The Aztec empire was hegemonic in nature, meaning they didn't garrison troops in conquered regions. The whole empire was approximately 300,000 square kilometers, and contained 38 tributary provinces which spoke at least 23 different languages between them.
Warfare at that time relied heavily upon levied troops, and battles were often fought between hundreds of thousands of soldiers, with the Aztecs raising an army of 400,000 for the conquest of Tototepec.
Their logistical ingenuity was unmatched throughout the americas, and their violent zealotry led them to become the dominant polity in Mesoamerica.
Aztecs were the tribe of issachar of Israel and the Bible is for us BLACKS psalms 71:23
Caleb Campbell
Mexicans and blacks are brothers as we are both of ISRAEL we are God's chosen native American to are tribe of Israel but blacks are Judah and the devil cannot read the Bible!
Hudson Jones
> army of 400.000 that number seems impossible source?
Tyler Garcia
well, they managed to gather a similar number in Tenochtitlan alone
Dominic Price
Non impossible in Europe. Thing is Aztecs have superior agriculture and population density and food production were much better than in Europe. How then European could conquer this? Diseases who not only wipe most of the population and destroy whole societies but also in early phase destroy command chain and cause dynasty crises.
David Sanchez
It really isn't. Tenochtitlan was a very big city on a world scale even, and there were smaller cities packed in the Valley of Mexico. It was one of the most densely populated regions in the world at the time. I think I read estimates between 25-10 million.
Thomas Nelson
OP
Ross Hassig argues this point in his book Aztec Warfare. Population was about 1 to 2 million in the basin of Mexico. They also diverted drafted soldiers from neighboring tributary provinces along their march.
A more commonly cited example is the conquest of Coixtlahuacan where the army was 200,000 strong. The number of porters for carrying materiel is estimated at about 50 percent of the size of the army.
So total, 400,000 soldiers and 200,000 porters were mobilized for the conquest of Tototepec and 200,000 soldiers and 100,000 porters for Coixtlahuacan.
Ryan Gomez
Can anybody suggest any books about Aztec or Mesoamerican philosophy? want to know about how they viewed the world.
Aiden Mitchell
>battles were often fought between hundreds of thousands of soldiers, with the Aztecs raising an army of 400,000 for the conquest of Tototepec Yeah, bullshit.
Tenochtitlan was indeed one of the largest cities in the world in the 14th-15th century, and they fielded massive numbers of troops, but not that massive. Single BATTLES between hundreds of thousands of warriors? That's ridiculous. They never sacrificed 20,000 victims in a single week or whatever-the-fuck people claim, either, although they sure said they did. They inflated their numbers, and the Spanish inflated their numbers, same as Herodotus etc consistently overestimated how large the Persian military was. Even eyewitness accounts can be very unreliable sometimes -- actually, especially eyewitness accounts.
Landon Baker
OP again.
I can't recommend Ross Hassig's work enough when it comes to understanding Aztec war.
Based on what we know, it is entirely possible for that number of soldiers to be mobilized. They wouldn't fight in a single battle though, most of them would stay in reserve.
Here's some quick math, there were 212,500 people in Tenochtitlan with half, roughly 105,000 being men. Based on population statistics, 32 percent of men were between the ages of 20 and 40. If the Aztec Army drafted, lets say, 80 percent of men in that age range just from tenochtitlan, that's 27,000 soldiers.
There were 1 to 2 million people just in the valley of mexico, which was under total Aztec control. The entire empire had a population of anywhere from 6 to 25 million people.
Hegemonic empires don't have garrisons, which means that they don't have to divide their armies. Throughout Mesoamerica, huge numbers of soldiers were brought along on campaigns.
>They never sacrificed 20,000 victims in a single week or whatever-the-fuck people claim, either, although they sure said they did.
There were a couple dozen altars in Tenochtitlan, so it is logistically possible to sacrifice that many people in that span of time. I find it doubtful personally, but 20,000 is the Mexica claim so who knows.
I did some research on Teotihuacan for an animation I'm doing. I'll post some interesting pics of my research. It's mostly on the mural art.
Alexander Turner
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Anthony Watson
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Daniel Phillips
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Parker Garcia
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Nathaniel Foster
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Jaxon Morris
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Brody Watson
Wish I had my old drive I had like 10,000+ pics of artwork throughout mesoamerica saved and categorized by culture and time. Lost quite a number of pdfs too.
Alexander Morgan
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Kevin Kelly
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Tyler Hall
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Thomas Cook
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Robert Price
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Liam Peterson
Does anybody in this thread know of any usage of cacao as a stimulant during battles or fighting? I know that the Aztecs used to use a cacao drink to stimulate people who were to be sacrificed during the rituals if they felt ill or depleted of their stamina.
Christopher Rodriguez
So I told Cualhuamolteczualotep that he should sacrifice children to appease the gods..he actually did it the absolute madman
Brandon Walker
Couple things, man. About 10% of the population of Tenochtitlan itself, and, hell, 10% of the population of Texcoco and Tlacopan, for a total of about 60,000 warriors? Those are entirely reasonable figures for the size of the core Aztec military when mobilized. And you're correct that dominated towns and altepeme were obligated to provide auxiliary soldiers (and weapons and costumes as part of their tribute), as well as feed the Aztec military when they passed by -- but it's a CERTAINTY that none of these conquered polities provided anywhere near 80% of their able-bodied male populations as soldiers, nor were the vast majority of them anywhere near as large as Tenochtitlan. Most of them probably provided a couple hundred soldiers at the most, and they certainly didn't provide them all at once -- rather, the Aztecs mustered them from nearby towns over the course of a campaign.
(Actually, does Hassig give exact figures for how many soldiers he believes they were obligated to provide on avg? I've dipped into his books, but I don't own them, they're 1000 miles away in my university library right now. And if he does give exact figures I'd be very curious to know how he got them -- I've never read an archaeological paper directly addressing this and it's not part of the tribute illustrations in the Codex Mendoza etc. A few mins of googling didn't turn up anybody claiming to possess exact figures who didn't seem to be clearly talking out of their ass.)
I'm also afraid it's not true that the Aztecs didn't have garrisons. They absolutely built fortresses, and garrisoned them with soldiers -- in conquered regions and on their borders (such as they were) with other hostile polities like the Tarascans. Hassig even mentions several such garrisons in the book you cited! I can link you the relevant pages on Google Books if you want. There are plenty of other sources on this too.
cont'd
Aaron Davis
25 million is also an EXTREMELY high estimate for the population of the Aztec Empire. That figure comes from a study by Cook and Simpson, so, yes, there are citations by actual scholars for that figure, but any honest summary is gonna mention that the reaction from almost everybody else was (and still is) "You're kidding, right?" and that their methodology was pretty roundly criticized in many papers and books which I could link. Take a survey of archaeologists and Mexican historians and you'd probably get a mean estimate of somewhere between 5 and 10 million.
Basically, yeah, if, somehow, all the able-bodied men in the Aztec Empire were mustered in one place and made to hold weapons, they'd number 400,000 or even more, but that literally never happened (and if it had, they'd probably all have looked at each other and gone, "Shit, how are we possibly going to feed ourselves? We didn't think this through at all.") The Aztecs fielded armies of many tens of thousands at a time, maybe -- maybe -- as many as a hundred thousand, but nowhere close to half a million. Unfortunately. It'd have been cool. But 60,000 - 100,000 is still enough for the silver medal, considering they were really at the beck and call of, at the end of the day, one fucking city-state. They could've chewed up Sparta and spat it out again without batting an eye.
Caleb Cook
I'm always happy to see a /meso expert when I make these threads. A lot of /meso lurkers, not a lot of posters unfortunately.
It's possible to estimate the number of soldiers who were drafted based on the age range, but the population data is definitely skewed because it was first recorded some time after the conquest. There's no way to know how they drafted soldiers, or what percentage of a population they mobilized.
BUT, according to the Chronica Mexica (which hassig sources), the conquest of Coixtlahuacan required 200,000 soldiers.
Perhaps the tributary provinces didn't mobilize as high a percentage of their population during war, but war was fought during the dry season in mexico, when fewer men are needed for agriculture. so more men were freed up for battle. and as a tributary province, they basically had to do whatever the Aztecs told them to do.
Also, keep in mind that wars of conquest were beneficial for tributary provinces too. If they fight in the war with the Aztecs, they have the luxury of safety because they were supported by the Aztec imperial army, and they got to sack and plunder just like everyone else. Those were goods which could be brought back to their towns and cities.
cont.
Gavin Clark
Fair enough, I shouldn't have said that they NEVER had garrisons, they absolutely did. But they were infrequent at best and isolated at worst. They were often located along frontiers and were sometimes accompanied by a defensive fortification. Fortifications are, however, not very common in Mesoamerica at this time. The massive number of troops who engaged in battle during the aztec period made it logistically infeasible for both the defending and attacking side to maintain a siege, thus, relatively few castles and forts.
Population estimates range from the low end of 5 million and a high of 25 million. Based on fieldwork, we know that the valley of mexico had between 1 and 2 million people living in it, but its almost impossible to know how many lived beyond (a shame really). But based on spanish accounts, I feel that the 5 or 6 million figure is far too low. Even Tlaxcala, battered and broken by years of war with the aztecs, with dwindling territory and resources, was able to muster at least 100,000 men for an offensive army during the siege of Tenochtitlan. I usually go half and half with the low and high population figures. So 12-17 million is my usual estimate.
Every single source we have suggests armies in the hundreds of thousands, and population data seems to back up those claims, especially considering garrisons were infrequent enough that virtually the entire Aztec military could move as one unit. As the image of Hassig's book suggests, even an army composed of men 20-30 in the valley of mexico would produce at least 100,000. If they drafted 20-50? at least 250,000. And that's just in the valley of mexico.
If there's one thing the Aztecs knew, it was logistics.
Dominic Martinez
Das rite nigga!
Brayden Ramirez
>Aztecs raising an army of 400,000 >were smashed by hundreds of Spaniards Tell me more.
Jose Reyes
Disease and upset tributaries of the Aztecs
Robert Cooper
Disease are memes to explaine demographic lie. There no any example of post-epidemic depopulation after 1650, including shittiest and most populous places like China, India or Africa. People recover their numbers easily, up to 20 years.
Nathaniel Fisher
90-95% of population losses don't recover in 20 years. For the American civs to recover they'd need at least a few centuries of peace. Obviously with euro colonization happening at the same time this wasn't possible.
Cameron Brooks
Again - no examples of depopulation after 1650. 350 years of reliable history is enough for such proofs. Some current African countries have populations with 90% of AID, looks like Ebola and some other cases are weapon tests - but populations are increasing.
Juan Long
That's because there hasn't been a plague nearly as deadly as smallpox + no immunity since then.
It also happened to Europe after their plague, but they weren't unlucky enough to have their plague followed by Spaniards.
Robert Mitchell
A series of Old World diseases were brought over that New World natives had absolutely no resistance to. None of the comparisons you provide are appropriate towards describing the scale and impact of the diseases the Old Worlders brought over.
Kayden Barnes
Hard to say how big the population of natives in mexico was but we all are aware of how fast disease can spread and based off accounts the natives had no adaptation/defense to old world diseases. It likely ravaged the natives relatively quickly and killed off the majority of them.
The remainder of the survivors where easy pickings for the small groups of invading spanirds
Colton Ross
Haha OP is drunk tonight here's some pictures for you kiddies
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Colton Sullivan
What were mesoamerican relations like with civilizations that existed on the periphery of the mesoamerica cultural region? Such as cultures northern mexico, honduras and nicaragua and the caribbean?
Ian Cooper
Anyone got any pictures of mesoamerican architecture? that shit just fascinates me for some reason I can't explain.
Jayden Baker
Any culture in particular? I got tons of Maya ones
Xavier Gutierrez
>yfw the Aztec gods actually predicted what was about to happen.
Jonathan Edwards
i'm not strong on aztec history, but i remember reading that there were trade routes connecting them to the north and south. Feathers were highly prized by the aztecs and so this would hvae been a popular commodity to bring to the valley of mexico from central america. the aztecs also imported foods that could not be grown for consumption in their region, going by what I remember of Bernal Diaz' description of the aztec dishes in his True History (deer, turkey, other birds)
Kevin Harris
The Aztecs conquered down near guatemala in the maya area after Xoconochco became a tributary.
They also apparently had some presence in Xicallanco which is right near the Yucatan. As the other user mentioned, trade with those regions was pretty extensive. The surrounding regions were less developed than central mexico, with the majority of central america having petty tribal kingdoms, small scale agriculture, and possibly some hunter gatherers.
The aztecs never conquered very far north, because those regions were held by chichimec hunter-gatherer tribes who had few resources of interest. The chichimec had some small cities, like zacatecas but they lacked the water sources necessary to intensify agriculture.
Thomas Nguyen
Cacao itself doesnt have those properties and they usually brewed it as a spiced, frothy drink. They might have used hallucinogens for sacrificial victims, but the exact composition isnt known. Could have been peyote or mushrooms or something. Theres no evidence to suggest that they used it in battle, but they might have.
Christian Gomez
1/10 Made me reply
Jayden Mitchell
Can somebody link to the last thread?
Where are these from?
Isaiah Baker
Not him, but I'd be pretty interested in seeing those Maya ones
I think they're royalty free images. No idea who made them.
Charles Sullivan
These are reconstructions, but I will post the ruins too.
Not sure this city but its from the classic period I believe.
Tyler Hill
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Blake Evans
A stack of 40 fully upgraded eagle warriors will fuck shit up.
Robert Cooper
with El Dorado researched or Garland Wars?
John Ramirez
Is this a joke? Of course Garland.
Tyler Evans
The destruction of Tenochtitlan is one of those historical events that pains me to think about. It must have looked magnificent in its time. Plus Mexico city has meant that the lake is completely gone. Goddamn conquistadors....
Anthony Cook
Yes, getting rid of the child and human sacrifice was a bad thing..
Joshua Baker
The architecture and buildings you moron. That city was an engineering marvel by all accounts with its floating gardens and huge stone temples.
Kayden Ramirez
For a civilinaction that never invented the wheel, yea. Still, glad it's gone for its hedonism. Worshipng demons does that to you.
Ethan Butler
That's just nitpicking, there's more to the city and civilization than that. People tend to overemphasize human sacrifice among the Aztecs and Mesoamerica probably because the practice seems so exotic despite that it occurs throughout the world, even today. And Europeans at the time also did equally horrible things.
Ethan Harris
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Asher Walker
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Michael Taylor
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Jackson Morris
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Jose Long
These are in chronological order btw, these date to the late classic period.
Blake Hill
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Aiden Sullivan
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Christian Parker
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Tyler Johnson
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Levi Campbell
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Asher Jones
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Blake Carter
Thank you very much for these
Thomas Scott
Wow. You're an idiot.
Blake Hughes
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Adrian Jenkins
No prob, going a bit slow as I'm renaming the files
Anyway these are Terminal Classic period
Anthony Cooper
meant for
Kevin Morgan
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Charles Williams
Are the stairs on the pyramids merely decorative?
Gavin Gutierrez
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Jack Ross
They were stairs yes.
Samuel Cooper
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Ayden Martin
I meant on the picture I >>ed. They look far too steep to be usable.
Julian Ortiz
They may be false staircases (not sure tbqh), but they are supposed to represent stairs whether they were practical or not.
And now these are Early Postclassic styles.
Juan Jackson
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Brandon Sanchez
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Jason Ramirez
These drawings are by the late Tatiana Proskouriakoff btw
