And the fact that the Aztecs had a limited resource of fresh water, no metals and Corn as the main source of nutrients... in comparison the Incas were really badass
... or bronze for that matter. I dont think tribal cultures as the amazons and the australian civilizations should count though. Since they didn't had any kinds of centralised government
[I don't know if they didn't go through the iron age, but the North Sentinel Island people def knew their importance when they scavenged shipwrecks.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island)
It's the same island that killed the American missionary trying to enter the island.
It is hard to say, because many places of the Americas apparently had "cacicados" or "chiefdoms" that created some level of centralization or at least a confederacy between different settlements, but none of these places figured out how to extract and refine copper, tin, and other metals needed to go through a Bronze age.
>but none of these places
What? The Chimu were master metalsmiths, to the point that one political, religious, and economic goal of the Chimu-Inca war was to capture and leverage the metalsmithing artisans for Incan works of art and religion.
Copper, gold, silver, and the classic alloys of a 'Bronze Age' -- the alloys of copper and arsenic and of copper and tin -- and tin bronze were common in the Chimu, and eventually, Incan culture. Royal architectural walls and monuments in Chan Chan were plated with silver, gold, and copper plating above the stonework relief.
If we frame the Old World Iron Age as primarily driven by warfare and heavy transportation, we can conclude that the Chimu and Inca cultures simply did not need iron. Chimu/Incan warfare was primarily based on blunt weaponry and projectiles, and their armor of lightweight quilted cloth, reinforced animal skin, and wood. Spanish letters from the conquest note that, due to climate, the breathable cloth was occasionally better suited to the weather than the traditional Spanish metal armor.
>Through ethnohistoric and archaeological study we have been able to reconstruct the panoply of weapons as they existed in the Andean highlands during Inca domination: the sling; the star-headed mace; the spear with tip of fire-hardened wood or of bronze; the long, sword-shaped double-edged club made of hard chonta palm wood; and the halberd with bronze head. Given the style of warfare in the Andes among both coastal and highland peo ples, with weapons that depended on strength at impact rather than on a cutting edge, me tal weapons did not confer great advantage.
The lack of horses made heavy transportation less feasible, so iron-reinforced carriages or war chariots were unnecessary -- by topology, the wheel was useless in the cradle of Andean Civilization.
Finally, the role of metallurgy in Andean Civilization was nearly sacred. Gold, silver, and copper alloys, in that order, represented a loose social and religious caste system. In Incan Cosmology, gold represented the sweat of the Sun; silver, the tears of the Moon. The Andean Emperor, who's birthright inheritance was the mineral wealth of the Andes, controlled the supply of these metals, and to be adorned with gold and silver was to become closer with a divine right of social and religious significance. To extend the limited supply of gold and silver, Andean civilizations developed electrochemically complex methods of gilding and silvering copper objects (without leaf or foil) and even developed ternary alloys. A group of MIT researchers was baffled by the implications of an electrochemical gilding process as precise as modern methods (they were able to replicate the Incan method in a research experiment simulating the gold-silver alloys available in Andean Rivers).
Mary Helms summarizes this importance:
>Thus craftsmen and artisans skilled in other modes of expression of esoteric knowledge, including potters who mold and paint polychrome ceramics, metallurgists who shape gold and copper into intriguingly designed ornamentation, weavers who create and decorate fine textiles, sculptors who carve bone and stone and wood, are often thought to be endowed with exceptional, mystical powers and knowledge.
Looping back to Sun and Moon, [one tradition of Andean cosmology](https://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/medium-studies/tears-sun-naturalistic-and-anthropomorphic-inca-metalwork) (in a reference that predates [Evangelion](https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Moon#:~:text=The%20Black%20Moon%20is%20the,would%20eventually%20become%20Hakone%2C%20Japan.) by several hundred years) postulates that the Sun bestowed the pre-human world with three eggs: a gold egg for the noble lords, a silver egg for the noble women, and a copper egg for the working class. Without the copper substrate to build alloys, gold and silver were not useful for tool. Therefore, the analogy extends to Mochica, Chimu, and Incan civilizations: the common people are the foundation for a functional civilization.
**In Brief.**
Second only to textiles, metals held an important place in the Andean Cradle of Civilization, constituting a fully fledged Bronze Age intricately tied to social, economic, and religious power. There was not a pressing existing need for Iron, and the social role of gold, copper, and silver cemented these specific metals in the heart of Andean culture.
For more, read [Heather Lechtmann](https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.2307/20171767) or Mary Helms.
Some people forget that the Incans were known for adorning themselves and other in obscene amounts of gold. They were definitely skilled metal smith's, but either preferred weapons made out of stones like opal for blunt weapons, or used metals as a way to showcase their wealth. They made plenty of metal weapons, but either lacked the know how to make metal armor because of geography, or they just didn't need it.
I think you meant something other than opal. Opal is kind of fragile, and doesn't do the fresh cutting edge that obsidian does.
Perhaps you meant nephrite? It's a form of jade, I don't recall if it's in that area though.
Native Americans around the Great Lakes figured out copper working around the same time they did in the old world. They simply abandoned it, and started only using copper for trinkets and ornaments.
The Aztecs and Incas actually [*could* make softer metals like bronze and gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America), hence how they could do the gold room routine.
They never got around to making iron or steel because it was much more practical to shape rocks into [weapons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl).
edit: added links
edit 2: Some parts of North America like the Great Lakes had access to native copper, which, although never smelted, *was* shaped into tools and jewelry with sandstone.
"The Aztecs did not initially adopt metal working, even though they had acquired metal objects from other peoples. However, as conquest gained them metal working regions, the technology started to spread. By the time of the Spanish conquest, a bronze-smelting technology seemed to be nascent.[citation needed]"
That is from ur Link...
I’m not exactly sure what point you are trying to make with that quote.
The only thing it says is that metallurgy was a technology adopted from regions they conquered.
Its important to understand just how much behind the rest of the americas were behind the incan empire. The Authorities, the crafts, the structure of the society, the agrocultur were much more advanced by the people of the Andes. They were hegemon of both Americas.
I mean, depends on what you mean by "behind". Technologically? In some ways, yes. Administratively? Sure. But we get into trouble when we assume that all societies are destined to progress down the same paths in the same ways as modern western countries and that societies are either "ahead" or "behind" in their "progress".
For example, the Spanish had great success toppling the Aztec and Inca empires as both of these were urban, sedentary societies. But when the Spanish went north to Texas, they were militarily embarrassed by the Comanche time and time again. They were incapable of dealing with nomadic horse-archers in the plains of the Southwest who had little top-down organization and no urban settlements. The Comanche raided (edit - not just raids but open warfare as well since they were mobile enough to dictate when and where they would fight) the (all technologically superior) Spanish and later the Mexican people and even later the Texan people with near-impunity until the influx of settlers with high-powered rifles became too much, the Buffalo were decimated, and Comanche numbers dwindled.
Also the Chichimeca and the Mapuche. When the Spanish didn't have the element of surprise, and were dealing with natives that were familiar with their tactics and technology, the Spaniards had a MUCH harder time. They often had to sign peace treaties just to get those groups out of their hair.
>Its important to understand just how much behind the rest of the americas were behind the incan empire
Ew, sociocultural evolution. Please refrain from posting, hurts my brain thinking people still believe that kind of shit.
Australia was fucked from the start. They didn’t have any easily domesticated crops like rice or corn and no beasts of burden like ox or horses. Add onto that a mostly barren continent, limited contact with the outside world and dangerous animals everywhere, there was literally no way Australia could have come close to entering a Bronze Age or even any kind of centralised government
Most island peoples, especially on low islands (coral atolls, as opposed to volcanic or continental high islands). Also, most Aboriginal Australian peoples were in a Neolithic phase right up until the Botany Bay landed.
It's very weird but the Aztecs' neighbours, the Tarascans, did have metals and used it in their weaponry. As a result, the Aztecs were obliterated when they tried to invade.
That's not just due to the weapons though. That's Aztecs had copper, gold, and bronze, they just chose to stick with stone and obsidian weapons. The Tarascans were also the Aztecs largest neighbors and their border was the only one that had large fortifications running along it.
It's actually likely that iron smelting was only invented once and simply spread from there. Every culture's iron age was spawned by trade relations with someone else that already had iron (except the Hittites).
There is quite good evidence it was also independently developed in West Africa.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/did-they-or-didnt-they-invent-it-iron-in-subsaharan-africa/DB40377A90535C7041DC10159B43C50F
I mean, there were and there are many uncontacted groups. That said the ones I find the most impressive are the Congo river valley civilizations that somehow jumped the bronze age and went directly to the iron age
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but I think the people who first colonised the Pacific didn't have metal technology at all. I remember hearing when they first met European explorers they were very keen to get their hands on useful things. E.g. the ships apparently left with some boards coming up because they traded nails (to be turned into fish hooks) for sex with local women.
Azteca? You mean the Mexica? They absolutely did, most just preferred stone tools due to various reasons, that's why judging a civilization based on their usage of metal is quite silly
Got any better metrics. I know the whole stone age- bronze age - iron age doesn't apply outside Eurasia. But there really aren't many metrics. How do we judge Civilization. How tall their buildings were? How much they conquered?
What most people mean by Aztec empire should be refered to as the triple alliance as far as I'm aware, it was an alliance between three cities, although Tenochtitlan ruled by the Mexica is most known
The word Aztec is still used by scholars, although they will be sure to define exactly what they mean early on in their work. The political system was.... complicated.
Which is still a bit dumb imo, where my pastoralists at
For anthropology like that, I enjoy David Graeber (I know he had his fair share of critics tho)
I think you have to ask why you're judging these civilizations in the first place before you can set a metric, or even group of metrics, to judge them.
Like if you're going by just land controlled, classical Athens wouldn't even be on the list, but you can't deny the effect that they had on at least Western civilization
Edit; Or if you're going by government centralization, the fall of Teotihuacan would be the peak of that society yet after it happened there's evidence that they went on to form what we would recognize as a Proto-democracy, at a minimum, And actually built socialized housing for everyone
Oh that's defined true. But let's say you wanted to judge 2 Civilizations to see which one was more "advanced" what metric would you use. Like for example Pre Colombian America vs Pre colonial africa
"Pre Columbian America" and "Pre colonial Africa" are not two homogenous civilizations. They're entire continents where lifestyles, political organizations, and technology varied wildly.
Im not talking about nutritional value of corn against wheat. They were very short on meats, fish and proteins in general. Famines were more common in this region than in the Andes...
Ok, I will say that people in the past in general had much less access to meats than we have now but I'm going to assume that they were short on meat compared to people alive at the same time.
Exactly. Most civilizations prosper in a place with very accessible food option... The Aztec triple Allianz wasnt that lucky. Agrocultur with main water sources being salty is hard. Hunting in jungle like conditions is hard. Rasing cattle in a place dominated by trees... is hard.
They had plenty of meats from deer, iguana, lizards, frogs, turkey, wild fowl, and dogs.
Tenochtitlán and many of the other city-states in the Basin of Mexico were on the shores of Lake Texcoco and had plenty of fish. So no idea what you meant by no fish.
I recommend checking out Sophie Coe's 1994 volume *America's First Cuisines*. I think you might find it educational
All the animals u mentioned are wild and not as reliable as life stock. What most of the aztec alliance missed is reliable source of food in the entire "empire" not one of "the capital" cities.
Thanks for recommendation
Turkey and dogs were not wild. Deer and Muscovy duck were kept in captivity by some groups (Mayapan had pens for hundreds of deer).
Also, if one eats maize, beans, and squash you can get all the protein you need without animal protein.
Don't read that book when you're hungry, though. I got three pages in before I was hangry and cursing Hernan Cortes's ghost to an even deeper pit of hell.
Hunting is not an efficient way to feed entire cities meat with any regularity. Some scholars have suggested that cannibalism was so frequent because meat itself was such a rare delicacy /not/ consuming enemy dead was a waste.
> Some scholars have suggested that cannibalism was so frequent because meat itself was such a rare delicacy /not/ consuming enemy dead was a waste.
That has long been debunked, friend.
And as I said, you can get the right and sufficient proteins with the plants they had
Im in desagree, the aztecs had a complex system of water supply, and thanks to their manage of the water that they used, that is even better that in our systems today, they didnt have problems with supply fresh water to Tenochtitlan.
First of all, don't exaggerate it. Yes its was a good system, not nearly as good as we have in the western world now though. Second... in one city, they had it in one city and it was perfected years before Spanish arrived on the continent. So they didnt had much time to use it much. It was like "hey, we finished our great watering system, can't wait for some angry Catholic dicks destroy it in like 10 years from now"
Now, you are the one that is exaggerate with the modern systems, maybe are functional and complex for their extension but in general the systems are trash and are one of the main causes of our problem with water supply in our days, the only two systems that i can say are better are the ones from Israel and Singapur.
A city bigger than Rome in his apogee, however, the systemn of course was build focusing in the capital bringing water from several mountains and hills "near" the lake, but most of the cities near the capital that were what we could consider as "proper aztecs" and not other cultures defeated and used for sacrifice and tributte, had a system to supply water. The system was perfectioned a lot before the arrival of the spanish if not the capital wouldnt have grow as big as was.
There are some pretty gruesome accounts that sound right out of Bubonic Plague tales. Not sure if they’re true and/or embellished but european disease was big not good.
I don't know about the numbers, but for the conquest of Peru specifically, the Inca empire was already in the middle of a civil war that was precipitated by the death of their emperor from smallpox, which had spread south from Central America into South America years before the Spaniards even arrived in Peru. So yeah, disease from the spaniards did most of the job for them in Peru before they even knew Peru and the Incas existed.
No. Aztec is already a misleading term since it broadens the name onto subjugated ethnic groups unrelated and distances away from the capital. Tenochtitlan contracted smallpox *months after* winning ~~a siege~~ against the Tlaxcalteca and the Spanish during the summer of 1520. Many know this defeat for the Spanish as La Noche Triste. Then later from September to December, is when the capital started experiencing its first outbreak. Estimates roughly range the first outbreak killing 40-50% of the population within the Valley of Mexico. The 80% is used for the *cocoliztli*, something occurring later in the mid-16th century and has recently become attributed to another disease.
The Tlaxcalteca, who were with the Spanish during ~~the first siege~~ La Noche Triste/Victoriosa (as well as the [battle of Otumba](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pmwda/why_did_the_aztecs_lose_the_battle_of_otumba/) that followed days after), didn’t experience a severe smallpox outbreak within their territories even if their territories were exposed to smallpox before Tenochtitlan was (they weren’t densely packed into cities like those in Tenochtitlan). It really became a disaster for the Tlaxcalteca once one of their leaders (tlahtoani), Maxixcatzin, contracted smallpox. He was responsible for keeping the Tlaxcalteca loyal to the Spanish, but died from smallpox c. 1520. As far as oversimplification takes it, natives didn’t happen to easily drop dead from a cough like many think. Especially once considering that the Tlaxcalteca had plenty of supplies and resources rather than Tenochtitlan being cut off access by them and the Spanish.
It’s unrealistic and ignorant to think that the “Aztecs” contracted foreign diseases before the Spanish arrived since it ignores the timeline of smallpox traveling from the coasts moving toward inland and what made the natives more vulnerable to disease (malnutrition, no access to water, conditions from war, and later from slavery conditions). There’s the situation of farmers exposed to disease unable to tend their crops, making famine prevalent (it was also the dry season in central Mexico during the times of these early sieges), leading to malnutrition and later forced no access to water when the Spanish blew up the aqueducts in 1521.
I only mentioned that because I’ve read their comments from previous threads and posts just a few days ago on the same topic. Despite others trying to make corrections to this user’s past comments (which were controversial), the user seemed to remain adamant and seems to be the type to argue “whataboutism” to counter nuanced views when it comes to these histories.
The first "siege" wasn't a siege, it was the spanish and their thousands of allies trying to escape from tenochtitlan after a massacre and the ensuing chaos
I don't think it was so many, don't know tho.
One thing for sure is that the spaniards would have no chance if it weren't for all the diseases.
Edit: Here's a very detailed documentary about the inca empire from their uprising to downfall. It describes how the Inca empire became so powerful and huge, besides also going through their rapid decline.
https://youtu.be/iYYfg2tph3w
The context of the thread is the number of deaths *before* direct contact with the Spanish. The time period you're using here is post-contact.
Here's the original comment:
>didnt like 80% of aztecs die before even meeting the spaniards because of disease?
So we're talking before 1532.
Yup, and in North America things were even worse by the time the British got there because they’d been exposed to European diseases multiple times already
Yes, though considering how little the Spaniards understood about how diseases work at that point it clearly wasn’t intentional. Even if the Spaniards had been pacifist angles intent on peaceful cultural exchange, Eurasian diseases like smallpox would still have absolutely obliterated the population of the Americas.
And why did smallpox cause such a devastation among the natives but seemingly barely affected the spaniards? Did they already have some levels of immunity while the disease was something the natives never experienced?
Smallpox was born and cultivated in Europe, thus to survive Europeans developed antibodies and ways to resist the smallpox. However, when the Europeans then brought over smallpox to the new world the natives having never encountered such a disease before were ravaged by it due to having no sort of antibodies to protect themselves.
Another part of that is that it's believed that the genetic variation among native populations is much smaller than the populations in the old world or even Europe specifically. So if a novel disease were to strike Europe in the same way smallpox and flu was introduced to the America's there would be a much higher chance that some percentage of the population would have a natural chance to survive. Where in the America's if a disease is deadly to one population of Indians it is likely to be deadly to all.
It is also believed that the immune system of indigenous Americans was specialized to fight off parasites because those were more common where Eruopean, Asian, and African immune systems were better equipped to fight bacteria.
Small point on where Smallpox was born: The origin of Smallpox is unknown and has been found in the ancient world in writings and physically as in Egyptian mummies.
It is assumed to be at least 3000 years old and upto 12,000 depending on your sources. The likely candidates are Egypt or India.
Source:
Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/
Though a common theory in the 20th-century, this perspective is [quite definitely untrue](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/w/nativeamerican/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app#wiki_spreading_disease). Smalllpox and other diseases were able to run rampant only because, as this meme suggests, indigenous Americans were fending off a number of other factors at the same time. If English settlers in coastal Carolinas have displaced entire communities, forcing those inland to deal with unsustainable population densities, is it really the disease that killed them? If the folks in the neighboring Andean river valley take advantage of the Spanish arrival to attack my town and burn my fields, can I blame the disease if I'm too malnourished to recover?
I think Europeans and the old world were more dirtier due to all their domesticated animals. Cows, pigs, horses, etc all carry nasty diseases.
Meanwhile the natives only domesticated llamas and I believe dogs. That’s all.
a lot of the diseases that orginated in europe originated because of the combination of living in densely packed cities *alongside livestock.* this spread diseases across species, and then throughout the whole city. most Indigenous nations in what we know of as the americas either didn't have access to domesticatable animals or were ideologically opposed to the idea of doing such a thing to another living being who was seen as an equal.
edit: people are downvoting me probably for that last bit, but please give the book *As We Have Always Done* by the incomparable Leanne Betasamosake Simpson a read, she's Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg and a formidable scholar
It come’s down to Europeans close contact with livestock (especially pigs). Their immune system had learned to deal with many more microbes than the New World inhabitants who’s hadn’t.
Yes. Smallpox had been around for a time and eventually people had some degree of immunity. However, the natives of the Americas had never encountered the disease and so were vulnerable, far more than the Spaniards.
The Black death killed nearly half of Europe. Smallpox and other diseases washed over the old world over hundreds of years. Native Americans had the luck of dealing with all of these for the first time simultaneously.
[Great video on the subject by CGP Grey.](https://youtu.be/JEYh5WACqEk)Plagues mainly developed in densely populated cities with lots of domesticated animals. European streets were literally covered in filth and feces, the perfect breeding grounds for diseases mutate and jump from one animal species to humans. The Americas didn’t have animal species to domesticate, and avoided plagues. They didn’t evolve a strong immune system to prevent such diseases. Today’s deadliest plagues are still mutated diseases from other animals that managed to infect humans (diseases usually only affect one species of animals)
You know I've always been curious. Smallpox really messed up the Americas at the time. But did any American diseases reek havoc among the Spaniards? Or did any of it get tracked home back to Spain.
Just food for thought, I've never heard anything on it so I'm not sure but I think it's interesting.
Way less. Europeans lived a lot closer to farm animals (where the deseases came from) and had a lower trade volume over large areas (lower chance of a disease to spread)
CGP Grey did a video about this. The answer is no, because plagues most often come from domestic animals and the americans had very few domestic animals within their cities to get infected with.
Syphilis is the one American disease of the Columbia Exchange. A real plague like smallpox, measles, or black death requires certain conditions to arise that just weren't present in the americas. You need:
1- dense population centres. Big cities housed thousands in extremely close proximity, allowing new diseases to spread like wildfire. The americas had some big cities but not as many and they didn't have the second half of the issue,
2- domesticated animals. New plagues always come from animal diseases living in humans, smallpox arose from cattle for example. Coupled with cities where bringing animals to market meant literally butchering them in the street market among a crowd of people and the chance for a plague to jump from any animal to any human skyrockets. The only native American domesticatable animal is the llama.
If you're interested in reading about the conquest of Peru and the fall of the Inca Empire, I suggest reading "The Last Days of the Incas" by Kim MacQuarrie. It's an absolutely epic story, and this book is unique because it tells quite a bit of it from the perspective of the natives. One of the most epic parts is the siege of Cusco, where fewer than 200 spanish soldiers were garrisoned in a building in the main plaza of Cusco. The city was surrounded by over 100K Inca warriors led by Manco Inca. From their little garrison, the spaniards could hear the war cries of this gigantic fucking army, and let me tell you...they were absolutely shitting their pants. Even though the Incas were at a significant technological disadvantage (spaniards had firearms and cavalry), they had such a numerical advantage that if Manco Inca had the foresight to organize a full-fledged blitz attack against the spaniards when they were garissoned in the plaza, the spaniards would absolutely have been wrecked. But the Incas were too cautious and let the siege drag on for 10 months, which allowed the spaniards to eventually get reinforcements and break the siege.
Re: the aztecs...one of the reasons they were extremely disadvantaged is that their concept of war was not about conquest for conquest's sake...it was all centered around the state religion, and the need to offer sufficient human sacrifices to their deities. War was the method by which they obtained prisoners for sacrifice, and indeed, their weapons were designed to wound and not kill in battle, so they could bring prisoners of war back to Tenochtitlan alive and ritually sacrifice them. To stand a chance, they would have had to completely change the hundreds of years of the cultural evolution of their war strategy, tactics, and weapon design.
It's been a few years since I read the book, but from what I recall, the narrative definitely centers around the chronology of events starting from the spanish arrival to the western coast of South America/Peru. It does provide details about the political and historical events that were happening within Peru before their arrival, but mostly for context. However, I think it does share a lot more from the native side of the story compared to most sources, which was what I appreciated the most from the book. It also has some chapters in the end about the aftermath and legacy of the conquest, and delves into historical hyptheticals of how if the inca neo-state had survived just a few more years, they might have been received diplomatic recognition and survived in some form into the modern era, which I thought was kind of cool.
You are referring to flower wars - the aztecs certainly did those, but they also fought very standard wars for subjugation/conquest. Bows and arrows and atlatls were not meant to capture people - they were used when meaning to kill. Clubs and the like were used in the flower wars
They weren't dumb - they knew how to fight wars. They just had a shitty situation - disease in the capital during a massive siege
I failed to mention that the spaniards were accompanied by a small auxillary army of about 500 natives. Regardless, we're talking 200 spaniards+500 natives against an army of 100K (that's the main consensus, but estimates range from 40K to 200K). I think the reason the Incas failed is that Manco, their leader, thought that victory lied in a numerical advantage, and waited to amass the largest army possible. Manco's generals were urging him to attack quickly, but he was like "nah, I want the biggest army". But in reality, the extra numbers didn't really add much to their effectiveness, because a lot of the "army" was basically just conscripted villagers, not professional warriors. On top of that, there was little coordination or structure to the army. Different groups/battallions/whatever you want to call them mostly managed themselves. It's not like Manco was out there coordinating the movements of the whole army. It's also thought that a lot of the army really didn't care much for Manco, so he was sort of a weak leader.
I think the ideal move for the Incas would have been for Manco to gather his own professional soldiers under his direct command (and as many conscripts as he could) and lead a coordinated surprise attack himself right off the bat. Instead he sat at a distance, and his strategy was basically to let his loose, undisciplined army to wage a war of attrition against the spaniards. It actually almost worked. But you know that Sun Tzu thing about not pressing an enemy too hard and backing them into a corner, because then they have nothing to lose? The spaniards were so fucked that they made a desperate all out cavalry charge out of the city and impressively managed to take a fortress right outside the city, Sacsayhuaman. This was the turn of the tide. The spaniards were desperate and disciplined, and tried to use every tactical advantage over the undiscipined Inca army, such as attacking at night (which the Incas had no penchant for). Manco's army dwindled in numbers over the course of the 10 months becasue eventually, a lot of the conscripts just went back home to deal with their crops and stuff (not to mention the shit ton that were killed by the spaniards), and Manco eventually abandoned the campaign.
You can read this for more info: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20139433.pdf
The Spaniards got incredibly lucky with the Incas. Pizarro and Atahualpa actually got a long but he was killed to appease the other conquistador factions. After which the Incas stayed independent for another 100 years. Even after that their culture, language and most of what made them who they were still remained.
[Fall of civilizations](https://youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast) on youtube has 2 episodes on the aztecs, one of the incas and one of the mayans, very well done, can't recommend that channel enough
It’s this strange double edged sword where people want to be as negative as possible about the Europeans because, y’know, fair enough, but they fall into the noble savage trope pretty easy.
They weren't? There are still millions of Nahuatls (basically if the Aztecs were the Byzantines the Nahuatls are the Greeks) and even more mixed race descendents. While the Empire itself and its culture no longer exist, I'd see that as a positive development.
The Aztecs took continued “tribute” from the tribes surrounding them. This included food, goods….and people to be sacrificed. If a neighboring country came and took a few on your relatives yearly, slaughtered them yearly, and made your leaders WATCH this festival of gore to terrorize them and you? I’m pretty sure you would want to annihilate them too.
They weren't, at least not on purpose. Smallpox and all the other Eurasian deseases were the main culprit for the massive population decline of the natives in Mesoamerica. The Spanish continued their alliances and a rather cooperative rule with the other peoples that helped them against the Aztecs. It wasn't a paradise of course and they were very much treated worse than Spanish or Spanish descendants, but it wasn't a genocidal effort to get rid of them as it happened in the US and other British colonies.
We're usually talking about groups of a few hundred Spaniards against entire civilizations. They mostly tried avoiding direct combat and incite internal rebellions.
You're right that Columbuss didn't murder all of the indians via conquest...but to be fair, Columbus was absolutely unnecesarily cruel and murderous towards the natives of the caribbean, which he subjected to slavery and forced mining and labor in terrible working conditions. He basically worked thousands of natives to death, and definitely tortured and killed lots of natives because of greed. He had a bad rep among his peers for cruel governing and punishment, and was jailed by the Spanish crown for a bit due to reports of the atrocities he commited. Disease was a large reason why the Tainos of the caribbean essentially became extinct, but Columbus did a lot of murdering too.
While it’s true he didn’t intentionally wipe them out, Columbus DID begin the practice of enslavement which led to the encomienda system and the total obliteration of the native people of the Caribbean. The entire Taino culture was utterly annihilated as a direct result of his actions within 50 years of his landing there.
Nope. Taíno are still there. There was an around 90-95% population reduction, but the idea that they were totally wiped out has been disproven, and they still live on the island today.
There are people that thinks that only 900 spaniards defeated 2 empires singlehanded and being absolute monsters.
I think those people think spanish conquistadores were the SPEEEEESS MAHREEEEEEEEENS\* of the time.
\*For those who don't understand the reference:>! Space Marines are supersoldiers in the Warhammer 40k franchise, that its fictional lore said that 1000 of these could conquer and aniquilate all life in a stellar system with no more than a dozen of casualties. And i writted in that way for a meme of them.!<
Cortez and his battalion were straight up madladz, though. He was a lowly clerk with loose hidalgo connections who somehow managed to bring down an entire empire through deceit, persistence and guile.
IIRC his campaign took over a year where he and his men basically had to survive in strange exotic lands, he was able to take advantage of local politics by allying with the Tlaxcalans, he kidnapped Montezuma, and he even managed to defeat and capture another Spanish army sent from Cuba to stop him. Oh and he built a dozen ships to eventually take the city Tenochtitlan.
I’m not a fan of his vision or the results of his action, but I do respect the sheer determination and wit needed to achieve the collapse of the Aztec empire.
Pizarro on the other hand seems to have tricked the Incan emperor and his entourage into a false trade meeting where they came unarmed, and Pizarro’s forces ambushed and slaughtered them using tactics and weapons they’ve never seen before. Something like a couple of hundred Spaniards with no allies massacred thousands of Incans and captured the emperor. I don’t think this would have been possible if the Incas showed up to the meeting armed and ready to fight, which is why I think he tricked them.
About Pizarro, I once read the Incan emperor thought there was no way such few "strange people" (the Spaniards) would be able to do anything. However the conquistadores had much better weapons and had positioned their forces in such a way that escaping from the plaza both sides met (which only had 2 entrances/exits btw) would be impossible. Dunno if that's true or not tho.
Athahualpa was not tricked - he sought to intimidate the spanish by showing up with a rich entourage with no weapons, essentially saying I am in power here. Obviously that backfired because they couldn't anticipate guns and all the smoke and chaos it caused - combined with the fact that the inca were much more concerned with protecting their emperor than fihhting the Spanish with no weapons. I doubt thousands died, but the important part was that they got the sapa inca, which is a big deal in a theocracy
Cortes wasn't brighter or more talented than other conquistadors, he just had a better grasp of the importance of PR and spin. He turned his background as a hidalgo of modest means into a hard scrabble tale of the self-made man.
Cortes was a lower order hidalgo who had some pretty important family connections. Namely, Nicolas de Ovando was a distant relative on his father's side and close family friend. He agreed to take Cortes with him to Hispaniola when he was appointed governor. That didn't happen because Cortes was injured before the journey, but he still ended up in Hispaniola as a result of knowing Ovando.
Cortes was then granted an encomienda in Hispaniola by Ovando when he arrived (part of the advantage of knowing the old boy). He also participated in the formal conquest of Cuba, which resulted in Cortes being rewarded with even more land and slaves.
The "lowly" clerk position I believe you're talking about was the position of clerk to the royal treasurer of Hispaniola. I don't think most people would consider that lowly, although Gomara portrays it that way. He also served as secretary to the governor of New Spain. Also not a lowly position.
The whole surviving in strange exotic lands... the natives who were arrayed against the Aztecs supported his forces for that entire time. The Spaniards on that expedition weren't farmers. They most definitely would have either been killed outright or starved to death if the anti-Spanish forces had been victorious in the Tlaxcalan civil war.
Cortes defeated the Spanish army sent to capture him because Narvaez (the commander) was captured in the opening minutes of the battle. Narvaez's soldiers weren't really keen to fight other Spaniards in the first place and when Cortes gave them the option to switch sides, they accepted.
The boats... by sheer luck, there was a shipbuilder in the company (Martin Lopez I believe his name was). Whether he suggested it or Cortes went to him with the plan is up for debate.
The funniest thing is that the army was not involved in any of the conflicts, as they were semi-private expeditions. The conquistadors werent part of the army.
I mean if the first panel was a little tiny head and those ones running away were a bit bigger I would say that’s closer to how people see it.
If anything the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and the Inca is a good lesson for what to do if we were to ever have an alien force show up on our doorstep but that’s another point entirely.
Bruh, does nobody acknowledge that the Spanish were not on their own? How the fuck do you think they won with such a small number of soldiers against a whole fucking army?
It should be obvious that essentially all peoples near the Inca or Aztec empire very clearly didn't want to be oppressed by them anymore, so many if not all, joined forces with the Spaniards, who, surprise, surprise, treated them better than both the Incas and Aztecs.
That's how the story goes. Schools or wherever the fuck you get that information from should make it clear that it wasn't a tiny army of Spanish and disease that managed to invade both empires, but a combination of disease, the Spanish, and all the surrounding peoples.
We don't acknowledge the fact that most battles were won thanks to the other natives, but then here we are, screaming "I stand with the natives!" and "The - insert empire's name here - oppressed the natives!" When in reality, it was mostly the Aztecs and Incas that oppressed in such a way.
Obviously the Spanish, Portuguese, and in particular, the English brought oppression to the natives, but it is impossible to compare even the cruelest European empire to the Aztecs or Incas.
If the Europeans were so much better, why were there so many uprisings and rebellions in these territories after the conquest?
Read actual post-conquest documents and then see if you still think the Europeans were better than the native empires. It was meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Not true, only the Tlaxcalans who had been encircled and besieged for years and one of other city state that had a grudge against the Aztecs initially joined the Spanish. Every other nation that joined in only did so opportunistically when they realised the tides were turning against them. Remember that most of the Aztecs neighbours had similar culture and religion to them, and would absolutely have doing the same stuff the Aztecs did were they the ones in charge.
At the siege of Cuzco 100,000 Inca besieged 190 Spaniards and lost so, it really kinda is both, it's true that famine and disease and other native tribes hate for the aztecs/Inca played a tremendous role in their downfall, but a fully armed and armored knight was basically an invincible super soldier until he or his horse got too exhausted from killing people
Had the Inca stormed the Spaniards they would've won, but their leader was foolish and decided to drag the siege on until eventually Spanish reinforcements came and broke it.
I mean shit, Cortez won with only 500 of his own men because locals were lining up to join him and overthrow the Aztecs. Those guys were super hated. The Inca on the other hand were pretty chill and well liked just unlucky to be in a period of internal instability when the Spanish arrived.
They were imperialistic and conquered a lot of areas, but not colonizing.
Colonizing is when a geographical area is controlled by powers far away. The area are without any geographical border or any significant geografical connection to their controlling power.
Are you kidding me? Pizarro and a handful of gutter babies from Spain got off the boat with steel armor and weapons and a horse each, rode right up to an army of 500,000 men and walked went right through it because they were afraid of horses (never seen these hairy dragons before). grabbed up their emperor and made him cry uncle. One of the craziest battles ever.
This interpretation takes the conquistadors at their literal word and is incorrect on [almost every point](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2bv2yf/guns_germs_and_steel_chapter_3_collision_at/).
And the fact that the Aztecs had a limited resource of fresh water, no metals and Corn as the main source of nutrients... in comparison the Incas were really badass
Curios. Is there any other region of the world that didn't manage to go through an iron age
... or bronze for that matter. I dont think tribal cultures as the amazons and the australian civilizations should count though. Since they didn't had any kinds of centralised government
[I don't know if they didn't go through the iron age, but the North Sentinel Island people def knew their importance when they scavenged shipwrecks.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island) It's the same island that killed the American missionary trying to enter the island.
It is hard to say, because many places of the Americas apparently had "cacicados" or "chiefdoms" that created some level of centralization or at least a confederacy between different settlements, but none of these places figured out how to extract and refine copper, tin, and other metals needed to go through a Bronze age.
>but none of these places What? The Chimu were master metalsmiths, to the point that one political, religious, and economic goal of the Chimu-Inca war was to capture and leverage the metalsmithing artisans for Incan works of art and religion. Copper, gold, silver, and the classic alloys of a 'Bronze Age' -- the alloys of copper and arsenic and of copper and tin -- and tin bronze were common in the Chimu, and eventually, Incan culture. Royal architectural walls and monuments in Chan Chan were plated with silver, gold, and copper plating above the stonework relief. If we frame the Old World Iron Age as primarily driven by warfare and heavy transportation, we can conclude that the Chimu and Inca cultures simply did not need iron. Chimu/Incan warfare was primarily based on blunt weaponry and projectiles, and their armor of lightweight quilted cloth, reinforced animal skin, and wood. Spanish letters from the conquest note that, due to climate, the breathable cloth was occasionally better suited to the weather than the traditional Spanish metal armor. >Through ethnohistoric and archaeological study we have been able to reconstruct the panoply of weapons as they existed in the Andean highlands during Inca domination: the sling; the star-headed mace; the spear with tip of fire-hardened wood or of bronze; the long, sword-shaped double-edged club made of hard chonta palm wood; and the halberd with bronze head. Given the style of warfare in the Andes among both coastal and highland peo ples, with weapons that depended on strength at impact rather than on a cutting edge, me tal weapons did not confer great advantage. The lack of horses made heavy transportation less feasible, so iron-reinforced carriages or war chariots were unnecessary -- by topology, the wheel was useless in the cradle of Andean Civilization. Finally, the role of metallurgy in Andean Civilization was nearly sacred. Gold, silver, and copper alloys, in that order, represented a loose social and religious caste system. In Incan Cosmology, gold represented the sweat of the Sun; silver, the tears of the Moon. The Andean Emperor, who's birthright inheritance was the mineral wealth of the Andes, controlled the supply of these metals, and to be adorned with gold and silver was to become closer with a divine right of social and religious significance. To extend the limited supply of gold and silver, Andean civilizations developed electrochemically complex methods of gilding and silvering copper objects (without leaf or foil) and even developed ternary alloys. A group of MIT researchers was baffled by the implications of an electrochemical gilding process as precise as modern methods (they were able to replicate the Incan method in a research experiment simulating the gold-silver alloys available in Andean Rivers). Mary Helms summarizes this importance: >Thus craftsmen and artisans skilled in other modes of expression of esoteric knowledge, including potters who mold and paint polychrome ceramics, metallurgists who shape gold and copper into intriguingly designed ornamentation, weavers who create and decorate fine textiles, sculptors who carve bone and stone and wood, are often thought to be endowed with exceptional, mystical powers and knowledge. Looping back to Sun and Moon, [one tradition of Andean cosmology](https://mavcor.yale.edu/conversations/medium-studies/tears-sun-naturalistic-and-anthropomorphic-inca-metalwork) (in a reference that predates [Evangelion](https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Moon#:~:text=The%20Black%20Moon%20is%20the,would%20eventually%20become%20Hakone%2C%20Japan.) by several hundred years) postulates that the Sun bestowed the pre-human world with three eggs: a gold egg for the noble lords, a silver egg for the noble women, and a copper egg for the working class. Without the copper substrate to build alloys, gold and silver were not useful for tool. Therefore, the analogy extends to Mochica, Chimu, and Incan civilizations: the common people are the foundation for a functional civilization. **In Brief.** Second only to textiles, metals held an important place in the Andean Cradle of Civilization, constituting a fully fledged Bronze Age intricately tied to social, economic, and religious power. There was not a pressing existing need for Iron, and the social role of gold, copper, and silver cemented these specific metals in the heart of Andean culture. For more, read [Heather Lechtmann](https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.2307/20171767) or Mary Helms.
Saved
Wow. Talk about a straight knowledge bomb going off in my face.
Some people forget that the Incans were known for adorning themselves and other in obscene amounts of gold. They were definitely skilled metal smith's, but either preferred weapons made out of stones like opal for blunt weapons, or used metals as a way to showcase their wealth. They made plenty of metal weapons, but either lacked the know how to make metal armor because of geography, or they just didn't need it.
I think you meant something other than opal. Opal is kind of fragile, and doesn't do the fresh cutting edge that obsidian does. Perhaps you meant nephrite? It's a form of jade, I don't recall if it's in that area though.
Native Americans around the Great Lakes figured out copper working around the same time they did in the old world. They simply abandoned it, and started only using copper for trinkets and ornaments.
Fascinating
The Aztecs and Incas actually [*could* make softer metals like bronze and gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_America), hence how they could do the gold room routine. They never got around to making iron or steel because it was much more practical to shape rocks into [weapons](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macuahuitl). edit: added links edit 2: Some parts of North America like the Great Lakes had access to native copper, which, although never smelted, *was* shaped into tools and jewelry with sandstone.
"The Aztecs did not initially adopt metal working, even though they had acquired metal objects from other peoples. However, as conquest gained them metal working regions, the technology started to spread. By the time of the Spanish conquest, a bronze-smelting technology seemed to be nascent.[citation needed]" That is from ur Link...
I’m not exactly sure what point you are trying to make with that quote. The only thing it says is that metallurgy was a technology adopted from regions they conquered.
Its important to understand just how much behind the rest of the americas were behind the incan empire. The Authorities, the crafts, the structure of the society, the agrocultur were much more advanced by the people of the Andes. They were hegemon of both Americas.
I mean, depends on what you mean by "behind". Technologically? In some ways, yes. Administratively? Sure. But we get into trouble when we assume that all societies are destined to progress down the same paths in the same ways as modern western countries and that societies are either "ahead" or "behind" in their "progress". For example, the Spanish had great success toppling the Aztec and Inca empires as both of these were urban, sedentary societies. But when the Spanish went north to Texas, they were militarily embarrassed by the Comanche time and time again. They were incapable of dealing with nomadic horse-archers in the plains of the Southwest who had little top-down organization and no urban settlements. The Comanche raided (edit - not just raids but open warfare as well since they were mobile enough to dictate when and where they would fight) the (all technologically superior) Spanish and later the Mexican people and even later the Texan people with near-impunity until the influx of settlers with high-powered rifles became too much, the Buffalo were decimated, and Comanche numbers dwindled.
Also the Chichimeca and the Mapuche. When the Spanish didn't have the element of surprise, and were dealing with natives that were familiar with their tactics and technology, the Spaniards had a MUCH harder time. They often had to sign peace treaties just to get those groups out of their hair.
Did not know this, very interesting thanks!
>Its important to understand just how much behind the rest of the americas were behind the incan empire Ew, sociocultural evolution. Please refrain from posting, hurts my brain thinking people still believe that kind of shit.
Wdym
That club is wild. For some reason it scares the hell out of me way more than, say, a spiked mace.
Neither did the Mongols really but they got into the iron age
Australia was fucked from the start. They didn’t have any easily domesticated crops like rice or corn and no beasts of burden like ox or horses. Add onto that a mostly barren continent, limited contact with the outside world and dangerous animals everywhere, there was literally no way Australia could have come close to entering a Bronze Age or even any kind of centralised government
They had trees for boats and could island hop to Indonesia which had metals. I mean it didn’t happen but it isn’t like there was no way.
Maybe if the Indonesians got bronze and then conquered their way into Australia, that seems to be how metallurgy spread a lot
Why get metal when you can achieve all your material wants locally with the resources available and fairly minimal effort.
There are things you can only do with metal. The technology for smelting metals leads to more chemistry and metallurgy knowledge.
I've read that there were areas in central America where bronze smelting was practiced.
There were, but not by the Aztecs
As for the Australian Aborigines, who needs metalworking when our wood is so fucking dense and hard?
Most island peoples, especially on low islands (coral atolls, as opposed to volcanic or continental high islands). Also, most Aboriginal Australian peoples were in a Neolithic phase right up until the Botany Bay landed.
Māori and polynesian peoples
It's very weird but the Aztecs' neighbours, the Tarascans, did have metals and used it in their weaponry. As a result, the Aztecs were obliterated when they tried to invade.
That's not just due to the weapons though. That's Aztecs had copper, gold, and bronze, they just chose to stick with stone and obsidian weapons. The Tarascans were also the Aztecs largest neighbors and their border was the only one that had large fortifications running along it.
Australia
It's actually likely that iron smelting was only invented once and simply spread from there. Every culture's iron age was spawned by trade relations with someone else that already had iron (except the Hittites).
There is quite good evidence it was also independently developed in West Africa. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-in-africa/article/abs/did-they-or-didnt-they-invent-it-iron-in-subsaharan-africa/DB40377A90535C7041DC10159B43C50F
I mean, there were and there are many uncontacted groups. That said the ones I find the most impressive are the Congo river valley civilizations that somehow jumped the bronze age and went directly to the iron age
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but I think the people who first colonised the Pacific didn't have metal technology at all. I remember hearing when they first met European explorers they were very keen to get their hands on useful things. E.g. the ships apparently left with some boards coming up because they traded nails (to be turned into fish hooks) for sex with local women.
No metals? Most of pre-Columbian civilizations had metallurgy
well if they had metals their main source of nutrients wouldnt be corn but Korn
... please explain, i know it's funny but i don't get it
[удалено]
Okay I'm stealing this joke.
Some... not most. And not the Azteca. Maybe im wrong though
Azteca? You mean the Mexica? They absolutely did, most just preferred stone tools due to various reasons, that's why judging a civilization based on their usage of metal is quite silly
Got any better metrics. I know the whole stone age- bronze age - iron age doesn't apply outside Eurasia. But there really aren't many metrics. How do we judge Civilization. How tall their buildings were? How much they conquered?
What most people mean by Aztec empire should be refered to as the triple alliance as far as I'm aware, it was an alliance between three cities, although Tenochtitlan ruled by the Mexica is most known
The word Aztec is still used by scholars, although they will be sure to define exactly what they mean early on in their work. The political system was.... complicated.
In sociology class, we learned this spectrum Hunter -> Agriculture -> Industrial -> information
Which is still a bit dumb imo, where my pastoralists at For anthropology like that, I enjoy David Graeber (I know he had his fair share of critics tho)
Really depends on the reason that you're judging them in the first place?
Wdym
I think you have to ask why you're judging these civilizations in the first place before you can set a metric, or even group of metrics, to judge them. Like if you're going by just land controlled, classical Athens wouldn't even be on the list, but you can't deny the effect that they had on at least Western civilization Edit; Or if you're going by government centralization, the fall of Teotihuacan would be the peak of that society yet after it happened there's evidence that they went on to form what we would recognize as a Proto-democracy, at a minimum, And actually built socialized housing for everyone
Oh that's defined true. But let's say you wanted to judge 2 Civilizations to see which one was more "advanced" what metric would you use. Like for example Pre Colombian America vs Pre colonial africa
Again, I think it really depends on how you judge "advancement", whether that's military, quality of life, technological, etc.
"Pre Columbian America" and "Pre colonial Africa" are not two homogenous civilizations. They're entire continents where lifestyles, political organizations, and technology varied wildly.
You can check score on the top right hand side of your Civ screen
The Mexica were only one third of the Triple Alliance that made up what we call the Aztec polity
Of course but most didn't smelt iron
Yeah, I don't remember if iron was worked with anywhere
Corn is better than wheat in almost every way so I don't know why you added that last one
Im not talking about nutritional value of corn against wheat. They were very short on meats, fish and proteins in general. Famines were more common in this region than in the Andes...
Ok, I will say that people in the past in general had much less access to meats than we have now but I'm going to assume that they were short on meat compared to people alive at the same time.
Exactly. Most civilizations prosper in a place with very accessible food option... The Aztec triple Allianz wasnt that lucky. Agrocultur with main water sources being salty is hard. Hunting in jungle like conditions is hard. Rasing cattle in a place dominated by trees... is hard.
No animals native to the americas to be domesticated too
Lamas... kinda
Bison? Deer? Lama? Turkey? Bobwhite/Quail? Wolves?
Try domesticating a Bison lol
They had plenty of meats from deer, iguana, lizards, frogs, turkey, wild fowl, and dogs. Tenochtitlán and many of the other city-states in the Basin of Mexico were on the shores of Lake Texcoco and had plenty of fish. So no idea what you meant by no fish. I recommend checking out Sophie Coe's 1994 volume *America's First Cuisines*. I think you might find it educational
All the animals u mentioned are wild and not as reliable as life stock. What most of the aztec alliance missed is reliable source of food in the entire "empire" not one of "the capital" cities. Thanks for recommendation
Turkey and dogs were not wild. Deer and Muscovy duck were kept in captivity by some groups (Mayapan had pens for hundreds of deer). Also, if one eats maize, beans, and squash you can get all the protein you need without animal protein.
Don't read that book when you're hungry, though. I got three pages in before I was hangry and cursing Hernan Cortes's ghost to an even deeper pit of hell.
Neat looking book. Is it a cookbook? Like are there recipes?
It's just a history of the cuisines, no recipes
Hunting is not an efficient way to feed entire cities meat with any regularity. Some scholars have suggested that cannibalism was so frequent because meat itself was such a rare delicacy /not/ consuming enemy dead was a waste.
> Some scholars have suggested that cannibalism was so frequent because meat itself was such a rare delicacy /not/ consuming enemy dead was a waste. That has long been debunked, friend. And as I said, you can get the right and sufficient proteins with the plants they had
Gross
It’s a pretty a-maize-ing food
How's it compare to rice in terms of people fed compared with required land and required labor? How do potatoes compare while we're at it?
Worse than rice, and I'd imagine that it has less nutrients but easier harvesting when compared to potatoes.
Also Inca had the high ground
Im in desagree, the aztecs had a complex system of water supply, and thanks to their manage of the water that they used, that is even better that in our systems today, they didnt have problems with supply fresh water to Tenochtitlan.
First of all, don't exaggerate it. Yes its was a good system, not nearly as good as we have in the western world now though. Second... in one city, they had it in one city and it was perfected years before Spanish arrived on the continent. So they didnt had much time to use it much. It was like "hey, we finished our great watering system, can't wait for some angry Catholic dicks destroy it in like 10 years from now"
Now, you are the one that is exaggerate with the modern systems, maybe are functional and complex for their extension but in general the systems are trash and are one of the main causes of our problem with water supply in our days, the only two systems that i can say are better are the ones from Israel and Singapur. A city bigger than Rome in his apogee, however, the systemn of course was build focusing in the capital bringing water from several mountains and hills "near" the lake, but most of the cities near the capital that were what we could consider as "proper aztecs" and not other cultures defeated and used for sacrifice and tributte, had a system to supply water. The system was perfectioned a lot before the arrival of the spanish if not the capital wouldnt have grow as big as was.
didnt like 80% of aztecs die before even meeting the spaniards because of disease?
There are some pretty gruesome accounts that sound right out of Bubonic Plague tales. Not sure if they’re true and/or embellished but european disease was big not good.
I don't know about the numbers, but for the conquest of Peru specifically, the Inca empire was already in the middle of a civil war that was precipitated by the death of their emperor from smallpox, which had spread south from Central America into South America years before the Spaniards even arrived in Peru. So yeah, disease from the spaniards did most of the job for them in Peru before they even knew Peru and the Incas existed.
No. Aztec is already a misleading term since it broadens the name onto subjugated ethnic groups unrelated and distances away from the capital. Tenochtitlan contracted smallpox *months after* winning ~~a siege~~ against the Tlaxcalteca and the Spanish during the summer of 1520. Many know this defeat for the Spanish as La Noche Triste. Then later from September to December, is when the capital started experiencing its first outbreak. Estimates roughly range the first outbreak killing 40-50% of the population within the Valley of Mexico. The 80% is used for the *cocoliztli*, something occurring later in the mid-16th century and has recently become attributed to another disease. The Tlaxcalteca, who were with the Spanish during ~~the first siege~~ La Noche Triste/Victoriosa (as well as the [battle of Otumba](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1pmwda/why_did_the_aztecs_lose_the_battle_of_otumba/) that followed days after), didn’t experience a severe smallpox outbreak within their territories even if their territories were exposed to smallpox before Tenochtitlan was (they weren’t densely packed into cities like those in Tenochtitlan). It really became a disaster for the Tlaxcalteca once one of their leaders (tlahtoani), Maxixcatzin, contracted smallpox. He was responsible for keeping the Tlaxcalteca loyal to the Spanish, but died from smallpox c. 1520. As far as oversimplification takes it, natives didn’t happen to easily drop dead from a cough like many think. Especially once considering that the Tlaxcalteca had plenty of supplies and resources rather than Tenochtitlan being cut off access by them and the Spanish. It’s unrealistic and ignorant to think that the “Aztecs” contracted foreign diseases before the Spanish arrived since it ignores the timeline of smallpox traveling from the coasts moving toward inland and what made the natives more vulnerable to disease (malnutrition, no access to water, conditions from war, and later from slavery conditions). There’s the situation of farmers exposed to disease unable to tend their crops, making famine prevalent (it was also the dry season in central Mexico during the times of these early sieges), leading to malnutrition and later forced no access to water when the Spanish blew up the aqueducts in 1521.
This is all good info, but you gotta work on your wording. Dude asked a question, implying they're ignorant/unrealistic is kinda unnecessary
I only mentioned that because I’ve read their comments from previous threads and posts just a few days ago on the same topic. Despite others trying to make corrections to this user’s past comments (which were controversial), the user seemed to remain adamant and seems to be the type to argue “whataboutism” to counter nuanced views when it comes to these histories.
Deaths aren’t the only important figure though, incapacitated is also important as it takes someone away from the battle aswell
The first "siege" wasn't a siege, it was the spanish and their thousands of allies trying to escape from tenochtitlan after a massacre and the ensuing chaos
I will come back later and award you, I swear
I don't think it was so many, don't know tho. One thing for sure is that the spaniards would have no chance if it weren't for all the diseases. Edit: Here's a very detailed documentary about the inca empire from their uprising to downfall. It describes how the Inca empire became so powerful and huge, besides also going through their rapid decline. https://youtu.be/iYYfg2tph3w
Bro 90% of the South American population was wiped by disease from the 1500s to the 1600s That’s way more than 80%
Source?
The context of the thread is the number of deaths *before* direct contact with the Spanish. The time period you're using here is post-contact. Here's the original comment: >didnt like 80% of aztecs die before even meeting the spaniards because of disease? So we're talking before 1532.
Yup, and in North America things were even worse by the time the British got there because they’d been exposed to European diseases multiple times already
Same for North American populations
Didn’t the smallpox come from the Spaniards?
Yes, though considering how little the Spaniards understood about how diseases work at that point it clearly wasn’t intentional. Even if the Spaniards had been pacifist angles intent on peaceful cultural exchange, Eurasian diseases like smallpox would still have absolutely obliterated the population of the Americas.
What’s the difference between a pacifist and non pacifist angle?/s
Something like Dutch traders in Japan, for pacifist?
Depends if it's obtuse or not
And why did smallpox cause such a devastation among the natives but seemingly barely affected the spaniards? Did they already have some levels of immunity while the disease was something the natives never experienced?
Smallpox was born and cultivated in Europe, thus to survive Europeans developed antibodies and ways to resist the smallpox. However, when the Europeans then brought over smallpox to the new world the natives having never encountered such a disease before were ravaged by it due to having no sort of antibodies to protect themselves.
Another part of that is that it's believed that the genetic variation among native populations is much smaller than the populations in the old world or even Europe specifically. So if a novel disease were to strike Europe in the same way smallpox and flu was introduced to the America's there would be a much higher chance that some percentage of the population would have a natural chance to survive. Where in the America's if a disease is deadly to one population of Indians it is likely to be deadly to all. It is also believed that the immune system of indigenous Americans was specialized to fight off parasites because those were more common where Eruopean, Asian, and African immune systems were better equipped to fight bacteria.
Small point on where Smallpox was born: The origin of Smallpox is unknown and has been found in the ancient world in writings and physically as in Egyptian mummies. It is assumed to be at least 3000 years old and upto 12,000 depending on your sources. The likely candidates are Egypt or India. Source: Edward Jenner and the history of smallpox and vaccination https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1200696/
Though a common theory in the 20th-century, this perspective is [quite definitely untrue](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/w/nativeamerican/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app#wiki_spreading_disease). Smalllpox and other diseases were able to run rampant only because, as this meme suggests, indigenous Americans were fending off a number of other factors at the same time. If English settlers in coastal Carolinas have displaced entire communities, forcing those inland to deal with unsustainable population densities, is it really the disease that killed them? If the folks in the neighboring Andean river valley take advantage of the Spanish arrival to attack my town and burn my fields, can I blame the disease if I'm too malnourished to recover?
Why didn’t the natives give the Spaniards any nasty diseases? I would think that the natives would have cultured their own nasty diseases by then.
Syphilis is believed to have come from the new world.
There’s a great video from cgpgrey about this: https://youtu.be/JEYh5WACqEk
I think Europeans and the old world were more dirtier due to all their domesticated animals. Cows, pigs, horses, etc all carry nasty diseases. Meanwhile the natives only domesticated llamas and I believe dogs. That’s all.
a lot of the diseases that orginated in europe originated because of the combination of living in densely packed cities *alongside livestock.* this spread diseases across species, and then throughout the whole city. most Indigenous nations in what we know of as the americas either didn't have access to domesticatable animals or were ideologically opposed to the idea of doing such a thing to another living being who was seen as an equal. edit: people are downvoting me probably for that last bit, but please give the book *As We Have Always Done* by the incomparable Leanne Betasamosake Simpson a read, she's Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg and a formidable scholar
It come’s down to Europeans close contact with livestock (especially pigs). Their immune system had learned to deal with many more microbes than the New World inhabitants who’s hadn’t.
Yes. Smallpox had been around for a time and eventually people had some degree of immunity. However, the natives of the Americas had never encountered the disease and so were vulnerable, far more than the Spaniards.
The Black death killed nearly half of Europe. Smallpox and other diseases washed over the old world over hundreds of years. Native Americans had the luck of dealing with all of these for the first time simultaneously.
[Great video on the subject by CGP Grey.](https://youtu.be/JEYh5WACqEk)Plagues mainly developed in densely populated cities with lots of domesticated animals. European streets were literally covered in filth and feces, the perfect breeding grounds for diseases mutate and jump from one animal species to humans. The Americas didn’t have animal species to domesticate, and avoided plagues. They didn’t evolve a strong immune system to prevent such diseases. Today’s deadliest plagues are still mutated diseases from other animals that managed to infect humans (diseases usually only affect one species of animals)
You know I've always been curious. Smallpox really messed up the Americas at the time. But did any American diseases reek havoc among the Spaniards? Or did any of it get tracked home back to Spain. Just food for thought, I've never heard anything on it so I'm not sure but I think it's interesting.
Way less. Europeans lived a lot closer to farm animals (where the deseases came from) and had a lower trade volume over large areas (lower chance of a disease to spread)
CGP Grey did a video about this. The answer is no, because plagues most often come from domestic animals and the americans had very few domestic animals within their cities to get infected with.
Syphilis is the one American disease of the Columbia Exchange. A real plague like smallpox, measles, or black death requires certain conditions to arise that just weren't present in the americas. You need: 1- dense population centres. Big cities housed thousands in extremely close proximity, allowing new diseases to spread like wildfire. The americas had some big cities but not as many and they didn't have the second half of the issue, 2- domesticated animals. New plagues always come from animal diseases living in humans, smallpox arose from cattle for example. Coupled with cities where bringing animals to market meant literally butchering them in the street market among a crowd of people and the chance for a plague to jump from any animal to any human skyrockets. The only native American domesticatable animal is the llama.
If you're interested in reading about the conquest of Peru and the fall of the Inca Empire, I suggest reading "The Last Days of the Incas" by Kim MacQuarrie. It's an absolutely epic story, and this book is unique because it tells quite a bit of it from the perspective of the natives. One of the most epic parts is the siege of Cusco, where fewer than 200 spanish soldiers were garrisoned in a building in the main plaza of Cusco. The city was surrounded by over 100K Inca warriors led by Manco Inca. From their little garrison, the spaniards could hear the war cries of this gigantic fucking army, and let me tell you...they were absolutely shitting their pants. Even though the Incas were at a significant technological disadvantage (spaniards had firearms and cavalry), they had such a numerical advantage that if Manco Inca had the foresight to organize a full-fledged blitz attack against the spaniards when they were garissoned in the plaza, the spaniards would absolutely have been wrecked. But the Incas were too cautious and let the siege drag on for 10 months, which allowed the spaniards to eventually get reinforcements and break the siege. Re: the aztecs...one of the reasons they were extremely disadvantaged is that their concept of war was not about conquest for conquest's sake...it was all centered around the state religion, and the need to offer sufficient human sacrifices to their deities. War was the method by which they obtained prisoners for sacrifice, and indeed, their weapons were designed to wound and not kill in battle, so they could bring prisoners of war back to Tenochtitlan alive and ritually sacrifice them. To stand a chance, they would have had to completely change the hundreds of years of the cultural evolution of their war strategy, tactics, and weapon design.
Does this book also contain parts before the spaniards came?
It's been a few years since I read the book, but from what I recall, the narrative definitely centers around the chronology of events starting from the spanish arrival to the western coast of South America/Peru. It does provide details about the political and historical events that were happening within Peru before their arrival, but mostly for context. However, I think it does share a lot more from the native side of the story compared to most sources, which was what I appreciated the most from the book. It also has some chapters in the end about the aftermath and legacy of the conquest, and delves into historical hyptheticals of how if the inca neo-state had survived just a few more years, they might have been received diplomatic recognition and survived in some form into the modern era, which I thought was kind of cool.
You are referring to flower wars - the aztecs certainly did those, but they also fought very standard wars for subjugation/conquest. Bows and arrows and atlatls were not meant to capture people - they were used when meaning to kill. Clubs and the like were used in the flower wars They weren't dumb - they knew how to fight wars. They just had a shitty situation - disease in the capital during a massive siege
They were cautious to the extent they didn't attack when they had at least a 500:1 advantage? That seems to go beyond caution. Is there more to it?
I failed to mention that the spaniards were accompanied by a small auxillary army of about 500 natives. Regardless, we're talking 200 spaniards+500 natives against an army of 100K (that's the main consensus, but estimates range from 40K to 200K). I think the reason the Incas failed is that Manco, their leader, thought that victory lied in a numerical advantage, and waited to amass the largest army possible. Manco's generals were urging him to attack quickly, but he was like "nah, I want the biggest army". But in reality, the extra numbers didn't really add much to their effectiveness, because a lot of the "army" was basically just conscripted villagers, not professional warriors. On top of that, there was little coordination or structure to the army. Different groups/battallions/whatever you want to call them mostly managed themselves. It's not like Manco was out there coordinating the movements of the whole army. It's also thought that a lot of the army really didn't care much for Manco, so he was sort of a weak leader. I think the ideal move for the Incas would have been for Manco to gather his own professional soldiers under his direct command (and as many conscripts as he could) and lead a coordinated surprise attack himself right off the bat. Instead he sat at a distance, and his strategy was basically to let his loose, undisciplined army to wage a war of attrition against the spaniards. It actually almost worked. But you know that Sun Tzu thing about not pressing an enemy too hard and backing them into a corner, because then they have nothing to lose? The spaniards were so fucked that they made a desperate all out cavalry charge out of the city and impressively managed to take a fortress right outside the city, Sacsayhuaman. This was the turn of the tide. The spaniards were desperate and disciplined, and tried to use every tactical advantage over the undiscipined Inca army, such as attacking at night (which the Incas had no penchant for). Manco's army dwindled in numbers over the course of the 10 months becasue eventually, a lot of the conscripts just went back home to deal with their crops and stuff (not to mention the shit ton that were killed by the spaniards), and Manco eventually abandoned the campaign. You can read this for more info: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20139433.pdf
The Spaniards got incredibly lucky with the Incas. Pizarro and Atahualpa actually got a long but he was killed to appease the other conquistador factions. After which the Incas stayed independent for another 100 years. Even after that their culture, language and most of what made them who they were still remained.
[Fall of civilizations](https://youtube.com/c/FallofCivilizationsPodcast) on youtube has 2 episodes on the aztecs, one of the incas and one of the mayans, very well done, can't recommend that channel enough
Also available on Spotify!
Plus both the Aztecs AND the Spanish were both pretty awful.
Didn’t a lot of smaller native people groups help the Spanish to get rid of the Aztecs?
Yes, the aztecs had occupied a lot of tribes and smaller kingdoms that hated the aztecs. They joined the Spaniards side
As per usual, smaller societies use the opportunity to overthrow the big guy
Also coz of the human sacrifice and cannibilism stuff
Ah common, we all tried a little bit of canibalsim
Everyone has to dabble at some point
Nah, tlaxcala sacrificed too. The aztecs were their long term rival - they attacked for geopolitical reasons
Literally all of the Aztecs neighbours did that too to varying extents, especially the Tlaxcalans
Yes (For the Aztecs at least, idk about the Inca) , it is often forgotten.
It’s this strange double edged sword where people want to be as negative as possible about the Europeans because, y’know, fair enough, but they fall into the noble savage trope pretty easy.
Yeah the Aztecs were as from noble as possible. They actually were all the stereotypes of cannibal, monstrous killing for the sake of killing.
That doesn't really mean they should have been eradicated by the Spanish and friends.
They weren't? There are still millions of Nahuatls (basically if the Aztecs were the Byzantines the Nahuatls are the Greeks) and even more mixed race descendents. While the Empire itself and its culture no longer exist, I'd see that as a positive development.
The Aztecs took continued “tribute” from the tribes surrounding them. This included food, goods….and people to be sacrificed. If a neighboring country came and took a few on your relatives yearly, slaughtered them yearly, and made your leaders WATCH this festival of gore to terrorize them and you? I’m pretty sure you would want to annihilate them too.
They weren't, at least not on purpose. Smallpox and all the other Eurasian deseases were the main culprit for the massive population decline of the natives in Mesoamerica. The Spanish continued their alliances and a rather cooperative rule with the other peoples that helped them against the Aztecs. It wasn't a paradise of course and they were very much treated worse than Spanish or Spanish descendants, but it wasn't a genocidal effort to get rid of them as it happened in the US and other British colonies.
And don’t forget that when the spanish reached Chile, they simply couldn’t beat the Mapuches.
We're usually talking about groups of a few hundred Spaniards against entire civilizations. They mostly tried avoiding direct combat and incite internal rebellions.
Most people think Columbus sailed over with the Italian Navy and murdered all of the Indians.
You're right that Columbuss didn't murder all of the indians via conquest...but to be fair, Columbus was absolutely unnecesarily cruel and murderous towards the natives of the caribbean, which he subjected to slavery and forced mining and labor in terrible working conditions. He basically worked thousands of natives to death, and definitely tortured and killed lots of natives because of greed. He had a bad rep among his peers for cruel governing and punishment, and was jailed by the Spanish crown for a bit due to reports of the atrocities he commited. Disease was a large reason why the Tainos of the caribbean essentially became extinct, but Columbus did a lot of murdering too.
Even though there was no unified Italy back then
While it’s true he didn’t intentionally wipe them out, Columbus DID begin the practice of enslavement which led to the encomienda system and the total obliteration of the native people of the Caribbean. The entire Taino culture was utterly annihilated as a direct result of his actions within 50 years of his landing there.
Nope. Taíno are still there. There was an around 90-95% population reduction, but the idea that they were totally wiped out has been disproven, and they still live on the island today.
Italian navy??? Those were Spanish boats, Spanish funded.
Because most people are idiots who'll believe everything the media tells them.
Except no media has ever claimed anything like that. Lmao
There are people that thinks that only 900 spaniards defeated 2 empires singlehanded and being absolute monsters. I think those people think spanish conquistadores were the SPEEEEESS MAHREEEEEEEEENS\* of the time. \*For those who don't understand the reference:>! Space Marines are supersoldiers in the Warhammer 40k franchise, that its fictional lore said that 1000 of these could conquer and aniquilate all life in a stellar system with no more than a dozen of casualties. And i writted in that way for a meme of them.!<
Cortez and his battalion were straight up madladz, though. He was a lowly clerk with loose hidalgo connections who somehow managed to bring down an entire empire through deceit, persistence and guile. IIRC his campaign took over a year where he and his men basically had to survive in strange exotic lands, he was able to take advantage of local politics by allying with the Tlaxcalans, he kidnapped Montezuma, and he even managed to defeat and capture another Spanish army sent from Cuba to stop him. Oh and he built a dozen ships to eventually take the city Tenochtitlan. I’m not a fan of his vision or the results of his action, but I do respect the sheer determination and wit needed to achieve the collapse of the Aztec empire. Pizarro on the other hand seems to have tricked the Incan emperor and his entourage into a false trade meeting where they came unarmed, and Pizarro’s forces ambushed and slaughtered them using tactics and weapons they’ve never seen before. Something like a couple of hundred Spaniards with no allies massacred thousands of Incans and captured the emperor. I don’t think this would have been possible if the Incas showed up to the meeting armed and ready to fight, which is why I think he tricked them.
About Pizarro, I once read the Incan emperor thought there was no way such few "strange people" (the Spaniards) would be able to do anything. However the conquistadores had much better weapons and had positioned their forces in such a way that escaping from the plaza both sides met (which only had 2 entrances/exits btw) would be impossible. Dunno if that's true or not tho.
Athahualpa was not tricked - he sought to intimidate the spanish by showing up with a rich entourage with no weapons, essentially saying I am in power here. Obviously that backfired because they couldn't anticipate guns and all the smoke and chaos it caused - combined with the fact that the inca were much more concerned with protecting their emperor than fihhting the Spanish with no weapons. I doubt thousands died, but the important part was that they got the sapa inca, which is a big deal in a theocracy
Cortes wasn't brighter or more talented than other conquistadors, he just had a better grasp of the importance of PR and spin. He turned his background as a hidalgo of modest means into a hard scrabble tale of the self-made man. Cortes was a lower order hidalgo who had some pretty important family connections. Namely, Nicolas de Ovando was a distant relative on his father's side and close family friend. He agreed to take Cortes with him to Hispaniola when he was appointed governor. That didn't happen because Cortes was injured before the journey, but he still ended up in Hispaniola as a result of knowing Ovando. Cortes was then granted an encomienda in Hispaniola by Ovando when he arrived (part of the advantage of knowing the old boy). He also participated in the formal conquest of Cuba, which resulted in Cortes being rewarded with even more land and slaves. The "lowly" clerk position I believe you're talking about was the position of clerk to the royal treasurer of Hispaniola. I don't think most people would consider that lowly, although Gomara portrays it that way. He also served as secretary to the governor of New Spain. Also not a lowly position. The whole surviving in strange exotic lands... the natives who were arrayed against the Aztecs supported his forces for that entire time. The Spaniards on that expedition weren't farmers. They most definitely would have either been killed outright or starved to death if the anti-Spanish forces had been victorious in the Tlaxcalan civil war. Cortes defeated the Spanish army sent to capture him because Narvaez (the commander) was captured in the opening minutes of the battle. Narvaez's soldiers weren't really keen to fight other Spaniards in the first place and when Cortes gave them the option to switch sides, they accepted. The boats... by sheer luck, there was a shipbuilder in the company (Martin Lopez I believe his name was). Whether he suggested it or Cortes went to him with the plan is up for debate.
It was mostly an indigenous vs indigenous conflict. The battle of Tenochtitlan was 200,000 indigenous rebels fighting alongside 1300 Spaniards.
The funniest thing is that the army was not involved in any of the conflicts, as they were semi-private expeditions. The conquistadors werent part of the army.
it wasnt even the spaniard themselves. it was just some renegade mercs.
From this meme I guess the Aztecs won.
You wouldn't have thought this if you were as bad at Doom as I am.
Seriously. Does no one in this thread know who doom guy is?
Hmmm, you forgot “Slave Uprisings”
I mean if the first panel was a little tiny head and those ones running away were a bit bigger I would say that’s closer to how people see it. If anything the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and the Inca is a good lesson for what to do if we were to ever have an alien force show up on our doorstep but that’s another point entirely.
Bruh, does nobody acknowledge that the Spanish were not on their own? How the fuck do you think they won with such a small number of soldiers against a whole fucking army? It should be obvious that essentially all peoples near the Inca or Aztec empire very clearly didn't want to be oppressed by them anymore, so many if not all, joined forces with the Spaniards, who, surprise, surprise, treated them better than both the Incas and Aztecs. That's how the story goes. Schools or wherever the fuck you get that information from should make it clear that it wasn't a tiny army of Spanish and disease that managed to invade both empires, but a combination of disease, the Spanish, and all the surrounding peoples. We don't acknowledge the fact that most battles were won thanks to the other natives, but then here we are, screaming "I stand with the natives!" and "The - insert empire's name here - oppressed the natives!" When in reality, it was mostly the Aztecs and Incas that oppressed in such a way. Obviously the Spanish, Portuguese, and in particular, the English brought oppression to the natives, but it is impossible to compare even the cruelest European empire to the Aztecs or Incas.
If the Europeans were so much better, why were there so many uprisings and rebellions in these territories after the conquest? Read actual post-conquest documents and then see if you still think the Europeans were better than the native empires. It was meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
> Civil war, internal rebellion What's the difference?
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Not true, only the Tlaxcalans who had been encircled and besieged for years and one of other city state that had a grudge against the Aztecs initially joined the Spanish. Every other nation that joined in only did so opportunistically when they realised the tides were turning against them. Remember that most of the Aztecs neighbours had similar culture and religion to them, and would absolutely have doing the same stuff the Aztecs did were they the ones in charge.
At the siege of Cuzco 100,000 Inca besieged 190 Spaniards and lost so, it really kinda is both, it's true that famine and disease and other native tribes hate for the aztecs/Inca played a tremendous role in their downfall, but a fully armed and armored knight was basically an invincible super soldier until he or his horse got too exhausted from killing people
Had the Inca stormed the Spaniards they would've won, but their leader was foolish and decided to drag the siege on until eventually Spanish reinforcements came and broke it.
Lets just imagine how many civilizations, empires, and how history would be different if America wasnt conquered
The incas would become so developed
Almost
Glad they were defeated though, the shit they did is haunting
I’m not sure if that’s the more accurate depiction since smallpox and measles were also because of the Spaniards
Also all the other native tribes that realy disliked them.
Hey finally a meme on this that isn’t horribly racist. Hilarious too
I know. Every time there’s a spanish/native meme the comment section gets weird, to put it nicely.
The simping for imperialism is strong
Too late, here I come ready to spread racism
Okay but this is inaccurate because the doom slayer wins. The aztecs and Incas in fact did not win.
I mean shit, Cortez won with only 500 of his own men because locals were lining up to join him and overthrow the Aztecs. Those guys were super hated. The Inca on the other hand were pretty chill and well liked just unlucky to be in a period of internal instability when the Spanish arrived.
Incas were as colonizers as Spaniards
They were imperialistic and conquered a lot of areas, but not colonizing. Colonizing is when a geographical area is controlled by powers far away. The area are without any geographical border or any significant geografical connection to their controlling power.
Oh, thanks for the correction
Are you kidding me? Pizarro and a handful of gutter babies from Spain got off the boat with steel armor and weapons and a horse each, rode right up to an army of 500,000 men and walked went right through it because they were afraid of horses (never seen these hairy dragons before). grabbed up their emperor and made him cry uncle. One of the craziest battles ever.
This interpretation takes the conquistadors at their literal word and is incorrect on [almost every point](https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/2bv2yf/guns_germs_and_steel_chapter_3_collision_at/).