Pushed
Most Empires have lasted more than a 100 years. The Roman Empire for example, lasted for 1500 years, however, this was not the case for the Inca Empire. The Incas started in a small area in Peru and prospered to become one of the most influential agrarian civilizations (Mahiout, Khan, Karim - Inca Empire). However, the Inca Empire was pushed to its fall by external forces such as disease brought by outsiders like the Spanish conquistadors. Disease weakened the Empire and the conquistadors took advantage of the already crumbling Inca Empire and fully destroyed it.
The Inca Empire's decline started when diseases such as smallpox, measles, chickenpox, and influenza spread throughout the Empire, killing between 50% to 90% of the population
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The Spanish forcefully took control of the Empire and brutally murdered the emperor Atahualpa (Mahiout, Khan, Karim - Inca Empire). The Spanish arrived in 1532 on the conquest of Peru led by Francisco Pizarro in the city of Cajamarca and they were believed to be interested in the Inca Empire due to it astonishingly wealthy economy (Mahiout, Khan, Karim - Inca Empire). The Spanish only came with 110 men and 67 horsemen. They met with the Sapa Inca Atahualpa who had thought that the meeting was peaceful and believed that the Spanish were showing their respect to him (The Fall of the Inca Empire). However, he was sorely mistaken, and was captured for not swearing loyalty to the King of Spain and the Pope and for throwing the bible on the floor. The Spanish then went on to kill and capture Inca soldiers and Atahualpa realised then that the Spanish were after gold and silver and were not there for peace. Atahualpa actually offered them rooms full of gold and silver as a ransom for them to let him go but he was never granted his freedom and was eventually killed on August 29, 1533 (The Fall of the Inca Empire). After taking control of the city Cajamarca, the Spanish went on to capture the capital, Cusco, and picked Atahualpa's brother as the new Sapa Inca, giving the Spanish a puppet that they could control to their will. The Spanish conquest was the breaking point for …show more content…
The civil war was inside the Empire and separated the Empire into sides but even after the war the Empire still continued with only the side effect of being weaker so the fall of the Empire was caused by the Spanish who pushed it to destruction. The civil war occurred due to the death of Sapa Inca, Huayna Capac, and his oldest son. His son was supposed to be the next Sapa Inca but both father and son died of smallpox (The Fall of the Inca Empire). Since there was no clear replacement to the throne there were only two options: the legitimate son of the dead Sapa Inca called Huascar and his half brother Atahualpa. Atahualpa was a better warrior and commander and was supported by his supporters while Huascar was supported by the nobility. However, since Atahualpa was the son of the Sapa Inca and his mistress he did not have authority to the throne. Nonetheless, Huascar initiated a civil war that lasted five years and went up to 1532 which is when the Spanish invaded. Atahualpa won since he was the greater warrior but his victory was short lived. The Spanish conquistadors could not find any indestructible defiance due to the Empire being damaged by the long civil war and disease and this gave them the opportunity to completely destroy the Empire. The Inca jumped due to the civil war but their decline was due to the push of disease and the
The Incas and the Aztecs Before the Spanish and Portuguese "discovered" the New World, there
This ultimately led Atahuallpa into getting ambushed and killed later on. Ambushing wasn’t an unheard of concept to the Inca. In fact, the Incas themselves used ambush tactics in their own wars (“The Incas”). I don’t know the exact reason why Atahuallpa fell right into the trap of an ambush, but I do not think it was because the Inca did not have a writing system. And coincidentally, soldiers of Pizarro’s rival killed Pizarro in a surprise attack (“Francisco Pizarro”).
Aztec was a rich empire in central Mexico . Aztec claimed their vast territory just century ago they were not supported by the people as they demanded forced labor , huge tributes and large scale human sacrifices from their subjects.Hernan Cortes a young ruthless noble man lead a expedition from Cuba a Spanish colony in 1519 with 600 men to conquer the Aztec empire. Soon he was joined by Tlaxcalans a native tribe as allies. Emperor Moctezuma II tried diplomacy to stop the Spanish forces and allies but Cortes pushed forces towards their capital with fire arms, cavalry and steel swords. Emperor offered a hand of friendship and invited them to his palace.
The Spanish Conquer The conquer of the Aztec Empire is viewed as a bloody battle. The Aztec Empire had placed trust in the Spaniards, but were overthrown by their allies. The thought of greed and disbelief created the distrust. The three ways of success that contributed to the Spanish conquest of Aztec Empire in the early 1500s began with the trustworthy relationship between the two leaders Moctezuma and Cortez, the trust began to falter with the Spanish due to the thought of losing everything if the alliance diminishes, and then the defeat of the Aztec Empire was very brutal and savage.
The empire was located in Peru, and pizarro landed on the coast in 1532. This was just after a bloody civil war, in which Atahualpa had won the throne of the Inca from his brother. The ruler refused to become a Spanish Vassal or to convert to christianity. Pizarro, in response, captured him with the aid of indian allies. They slaughtered thousands of Inca, and demanded a high ransom price for Atahualpa. The Inca paid the price, and the Spanish killed the leader anyway. Despite continuous resistance from the Inca, Pizarro made his way across the Incan heartland and conquered the empire. From peru, Spanish forces ran rampant through Ecuador and Chile, and before long had most of South America to its growing empire. Pizarro was killed by a rival Spanish group a few years after establishing the city of
Built at the height of the Inca empire, Machu Picchu is not only one of the world’s most stunning man-made wonders, but possibly the most well-known relic of the Americas’ most powerful civilization. At the time the structure was built, the Incas ruled the largest nation in the world ; it covered much of South America's west coast and its borders stretched from present day Colombia, southward to the border of modern day Chile. The empire thrived from the twelfth to the fifteenth century until the Spanish conquest in 1572. Although the empire expanded at a rapid speed and covered abundantly diverse areas, Incan emperors effectively unified their empire and maintained legitimacy both socially and politically, by employing unique organizational
In mid-1521, Spanish conqueror Hernan Cortes, and his army, commonly referred to as “Conquistadores” which translates into “Conquerors”, seized Mesoamerica, which was home to a population of native people, called the Aztecs. The Spanish’s triumph of conquering this land, however, was not executed simply. The victory was preceded by years and years war and violence, which was upheld and sustained on both sides—Spanish and Aztec. The battle for the city of Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Aztec Empire, was one of the most prominent of the Spanish efforts to seize the land. The Spanish’s success could be attributed the introduction of diseases, such as smallpox, into the native population, the Spanish’s use of allies and internal battles within the Aztec community.
The Aztec and Incan empires both had strong armies. In the Aztec empire by the early fifteenth century the Aztecs were powerful enough to overcome their immediate neighbors and demand tribute. During the middle decades of the fifteenth century, the military elite that ruled much of Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs launched ambitious campaigns of imperial expansion. Know as “the Obsidian Serpent” Itzcoatl and Motecuzoma advanced first to Oaxaca in southwestern Mexico. After capturing Oaxaca and slaying
The Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations each originated from Latin America. The Mayans lived in southern and central Mexico, other Mayans lived in Central America in the present day countries of Belize, Guatemala, and ancient Honduras. The Incas lived along the long coastal strip, and in the high peaks and deep fertile valleys of the Andes Mountains, and along the edges of the tropical forest to the east; this would be the country of Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina in present days. The Aztecs were from Aztlan located in both north and northwest Mexico.
Like the Athenians and Spartans of ancient Greece, the Inca and the Aztec bear resemblance to the two other ancient cultures. The Athenians and Incas were both more interested in developing their Arts as well as their military, but both the Spartans and the Aztecs were highly interested more so in warfare than religion. Although the Aztec and Inca never had to face each other, it is interesting to compare them because of their dominant positions of extremely large and powerful tribes. I am going to compare and contrast religion and the social system along with their system of government, which can be put together.
He accomplished this by ambushing and capturing the Inca ruler Atahualpa. Pizarro invited Atahualpa to a "peaceful gathering", but when Atahualpa arrived, he was captured, imprisoned and ransomed. Atahualpa's ransom was paid by the Inca empire with what would be equivalent to 50 million dollars worth of gold today, or, better stated by Pizarro, as "enough gold to fill a room". Unfortunately, this ransom was paid to no avail; in 1533 the Spaniards strangled and beheaded Atahualpa. The Spaniards extended their control over Inca territory in the following years. In 1572 they overwhelmed the last of the Inca forces and captured the last emperor, Túpac Amaru. In beheading him, they ended the Inca dynasty.
The Aztecs were warrior people who lived in the Valley of Mexico, with the capital at Tenochtitlan, during the 1400s. Under their authoritarian state, the Aztecs worshipped their patron god, Huitzilopochtli, among other deities. Despite their warrior tactics and developed belief system, the Spaniards conquered them in 1519. The Incas (or Inkas) were the people who lived throughout the Andes Mountains from southern Peru to central Chile. With a society based on agriculture, the Incas farmed the terrain of the Andes Mountains west of their capital at Cuzco. The Incas suffered a fall to the Spaniards in 1532. The Aztecs from the Valley of Mexico in the 1400s and the Incas from throughout the Andes Mountains during the 1400s are similar and different because of their ideological and intellectual values, their rise and fall by conquest of their empires, and the way they applied the characteristics of their economies to their lifestyles.
With them, they brought the lethal disease smallpox over from Europe. Smallpox had been spreading south towards the Inca, and in 1524, it reached the Inca capital of Cuzco. The aging Inca emperor Huayna Capac caught a very serious case of it and died in 1525 (Somervill 8). On his death bed, Huayna Capac appointed his heir. He chose his first son, Ninan Cuyochi to rule as emperor. However, he included one condition: if a high priest saw deathly omens for Ninan, a replacement should be picked.
The Aztecs were introduced to Smallpox, Measles and Mumps right after they defeated the Spanish in the Night of Sorrows. The diseases had a massive effect on the population, and killed a quarter of the population within 3 years, including the Emperor Cuitláhuac, and many other important military leaders (The Fall of the Aztec Empire, 2006). A description by an Aztec shows the effects of the disease on the general population “There was indeed perishing; many indeed died of it No longer could they walk; they only lay in their abodes, in their beds… And when they bestirred themselves, much did they cry out. There was much perishing… Like a covering, covering-like, were the pustules. Indeed many people died of them…” (Bernadino, 1529). The source shows how the disease was killing the population, and how it weakened them as they died. The sight of these foreigners, immune to this disease, as everyone they knew died, would have had an immense psychological effect on bystanders. Another source states “He enslaved much of the native population, and many of the indigenous people were wiped out from European diseases such as smallpox” (Szalay, 2017). It shows us the treatment of the Aztecs after the collapse of the empire, and proves that disease affected the Aztecs, even after the Europeans conquered them. The constant disease and pestilence after the arrival of the Europeans led to the collapse and eventual extinction of the Aztec
The Incas Empire began around 1200 and lasted until the Spanish arrival in 1532. They were the largest civilization in pre-Columbia with a territory of 380,000 square miles and a population of about 7 million. Around 1400 the empire began its expansion stretching along the western coast of