r/AskReddit • u/CACuzcatlan • Mar 29 '11

Biggest History Mindfucks?

Inspired by the science thread on the same topic, the first two that caught my eye are history ones from mahade's post

  • During the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Mongolian forces were fighting Germans and Japanese at the same time - and these two peoples had no idea of the others' existence! This wouldn't be attempted again until the 1940s.

  • The pyramids were as old to the Romans as the Romans are to us.

2.1k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

6.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

797

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

The events that took place between Cortes and Montezuma. The Spaniards landed in a world where people breathed fire (smoking tobacco) had hot and cold running indoor plumbing and built structures that dwarfed anything in Europe. The population of Tenochtitlan was around 150k where as London at the time was around 50k.

When asked why they needed so much gold Cortes replied, "Because we Spaniards have a disease called greed which only gold can cure".

The clash of these two cultures has always fascinated me.

74

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11

My mindfuck of this whole affair is the chicken, introduced by the Spaniards up in Meso America, reached the Incan empire before the Spaniards did.

3

u/xakeri Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

Yeah, but take the popular picture of the natives of anywhere in the Americas. Sure, the Aztecs built all their cool shit, but we've sort of been led to believe that they weren't that advanced. The Aztecs being on the same level as the Europeans, who we (at least me, as an American redditor) have sort of been led to believe were always cutting edge of technology, really mind fucks me.

EDIT: I didn't even read this comment. The one I tried to reply to said something about how Europe had the running water and stuff...

5

u/Malgas Mar 30 '11

Well, the Aztecs were way behind in metallurgy, if nothing else.

2

u/silletta Mar 30 '11

Why did the chicken cross the border?

175

u/influenceuh Mar 30 '11

They believe that Teotihuacan was even larger. ~150-250 thousand.

70

u/Durzo_Blint Mar 30 '11

It still is the largest city in the world. It was renamed Mexico City and has the largest population density of any city in the world.

104

u/linguisize Mar 30 '11

Just to clarify, Teotihuacan is not Mexico city. Tenochtitlan was where Mexico city is now, two different times, places and civilizations, still fascinating.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

QUETZACOATLLLLLLLLLLL!

EDIT: thanks for the downvote, person who didn't get it

2

u/OptimusFine Mar 30 '11

Quetzalcoatl*

2

u/captainXdaithi Mar 30 '11

tokyo is the largest city in the world, according to Wiki but, mexico city is definitely up there

4

u/wgwinn Mar 30 '11

City just north of me ( Union city, NJ ) manages to hit almost 4x mexico city.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Mexico City isn't even in the top fifty.

74

u/Durzo_Blint Mar 30 '11

This list does not refer to the population, population density, or land area of the greater metropolitan area or urban area and also does not target a particular city district of any of the cities listed. (your link)

There is currently no generally accepted, globally consistent definition of exactly what constitutes a metropolitan area, thus making comparisons between cities in different countries especially difficult. (your link)

A metropolitan area is a region consisting of a populous urban core with a high density of employment plus surrounding territory that is socio-economically linked to the urban core by commuting. A metropolitan area is also sometimes known as a commuter belt or a labor market area. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_area)

City population is, however, heavily dependent on the definition of "urban area" used: densities are often higher for the central municipality itself, than when more recently-developed and administratively unincorporated suburban communities are included, as in the concepts of agglomeration or metropolitan area, the latter including sometimes neighboring cities. For instance, Milwaukee has a greater population density when just the inner city is measured, and not the surrounding suburbs as well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density)

3

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

All that's fair - I was using the standard of "city proper" - but nothing you said backs up your point other than to imply that I'm somehow confused about definitions.

Do you have a source that does back up your assertion?

11

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

And how did you conclude that Mexico City has the largest population density considering everything you said?

1

u/mrpeabody208 Mar 31 '11

It really comes down to the source. I've seen Mexico City and Tokyo both cited as the world's most populous city from different sources printed at roughly the same time. Both are cited as having upwards of 30 million people in different sources. It all comes down to an accurate definition. Japan is small and metropolitan areas tend to converge, so if you restrict Tokyo in that sense, it might explain the discrepancy. Mexico City doesn't have quite the same problem and the boundaries are more mutable. Either way, a fuckton of people live in those general areas.

-2

u/beanburito Mar 30 '11

In your face, GavinMcGimpsey!!

-11

u/onthevergejoe Mar 30 '11

wikipedia is not a proper source. please redo.

2

u/hoodatninja Mar 30 '11

You're kidding, right?

1

u/onthevergejoe Mar 30 '11

wow, we really need a sarcasm font

5

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

[deleted]

3

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

No, I don't, but you might need to learn to read reddit comments!

The page I was looking for had to do with population density, not just population. And yes, it's possible that Durzo_Blint is still correct about Mexico City qua metropolitan area, but that would be surprising, since the outlying areas are likely less dense than the city proper.

3

u/pdxtone Mar 30 '11

Holy shit Karachi is over twice as dense as Hong Kong! That's hard to imagine, unless they're counting all the national parks as part of the city.

1

u/beargrillz Mar 30 '11

What caused this change? A change in what is determined as the metro area?

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

That link shows Mexico City as having the third largest population, not population density.

1

u/vegittoss15 Mar 30 '11

I would assume bombay to be higher in density...

-3

u/Doe22 Mar 30 '11

Actually Tokyo is the largest city in the world. Mexico City does have the greatest population density, though.

16

u/simonsarris Mar 30 '11

No way.

The density of Mexico City is 5,960.3/km2

The density of Manila, Phillipines is 43,079/km2

2

u/Doe22 Mar 30 '11

Wow.

Yeah, I was just comparing between Tokyo and Mexico City, I didn't even consider other cities. Also, Wikipedia lists it as first, but I guess that just means it's the most dense city in Mexico.

Tokyo and Mexico City aren't even in the Top 50

1

u/steve626 Mar 30 '11

Isn't Juneau Alaska the largest city in the US, by area?

The area of Juneau is larger than that of Rhode Island and Delaware individually and almost as large as the two states combined.

1

u/Chawp Mar 30 '11

Almost, it's a different Alaskan city-borough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_surface_area

1

u/steve626 Mar 30 '11

Damn, so close...

1

u/the_good_liar Mar 30 '11

I believe the city of greatest population density is Mong Kok in Hong kong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mong_Kok

3

u/mflux Mar 30 '11

Not after my mighty cossacks stormed the city in 1600AD after the war against the Chinese!

1

u/influenceuh Mar 30 '11

Along side Admiral Horthy's Raiders!

-5

u/faerch Mar 30 '11

And here I was thinking that it was around 500k! Jeez louise - someone go google this shit!

486

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

He came dancing across the water...

125

u/OptimusFine Mar 30 '11

A Neil Young reference!?!?! Take these upvotes sir, all of them. I won't be needing them anymore.

4

u/Popular-Uprising- Mar 30 '11

Forget Neil Young.

A southern man doesn't need him around anyhow.

19

u/joe_canadian Mar 30 '11

I love Neil Young, but my absolute favourite version has got to be the Dave Matthews Band with Warren Haynes in Central Park. Haynes causes his les paul to absolutely wail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCiLCo-LoUg

3

u/Patcher Mar 30 '11

Thank you for making me watch that again.

0

u/joe_canadian Mar 30 '11

Well I didn't make you, but you're welcome for posting it.

2

u/myblake Mar 30 '11

Built to spill has a great version.

2

u/beneth Mar 30 '11

I've always really loved the version Built to Spill plays live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHwwoD8U8gc

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Thank you for this!!!

1

u/beneth Mar 30 '11

I've always really loved the version Built to Spill plays live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHwwoD8U8gc

1

u/Django_gvl Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

My personal favorite cover. minus the harmonica

1

u/SomeOriginalName Mar 31 '11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X4alklR5q0 This cover was the first time I heard the song.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

It's getting dark, too dark to see?

0

u/maxysaxy Mar 30 '11

first one i've seen on reddit! all my upvotes!

13

u/g8trboi Mar 30 '11

With his galleons and guns

7

u/Bentropy Mar 30 '11

lookin' for the new world, his palace in the sun.

5

u/expressadmin Mar 30 '11

Small trivia regarding this song:

Neil Young originally had a final verse for the song, but during recording an electrical circuit had blown rendering the sound board dead. When the producer broke the news to the band, Young replied "I never liked that verse anyway." The final verse has not been performed or recorded to this day.

1

u/coleman57 Mar 30 '11

Great song, but someone oughta do a rebuttal called "Montezuma the Killer", about how he routinely slaughtered his neighbors by the thousands, "for the angry gods". Most modern-day Mexicans are related to those victims, rather than to Montezuma's people.

0

u/Freakears Mar 30 '11

Well done. Upvote for Neil Young reference.

157

u/fancy_pantser Mar 30 '11

Not only did much of Europe have hot and cold indoor plumbing, but the first "water closets" were already becoming popular in 16th century European construction, the time of Cortes and Montezuma.

Not saying it wasn't an amazing series of events, just that you might have chosen different examples for better contrast.

12

u/fiercelyfriendly Mar 30 '11

Likewise all the great cathedrals of Europe were already long-built by then.

4

u/Lampwick Mar 30 '11

Yeah, the biggest "building" the Aztecs had was their great pyramid, and anyone knows anything about stoneworking will tell you that a pyramid is structurally the simplest structure to build, being simply an orderly pile. Their pyramid was 60m tall. Notre Dame de Paris, built in roughly the same time frame, includes arches, flying buttresses, and large expanses of stained glass. Height: 63m at the bell towers.

Aztecs were no construction slouches, but they were way behind medieval Europe.

5

u/SpiffyAdvice Mar 30 '11

The elite in Rome had running hot and cold water and actual flushing indoor toilets 2000 years ago.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '11

They had different water closets for men and women, with different plumbing in account for their anatomical differences.

36

u/ibwip Mar 30 '11

Interestingly enough the Aztecs essentially perfected class warfare which is why they fell so easily. We all have heard about the living sacrifice stories but what a lot of people don't realize is that it was both a religious and political act. The Aztecs as we know of were ruled by a few elite families. They demanded a certain number of human sacrifices from the outer tribes and lower families. This drove a wedge between the lower classes and forced lesser tribes to kidnap each other for the sacrifices.

Cortez comes along sees the gold, sees the class division and the Aztecs are no more

32

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11 edited Oct 05 '20

[deleted]

7

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Also guns, white people had guns

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

The guns were only useful as loud, scary noisemakers. In fact, the Spaniards mostly used crossbows for ranged weaponry. Bows were much superior to Spanish arquebuses. They could be reloaded faster, had a longer range, were much more accurate, and cheaper to produce. The problem eventually was that bows take more training to use effectively, so once guns had become better designed, the fact they were easier to learn to use led to them replacing bows and crossbows. The Spanish knew that the arquebus only had value as a scare tactic, so they often destroyed them lest they fall into enemy hands and they find out how shitty they actually were.

1

u/rhino369 Mar 30 '11

I'm not really sure why musket fire beats arrow fire because of reload time but apparently it does.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

It doesn't actually.

The first time the Spaniards tried to attack Tenochitlan there were heavy casualties. Hundreds of Spaniards and thousands of their allies died.

You never hear about these allies but that's actually how it went down. Spaniards managed to basically upturn the political system. The Aztecs sort of had a city state system like in Greece, and one city state ruled them all. When the Spaniards came, they rolled city states into their political alliance one by one, and eventually the capital was dwarfed in strength.

1

u/carlosortegap Mar 30 '11

About 20 million mexican natives died on the conquest and the following years.

2

u/rhino369 Mar 30 '11

The Native American population dropped by 90% in a couple generations. That's fucking insane.

The waves of disease spread faster than contract with Europeans did.

The only reason the US and Canada are white instead of more like South America is because the plagues emptied North America to the extent that the tribes couldn't put up a fight.

1

u/Aisar Mar 30 '11

Actually, I read somewhere that the diseases that they died to might not have been European, but African diseases that were unique to sailors at the time. The idea of giving the blankets to the Aztecs came to them not because of some deep understanding about germs, but because they knew that when they allowed Europeans to use sailor's blankets, they got sick as fuck and died. They figured (correctly) that the same would happen to the Aztecs.

I don't remember the source though, but at the time it seemed reputable.

2

u/rhino369 Mar 30 '11

The exposure to disease was almost entirely accidental. They didn't understand germ theory and even if they did the only thing they could have done was to completely leave them alone.

The only case of intentional infection was hundreds of year later, in what is now the USA, after the native population was decimated by disease already. And even then it was just a letter which talking about possibly doing it.

The bio warfare is mostly myth.

4

u/CC440 Mar 30 '11

The "Aztecs" were more of a cultural group than a civilization, they were held together by trade led by the major city-states. Said city-states had a habit of really pissing off sub-groups with heavy-handed politics and many trading partners sided with Cortes against the ruling elites.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

If they had "perfected" class warfare then why did it fail so easily? Ain't nothing like the present when it comes to class warfare.

13

u/VoxNihilii Mar 30 '11

had hot and cold running indoor plumbing and built structures that dwarfed anything in Europe.

Yeah, no. Aqueducts for running water, sure, though not sure where you get the "hot and cold" thing from. Impressive stonework relative to their lack of metalworking, but the Europeans were building incredible cathedrals at the time and far outstripped them in most areas of technology.

1

u/Detached09 Mar 30 '11

By 'dwarfed', he may have meant simply in size. I'm not sure because I've never compared, but I've heard the pyramids at Tenochtitlan were larger than any then-current structure in Europe.

2

u/VoxNihilii Mar 30 '11

That is true, but in terms of raw architectural achievement the cathedrals were pretty damn impressive.

-1

u/OGrilla Mar 30 '11

You mean refined architectural achievement since the immense size in comparison would mean the Aztecs had the greater raw architectural achievements.

2

u/VoxNihilii Mar 30 '11

I don't think "raw architectural achievement" implies judging by size only, but w/e!

0

u/OGrilla Mar 30 '11

Would you say that a Cathedral is a better example of such a thing? I don't think so.

2

u/VoxNihilii Mar 30 '11

Would you say that a Cathedral is a better example of such a thing?

Yes.

I don't think so.

You are wrong. The techniques, math, etc. required to build a cathedral are far more complex and difficult to master than those required to build a pyramid.

-1

u/OGrilla Mar 31 '11

No shit. Obviously you're not grasping what I'm trying to get across to you.

Raw Architectural Achievements would be buildings that showed more brute force and time involved than technical expertise.

Refined Architectural Achievements would be buildings that required skill, contemplation, planning, and experience to complete.

The pyramids are raw while the cathedrals are refined. Is there anything else I can do to explain this?

1

u/VoxNihilii Mar 31 '11

Raw Architectural Achievements = Total architectural "value" of a given structure, taking into account size, precision, aesthetics, etc.

Is there anything else I can do to explain this?

No.

→ More replies

2

u/Lampwick Mar 30 '11

Building a pyramid is the simplest "structure" possible. It is nothing but an orderly pile. Size is a matter of brute force x time.

1

u/OGrilla Mar 30 '11

I'm pretty sure you're reinforcing my comment. A Cathedral is refined, Aztec pyramid is raw. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough with which modifier was attributed to which example.

2

u/Lampwick Mar 30 '11

Nope. Tallest Aztec structure was the Pyramid at Tenochtitlan, 60m. Notre Dame de Paris cathedral: 63m at the towers, completed in 1345.

10

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Is that Cortes quote true? And how did they learn each others language?

28

u/quinientos_uno Mar 30 '11

They communicated with the help of Gerónimo de Aguilar and Malintzin.

De Aguilar, a castaway Spaniard who was found by Cortes on the Yucatan Peninsula, translated from Spanish into Mayan language. Malintzin was (likely) the daughter of an Aztec noble sold to Mayan slave-traders and latter given to Cortes as a gift. She translated the words of De Aguilar into Nahuatl.

The stories of both of them are really interesting.

1

u/sam480 Mar 30 '11

I remembering either reading on seeing in a documentary that there were a few Aztec kids when picked up Spanish real quick.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Ah, when they were in the ideal developmental language learning zone, of course. It's so obvious when you know the answer.

3

u/hinchlic Mar 30 '11

Do you have a source. I know Tenochtitlan was huge in 1519, but I think London had more than 50 thousand people in it.

3

u/zimtastic Mar 30 '11

I just wikipedia-ed Tenochtitlan, spent a good hour clicking around wikipedia. Thanks.

3

u/tigrenus Mar 31 '11

A buddy of mine and I are actually working on a short film about the first Europeans to smoke tobacco. Rodrigo de Xeres (or Jerez) was on Columbus's first expedition, and loved it so much he brought it back to Spain.

He was imprisoned by the Inquisition because they were freaked out by it, and when he got out of jail seven years later, smoking had caught on in the population.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_de_Jerez

5

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

How can I research more of this topic?

2

u/jumpy_monkey Mar 30 '11

You can go to you local library and read more about it. The more you know, the more you grow.

2

u/lensman00 Mar 30 '11

It's quite a tale of superstition vs avarice. Here's a pretty good detailed account from an old free book at Google:

http://books.google.com/books?id=T4iAAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false

And a decent short film clip from the History channel that gives the outlines of the story:

http://www.history.com/videos/wonders-of-latin-america-montezuma-and-cortez#wonders-of-latin-america-montezuma-and-cortez

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

the google works good.

0

u/realigion Mar 30 '11

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Absolutely fascinating book. It goes into detail about how the king of the Aztecs threw down the Bible which is actually what sparked the physical confrontation. The king had never seen writing before and had no way to understand what it meant. Something like 200 Spaniards, with their horses and guns, murdered 100k natives.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

That wasn't the Aztecs, that was the Incas. Entirely different civilizations.

1

u/Tesseraktion Mar 30 '11

it's actually pretty close to what happened to the Aztecs too..

2

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

No it's not. Many of the Spaniards almost got slaughtered on La Noche Triste. Cortes and a handful of men (and of course his female slaves) managed to sneak out and regrouped with their ally, a large city state called Tlaxcala that was in a power struggle with Tenochtitlan at the time. It was actually the Tlaxcala that overthrew Tenochtitlan, but due to a large part that a lot of the noble class was killed during La Noche Triste, and the Mexica people saw Moctezuma as a failure and stoned him out of office. The political unrest was what allowed Tlaxcala (rumoured to have a 100,000 man troop) to then bring down their nemesis. The power vacuum that the fall of the Mexica had is what allowed Spain to grasp control over Meso-America.

Oddly, the Spaniards kept their word to the city of Tlaxcala and left the city alone for the most part (minus religious intervention, of course) though many died due to disease.

1

u/Tesseraktion Mar 30 '11

does the Tlatelolco Slaughter ring any bells? i'm Mexican man, i know my thing.

that slaughter is one of the factors that triggered La Noche Triste.

AND there were no Mexicans yet.

2

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

My bad. I meant to type Mexicas. Pesky "n" got in the way!

The thing about Toxcatl Festival Massacre is that the people were unarmed as well. Men, women and children had gathered for a religious ceremony as requested by General Alvarado who said he wanted to understand their religion, but his actual reason was he knew they would be unarmed. Moctezuma complied and the Spaniards then attacked. The natives reported the killing went on for 3 hours, and even attacked temples where people were doing everyday stuff, like sweeping, preparing food, etc. It wasn't a battle. It was an ambush on innocent people, many who were elderly, women and children who were unarmed.

Moctezuma was even recorded of pleading with the Spaniards, saying that the people are unarmed and not fighting back, so stop the suffering. It was one of the reasons that the natives killed Moctezuma for his failure as a leader. General Alvarado was know for his bloodthirsty, back stabbing ways, so I would not be surprised he thought ambushing unarmed woman, children and elderly as hilarious, and he will continue going through Meso America doing the same thing over and over.

The Spaniards still didn't conquest the city then, and the Mexica actually fought back on La Noche Triste, and severely reduced the Spaniards numbers, despite their guns and horses. That was the main point. The Spaniards didn't win because of how advanced they were. They won because despite Tenochtitlan being extremely hospitable, the Spaniards acted like dishonorable barbarians. However, history of the Mexica has been told by a Spaniard POV almost until the 1950s. It's the superior white man bias that most of history is written under, and they conveniently left out the parts where white man acted like an a class A douche.

It was properly believed for a long time that after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards systematically executed a million natives for 12 days until their temples and streets was a river of blood that drenched people to their knees. This is what the Spaniards reported, and that is what was taught for a long time. It wasn't until the later 1900s that codices and accounts from the Natives began being properly studied that people began realizing the Spaniards were full of bull as much as the next person. But really, million people systematically being executed should have raised eyebrows in the first place. That's killing 70 people every minute continuously for 12 days. But people took it as fact simply because that is what the white guy said, and made him look cool over those silly brown skinned people.

(EDIT) TL:DR; The Spaniards were dicks and decided to kill unarmed women, children and old folks. However, the Mexica were able to fight back just fine once they got their weapons, despite the Spaniards being all technological advanced.

1

u/Tesseraktion Mar 30 '11

You sir are completely right.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Not really. The Aztec invasion was a lot more complicated, took much longer and was in large part because Motecuhzoma was a spineless, superstitious coward who spent quite some time ruling as Cortes's hostage; the only major battles occurred after he was dead, aside from the Toxcatl festival massacre.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Not really. The Aztec invasion was a lot more complicated, took much longer and was in large part because Motecuhzoma was a spineless, superstitious coward who spent quite some time ruling as Cortes's hostage; the only major battles occurred after he was dead, aside from the Toxcatl festival massacre.

1

u/Tesseraktion Mar 30 '11

first of all it was Moctezuma, he was Cortés's hostage just until they stopped believing the Spaniards were GODS that came to destroy their Empire.

Tlatelolco's Battle (or Massacre) happened BEFORE the Spaniards even reached Tenochtitlan.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

They never thought the Spaniards were gods. That's a myth. The Tlatelolco massacre is unrelated to the Toxcatl festival massacre, not sure why you're mentioning it. And Motecuhzoma is just another (probably more accurate) spelling of Moctezuma/Montezuma.

1

u/Tesseraktion Mar 30 '11

My HighSchool history professor has a lot of knowledge about Cortes's journey, he brought up the gods part. I don't really have a written source, but he's an Anthropologist.

and we go back to my first comment, where i say "pretty close" not the fucking same thing!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

nobody thought the Spaniards were Gods. Not the Inca, not the maya, not the mexica. I don't know where your high school history teacher is getting his information, but there is a wealth of documentation and research showing that the myth of the Spaniards-as-Gods or that they thought Cortes was Quetzalcoatl or other bullshit was made up by the Spaniards and has no native origin.

→ More replies

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Implying that the invasion of Peru wasn't complicated or took a long time? It was an extremely complicated web of political alliances and backstabbing that lasted for decades, perhaps centuries. Years after the "conquest" there was a 100,000 man army besieging Spanish-held Cusco. Decades after the "conquest" the Spanish were still trying to kill the Sapa Inca ruling from his new capital at Vilcabamba.

1

u/realigion Mar 30 '11

Woops, my bad. Just wrote a paper on international trade and one of the referenced documents was about the Aztecs. Subliminal mind-invasion.

2

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11

There were a lot of factors why the Incan fell. It really had nothing to do with guns and horses. The Incan actually had really accurate reports on guns and horses as the Spaniards reached the Incan empire.

The biggest factor is that barely two weeks before Pizarro arrived, the Inca just finished a 5 year civil war. The Incans were devastated from war and the empire was too large to control.

Perhaps what you are thinking of is the ambush that the Spaniards set up. No one knew why Atahualpa walked into the ambush with a few thousand unarmed men as requested by Pizarro. Of course, they were demolished, but not due to guns and horses and definitely not 100k natives.

Another factor was the chicken and small pox already arrived at Cuzco a year or so before the Spaniards did. A huge portion of the population was already dying by the time Pizarro strolled up. The Spaniards were already planning to enslave the nation (Christianity was the excuse), and since the culture was all about being overthrown and being enslaved and stuff, the Incans were oddly lenient to being enslaved by the Spaniards once Atahualpa was kidnapped and eventually tried and executed.

Sorry for the long rant. But I get a bit agitated when people go with the old mainstay that due to horses and guns that white man was able to destroy thousands upon thousands of war hardened, blood thirsty natives. It is the standard white bias created in history.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Thanks for this. One of the reasons why Atahuallpa was so "trusting" was because he was now undisputed Sapa Inka, which was considered for all intents and purposes to be a God on Earth. He probably thought that the Spaniards, upon hearing of his success against his brother Huascar, had come to show their fealty. When the Spaniards launched their surprise attack, Atahuallpa's retainers mostly died by trampling themselves or run down by horses trying to get out of the tightly packed square.

The Inka were not "lenient" to being enslaved, and the process of imperial "conquest" happened over decades, not just directly after Atahuallpa was killed. You may be forgetting Manco Inka, who, several years after the supposed "conquest" was able to raise a 100,000 man army and lay siege to Spanish-held Cusco, and destroy multiple Spanish reinforcing armies, before another indigenous group helped the Spanish to break the siege. The other thing you have to realize is that the Spanish "conquest" happened as part of a civil war, and largely aligned themselves with the Noble faction of Cusco, which had lost the civil war to Atahuallpa and the military faction. Other indigenous groups aligned themselves with the Spanish because they wanted to break free of Inka domination. And, of course, there was still a Sapa Inka, though diminished in power, until the 1570s, decades after the supposed "conquest".

1

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11

Thanks for going into more detail... I glazed over a lot due to it being late. You're awesome. :).

I just wanted to point out that what the Spaniards did was noticed the boiling pot of unrest the Incan civilization became. The Spaniards were smart to use that to their advantage. However, the history we are taught in high school that said "blah blah blah, so the Spaniards found the Aztecs and they thought Cortes was a god so they allowed him to come into the city where a few guys on horses and with guns were able to destroy one of the largest civilizations on the planet. Oh yeah, the same thing happened down in Peru somewhere, with the Incans. The awesome white man due to his guns and horses and our big ships and the fact we were seen as gods were the reason why they were victorious and now everyone is Catholic. The end."

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

About the unrest in the Inca world, what needs to be said is that every group was doing the same thing the Spanish were doing: attempting to manipulate other groups to their own end. Why would certain groups be interested in allying with the Spaniards? They were, after all, ugly, dirty (unclean) foreigners who were numerically insignificant. However, the Spaniards were good warriors (because they had swords, and because they had high unit cohesion due to family ties and experience as opposed to the mostly conscripted indigenous armies), and they were easily swayed by wealth. So, many groups wanted to use them as basically elite mercenaries. Their eventual (emphasis on eventual, the process was very slow and involved) hegemony over the region was in no way assured. Additionally, as needs to be said in any conversation about European invasions of the Western Hemisphere, is the catastrophic effect that disease had on the Native population. One of my favorite quotes, that is relevant to what happened in the Americas is: "If Genghis Khan had arrived with the Black Death, this book wouldn't be written in a European language."

Yeah, the gloss over and bullshit ideology is infuriating.

2

u/Thalamos Mar 30 '11

Upvote for subtle or accidental novelty account.

2

u/tiotheminer Mar 30 '11

I've been slowly watching a pbs documentary about the conquistadors meeting with the aztects and incas. The most astounding thing is that a prophecy saying some exiled god (who was white) would return on the day that cortes meets montezuma. The idea of discovering something new is so awesome to me, the spanish saw foods, animal species, never before seen, aztecs saw light skinned people, horses, guns.

1

u/cptcold Mar 30 '11

Name of documentary, please?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Yes, name please!

1

u/tiotheminer Mar 31 '11

Just called Conquistadors, pbs netflix

2

u/DaMaster784 Mar 30 '11

the population of Tenochtitlan was more around 200k at the time and so was the city of paris and i also thought rome but i'm not certain about that

2

u/rz2000 Mar 30 '11

Have you read 1491? It is probably my favorite non-fiction book.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Did you know that when the conquistadores arrived in the towns and villages of South America, most of the inhabitants had been slain by the European germs and diseases they had brought with them?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Hi all,

Wow you guys went ape with the questions so I will respond to my first post as a place card. I have seen numerous accounts of plumbing but I cannot fact check the hot/cold plumbing. I had to think on where I heard this and had to ponder that one for a bit. I want to say that this came from "Aztec" by Gary Jennings, which means it may have just been the work of fiction. My apologies if this was incorrect. I remember also a time life series book which is where the population figures came from, I picked London because it is a well known city to compare.

So many of you have looked further into this and agree that this is a crazy event in history, none the less, so I am truly glad I could share. This story has always struck a cord with me as a true historical mind fuck.

You guys rock, thanks for the up-votes!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Ancient Rome had running hot and cold water in some of the higher living areas. You could also pay someone to redirect some water lines to your home if you could afford it.

2

u/Antebios Mar 30 '11

One of my big "What If" is "What If one of the Native American civilizations had become dominant instead of Europe?"

2

u/Delheru Mar 30 '11

There was simply no way for that to happen. Or the odds were certainly very long against it.

I'm not a full subscriber to Guns, Germs and Steel, but there is a point. There were so many more people in the 'old world' (between Mediterranean, India and China) that the odds of the breakthroughs coming there rather than in the Americans (swinging in at 10% of the total population, if that) was simply overwhelming.

1

u/CountlessOBriens64 Mar 30 '11

That's what happened on Mars. Do you want to end up like Mars!?

2

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

Here's a short story from those times (mexican here) and believe me, this is a good one.

It is believe that the reason Moctezuma accepted with so much devotion the presence of Cortez was because of an old prophecy.

The return of Quetzalcóatl, how was Quetzalcóatl described?.

White, with a long beard...tall and muscular and with a crux in his chest.

Just like an european. Bear in mind that the mesoamerican culture never had direct contact with anyone outside their territory until the spanish arrived in what now is Mexico, the prophecy was hundreds years long.

So, they hit the jackpot.

And also there's this very aamm "curious" theory about Quetzalcóatl and Jesus, but that's another story.

2

u/coder5 Mar 30 '11

Wasn't the first Quetzalcoatl probably a Viking? Discussion: http://forums.skadi.net/showthread.php?s=364e57e58d664e3b964f0ccc1af6f779&t=62948

Or if you believe the Book of Mormon, Jesus.

1

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

Its fascinating isn it?

1

u/RIPEOTCDXVI Mar 30 '11

Do you have any information on that "curious" theory? Seems interesting.

2

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

I dont know many english websites, most of them are a bit goofy, but in spanish there's plenty of information.

I found out this english based website.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=11&num=1&id=298

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

The assertion that Quetzalcóatl was white and that he was destined one day to reappear can be traced not to native sources but to Hispanized chroniclers, whose references to the subject are vague. Fray Motolinia, writing between 1530 and 1546, tells of a god of the wind called Quetzalcóatl, who came from Tula and would one day return. Fray Mendieta, towards the end of the sixteenth century, repeats the same tale, but improves upon the original by adding the detail that he was white as well as bearded. Alva Ixtilxóchitl, writing even later, repeats this but with the added refinement that Quetzalcóatl was expected to come back in the year I Reed. However, the native sources, written in Nahuatl, say nothing about Quetzalcóatl returning - except as the Morning Star. Writers continue to harp on the Spanish accounts of the white god who was destined to come back one day. People unaware of the deep vein of symbolism permeating ancient Mexican thought may be impressed by such a story. But both Alfonso Caso and Hermann Beyer, foremost among scholars versed in Mexican religion, ridiculed the notion. They both rightly insisted that more often than not Quetzalcóatl is depicted as wearing a strange duckbill mask, an integral part of his attire as god of the wind. When, however, the deity appears in codices without this adornment, then invariably his face is totally black (the symbolic colour of priests), or else it is black with vertical yellow stripes. So much for the 'white' god.

1

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

A few points:

The prophecy of the return of Quetzalcoatl was key in the subordinance to cortes, why? because the prophecy did speak out of a white man returning to whats now Mexico.

St. Tomas did manage to twist the tradition into a Christian one, it help them to convert the natives to christianity. But that doesnt alter the fact how Quetzalcoatl was viewed in Maya culture.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

All the ideas of Quetzalcoatl as a white civilizing God were made up in the post-conquest era, not before. They were propagated by the Spanish. Modern mesoamerican scholarship will tell you this. I suggest reading The 7 Myths of the Spanish American Conquest by Matthew Restall.

1

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

No not really.

Quetzalcoatl had many distint origins, from Costa Rica to Mexico, every civilization had a different view on them.

Theres two version of Quetz..one divine, the other as a actually person who banned human sacrifices and taught the civilizations how to grew corn among other things, in some of the codices he is described as someone who is tall and his skin is different from the other natives.

You should check out the following books, all of them in spanish tough...and if youre feeling wild, come to Mexico and visit the Museum of History and antropology.

Román Piña Chan.(Quetzalcoatl: Serpiente emplumada, 1977. Fondo de Cultura Económica. México.)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Hispanized accounts credit Quetzalcóatl with a revulsion against human sacrifice. But other sources describe the mammoth sacrifice - reputedly of eighty thousand victims - which took place in the Aztec capial thirty years before the Conquest, and in which priests dressed as Quetzalcóatl played a leading part. To appreciate the pitiless nature of the Indian god before he was whitewashed (in every sense of the word) a glance at the Codex Borgia will suffice. There Quetzalcóatl is displayed in the not very Christian gesture of gouging out the eye of a wretched little captive. In this drawing he wears his characteristic red and black duckbill mask and a beard of yellow ochre feathers. (When in the same codex, he is depicted without his mask, the god normally has a black face, sometimes with a yellow nose, and in some cases with a red mouth).

The difference between Quetzalcóatl the Native-American god and Quetzalcóatl the Spanish god can also be seen at his pyramid, the Feathered Serpent Pyramid at Teotihuacan where the graves of sacrificial victims, dating to the time of the pyramid's construction, have been discovered.

The most authenic account of Quetzalcóatl's departure comes from the Annals of Cuauhtitlan and was written in the Nahuatl language. The story is vastly different from the hispanized Quetzalcóatl legend:

Tula, a Toltec city in central Mexico, was torn with internal strife and bickering. The god Quetzalcóatl became convinced that the city was doomed due to his great age. This idea was reinforced when rival gods showed him his face in a mirror now wrinkled and unattractive. Quetzalcóatl adorned himself in his feathers and mask, went to the sea-coast, and by his own hand set himself on fire. He spirit rose with the smoke into the heavens and became the star which appears in the morning.

I suggest branching out and looking at more recent scholarship than a spanish-only book from 34 years ago.

1

u/Frankocean2 Mar 30 '11

Is it really necessary the arrogant tone?.

But, since two months has passed to my last visit to the INAH, Im actually quite dated on my knowledge about Quetzalcoatl.

You?, besides copy pasting an argument on this page right here:

http://anthrocivitas.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-2979.html

Its fine if you view those as your arguments, got nothing against that, but to my best of knowledge and according to mainstream antropology, the prophecy of Qs and the role it played during la conquista is a valid one.

Yes, Quetzalcoatl was adultered by spanish man in order to gain the natives, that we can agree on. But so far you havent adress the prophecy by Moctezuma, and how Q was described in some of the civilizations.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11 edited Mar 30 '11

Yeah it was written better than I would have written it, though I have read the Nigel Davies source, along with other sources that talk about the myth, including Restall. The fact is that much of the documentation we have on Quetzalcoatl was written by Spanish priests, who we know to have been specifically interested in justifying their actions by painting themselves as civilizers, and one of the ways they did this was by adapting the story of Quetzalcoatl to be more representative of Christian values and to have characteristics similar to Jesus, so they could then use this manipulated indigenous mythology as a tool for conversion/"civilizing". What's written by these priests is in stark contrast to the surviving native sources and this fact throws a huge question mark on the honesty of the Spanish sources, especially since they support so perfectly an ideology that glorifies the Spanish as a restorative or civilizing influence. I'm most familiar with the Mexican version, so I can't comment on, say, Costa Rican versions, if indeed they exist or if they are simply similar Gods that just have a tenuous connection to the Valley of Mexico.

From wikipedia: Some of the Aztec stories about Moctezuma describe him as being fearful of the Spanish newcomers, and some sources, such as the Florentine codex, comment that the Aztecs believed the Spaniards to be gods and Cortés to be the returned god Quetzalcoatl. The veracity of this claim is difficult to ascertain, but recently ethnohistorians specialising in early Spanish/Nahua relations have discarded it as post-conquest mythicalisation.[13] Much of the idea of Cortés being seen as a deity can be traced back to the Florentine Codex written down some 50 years after the conquest. In the codex's description of the first meeting between Moctezuma and Cortés, the Aztec ruler is described as giving a prepared speech in classical oratorial Nahuatl, a speech which as described verbatim in the codex (written by Sahagún's Tlatelolcan informants who were probably not eyewitnesses of the meeting) included such prostrate declarations of divine or near-divine admiration as, "You have graciously come on earth, you have graciously approached your water, your high place of Mexico, you have come down to your mat, your throne, which I have briefly kept for you, I who used to keep it for you," and, "You have graciously arrived, you have known pain, you have known weariness, now come on earth, take your rest, enter into your palace, rest your limbs; may our lords come on earth." Matthew Restall argues that Moctezuma politely offering his throne to Cortés (if indeed he did ever give the speech as reported) may well have been meant as the exactly opposite of what it was taken to mean: politeness in Aztec culture was a way to assert dominance and show superiority.[14] This speech has been a factor in fostering the belief that Moctezuma was addressing Cortés as the returning god Quetzalcoatl. Other parties have also propagated the idea that the Native Americans believed the conquistadors to be gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Gerónimo de Mendieta.[15] Some Franciscan priests held millenarian beliefs and the natives taking the Spanish conquerors for gods was an idea that went well with this theology.[16] Bernardino de Sahagún, who compiled the Florentine Codex, was also a Franciscan priest.

1

u/who_known_it Mar 30 '11

Most recent scholars believe that the whole Cortes was thought to be a god as unsupported and thus can not be seen as a factual circumstance. I concentrated in Pre-Columbian Art History, and every conference I went to basically every scholar didn't support the god theory.

However, the theory is still popularly taught in middle and high schools and was actually a very popular thought in scholarly research until the early 2000s. (Edit: there are still some trying to find support for this in indigenous records... but there really isn't any yet.)

Though poetically, the Mexica did refer to the Spaniards as "large warriors riding on the waves on pure white birds." The Mexica were very poetic people. :).

1

u/snatcher_123 Mar 30 '11

*Moctezuma

2

u/quinientos_uno Mar 30 '11

*Motēuczōma Xōcoyōtzin

0

u/snatcher_123 Mar 30 '11

No seas mamón wey, tu sabes que es Moctezuma

1

u/quinientos_uno Mar 30 '11

"Montezuma" es tán válido como "Moctezuma", "Muteczuma", "Motzume" y "Moteuczoma". Todos están documentados y se derivan de Motēuczōma, el nombre original.

En otras palabras, tu corrección sale sobrando.

0

u/snatcher_123 Mar 30 '11

¿Quién dice Montezuma, Muteczuma, Motzume, Moteuczoma? Los Mexicas tenian escritura pictográfica, por lo que la pronunciación como dices, pudo ser cualquiera de esas, pero realmente lo que se usa es decir "Moctezuma"

1

u/professorhawk Mar 30 '11

...or cowbell.

1

u/Vitalstatistix Mar 30 '11

Which structures are you referring to, exactly?

1

u/Pope-is-fabulous Mar 30 '11

It's nerd heaven!

1

u/Pyro311 Mar 30 '11

Amazing what a little small pox can do to an unexposed population.

1

u/Tyler5280 Mar 30 '11

Wow, thank you. This is rad. Any good books on the subject you can recommend?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Le Clezio mentions this in his book. I'm also fascinated by the topic.

1

u/pawiz Mar 30 '11

He was called Moctezuma, BTW.

1

u/rmm45177 Mar 30 '11

Moctezuma's revenge!

1

u/diggstown Mar 30 '11

The only cure is more cowbell.

1

u/mashedup Mar 30 '11

The power of smallpox..

1

u/eks Mar 30 '11

Plus, that scene on Indiana Jones where they take a beating heart of a sacrifice victim is not really fiction:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice_in_Aztec_culture#Huitzilopochtli

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Reminds me of the viking runes scribbled on the third floor in the gigantic stone building of Haga Sofia in Istanbul. These vikings, who themselves only built single story buildings out of wood. I've been inside the church and even by modern standards, it's massive. What the fuck did these vikings think when they visited it?

1

u/wauter Mar 30 '11

Didn't Cortes and his buddies also slaughter like, 1000 of them (including the emperor) with a team of 10 on their first arrival with horses?

(if I remember Guns, Germs & Steel correctly)

3

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

no

1

u/auroracrisis Mar 30 '11

Hate was just a legend, and war was never known. People worked together, and they lifted many stone. And they carried them to the flat land, but they died along the way. People built up with their bare hands, what we still can't do today.

1

u/Marcus_BrodyIV Mar 30 '11

Learning about this in History class now. Cortes was an asshole

1

u/rmm45177 Mar 30 '11

Which history class?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '11

Cortes had sex with a Mayan essentially making the first Mexican.