At the time of their demise, the Incan Empire had nearly as many domesticated plant species as all of Eurasia. There was no sign of the wheel or work animals that could be yoked to a plow, and the Incans had limited use of metallurgy. Yet the mighty South American empire terraced, irrigated, and produced enough food for millions of people. The Incans were able to sustain agricultural surpluses by intensive exploitation of the land and sophisticated methods of storage and dispersal of grains and tubers. Through a culture based on agriculture the Incans were able to expand their empire into one of the largest in the New World. Until their demise, the Incans used agriculture as a unifying force in several different ways.
Empires throughout both the Old and New Worlds used different avenues of economic and political methods to raise resources for state activities. For instance, some empires used a tribute system while others preferred to control mercantilism. In the Incan empire, the state was funded by a system of corvée labor, as well as taxing the administrations of a vast pool of forcibly resettled subjects. These two main sources provided the Incan rulers with the subsistence supplies needed to support its personnel throughout South America. Nonetheless, it was the ways in which the Incans utilized these supplies in a diverse climate that set them apart from other archaic empires of the New World.
The Incans inhabited a unique corner of the world. Marked by stark geographical differences, the Andean region presented the Incans with a diverse environment suitable for growing a wide range of crops. Unlike most of Eurasia, the Incans did not enjoy vast plains of well-watered, fertile earth where large fields of crops could be ...
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...culture was present in their history from the origins of mythical beginnings. From Manco Capac and Mama Huaco’s triumph over the indigenous tribes of the Cuzco Valley to the Spanish invasion of the sixteenth century, farming was a social activity that was celebrated with rituals, sacrifices, and songs. For the Incans, farming was an inclusive event in which everyone, lords and peasantry alike, could participate. A society lacking unifying elements such as standardized money, metallurgy, and technological innovations, the Incans used agriculture as a platform to amalgamate a region that inhabited roughly as many people as the present day. It was because agriculture brought the Incans together as a unified group that they were able to maintain such an extensive empire without the luxuries and technological advances that came to define much of the Eastern Hemisphere.
The animals that were on the land were found to be basically fruits and vegetables. The Aztec’s and Inca’s seemed to eat only these things which were very healthy and good for their bodies. The Aztec’s and Incas seemed like a very well-devoted tribe to one another.
The Incan Empire was older than the Aztec empire and included over five million people before the Spanish arrived. The strength of the empire was impressive considering most of the empire's terrain was mountainous and they had only llamas and people to transport goods. One of the systems that the Incas had in place that allowed their road systems to flourish was that every young poor male had to work for their government building villages, roads, etc. After the Spanish arrived, many Incas died from disease. It is believed that the similarities between the Spanish religious and political systems and the Mesoamerican political/religious systems allowed for an easier takeover of the empires for the Spanish. The Spanish had originally come to the "New World" in search of gold and they found little of it, however, they found a surplus of silver, especially in the mountain practically made of silver in Peru. The responsibility of mining for the silver fell to the natives, despite the mercury poisoning and the deadly conditions in the mines. Spain did eventually become rich from the silver, but inflation and the cost of their wars left them damaged. China had also suffered inflation after they developed paper money and they changed their tax system to require that taxes be paid in silver, which meant their people gave up agricultural jobs for jobs that usually involved silk (which paid in
The Aztecs were a tribe that relied on corn a lot. Well, it wasn’t necessarily corn, it was actually a thing called maize. Maize is a corn like substance that they use for many things like tortillas that they could use to make other things with and put them with the tortillas. Some of this includes tomatoes, beans, squash, deer and other things. While the Aztecs relied on maize for many things, the Incas did not use at much corn as the Aztecs did. Instead their main diet was the food that there was when they traveled. The Incas had a very large spread of land that they traveled on. Instead of staying in one place the incas would get all the food from one place then they would go to another place and get all the food from there. After that they would go back to the original spot that they had been because all the food had grown
The Aztecs and Incas served an important role in the primal Native American civilizations. They were similar and different with the treatment of women, the economy, and intellectual achievements. Economically, both civilizations used trade, tribute, and agriculture to build their economy. However, the Aztecs had a more mixed economy, used trade more frequently than the Incas, and had a merchant class whereas the Incan civilization had more governmental control. Intellectually, both civilizations achieved in fields such as architecture, and art; however, the Incan empire had a wider range of achievements, disregarding their lack of writing. Throughout both civilizations, women had a tough life and were underappreciated but comparing the two, Incan women had it better off due to parallel descent.
The Inca Empire Janos Gyarmati’s Paria la Viexa and an expanding empire: Provincial centers in the political economy of the Inca Empire proved that the Inca’s built an empire unlike any other. From 1440 to 1532 A.D., the Inca Empire dominated the Americas. Known as “the fastest growing and largest territorial empire”(Gyarmati 37) of its time, the Inca Empire left a mark with their complex, perpetual and innovative economic, road, and settlement system. The Inca’s were advanced for their time, however, they lacked a system that would guarantee the survival of their kin. In order to strive, for the long-term, the Inca’s created provincial centers that would ensure their growth and economy for the generations to come.
Two of the biggest and greatest civilization in the Americas were the Aztecs and Incas. These two civilization were both said to be conquered by the Spanish, but it wasn’t just the Spanish who conquered them. These two civilizations both fell from a combination of a weak government, lack of technology, new disease introduced by the invaders, and not being prepared for the invaders. For many centuries the Aztec civilization revolved around a ideological, social, and political system in which expansion was the cornerstone. Expansion was the cornerstone of their whole civilization, because their religion requested that a large number of human sacrifices where to be made to the gods.
...ketplaces for people to do their daily shopping. Small cities set up market places every 5 days while big cities could set up market places everyday. Some merchants set up markets everyday seeking profits. While others were farmers that went to sell some of their goods. The city Tenochtitlan was visited by thousands of people daily to buy goods. The currency for the Aztecs was pretty much beans. If someone wanted to buy something they had to give up a portion of beans. That is how it worked in the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs traded with one another as well so everything stayed within the empire. All the trading with each other helped their economy flourish which meant a strong empire.
The Aztec Empire stood for many years but never expanded much, only conquering small neighboring civilizations. The Aztec Empire was founded in the 6th century and didn’t fall until 1525. The Inca Civilization was a bit different. The Inca Civilization conquered as many lands that it could but quickly fell after just 100 years. In this essay I will be comparing the government, economics, and culture in the Aztec Civilizationand the Inca Empire.
...c used a slash and burn style of farming and they relocated once the nutrients of the land were used up. The Incas were much more advanced. Labor specialization was common, especially in the large densely populated areas like Cuzco. The Incas made roads, had irrigation channels, fortresses, and mines. They used crop rotation and terracing and other advanced agricultural methods.
This reading was an excellent collection of articles, because it presented seven different views of the Incan empire. It does a good job of trying to idealize the Incas, justify their conquest by the Spanish, and label their government using modern terms. In retrospect, it is easy for us to look back at history and study it, but it is always a necessity to learn from what we study. If there is one thing to learn from the European conquest of the America's, it is that destroying a race of beings and their culture is an injustice to the conquered, and the conquerors.
This primary source tells the reader a great deal about the Incas. The Incas were extremely wealthy. Most of the document tells the reader about the wealth and riches of the Incas, describing their wealth in depth. Jobs in the Incas’ society included many lavish occupations. “[M]any silversmiths who did nothing but work rich pieces of gold or fair vessels of silver; large garrisons were stationed there, and a steward who was in charge of them all” (Pedro). The Incas were organized and intelligent. Large armies were set up to protect their villages, and they had plenty of silver and gold to experiment with and create new beautiful objects. They used their systems to create a fair,
...able land was being used up. The Incas agricultural advancement was terrace farming. Farmers expanded these step terraces that were built by earlier people. On steep hills, strips of land were carved out so it could be held in place by stone walls. The terraces that were created prevented the rain from washing away the soil as well as the crops that were planted. It made possible for farming to be done in area where there was little to no flat land at all. The Inca government took control over these harvests, spreading it to people evenly storing the rest for later purposes.
There are many legends that tell how the Incan Empire came to be. One is that the Incans lived without houses until the Son of the Sun appeared. The Son taught agriculture and masonry. The people became so successful that they had enough food for everyone in the entire empire. Ten million people went without hunger and all had clothing.
This idea can be seen in document A. In document A Peter N. Steams says that the Aztec’s obtained much of their land by force. The Aztec’s can then use all of this land for farming. It’s easy to see how the Aztecs were able to stay in power for such a long time because of their method of gaining land. The idea of obtaining land and the vast size of their land is then revisited in document B. Document B shows the complexity of the Aztec’s farming system. It involves the method of chinampas. Diego Duran informs the readers that chinampas use rectangular areas of land used to grow crops. This shows how the Aztec’s were able to stay in power because this complex system is able to create up to six crops a year. Using this information people can see that the Aztec’s farming system was one of the main reasons that they were in power for so long. They stayed in power because they were able to sustain enough food to feed everyone. No other person or group of people that could come into power would be able to create a system that could help almost everybody in the land fed. The Aztec’s were agricultural
Patterson, Thomas C. "Tribes, Chiefdoms, and Kingdoms in the Inca Empire.” Power Relations and State Formation (1987): 1-15,117-127.