Inca and Aztec

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Overview

The Inca and Aztec empires were the two largest states of the Americas when Europeans arrived. The Aztec Triple Alliance, centred on Tenochtitlan in Mexico, and the Inca state of Tawantinsuyu, centred on Cusco in the Andes, took shape in the fifteenth century and fell to Spanish forces in 1521 and 1532-33. They matter because they ran large populations without iron, wheels for transport or alphabetic writing, and because their collapse shows how internal division and outside shocks combine.

Context

Both empires built on older Mesoamerican and Andean civilisations. The Aztecs, or Mexica, settled on an island in Lake Texcoco in the 1300s. The Inca began as a regional group around Cusco. Neither had contact with the other. Both ruled through tribute or labour demands on conquered peoples, which created resentment that the Spanish later used.