Three great civilizations once existed in Central and South America before the Europeans arrived and when the Europeans first started arriving. They were the Inca, the Maya and the Aztecs.
THE INCA
Inca Empire
Government - Monarchy
Sapa Inca (the king) -
- 1197–1220 Manco Capac
- 1532-1533 Atahualpa
- 1570-1572 Túpac Amaru
Official Language - Quechua
History
- Established 1197
- Spanish conquest 1532–1537
- Disestablished 1572
A view of Machu Picchu in Peru, "the Lost City of the Incas," This was the last stronghold of the Incas, and now an archaeological site.
The Inca Empire was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, and at its peak had a large empire by world standards. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cuzco. The Inca Empire arose from the highlands of Peru around 1197. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
In 1533, Atahualpa, the last Inca sovereign emperor (Qhapaq Inka, also Sapa Inca), was executed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule in South America. The Inca Empire was organized in dominions with a stratified society, in which the supreme ruler was the Inca. It was supported by an economy based on the collective ownership of the land.
The Quechua name was Tawantin Suyu[1] which can be translated The Four Regions or The Four United Regions. Before the Quechua spelling reform it was written in Spanish as Tahuantinsuyo. Tawantin is a group of four things (tawa "four" with the suffix -ntin which names a group); suyu means "region" or "province".
The empire was divided into four Suyus, whose corners met at the capital, Cuzco (Qosqo), in modern-day Peru.
The official language of the empire was Quechua, although over seven hundred local languages were spoken.
There were many local forms of worship, most of them concerning local sacred "Huacas", but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti, the sun god. They tried to impose it against the cult of Pachamama which was the main common deity worshiped in the Andean area.
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THE AZTECS
Capital city -
1248-1325 Chapultepec
1325-1521 Tenochtitlan
Official language - Náhuatl
Government - Tributary Empire
Head of Nation - Hueyi Tlatoani (non-hereditary autocrat)
Establishment - 1248
Dissolution - 1521
Population (1520) - 19 million
The Aztecs is a collective term used for all of the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican peoples under the control of the Mexica, founders of Tenochtitlan (and where the modern state of Mexico gets its name from), and their two principal allies, who built an extensive empire in the late Postclassic period in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries in Central Mexico.
The nucleus of the Aztec Empire was the Valley of Mexico, where their capital Tenochtitlan was built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. After the 1521 conquest of Tenochtitlan by Spanish forces and their allies which brought about the effective end of Aztec dominion, the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the now-ruined Aztec capital. The capital of the modern-day nation of Mexico, the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City now covers much of the Valley of Mexico and the now-drained Lake of Texcoco.
Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions. For Europeans, the most striking element of the Aztec culture was the practice of human sacrifice which was conducted throughout Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish conquest.
In what is probably the most widely known episode in the Spanish colonization of the Americas, Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztecs in 1521 thus immortalizing himself and the Aztec Hueyi Tlatoani, Moctezuma II (Motecuhzoma II).
The Aztecs spoke Classical Nahuatl. Although some contemporary Nahuatl speakers identify themselves as Aztecs, the word is normally only used as a historical term referring to the empire of the Mexicas, as distinguished from the Mexicas alone. This article deals with the historical Aztec civilization, not with modern-day Nahuatl speakers.
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