The+Americas


 * The Americas on the Eve of Invasion **


 * ESPIRIT Chart on the Aztecs**


 * Economic**
 * MI: The Aztecs' economy was based on agricultural techniques, of chinampas and the tribute payed from the surrendered enemies.**
 * Depended on forms of agriculture and innovations, land of conquered people.
 * Food was demanded as a tribute, building of chinampas for agriculture. These are beds of weeds, mud, and earth in places made of cane and rooted to the lake floor.
 * They formed a artificial floating islands about 17 feet long, this narrow construction allowed the water to reach all the plants.
 * Each community had periodic markets according to various cycles in the calender.
 * Cacao beans and gold dust sometimes were used as currency but much trade was done as barter.
 * Special merchant class called pochteca which specialize in long distance trade and luxury items such as cacao.
 * Those who surrender pay less tribute tribute payment are such as food, slaves, and sacrificial victims.
 * Social**
 * MI: Aztec society became more hierarchical as he empire grew and social classes with different functions developed.**
 * The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl, had a reputation of tough warrior.
 * Individual nobles might have private estates which were worked by servants or slaves.
 * The Aztecs were divided into seven calpulli or clans a form of organization.
 * They were governed by councils of family heads.
 * As the Aztec power expanded the nobility class emerged based on certain privileges, this groups had high offices, private land, and other advantages.
 * The flowery death or death while taking prisoners to the sacrificial knife was an end to noble life.
 * The gulp of separation of commoners and noble grew as a result of expansion, distinctions appeared in clothes, style, and rank.
 * A new class of serfs was formed to serve as laborers on the nobles' lands.
 * The other social group were the artisans and scribes were all part of an intermediate group.
 * Also the merchants formed a calpulli with their own patron gods and rights sometimes served as spies for the military.
 * Girls were trained for weaving skills by their mothers also cooking and child-caring.
 * Marriages were often were arranged between groups.
 * Polygamy was existent among the nobility but the peasants were monogamous.
 * Women could inherit property and pass it to a heir.
 * Political**
 * MI: The political system of the Aztecs was based on the alliances and ruler of the state who had the most power, in addition to the nobles who took a large piece of power.**
 * The central political power in central Mexico were the Aztecs who took away the lands of the Toltec Mesoamerica.
 * The city of Tenochtitlan was founded in about 1325.
 * The rulers and warriors took tribute from conquered and worked as mercenaries and allies.
 * The military class played a central role as suppliers of war captives to be used as sacrificial victims.
 * By the time of Moctezuma II, the Aztec state was dominated by a king who represented civil power and served as the representative of the gods on earth.
 * The cult of human sacrifices were united with conquest under the power of he ruler + nobles.
 * Huitzilopochtli was the tribal patron and central figure.
 * Each city-state was ruled by a speaker chosen from the nobility, for example Tenochtitlan the emperor of great wealth and power, living as god, in theory was elected but it was a choice of royal family.
 * There is alliances and in theory the rulers of the other government had a say too, but most of the power was in the hand of the Aztec ruler.
 * Obtaining victims and tribute was the cause for further conquest and military warfare.
 * Intellectual**
 * Aztec Art and literature was based on the sacrifices and images of god and song that signify the importance of the religion.**
 * Warrior cults and militarism images of jaguars and eagles devouring human hearts were characteristics of their art.
 * Nezhualcoyotl the king of Toxcoco wrote hymns to the "lord of the close vicinity" and an invisible force that supports all gods.
 * The art and poetry was filled of images, birds, and songs which the Aztecs greatly admired as well as the human hearts and blood.
 * Religion**
 * MI: The Aztec religion depended on complex mythology that had to deal with gods and their relationship with the people.**
 * They were known for their strong following of their god, to whom they offered human sacrifices to.
 * Religion was a vast, uniting and sometimes rigid that distinguishing between god and natural world is nonexistent.
 * There were the god of rain, sun, fire, water, corn, the sky who each had five aspects, and certain gods were taught of as patrons of specific cities and ethnic groups or occupations.
 * The first were the gods of fertility and agriculture cycle such as Tlaloc the god of rain and the god and goddess of water who they preformed yearly festivals for.
 * Interactions**
 * MI: They made contact with tributes and land that is taken over also the slaves who were taken from military actions.**
 * Technology**
 * MI: The technology of the Aztecs was limited in terms of little innovation with the exception of metates and agricultural system.**
 * Stone boards called metates to prepare household food.
 * Unable to free the women from the long hours of work to prepare food because of technological constraints.
 * Finally massive population with limited innovations.
 * Chinampas an irrigated system, that lets water reach all plants.

The Aztec system was a success because it aimed for political dominance, administration, and territorial control, in the long run the increasing social classes that created the rise of the nobles and system of terror and tribute. The Aztecs were a continuation of the civilization in Mesoamerica. Also one of their main concerns was the religious sacrifices that were help every year or so where they use victims to do their ceremonial belies. The king held a lot of power lives as a god. Their achievement in art and poetry was based on blood, sacrifice, religion, and military.
 * Summary: Aztecs**


 * ESPIRIT Chart on Incas:**


 * Economic**
 * MI: The economic development in the Incas was based on irrigation of agricultural plants and trade and tribute received from conquered lands.**
 * The empire took land and labor from conquered populations.
 * Irrigated land was important in terms of economic basis and cultivation and labor power.
 * States regulated production and surplus limited trade.
 * Extensive irradiation systems and land distribution were on the basis of the economic development and imperial empire.
 * Social**
 * MI: The social structure in the Incas was very hierarchical in which the women were stll in subordination and the men were in control.**
 * Conquered people were recruited into the army under Inca officers and were rewarded with goods from new conquest.
 * Demanded loyalty and tribute from the people of their massive empire.
 * Noble held private estate ad were under the ruler in social status.
 * The people were expected to take turns in working on state buildings this was called mita was essential for control.
 * Women were to weave high quality cloth for the court and religious purposes.
 * Some women were taken of selected as servants of the temples the so-called Virgins of the sun.
 * The Ayllus in each community controlled the land and the majority of the people are peasants and herders.
 * Roles and obligation were gender specific, women could pass rights and property to daughters and to cons.
 * Gods and goddesses were worshiped by men and women and women felt that the goddesses of the earth and corn.
 * The practice of hierarchy was present in their military virtues.
 * Ethnic headmen were left in place but the administrators drawn form the nobility were above them.
 * The yanas were servants, artisans or workers for the nobility.
 * Marriages were a way to form alliances and expanding power of the state.
 * Political**
 * MI: After about 1300 C.E, a new civilization emerged and eventually spread, the Incas who had a centralized system that integrated various ethnic groups into an imperial state.**
 * A genius state organization and bureaucratic control over the people of different cultures and languages.
 * Incas gained control of most of the northern coast of Peru.
 * Incas or Pachacuti launched a series of military alliances and campaigns that brought them the control of the area from Cuzco to the chores of Lake Titicaca.
 * Pachacuti son Topac Yupanqui conquered the northern coastal kingdom of chimor by seizing its irrigated system and extended the empire into the southern Ecuador.
 * The Inca empire because of its ruler became what is called the Twantinsuyu that stretched from what is now Columbia to Chile and eastward across lake Titicaca and Bolivia to northern Argentina.
 * The empire was ruled by a person who is almost like a god, and the high priest was usually a close relative.
 * They developed a state bureaucracy and divided its provinces into four in which nobles took the most roles.
 * Local ruler called curacas were allowed to maintain their position and given right in return for their loyalty, didn't have to pay tribute.
 * Intellectual**
 * MI: Some of the most amazing achievements of the Incas was the great artistic style of cloth, architecture and metallurgy.**
 * Woven cloth a great Andean art form had political and religious meanings.
 * They were notable for architecture and metallurgy incorporated into buildings.
 * Artistic abilities, beautiful pottery and workshops and crafts.
 * Worked gold and silver with great skills
 * Used copper and bronze in weaponry and tools.
 * Knotted string or quipu to record numerical and other information.
 * Took financial records and order.
 * Religion**
 * MI: The Aztec religion supported the royal ancestor cult and a state religion that had in interference within the state.**
 * Deceased rulers were mummified and then treated as intermediaries with the gods, paraded in festivals in the public and offered gifts and food.
 * From the Chimor kingdom the Incas adopted the practice of royal split inheritance whereby the political power and titles of the ruler went to the successors but the palace and wealth goes to the male descendant to support the next Inca mummy.
 * Ancestor worship and the cult of the royal mummies as well as the tensions was a tightly important consideration.
 * The sun was the highest deity and represented the earth. The magnificent Temple of the Sun in Cuzco was the center of the state religion and where the mummies are kept.
 * Didn't prohibit the worship of local gods.
 * The worship of a state religion Viracocha the creator god was a favorite Inca was a belief of profound natural beliefs.
 * The temple priest are responsible for the great festivals and celebrations for the state actions and religious sacrifices.
 * Interaction**
 * The interactions were mainly from bondage with other communities as a result of their military expansion and tribute.**
 * Technology**
 * MI: The Incas built great temples and irrigation systems, buildings and weapons also road systems that accompanied their technological innovations because of their diversity.**
 * They built temples called huacas or holy shrines, where prayers were offered and animal, goods and human sacrifices occured.
 * A complex system of roads and bridges were built, and along with these roads way stations, tambos were built placed as storehouses and supplies for Inca army.
 * Land and water managements, road system and public buildings.
 * Agriculture terraces on the steep slopes, irrigation of water into the crops.
 * Stone building was accurate and mobilization of large amounts of labors.


 * Summary: Incas**

The Incas cultures was based on a long development of civilization. Their genuis was best displayed by the land and water managemnts, extensive roads and statecrafts and public buildings. They developed architecture of complex technology to get the water into all the crops. Their building s were profound and their structures of large roads that helped in theor military conquest. They formed alliances through marriages to gain more power. The religion was an important center in their life. The govenment was in the hand of the state in which the ruler in power with his royal noble family.


 * Vocabulary words**

__Toltec__ : Topiltzin: a Toltec leader and a priest to the god Quetzalcoatl __Tenochtitlan__: The city of Tenochtitlan was founded in about 1325. __Aztec__ : The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language. __Chinampas__: beds of aquatic weeds, muds, and earth made in frames made of canes and rooted in lakes, a system of irrigated agriculture by the Aztecs. __Calpulli__ : Clans in Aztec society later expanded to residential groups that distributed land and labor. __Incas__ : An organized system of community that developed in the region of Mesoamerica __Temple of the Sun__ : Incas religious center in Cuzco, held mummies. __Split inheritance__ : Incas practice of descents all titles and political power went to the successor but the wealth and land goes to the descendant. __Mita__ : Labor extracted for land assigned for the state and religion __Quipu__: A system of knotted strings utilized by the Incas in place of writing could contain numerical information or financial records.


 * Notes on the reading**



The Americas civilizations are very dictictive and based on along development. The two most important civilizations were the Aztecs and Incas. The Aztecs believed their capital to be a sacred space. The great metropolis of Tenochtitlan had a central zone of palaces and temples surrounded by residential districts and markets. The society of the expanding Aztec Empire became increasingly hierarchical. Calpulli organization survived, but different social classes appeared. Tribute from subject peoples was not enough to maintain the large Aztec population. The other one was the In the southern Andean highlands, many groups fought for supremacy. Quechua-speaking clans around Cuzco won control of territory formerly under Huari. By 1438, under Pachacuti, they began campaigns ending with their control of the region. The Inca had other reasons for expansion besides the desire for economic gain and political power. They adopted from Chimor the practice of "split inheritance". The Inca produced beautiful pottery and cloth. Their metallurgy was among the most advanced in the Americas. They lacked the wheel and a writing system, instead using knotted strings (quipu) for accounts and enumeration. The peak of Inca genius was in statecraft and architecture. They constructed great stone buildings, agricultural terraces, irrigation projects, and road systems. These two sociaties were very unique The Aztecs and Incas transformed an older kinship system into a hierarchical one in which the nobility predominated. In both, the nobility was the personnel of the state. Although the Incas tried to integrate their empire as a unit, both empires recognized local ethnic groups and political leaders in return for loyalty. The Aztecs and Incas found their military power less effective against nomadic frontier people; their empires were based on conquest and exploitation of sedentary peoples.
 * Summary of the Chapter **