AP World History Chapter 11

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AP World HistoryChapter 11

• The Americas on the Eve of Invasion

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The Toltec Heritage

• Rule extended to Yucatan
• Commercial influence to American Southwest
• Possibly Mississippi, Ohio valleys

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The Aztec Rise to Power

• Toltec collapse, c. 1150
• Caused by northern nomads?
• Aztecs move to Mexico valley
• Lakes used for fishing, farming, transportation
• City States, common language, and state
  marriages.
• Great fighters and were hired as mercenaries,
  allies
• Tenochtitlan founded in 1325 by Aztecs.
• Aztecs practiced human sacrifice.

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The Aztec Social Contract

• Transformation to hierarchical society
• Service of gods pre-eminent
• Sacrifice increased
• Source of political power
• Moctezuma II
• Head of state and religion

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Religion and the Ideology of Conquest
Huitzilopochtli

• Spiritual and natural world seamless
• Hundreds of deities
• Three groups
• Fertility, agriculture, water
• Creator gods
• Warfare, sacrifice
• e.g. Huitzilopochtli
• Aztec tribal god
• Identified with sun god
• Sacrifice
• Motivated by religion or terror?
• Cyclical view of history, Dynastic Cycle

Quetzalcoatl
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Feeding the People The Economy of the Empire
Chinampas

• Agriculture
• Chinampas, man-made floating islands
• High yield
• Farming organized by clans
• Markets
• Daily market at Tlatelolco
• Controlled by pochteca, merchant class
• Regulated by state

Daily market at Tlatelolco
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Widening Social Gulf

• Calpulli
• Transformed from clans to groupings by residence
• Distribute land, labor
• Maintain temples, schools
• Basis of military organization
• Noble class develops from some calpulli
• Military virtues give them status
• Serf-like workers on their lands
• Social gaps widen
• Imperial family at head of pipiltin
• Calpulli of merchants

Montezuma II
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Overcoming Technological Constraints
Tenochtitlan

• Women have various roles
• Can own property
• No public roles
• Elite polygamy
• Most monogamous

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The Inca Rise to Power

• Cuzco area
• Quechua-speaking clans (ayllus)
• Huari
• Control regions by 1438, under Pachacuti
• Topac Yupanqui
• Son of Pachacuti
• Conquered Chimor
• Rule extended to Ecuador, Chile
• Huayna Capac
• Furthers conquests of Topac Yupanqui
• 1527, death

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Inca Cultural Achievements

• Metallurgy
• Knotted strings (quipu)
• Accounting
• Monumental architecture

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Comparing Incas and Aztecs

• Similarities
• Built on earlier empires
• Excellent organizers
• Intensive agriculture under state control
• Redistributive economy
• Kinship transformed to hierarchy
• Ethnic groups allowed to survive
• Differences
• Aztecs have better developed trade, markets

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• A. How Many People?
• Larger densities in Mesoamerica, Andes
• B. Differing Cultural Patterns
• Caribbean islands
• Some similar to Polynesian societies
• c. 1500
• 200 languages in North America
• Mississipian mounds abandoned
• Anasazi descendants along Rio Grande
• C. American Indian Diversity in World Context
• Two great imperial systems by 1500
• Mesoamerica and the Andes
• Technologically behind Europeans