BME y su entorno medio ambiental
5.2. Gestión de Residuos
The Inca empire expands by co-opting conquered
peoples and seeking
to integrate them.
I
n 1325, a band of Central American refugee warriors, known as the Aztecs, saw a sign their patron god Huitzilopochtli had long ago prophesied—an eagle perched on a cactus, marking the spot they had been told to settle. Before long, they had built a temple that became the nucleus of their capital, Tenochtitlan. Within two centuries, the city was the center of the most predominant empire in the history of Mesoamerica—a large region that shared a pre-Columbian culture and extended from modern- day central Mexico southward to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador,US_112-117_Foundation_of_Tenochtitlan.indd 114 15/02/2016 16:41
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The founding of Tenochtitlan is illustrated in the Codex Mendoza: a record of Aztec history and culture created c.1540 by an Aztec artist for presentation to Charles V of Spain.
whose chiefs, together with priests, ruled on important decisions. In 1376, the Aztecs chose for the first time an overall leader (tlatoani), who came to serve as war leader, judge, and administrator for the burgeoning empire. Under Itzcoatl (1427–40), Moctezuma I (1440–69), Axayactl (1469–81), and Ahuitzotl (1486–1503) Aztec armies subdued their neighbors in the Valley of Mexico and then spread outward, reaching Oaxaca, Veracruz, and to the edges of land controlled by the Mayan people in the east of modern- day Mexico and Guatemala.
As the Aztec Empire expanded, society was transformed. A warrior elite emerged, while at the bottom of society bondsmen (mayeques), who owned no land, were bound by labor service to their lords. The militaristic nature of Aztec society was accentuated by an education system in which all males received military training (in separate schools for nobles and commoners). This reinforced the warrior ethos and gave the Aztecs an incalculable advantage over neighboring tribes in Mexico.
The imperial system
Tenochtitlan was adorned by many temples to the gods of the Aztec pantheon. Each god had their own temple, with the Templo Mayor having twin shrines dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the rain god. At these temples a stream of human victims was sacrificed—up to 80,000 at the rededication of the
Templo Mayor in 1487—by burning alive, decapitation, or cutting open the chest and removing the heart.
Many of the Aztec battles were “flower wars”: ritual affairs in which opponents were captured (rather than killed) and sacrificed to placate the Aztec gods, who were believed to need blood to sustain them and keep the sun moving across the sky.
Tenochtitlan also exacted tribute from its subjects. Although there was very little in the way of an organized government bureaucracy, there were tax collectors, who criss- crossed the 38 provinces of the Aztec Empire and levied tribute, which included 7,000 tons of maize, 4,000 tons of beans, and hundreds of thousands of cotton blankets ❯❯ See also: The Maya Classical period begins 71 ■ Christopher Columbus reaches America 142–47 ■
The Treaty of Tordesillas 148–51 ■ The Columbian Exchange 158–59 ■ The voyage of the Mayflower 172–73 ■ Bolívar establishes Gran Colombia 216–19
THE MEDIEVAL WORLD
The founding of Tenochtitlan is illustrated in the Codex Mendoza: a record of Aztec history and culture created c.1540 by an Aztec artist for presentation to Charles V of Spain.
whose chiefs, together with priests, ruled on important decisions. In 1376, the Aztecs chose for the first time an overall leader (tlatoani), who came to serve as war leader, judge, and administrator for the burgeoning empire. Under Itzcoatl (1427–40), Moctezuma I (1440–69), Axayactl (1469–81), and Ahuitzotl (1486–1503) Aztec armies subdued their neighbors in the Valley of Mexico and then spread outward, reaching Oaxaca, Veracruz, and to the edges of land controlled by the Mayan people in the east of modern- day Mexico and Guatemala.
As the Aztec Empire expanded, society was transformed. A warrior elite emerged, while at the bottom of society bondsmen (mayeques), who owned no land, were bound by labor service to their lords. The militaristic nature of Aztec society was accentuated by an education system in which all males received military training (in separate schools for nobles and commoners). This reinforced the warrior ethos and gave the Aztecs an incalculable advantage over neighboring tribes in Mexico.
The imperial system
Tenochtitlan was adorned by many temples to the gods of the Aztec pantheon. Each god had their own temple, with the Templo Mayor having twin shrines dedicated to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the rain god. At these temples a stream of human victims was sacrificed—up to 80,000 at the rededication of the
Templo Mayor in 1487—by burning alive, decapitation, or cutting open the chest and removing the heart.
Many of the Aztec battles were “flower wars”: ritual affairs in which opponents were captured (rather than killed) and sacrificed to placate the Aztec gods, who were believed to need blood to sustain them and keep the sun moving across the sky.
Tenochtitlan also exacted tribute from its subjects. Although there was very little in the way of an organized government bureaucracy, there were tax collectors, who criss- crossed the 38 provinces of the Aztec Empire and levied tribute, which included 7,000 tons of maize, 4,000 tons of beans, and hundreds of thousands of cotton blankets ❯❯ See also: The Maya Classical period begins 71 ■ Christopher Columbus reaches America 142–47 ■
The Treaty of Tordesillas 148–51 ■ The Columbian Exchange 158–59 ■ The voyage of the Mayflower 172–73 ■ Bolívar establishes Gran Colombia 216–19
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each year. The empire depended on this tribute to reward the nobility and the warriors, who ensured that the towns subjugated by the Aztecs remained submissive—little mercy being shown to those who revolted. While the Aztecs provided some security to their subjects, they gave little else. At Tenochtitlan, artificial islands (chinampas) were created at great expense to expand the land available to produce food, but no such works were carried out for the subject cities. Defeated states did not provide troops for the Aztec army, and so did not share in the spoils of future victory, and little effort was made to propagate the Aztec language. It was an empire built on fear and in the end it proved brittle: when it was invaded by a small party of Spaniards led by Cortes in 1519, the subject peoples rallied to the newcomers rather than defending the Aztecs, and the empire collapsed within two years.
Inca beginnings
The Incas, whose heartland lay high in the central Andes around Cuzco, in modern-day Peru, had similarly humble origins to the Aztecs, but their rise to imperial
status was, if anything, even more meteoric. They began as a small, somewhat disregarded tribe and developed their own strategies to co-opt neighboring groups into a successful empire.
The Incas’ origin myth told of their emergence from a cave in the high mountains, from where their first leader—Manco Capac—led his people to Cuzco. It is generally believed that the Incas arrived in the region around 1200, and for two centuries they remained a relatively
THE FOUNDATION OF TENOCHTITLAN
insignificant farming group, with their society divided up into clans (ayllus) of roughly equal status.
Inca expansion
The Incas began to make their mark as a major power around 1438, when the neighboring Chanca people attempted to push the Incas out of the Cuzco valley. By this time, the Incas had a supreme leader (the Sapa Inca), and although the incumbent Viracocha was unequal to the task, his son Pachacuti defeated the invaders, and then led Inca armies to conquer the rest of the Cuzco valley and the southern highlands around Lake Titicaca. Under Pachacuti’s son Topa Inca Yupanqui and grandson Huayna Capac, the Incas overcame Chimor (the largest coastal state) in about 1470. They then absorbed the rest of the northern highlands and extended to parts of modern-day Ecuador and Colombia and south to the deserts north of Chile.
Unlike the Aztecs, the Incas recruited troops from among the conquered peoples (placed under the command of Inca officers), thus providing them with the lure of plunder in return for their loyalty.
Inca communication
The empire of the Incas was highly centralized; censuses recorded the number of peasants, who all owed labor service (mitad) to the Sapa Inca. This level of organization enabled the construction of public works on a vast scale. Particularly vital was the extensive road network, which extended nearly 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers) long and was dotted at regular intervals with resthouses that facilitated rapid transit for the army and provided a very efficient system of communication across the far-flung Inca domains. At the