Dynasties of The Americas

Pre-Columbian imperial dynasties — the Mexica rulers of Tenochtitlan and the Inca of Cusco.

2 dynasties

Aztec Empire

Mesoamerica / Mexico · 1428 – 1521

The Mexica polity centered on Tenochtitlan that, in alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopan, dominated central Mexico for ninety-three years before its destruction by Hernán Cortés. Built on tribute, religion, and the sustained terror of mass human sacrifice, at its 1519 height it ruled perhaps six million people across central and southern Mexico. The empire fell in two years to a Spanish force of less than a thousand soldiers, devastated by smallpox and outflanked by indigenous allies who hated Mexica rule even more than they feared the conquistadors.

9 figures

Inca Empire

Andes / South America · 1438 – 1572

Tawantinsuyu, the Land of the Four Quarters — the largest indigenous empire ever to arise in the Americas, stretching from southern Colombia to central Chile along the spine of the Andes. From Pachacuti's reorganization of a Cuzco kingdom into an imperial system in 1438, the Inca conquered or absorbed perhaps fifteen million people in less than a century. The empire collapsed within a decade of Spanish arrival in 1532 — undermined by smallpox, civil war, and the audacity of Francisco Pizarro's seizure of the emperor at Cajamarca.

9 figures