Indigenous societies and cultures in the Americas (c750–1500)

Non-sedentary bands, semi-sedentary societies, confederations, and empires — distinguished by the scale of local vs state authority.

State authority = the central emperor/officials who demand tribute and loyalty across the whole empire. Local authority = conquered kings, chiefs or nobles left in place to govern their own communities day-to-day.

Independent towns/city-states that keep local rulers but coordinate through a shared council for defence or trade. Example: the Iroquois Confederacy.

Around 1325, on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco — land no stronger neighbouring power wanted, but defensible and adaptable via causeways and chinampas.

Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlacopan formed the Triple Alliance, defeating Azcapotzalco. This turned the Mexica from a subordinate city into the dominant imperial power in central Mexico.

It usually left local rulers in place but demanded regular tribute (goods, labour, captives) and warriors — control through obligation, not direct administration.

An Inca ruler from the 1430s who led rapid military campaigns that expanded a small Cuzco-based kingdom into the vast Inca Empire, Tawantinsuyu.

An Inca policy of moving loyal populations into newly conquered territory (and sometimes moving conquered peoples elsewhere) to break up resistance and spread Inca-loyal communities.

Ritualized wars the Aztecs fought with neighbours like Tlaxcala, mainly to capture prisoners for sacrifice and keep warriors battle-ready, while weakening rivals without full conquest.

Inca: paired conquest with mitima resettlement and roads/garrisons for fast response to unrest. Aztec: relied more on Flower Wars and repeated re-conquest of rebellious tributary cities.

Neither had enough soldiers or officials to administer such vast, ethnically diverse territories directly, so they left local rulers in place in exchange for tribute and loyalty — cheaper and more stable than direct rule.

Because compliance depended on the credible threat of force, both empires were vulnerable to internal revolt whenever military pressure eased — a weakness later exploited during European contact.

Goods or labour owed to a ruler or the state instead of money-based taxes — the basis of both empires' non-monetary economies.

A labour draft system requiring commoners to work on state projects such as causeways, temples and canals in Tenochtitlan.

A rotational labour tax: every household owed a set number of days of labour per year to the state instead of paying in goods or money.

Both were kin-based communal landholding units. The calpulli was a clan-based Aztec neighbourhood holding land communally; the ayllu was an Inca extended kin-group that farmed collectively and shared the harvest.

Inca state storehouses along the road network holding surplus food and goods, used to supply workers, armies, and provide disaster relief.

A system of knotted cords used to record numerical data (tribute owed, labour performed, census figures), read by trained officials called quipucamayocs. It was not a writing system.

The Aztec believed the sun god Huitzilopochtli needed human blood to keep the sun moving across the sky, so warfare was partly waged to capture prisoners for ritual sacrifice.

He was believed to be a direct descendant of the sun god Inti, so obedience to him was framed as obedience to the gods, legitimising his authority to demand mit'a labour and tribute.

Similarity: both needed systems to record tribute and history. Difference: the Aztec used pictographic codices (true writing), while the Inca had no writing system and used knotted quipu cords instead.

Raised, artificial farming islands built on Lake Texcoco, allowing intensive agriculture to feed the large population of Tenochtitlan despite limited dry land.

They were a specialist long-distance merchant class who traded luxury goods across and beyond the empire, and also served as spies and diplomats for the state.

The Aztec economy combined state tribute with genuine market trade (tianguis, pochteca); the Inca economy had almost no market trade, with the state redistributing goods directly through storehouses instead.