The Pre-Hispanic Americas and the Legal Framework of Conquest

The Americas that Europeans reached after 1492 were home to sophisticated, populous civilizations, not an empty wilderness. In central Mexico, the Mexica (Aztec) Empire ruled from its capital, Tenochtitlan, traditionally founded in 1325 on an island in Lake Texcoco; by 1519 it governed, through a tribute system centered on the Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan, a mosaic of city-states numbering several million inhabitants. In South America, the Inca Empire, known as Tahuantinsuyo, was the most extensive pre-Columbian state on the continent, stretching along the Andes from present-day Ecuador to central Chile, organized into four regions administered from the capital Cusco and connected by the Qhapaq Ñan, a road network exceeding 30,000 kilometers; Inca administration relied on quipus, knotted cords used for accounting, rather than on alphabetic writing.