexico; migrated southward
  1. By 1325 established themselves on a small island in Lake Texcoco
  1. Built up their own capital city of Tenochtitlán
  2. Aztec now claimed descent from earlier Mesoamericans (Toltecs and Teotihuacán)
  3. Conquered peoples were required to deliver tribute
  4. Tenochtitlán was a metropolis of 150,000 to 200,000 people
  1. City featured numerous canals, dikes, causeways, and bridges
  2. Central walled area of palaces and temples included a pyramid almost 200 feet high
  3. Surrounding the city were “floating gardens,” artificial islands created from swamplands that supported a highly productive agriculture
  4. Vast marketplaces reflected the commercialization of the economy
a)Largest marketplace: Tlatelolco, near capital city; stunned Spanish with huge size, good order, and immense range of goods available
b)Among the “goods” were slaves, many of whom were destined for sacrifice
  1. Human sacrifice assumed an unusually prominent role in Aztec public life
a)Cyclical understanding of world: sun – central to all of life/identified with patron deity Huitzilopochtli, tended to lose energy in battle against encroaching darkness
b)To replenish sun’s energy and thus postpone the descent into endless darkness, the sun required the life-giving force found in human blood
c) Ideology also shaped Aztec warfare, which put a premium on capturing prisoners
  1. Aztec women could serve as officials in palaces, priestesses in temples, traders in markets, teachers in schools, and members of craft workers’ organizations
II. Inca Civilization
  1. Small community of Quechua-speaking people, known to us as the Inca, was building Western Hemisphere’s largest imperial state along spine of Andes
  2. Incorporated lands and cultures of earlier Andean civilizations; Chavín, Moche, Nazca, and Chimu
  3. Much larger than Aztec state; stretched some 2,500 miles along Andes and contained perhaps 10 million subjects
  4. A more bureaucratic empire: emperor, absolute ruler regarded as divine, regarded as a descendant of the creator god Viracocha and son of sun god, Inti
  5. In theory, state owned all land but provided for the elderly, widow and orphan
  6. Births, deaths, marriages, and other population data were carefully recorded on quipus, the knotted cords that served as an accounting device
  7. Where Aztecs left conquered people alone, if tribute was forthcoming, Inca rulers directly involved in lives of subjects
1.Efforts at cultural integration required leaders of conquered peoples to learn Quechua; sons were removed to capital of Cuzco for instruction
  1. Inca demands on their conquered people were expressed as labor service rather than tribute: this labor service, known as mita, was required periodically of every household; almost everyone had to work for the state
  2. State played major role in distribution of goods as well as production: Storehouses opened to provide food to poor and widows or in need
  3. But Incas and Aztecs both practiced “gender parallelism” where “women and men operate in two separate but equivalent spheres, each enjoying autonomy”

1-Describe the origins of the Aztec Empire. ______

2-What was the Aztec capital and where was it located? ______

3-Describe the significant characteristics of the Aztec capital. ______

4-What did the Aztecs demand of their conquered subjects? ______

5-What were “floating gardens” or what the Spaniards later called chinampas? ______

6-Why were the Spaniards impressed with the Aztecs’ markets? ______

7-Why was human sacrifice particularly important in the Aztec Empire? ______

8-According to Aztec cosmology, what was the cosmic battle? ______

9-How was tribute connected to human sacrifice? ______

10-How were women treated in the Aztec Empire? ______

11-So, did patriarchy exist in the Aztec Empire? Explain your answer. ______

12-What language did the Inca speak? ______

13-Identify pre-Incan civilizations in the Andes Mountains region. ______

14-How many miles did the Inca Empire stretch? ______

15-How did the Incas view their emperor? ______

16-Who owned the land in the Incan Empire? ______

17-Yet the Inca Empire developed a welfare system. Why? ______

18-Define quipu. ______

19-Why was the quipu particularly important in a society without writing? ______

20-How did Aztec rule over conquered subjects differ from Inca rule over subjects? ______

21-What happened to the sons of conquered rulers in Cuzco? ______

22-Explain the Inca system of mita. ______

23-Why were storehouses vitally important in the Incan Empire? ______

1. The chinampa system of agriculture
(A)Introduced new Mexica crops into the central valley.
(B)Required the Mexica to move on to new lands after the soil had been exhausted.
(C)Was based on the rotation of crops to replenish the soil.
(D)Was similar to the slash-and-burn agriculture practiced by the Maya.
(E)Created fertile plots of land from the mud dredged off the bottom of Lake Texcoco.
2. The Inca government maintained storehouses of agricultural surplus for
(A) The private reserve of the royal family.
(B) Payment to the military.
(C) Public relief and social welfare.
(D) Payments to governmental officials.
3. Commoners in the Inca kingdom were required to
(A)Work assigned lands on behalf of the state.
(B)Pay a portion of their earnings to the state.
(C)Work on the public roads and irrigation systems.
(D)Deliver pottery, textiles, and other handmade goods.
(E)All of the above. / 4. The Aztecs offered human sacrifices in order to
(A)Honor the gods and forestall the destruction of the world.
(B)Terrorize conquered people into submission.
(C)Provide nourishment to the moon and the stars.
(D)Mark off the days of their ritual calendar.
5. Most of the individuals sacrificed by the Aztecs were
(A) Criminals.
(B) War Captives.
(C) Tribute from conquered people.
(D) All of the above.
6.
  • Letters written by Franciscan friars
  • Pictorial records of the Mexica
  • Statues produced by local artists in New Spain
  • Histories written in Spanish and Nahuatl
A historian examining Mesoamerica in the sixteenth century would best utilize the sources above to analyze which of the following topics?
(A)The process of introducing the encomienda system
(B)How Christian ideas were communicated to and understood by Amerindians
(C)Conflicts between the Jesuits and the Franciscans
(D)The extent of the decline of the Amerindians population

Thesis Practice: Comparative

Analyze similarities and differences in methods of political control among the Aztecs and Incas. ______