It was from the 3rd century AD, and even more from the 10th century, that the great pre-Columbian civilizations emerged (before the arrival of Christopher Columbus). The best known are the Maya, Toltec, Aztec, and Inca. Drawing their power from agriculture and equipped with developed political and religious structures, these civilizations each established great empires in their own way. They left significant archaeological traces: Palenque, Tikal and Chichen Itza, Monte Alban, and Machu Picchu. As brilliant as their art was, these pre-Columbian civilizations proved fragile due to a lack of technical knowledge and true metallurgy. They did not resist the assaults of Europeans who landed on the continent from the 16th century.
The Problem of Sources on Pre-Columbian Civilizations
While all historians depend on their sources, the problem is very real regarding the history of the Americas before the conquest. The main sources come from the Spanish, who based their accounts on oral testimonies from the populations, and we can understand the questions this raises. Moreover, indigenous peoples had a circular notion of time, far different from that of Europeans.
Another possible source, which has reinvigorated many historical questions, is archaeology. But in the American case, it is fragmentary and difficult to interpret. It is only in Mesoamerica that the difficulties are notably less, thanks to the existence of calendars and writing. However, the problem that arises is the mixing of history and myth in these sources. The same applies to dynastic histories, as time units differ greatly.
A Large and Dispersed Population
We know today that Native American peoples are not strictly “indigenous,” as they came from Asia approximately 30,000 years ago.
Debates mainly focus on population figures, as estimates have long varied among historians between 100 and 10 million! According to a recent study by William M. Denevan (1992), the American continent as a whole had just over 50 million inhabitants on the eve of the conquest, including 4 million in North America and 14 million in Mexico alone. The characteristic of this population was its great dispersion, with significant density first in the Pacific zone, then in the Atlantic zone, while the Great Plains, for example, seemed quite “empty.”
Thanks to the study of archaeological sites, we know these populations lived in dense villages. Some were also nomadic, primarily in North America. In the 15th century, for example, the Inuit migrated eastward to Greenland.
Pre-Columbian North America
This refers to what became Canada and the United States. It was 19th-century linguists who recorded the languages and dialects, enabling a classification into twelve major groups showing tribal mobility and ethnic mixing. The major geo-cultural areas in which these groups can be located are generally: the wooded Northeast (including Algonquian and Iroquoian families), the Southeast (Cherokee, Seminole), the arid Southwest (first the Hopi, then Apache and Navajo), the Great Plains (Sioux, Blackfeet, or Cheyenne), the Rocky Mountain plateaus (Paiute, Nez Perce), the Pacific coast (Yurok, Tlingit, Nootka), and Arctic regions (Inuit, Aleut).
This list is not exhaustive but gives an idea of the different groups encountered by the conquerors and the connections between them. Similarly, while we know part of how these very diverse societies functioned (not all nomadic), it is much more difficult to construct their “history” before the conquest than for Mesoamerican or Andean peoples, due to lack of sources. We have only a few examples of political constructions from the late 15th century, such as the union of Iroquois tribes in Ontario, which led to the creation of a quasi-democratic system that would become important in the 17th century.
Did Pre-Columbian Civilizations Have Written Language?
The Maya had a fully developed hieroglyphic script, while the Aztecs and Mixtecs used pictographic codices. The Inca did not have a written script but used the quipu for record-keeping.
The “Disappeared” Maya?
The fall of the great Maya cities of the so-called Classical period (generally placed between 300 and 900 AD) still provokes many fantasies today, sometimes giving the impression that Maya civilization itself had virtually disappeared by the arrival of the conquistadors! Obviously, this is not the case, and while the main Maya sites were deserted, some still existed, like Mayapan, which succeeded Chichen Itza after its defeat in the first half of the 13th century. Mayapan’s population is estimated at more than 10,000 inhabitants on the eve of the conquest, even though it too was finally abandoned just before the arrival of the Spanish (probably around 1440).
The Maya situation was therefore difficult at the end of the 15th century: the great cities had been abandoned, and the Maya people were divided into rival provinces (there were eighteen when Cortés launched the final phase of the conquest in the 1530s) that constantly fought against each other, making the conquistador’s task easier in Central America, even though resistance remained fierce until the end of the 16th century…
Aztecs (or Mexicas)
We won’t retrace the entire history of the Aztec people here, but to summarize their path to imperial power, we must go back to the fall of the Toltec city of Tula in the 12th century. The Aztecs were among the Nahua peoples who came from Northern Mesoamerica to the Valley of Mexico following Tula’s fall. This migration is a foundational myth of Aztec culture, with uncertain origins (they are said to have come from a mysterious city called Aztlan). We know that the Aztecs reached the valley in question in the 13th century, guided according to Mexica tradition (their true name after settling in the region) by the god Huitzilopochtli.
The Mexica people were not yet truly structured, not to say “civilized,” and were poorly received by other groups in the region. After a difficult period, the Mexicas finally founded a capital, Tenochtitlan (Mexico), in 1325. However, they remained under threat (or even tutelage) from the cities of Tezcoco, and especially Azcapotzalco (city of the Tepanecs). But the rivalry between these two influential cities eventually served the Mexicas: war broke out in 1418, Tezcoco was defeated and had to submit to the Tepanec Tezozomoc. The Mexicas, allies of the latter, obtained a share of the tribute and oversight of the defeated city.
The conflict resumed after Tezozomoc’s death. But this time, Tenochtitlan allied with Tezcoco and another neighboring city, Tlacopan; this was the Triple Alliance. The goal, to crush Azcapotzalco, was achieved by 1428. The true victors and leaders of this alliance were the Mexicas, and we can then speak of an Aztec empire. Indeed, primarily under Moctezuma from 1440, the people of Tenochtitlan imposed their views on their allies (even though Tezcoco played a significant role) and began their conquest of Mesoamerica. By the 1480s, only a few cities like Tlaxcala or the Tarascan and Guerrero regions remained resistant. This period also saw the capture of inhabitants from cities outside the Triple Alliance for what was called the “Flower War,” which offered a significant number of sacrifices to the Sun.
It was an “empire” at the height of its power, yet struck by doubt, that the Spanish found upon their arrival in 1519. Indeed, the Mexicas interpreted phenomena such as the appearance of a comet in 1509 as bad omens, along with other tragic events like the burning of the Toci sanctuary, or various diseases and famines that led to unrest. Moctezuma II was paralyzed by these prophecies, and the arrival of the conquistadors was viewed in the same light, perhaps explaining the Mexica sovereign’s attitude, which would lead to the empire’s fall…
What Was the Most Powerful Empire Before the Arrival of Europeans?
The Inca Empire was the largest, stretching across 2,500 miles of South America, while the Aztec Empire controlled much of Central Mexico.
Incas
The 15th century marked the birth of the Inca “empire.” It began as a small society centered around the city of Cuzco in the Andes, which at the beginning of this century extended to the shores of Lake Titicaca. Their leader was then Viracocha Inca. Like the Aztecs with Tula, it seems the Incas felt connected to an ancestral civilization of this region, which occupied the city of Tiahuanaco around the 10th century.
The Incas had rivals, however, the Chancas, who were mainly settled northwest of Cuzco. War broke out in the late 1430s when the Chancas attempted to invade their neighbors’ territory and besieged Cuzco, which was defended by a son of Viracocha Inca, the future Pachacuti (“He who overturns the world”). The Chanca offensive was a crushing failure and, worse, the Incan counterattack was radical: the enemy territory was invaded, its leaders executed.
Upon coming to power, Pachacuti implemented numerous reforms, and thus began the Incan rise in the Andes. Roads were one of the elements that enabled this impressive expansion in just a few years. It was under Tupac Inca that the empire expanded most in the last third of the 15th century, reaching even to the edges of the Amazon. Tupac’s successor, Huayna Capac, extended the road network to Quito and established Incan power throughout the Andes.
The early 16th century continued this trend, with the Incas not experiencing the troubles of the Mexicas. They continued to fortify their empire and expand toward the Amazon. But the death of Huayna Capac in 1524 showed that Incan power was ultimately more fragile than it appeared: troubles began that weakened their power and, on the eve of Pizarro’s conquest, the Incan empire was fragile.
Pre-Columbian Civilizations: A Connected Continent?
Was this immense continent, with its numerous but irregularly dispersed population, its very different political systems but including at least two very powerful and structured “empires” (Aztecs and Incas), connected? Were there commercial or even diplomatic relations between all these spaces and populations?
We know first that the peoples of the Far North had contacts with Asian peoples via Bering, contacts visible through similar cultural practices. Within North America, exchanges occurred mainly around the great rivers, essentially commercial: along the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi, there was real trade, connecting the peoples of the Southern part of the Americas to those of the Northeast, up to the Iroquois. There are even traces of Mesoamerican and South American objects, indicating that exchanges were continental. Mesoamerica was also very connected, including with the Caribbean, thanks to coastal trade and a route in the Yucatan linking rivers inland. We also know that the Maya had relations with the peoples of Panama.
And it was in Panama that Pizarro learned of the existence of a great empire to the South, that of the Incas. Obviously, imperial policies favored these connections through their desire for expansion; we even have some legendary examples that probably contain some truth, such as maritime voyages in the Pacific during the time of Tupac Yupanqui. This Ocean was the setting for intense maritime traffic along present-day Peru, both coastal and connected to land-based trade. Rivers throughout the continent (from the Orinoco to the Amazon) were also strong vectors of connection.
Without falling into caricature about the continent’s decline in the 15th century, it should be noted that on the eve of the conquest, traffic and exchanges between all these spaces may seem less flourishing than in the classical period, whether in the Mississippi or in Mesoamerica with the abandonment of the great Maya cities. Moreover, there seems to have been no real contact between the two great empires, Aztec and Inca. However, the Americas that Europeans were about to explore and then conquer were well developed and connected, and were not lost or totally “barbaric” civilizations compared to the conquistadors, as has often been claimed. And some peoples would resist for a very long time, like the Mapuches who would hold out… until Chile’s independence (1818)!
