What's that? You want to know how state building is going in the Americas from 1200 to 1450? You know I got you. So if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it.
First, let's start our little tour in Mesoamerica, which is right about here. If you're in the mood for a little historical context, and I know you are, then let's back up before 1200 and get a- during that time and got real complex with all their mathy mathy stuff including but certainly not limited to using the concept of zero. Anyway, their state structure was basically a decentralized collection of city-states that were frequently at war with one another. When the Maya fought to expand their power, their goal wasn't necessarily to gain more territory but rather to create a vast network of tributary states among neighboring regions. That just means that the local powers conquered by the Maya remained somewhat independent but they were required to send tribute payments to the Maya bigwigs including things like textiles and military weapons and various building.
materials. And one key feature of Maya culture was its emphasis on human sacrifice. They believed that the sun was a deity and was constantly losing energy in its struggle against darkness and therefore required the life-giving energy of human blood. So that's fun.
But anyway, put all that in your pocket and we will come back to it. But maybe at this point you're like, why are you flapping your mouth all about a civilization that isn't even part of the time period covered in this course? Well, my dear pupil, I assure you I am not just doing it for funsies.
You need to know something about the Maya because now as we move into our time period, 1200 to 1450, you need to understand how the states during this period. period demonstrated continuity and innovation compared to these states that came before. So that means it's time to get to know the Aztec Empire, which ran from 1345 to 1528, and here you see the empire at its greatest extent. But despite that metric buttload of territory, this empire had much humbler beginnings.
The Mexica people were a semi-nomadic bunch who migrated south around the beginning of the 14th century and got busy building up their military prowess and strategically marrying into more powerful families. It's the kind of wedding we all dream about. Anyway, by 1428 they had consolidated a lot of power in the region and entered into an alliance with two other Mesoamerican states, thus establishing the Aztec Empire with an aggressive program of expansion. Now don't get confused, the Mexica and the Aztecs are not two separate empires or states. The Mexica ethnic group were the folks that established the Aztec Empire.
So Mexica, Aztec, Same Zs. Anyway, the Aztecs ruled their massive, honking empire in a few ways that demonstrate continuity with older Mesoamerican states like maybe, I don't know, the Maya. You see what's happening here? Historical thinking! And don't lie, you know you love it.
Anyway, the political power structure of the Aztecs was decentralized, meaning that all the various peoples that they conquered were set up as tributary states. So again, what that means is, for the privilege of being a conqueror of the Aztecs, the various peoples under their power had to provide regular payments of food and animals and building material. And the Aztecs administered their...
vast and rapidly expanding empire. But their wars of expansion also had religious motivations too. The sun god needed blood and so human sacrifice remained a key motivator for extending their power over more and more people. Alright guys, we just got our tribute list from the Aztecs.
Looks like they're gonna need some maize, some grain, and Kevin. What do they need me for? Don't worry about it. Anyway, in order to secure their legitimacy as rulers over all these people, the Mexica claimed heritage from older, more renowned Mesoamerican people. This is a theme you're gonna see in empires and states all across the world.
Like people from outside come in. and grab hold of power. In order to keep that power, they claim relations to ancient peoples that everyone revered. Now I should also mention that the city-building projects of the Aztecs were pretty magnificent. For example, the seat of power and religious authority was located right here in their magnificent capital city of Tenochtitlan, which boasted a population of something like 150 to 200,000 people, to which I say Dang.
And within the city, vast marketplaces were set up, which tells you that their economy was commercialized to some degree, like we saw in the first video on Song China. There were also elaborate palaces for rulers and pyramid temples, one of which was like 200 feet tall. That's a big ol'pyramid, Tony. Sure is, but now let's- moved south and considered the Andean civilizations down here in this region.
Now from ancient times, a series of societies were developed along the Andean mountains and in their valleys and coastlands. And one of the most significant of these earlier societies was known as the Wari, which collapsed around 1000 CE. Now I mention them because around the mid-14th century, the Wari were the first to be discovered in the Middle East.
The Wari were the first to be discovered in the Middle East. They In the 1800s, the Inca Empire would be established in roughly the same area as the Wari, and the Inca borrowed a whole heck of a lot from those older civilizations, including the Wari. Anyway, like I said, the Inca did establish their empire, and in some ways it was similar to the way the Aztecs established theirs.
For example, the Inca were also a group of outsiders who, because of their military prowess, quickly rose to power in the region and expanded their empire rapidly with said military prowess. But whereas the Aztec power structure was decentralized and relied on tributary relationships, the Incas centralized the crap out of their power structure. What I mean is that in order to really To rule such a vast and diverse empire, the Incas set up a massive bureaucracy to ensure that the will of the ruler was followed in all parts of the empire.
Now, the Incas also made requirements of the people they conquered, but not so much tribute payments as labor payments. It was known as the Mida system, and it meant that the Inca state required the labor of all people for a period of time each year to work on state projects, like mining or military service. Additionally, the Inca made prodigious use of systems employed by earlier civilizations like the Wari and others, not least their religion-centered political structure and the use and expansion of infrastructure, including a vast network of of roads and bridges.
Okay, now the last stop on our tour of American civilizations will take us to North America. First, let me introduce you to the Mississippian culture, which emerged around the 8th or 9th century CE. It was established in the Mississippi River Valley and represented the first large-scale civilization in North America.
Because the soil in this valley was all kinds of fertile, their society developed around farming, or if you're nasty, agriculture. Their political structure was dominated by powerful chiefs known as the Great Sun, which ruled each town and extended political power over smaller satellite settlements. In short, their society was thoroughly hierarchical. Now, Now, one of the things these cultures were most known for is their extensive mound building projects.
And I have to be honest, as far as mounds go, These are pretty fantastic. They were mostly memorial in nature, acting as burial sites for important people, and they hosted religious ceremonies on the tops of the mounds. And each major urban area in the civilization was surrounded by these mounds, and it should tell you something about the political structure of these settlements that they were able to marshal enough people to construct such massive public projects. And the biggest and most significant of all these mounds was built in the urban center of Cahokia, which was the largest urban center of the Mississippian culture. Okay, now going westward, we have the occasion to meet the Chaco and Mesa Verde societies.
They established themselves in the southwest portion of what we call today the United States after the rise of the Mississippian culture. Now this region is, to use the technical term, Dry as heck. And so these people developed innovative ways of transporting and storing water.
And because it's dry as heck, there weren't many trees to provide timber for building structures. So what did they do? Well, the Chaco carved sandstone blocks out of massive quarries, imported timber from distant locations, and built massive structures that were some of the largest ever built in North America. The Mesa Verde people solved this problem by building housing complexes right into the sides of cliffs using sandstone, and they are magnificent. Alright, that's it.
Click here to watch my other Unit 1 review videos and click here to check out my AP World Heimler Review Guide if you want an A in your class and a 5 on your exam in May. Thanks for coming along and I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Heimler out.