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Tlaximaloyan, Zitacuaro, Tozantlan, Cutzamala, and Axochitlan.
29 Moreover, the Tarascans ensured their control of these areas by replacing local rulers with their own leaders,30 thus providing secure locations to which the Tarascan army could march to meet an impending invasion.31 The Aztecs did not match these fortifications with their own.32 |
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This strategy marked a major and expensive shift in imperial systems. By fortifying, manning, and defending fixed borders, the Tarascans no longer controlled the area through power but relied on forcethe harbinger of a territorial system. This was not a full-blown territorial system, because the Tarascans continued to function internally in a hegemonic manner,33 but it was a marked departure in perimeter defense. While all other major polities had the rudiments of such systems in their core areas, any substantial political expansion quickly exceeded these limited regions. But the Tarascans formed a distinct culture in central Mexico, reinforced by their linguistic distinctiveness and compounded by their relative geographical isolation. Thus they possessed a larger and more cohesive core region from which to build than most polities in central Mexico. |
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One reason the Tarascans may have adopted this border defense strategy involved intelligence. Unlike many other polities, Tarascan speakers were unrepresented in the Aztec Empire, so Tarascan spies could not easily slip into Aztec areas. The Otomi-speaking Matlatzincas living within the Tarascan Empire could, but they may not have been trusted by the Tarascans. A second reason may have been Tarascan fear of Aztec expansion. The Aztecs had been successful throughout much of Mesoamerica, and in the region between the two empiresthe valley of TolocanTarascan penetration had been repulsed while the Aztecs subdued the entire area. Thus, erecting fortifications may have been the only feasible way to keep the Aztecs from further chipping away at the borders of the Tarascan Empire. |
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Tarascan adoption of this defensive system can also be understood in terms of the relative offensive capability of the competing empires. Although neither side had fared well in its expansionistic efforts against the other, the Aztecs had shown a capacity for major long-range incursions, and their superior numbers, alliance networks, and logistical system gave them a marked offensive advantage over the Tarascans. Thus, direct competition meant eventual defeat for the Tarascans. |
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The more territorially based Tarascan system required consider- |
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