To What Extent Could the Aztecs/Incas Have Adapted Spanish Technology?

Assuming that they defeated the initial Spanish invasions, to what extent could the Aztecs and/or Incas have made use of Spanish knowledge or technology?

IOTL, both the Aztecs and Incas made used to captured Spanish steel weapons to create lances to impale enemy horses. The Incas even attempted to fire Spanish muskets (failing only because they did not know to ram the balls down the barrel). The Incas also captured Spanish horses and learned to ride them; in one memorable battle, Manco Inca himself lead a cavalry charge that routed a small Spanish force. After the conquest, Mexican natives were quick to pick up on Spanish techniques. Within a few years of the conquest, for example, all the Indians in Mexico were making and using candles. The Spanish also had native allies make copper arrowheads for their crossbow bolts.

So how well could the Aztecs and/or Incas make use of Spanish techniques and technology if they had survived the initial invasions?

You've answered your own question.

They easily could have and in some cases did.

Epidemics would have limited the technological adaptation, I'm afraid.

Even assuming that they took prisonners enough skilled with what they want to adapt, something necessary eventually, they wouldn't have much time to use and critically adapt to european warfare. You could admittedly end with Natives doing well, such as pre-colonial african states and even having victories, but I doubt they would have enough ressources, time and men to beneficy from it.

The Mapuche people of Argentina were neighbors of the Inca, so fierce, the Inca set up a line of frontier fortresses rather than try to conquer them. In the latter half of the 16th C., the Mapuche effectively adopted horses for cavalry warfare, becoming superior lancers, and used captured Spanish firearms and even artillery, often defeating the Spanish and their successors. They resisted for over 300 years...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche_military

Copper arrow/spear/atlatl dart heads would be most obvious. The Aztecs were well aware of copper, as their neighbors the Tarascans already used them extensively. I assume they knew how to work-harden copper before the Spanish taught them.

I wonder if the lead balls used for Spanish muskets might inspire the natives to use lead weapons themselves. I've never heard of indigenous people making use of the the material, but they would greatly increase the effectiveness of traditional sling weapons.

Depending on how many Conquistadors they capture, some of them could be turned to teach military tactics. Actually some of them were even Spanish, but Portuguese and Italians. This actually happened at least once after a failed Spanish attack on the Mayans. One prisoner became a Mayan military commander and repelled a subsequent attack.

With horses I guess it depends on how many are captured. If they're all geldings they would be useless for breeding.

Horses would be the most valuable acquisition, and probably would be enough to keep the Spanish out for quite some time if enough of them ended up in Indian hands. The part about them ending up in Indian hands is hard to figure out though, at least for the Aztecs. As noted, the Incas did capture and use horses, the difference there being that the empire initially remain intact under a puppet Inca, who revolted several years later, after the Spanish had settled in to some extent and brought in horses.

Maybe if Cortes had been able to keep up his balancing act with Montezuma, keeping his credibility as an Aztec ruler intact for at least a while longer, the Aztecs might have been able to absorb more tech before their showdown with the Spanish. That would probably require that the Narvaez expedition be delayed or disposed of without Cortes leaving the less competent Alvarado in charge at the capitol, which led to a Spanish massacre of a large number of Mexican nobles, which set off a massive revolt that even Cortes couldn't tamp down.

I think the Aztecs would have eventually revolted anyway, but Cortes was skillful enough at finding courses of action that suited both Aztec and Spanish interests that he might have staved off a revolt for a few years.

The smallpox epidemic would have reached the Aztec empire in any case, and I'm not sure how that would have impacted the political situation. The Aztecs might have blamed the Spanish and revolted, or the epidemic might have intimidated them into laying low for a while in terms of any planned revolt. Hard to know where that goes, but the longer the peaceful coexistence, the more Spanish tech the Indians would presumably pick up.

Richard V said:

I wonder if the lead balls used for Spanish muskets might inspire the natives to use lead weapons themselves. I've never heard of indigenous people making use of the the material, but they would greatly increase the effectiveness of traditional sling weapons.

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Many natives used slings for hunting and war. For war some heated stones in fire until they became incendiaries, doubly deadly and greatly feared by the Spanish.

The Tarascan queen was said to have stolen some of the Spaniards' horses and learned to ride them too, using them on several successful raids until she was killed.

Horses are always a good place to start, nations that adopted horse-based warfare and pastoralism resisted Europeans into the 19th c., those that didn't, well, it was harder for them.

RGB said:

Horses are always a good place to start, nations that adopted horse-based warfare and pastoralism resisted Europeans into the 19th c., those that didn't, well, it was harder for them.

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If the Chichimeca tribes had more time to adapt horses the Spanish would have been largely trapped in lower Mexico for a while.

Perhaps if Gonzalo Guerrero or another Spanish who had gone native had joined the Aztecs they could have been better prepared for Spanish tactics and warfare. However, disease would still be a problem for any New World Resistance.

othyrsyde said:

If the Chichimeca tribes had more time to adapt horses the Spanish would have been largely trapped in lower Mexico for a while.

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Quite likely. When I was planning my ASB-ish Europa-inspired British Mexico that was more or less the plan. The frontier could run far to the south of where it did OTL.

snerfuplz said:

Perhaps if Gonzalo Guerrero or another Spanish who had gone native had joined the Aztecs they could have been better prepared for Spanish tactics and warfare. However, disease would still be a problem for any New World Resistance.

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It wasn't just fighting the Spaniards. All the empires overthrown had many enemy groups who allied by the multi-thousands with the Spaniards against hated native overlords. Just as in north America, the natives were fragmented, there were always groups who thought they could use the invaders for their own benefit against traditional foes.

Reader347 said:

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Many natives used slings for hunting and war. For war some heated stones in fire until they became incendiaries, doubly deadly and greatly feared by the Spanish.

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The sling was a common weapons in North and South America. What they needed was better sling-bullets. Since antiquity there was no comparison between lead and stone sling-bullets.

The answer is not much. Horses are easy because the entire technology is essentially in front of you. Iron is different in that reworking captured irems is limited in extent. What the Aztecs, Maya and Incas needed was to put a whole industry from scratch. For that you need miners and blacksmiths not intinerant thugs. Given the limited number of Spaniards available any king is going to have to be really lucky to start making it himself.

RFB is right on the the pay off of pastoralism, but you have to have the right country. Agriculture is superior in that it is less area intensive, which eventually give the Spaniard an advantage in population and they have iron.

Adding gunpowder, printing and ocean going ships and you start to see that unless they can hide out in the hinterland the Aztecs, Maya and Incas are on a hiding for nothing. A guerilla war for generations is the best they can hope for and at the end the Spaniards will still be there with their cities, farms and mines.

Perhaps if the Spanish were scattered, they could be used as engineers and advisors to Mesoamerican lords, who could then plot to use Western technology to fight against Aztec rule.

Winnabago said:

Perhaps if the Spanish were scattered, they could be used as engineers and advisors to Mesoamerican lords, who could then plot to use Western technology to fight against Aztec rule.

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It still comes down to what they know. A shipbuilder is going to be more useful than a peon who could not empty sand from his boots unless the instructions were written on the bottom.

Also, there will be resistence to new technology. If you think that it is dishonourable for people to ride to battle on an animal, you may put all your captured horses into one big stew instead of rasing cavalry.

Finally, if the Spaniards are in small numbers and thus get their arses whipped, their technology could be seen as having no value whilst on the other hand they will make very nice sacrifices to the gods.

RGB said:

Quite likely. When I was planning my ASB-ish Europa-inspired British Mexico that was more or less the plan. The frontier could run far to the south of where it did OTL.

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British Mexico

JK, but yeah the Chichimeca put up one hell of a fight when they were just getting exposed to European tech. A few delays or setbacks on the Spaniards part and some of those tribes could have grown into that TL's Comanche and Apaches.

Michael B said:

It still comes down to what they know. A shipbuilder is going to be more useful than a peon who could not empty sand from his boots unless the instructions were written on the bottom.

Also, there will be resistence to new technology. If you think that it is dishonourable for people to ride to battle on an animal, you may put all your captured horses into one big stew instead of rasing cavalry.

Finally, if the Spaniards are in small numbers and thus get their arses whipped, their technology could be seen as having no value whilst on the other hand they will make very nice sacrifices to the gods.

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It could have happened very easily. Mesoamerica and the Andes had thriving complex socities with a history of trading and craftspeople, including metallurgy. Like in the scenario above, they could have easily adopted the tech if the Spaniards had not enjoyed the massive amount of luck they enjoyed, particularly in the Inca's case.

Also, this is not just directed at you, but when a white person sneezes we all just didn't drop dead. The high mortality rate from the diseases came about over several waves of pandemics, not to mention all the fun from slavery and warfare, which was a significant part of the demographic decline too. I was just reading a few weeks ago about after the first wave of smallpox to hit Mexico, the population that survived was usually the young healthy adults, and the generation that followed brought indigenous population levels back to or even possibly exceeded the pre-conquest population. The problem that arose was the Spanish overlords expected the same amount of tribute they produced when not so burdened by dependents, in addition the manpower drained for the expanded conquests in northern Mexico and Central America. If not for these additional factors the population could have somewhat recovered much sooner than in OTL.

my first thought is 'more than they did in OTL, but not enough to overcome the Europeans'. If the first conquistador expeditions had failed, with lots of Spaniards captured, the natives could have learned to adopt more than they did (as others have noted, horses were pretty easy. And they might have gotten their hands on cattle, sheep, and pigs later on). However, Europe has too many advantages for them to overcome that easily, and once they really get on the conquest path, they'll overcome the natives sooner or later.

And horses may not have been that easy, it occurs to me... they'd have to capture a stallion and mares to get a breeding population, and I'm not sure if the average Spanish conquistador expedition took those along (were most of the warhorses geldings?)

othyrsyde said:

It could have happened very easily. Mesoamerica and the Andes had thriving complex socities with a history of trading and craftspeople, including metallurgy. Like in the scenario above, they could have easily adopted the tech if the Spaniards had not enjoyed the massive amount of luck they enjoyed, particularly in the Inca's case.

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The locals still have to learn how to create the technologies and that this their main problem. Knowing that iron tools exist is not the same as knowing what iron ore looks like, how to extract iron from it and how to then work tools. In contrast the Spaniards have the know how. Their biggest problem is finding the raw materials. Given that, they were manufacturing gunpowder, build riverine craft, etc, etc.

Still, give the Atzecs and Incas the know how and they can start to close the gap.

othyrsyde said:

Also, this is not just directed at you, but when a white person sneezes we all just didn't drop dead. The high mortality rate from the diseases came about over several waves of pandemics,

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It can also spread far beyond its original area of infection. Measles hit the Inca Empire well before the Spaniards turned up. In addition, the Mississippi mound builders were wiped out without the Europeans knowing that they existed.