The Incas’ heliocentric religion gave rise to the demand for gold as the beautiful reflection casted by gold gave the appearance of the bright, shining sun. However, this passion with gold became their greatest weakness. Small civilizations on the coasts of South America told the Spanish the Inca Empire is so rich and powerful even their walls were made of gold. By coincidence, a Spanish galleon encountered an Inca raft with crew carrying gold, silver, and precious minerals. Francisco Pizarro, overcome with obsession for gold, decided to start an expedition to the Inca Empire.
Pizarro first made contact with at Tumbes in 1526. In circa 1528, the Inca emperor Huayna Capac died from European introduced smallpox, igniting a civil war of succession between his two sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. Around the same time, Pizarro returns to Spain where he is grated the license to conquer Peru; he quickly returns and starts his invasion.
Although the arrival of the Spanish was the proximate cause of the collapse of the Inca Empire, the overexpansion during Topa Inca’s rule, the subsequent civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa, and the decimation of the native population due to European diseases, most notably smallpox, contributed most to the decline of the Empire. Overexpansion and the civil war were the most important causes of the demise of the Inca Empire.
The overexpansion of the Empire during Pachacuti to Huayna Capac’s rule is a noteworthy reason for the collapse. From 1438 to 1527, the Sapa Incas Pachacuti, Topa Inca, and Huayna Capac conquered 1,200,000 km squared of land. Although the Inca as an empire in name, it was actually a patchwork of languages, cultures and people. At the peak of the Empire, there were more than twenty e...
... middle of paper ...
...adores. Another significant effect on the native population was the spread of Christianity. The Spanish forcefully converted many to Christianity. Those Inca natives who wished to escape exploitation and forceful conversion after capture usually committed suicide. However, indigenous population are now gaining more rights from the government and stepping up. The indigenous established the Movement in the Amazon for Tribal Subsistence and Economic Sustainability (MATSES), an indigenous rights organization working towards the cultural survival of the indigenous people in Peru. The Peruvian government has also signed and ratified international laws concerning indigenous people, such as the Indigenous and Trial People Convention. Although the Incans have been heavily exploited after the Spanish conquest, they are now developing a stronger presence in Peruvian society.
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
From the moment Hernan Cortes landed in Mexico and began his campaign against the Aztec empire, the people of the new world were doomed to be conquered by both technological and biological means. Smallpox, a disease that had never been experienced in America before the arrival of the Europeans devastated large scale native populations. The abandonment of the famous lost city of Machu Picchu stands as a famous example of the devastation of native populations.
Inca women autonomy was destroyed by empirical conquest. There was an inherent loss of feminine spirituality with every re-mapping of the empire’s boundaries. They lost their powerful female deities and were repaid with gendered predetermination. Men allowed conquest to detach them from the Inca belief system of balance and equality that pre-dated any need for expansion. Conquest hierarchy was enforced and unquestioned. An all though the Inca political people gained power, they lost social harmony.
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.
War.” The actions that sparked their new revolution occurred on the eve of Peru’s first
Smallpox, a deadly disease introduced to the Americas by Spanish soldiers, infected the non-immune natives who died rapidly after exposure (Ehrlich, 253). This epidemic swept through the Aztec population, decreasing numbers from twenty-five million to six million (Ponting, 230). The European invasion of the Aztec civilization is just one of many examples of how European expansion affected the world. For centuries, Europeans were the leaders of expansion and exploration in many areas of the world. However, expansion of other, less researched civilizations, such as the Aztecs, occurred on a much smaller scale.
The special priests who did this wore hooded black robes that laid on there feet. The robes had skulls and bones used as belts and decorative statements, along with burnt powdered spiders and scorpions. There hair had the blood of past victims in it . When killing they would use a dagger. Other times they had a special stone called techeatle.
Little is known about Pedro de Cieza de Leon’s youth. Historians have discovered that Pedro de Cieza de Leon was a Spaniard, a conquistador, and a writer of Peru’s history. Pedro de Cieza de Leon was not well educated and had only the most basic education from his local school parish (Atlantis). Although he did not have a superior education, his four part book is reliable because he wrote about what he observed as a conquistador. This document is full of interesting information for the reader to discover the Inca’s way of living.
In 1532, the Spanish arrived in the Andes and began their campaign of conversion and colonization. Because of widespread Spanish rule over the following centuries, about 90 percent of the modern Peruvian population identifies as Catholic. But Catholicism in Peru is distinct from Catholicism anywhere else, blending with much older indigenous practices and holidays.
In this essay I will tell how the Aztec and Inca empires ended, and also I will compare the fall of both empires, using for a point of departure the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the land of Mexico. Wherever the Spanish went always the same thing happened, from my point of view. Innocent people were killed for no good reason, cities were massacred, civilizations were destroyed or forced to convert to Christianity. And so, I think now is the time to reevaluate the actions of the European explorers who subjugated the native American peoples and their civilizations. Undoubtedly the most glorified and heroically portrayed of these figures of the European conquest of the New World were the conquistadors, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru in the 16-th century. These men, under leaders such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizzaro nearly eliminated the Aztec and Inca peoples. Surely many of these soldiers were extremely cruel and intolerant of the native populations. But it is important to consider, with the push of both sides toward territorial expansion, how these groups (European and American) could remain isolated from each other. Furthermore, with meeting of these two imperialist cultures, it must be considered whether it would be possible for the two to peacefully coexist.
The Aztec Empire was the largest civilization of the Americas in the early 16th century until Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World. A motley crew of men from Spain, they were led by Hernan Cortes who intended to expand lands for the Spanish monarch and through many factors he was able to do just that. The three main factors that contributed to the fall of Tenochtitlan by the hands of Spanish conquistadors were significance of native allies, difference in battle tactics among the natives and conquistadors, and widespread disease. Another chapter in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, this one stands out in particular due to its unorthodox sequence of events that led a small group of men to defeating an entire empire in a few short years.
...essfully ran them out of their village. The Natives won their land and way of life back from Spanish rule. The atrocities that the Natives faced was not because they did anything wrong to the Spanish, it was because the Spanish did not respect the indigenous peoples and believed they could treat them in anyway they desired.
Huayna Capac made sure that there was no such question over who had unreserved control nor allow his future heir to be afflicted with opposition to his legitimacy. Like all Incan Emperors, after first coming into power, each went on an expedition around his kingdom and its peripheries, in its entirety, to understand exactly where his boundaries are. After his excursion, he continued the expansion that his father began, and did so through a 5 step c...
...The last two reasons that the Aztecs were defeated had to do with the disease that the Spaniards brought with them from Europe mainly small pox and the Aztec warfare rituals. The Aztecs had never been exposed to this disease and therefore their immune systems could not beat it and it eventually claimed the lives of thousands of Indians not only the Aztecs. The Aztecs had many rituals that they performed and most of them had to do with human sacrifice and this was something unspeakable and unholy in the eyes of the Spaniards which only fueled their cause in killing them and stopping such barbaric acts. Also the Aztecs would perform rituals before declaring war which the Spaniards used to their advantage and caught them off guard with their immediate attack of Tenochtitlan. These were the most important factors that led to the eventual fall of the Aztec empire.
Indigenous religions exist in every climate around the world and exhibit a wide range of differences in their stories, language, customs, and views of the afterlife. Within indigenous communities, religion, social behavior, art, and music are so intertwined that their religion is a significant part of their culture and virtually inseparable from it. These religions originally developed and thrived in isolation from one another and are some of the earliest examples of religious practice and belief. The modern world; however, has taken its toll on these groups and many of their stories, customs, and beliefs have been lost to, or replaced by, those brought in as a result of popular culture and the missionary work of Christians and Muslims.