Pre-Columbian Civilizations and American Empire Conquest
1. The Pre-Columbian Peoples
3.1. The Unknown Continent
When the Europeans arrived, the peoples who inhabited it had developed some prosperous civilizations and empires: Aztec, Maya, and Inca. They used stone as the basic material and lived from agriculture and animal husbandry. However, they did not know the wheel and had no draft animals.
When Columbus and his men reached the New World, they thought they had reached India. Columbus called these territories and their inhabitants Indians.
3.2. Pre-Columbian Civilizations
The Maya
The Maya spread over the southern Yucatan Peninsula between the 5th and 15th centuries. They were farmers who lived mainly on the cultivation of corn and were organized into independent city-states. They developed great knowledge of astronomy and mathematics and had a system of hieroglyphic writing.
The Incas
The Inca civilization developed in South America, in the highlands of the Andes. They created an empire centered in the Cuzco region. They were an agricultural people and were ruled by an emperor, who was regarded as a god and was called the Inca.
The Aztecs
The Aztecs were a warlike people and initially won a great empire, whose capital was Tenochtitlan, which stretched across central and southern Mexico. Agriculture and trade were the main economic activities, and they also developed a flourishing urban civilization with cities.
1. Conquest and Organization of the American Empire
The rapidity of the conquest was made possible by military and scientific superiority.
4.1. The Expeditions
Mexico
In 1518, an expedition led by Hernán Cortés left Cuba. Cortés landed in Mexico, where he founded the city of Veracruz. That territory was inhabited by the Aztecs, whom the Spanish subjected militarily, appropriating their wealth and taking their emperor as a hostage.
Peru
Francisco Pizarro led the conquest of the Inca Empire with Diego de Almagro. One of the bloodiest episodes of the conquest was the Battle of Cajamarca. The following year, the Incan emperor Atahualpa was executed, and thereafter the Spanish took Cuzco, the capital of the empire.