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Chapter 2
The Political Bases of Aztec Warfare |
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The Aztecs conquered and incorporated other polities into an overarching political system. But it was a political system based on pervasive and dominating influence rather than on territorial control. |
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Why the Aztecs developed this form of imperial system can be understood largely in terms of technology. Mesoamerican civilization lacked efficient transportation, having neither wheeled vehicles nor draft animals. This limited the area from which goods could be drawn efficiently and correspondingly reduced the economic benefits of politically incorporating vast regions.
1 Thus economic benefits depended on exercising political control and extracting goods at local expense, by requiring tributaries to both produce and transport goods without recompense. In doing this, the Aztecs were faced with two basic options as they expanded their empire. On the one hand they could have conquered areas and consolidated their political hold by replacing local leaders and conquered troops with Aztec governors and garrisons. By exercising this much political control, the Aztecs could have extracted large quantities of goods from the conquered areas, but the cost in terms of administration, security, and the threat of rebellion would have been very high. On the other hand the Aztecs could have left the government of conquered areas in local hands. This approach would not have permitted so much economic extraction from the conquered area, but its administrative costs were relatively low. These two alternatives offered distinctly different advantages for empires. The former provides greater depth of political control but because of high manpower requirements it can be employed only in limited areas. The latter offers less control but frees more men for further imperial expansion.2 The Aztecs em- |
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