Contact between the Aztecs and the Incas

If the europeans don't arrive to the New World in 1492,

1) when do you think contact between the Incas and the Aztecs (or their sucesor/s state/s) takes place?

2) how does this contact take place? Is it through the land route via the Panama itsmus, or through the maritime route (the Pacific or the Atlantic one)

3) what are the consequences of this encounter for both parts?

Has to be a martime route. Even today the Darie'n Gap has prevented the completion of the Pan American Highway. IMO the route along the Caribean side of Central America is most likely. The thing I would wonder about is just who controls the trade. Inca or Aztec state ministries? Or would we see a resurgent Maya culture with its powewr base in controlling the trade. And just what is the main trade good? Captives for ritual sacrife? Jade? Avian products (feathers)? Livestock (llamas)? Domestic fowl (ducks and turkeys)? The Axtecs would find llamas useful but would they trive in the climate of Mexico. In the highlands I think they would but down near the coast? Could llamas eventually be bred large enough to ride or act as draft animals? Domestic crops? Maize for potatos?

There is already an excellent TL on this 5500 by ATOM

I don't know much about the Caribbean native people, but could the Taino, for example, become a kind of Talassocracy, ruling the a maritime trade net from Colombia to Mexico and then be the responsible for the contact between the Aztecs and the Incas?

mojojojo said:

There is already an excellent TL on this 5500 by ATOM

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Thanks. I've read it. (Excellent TL, by the way!!!)

Atom explains very well the consequences of the contact (the popuilation of Mesoamerica would have increases due to the introduction of new crops, llamas and guinea pigs).

In he's TL, he has the Incas and the Aztecs meet relatively soon (in 1604), through the Caribbean Sea. I wanted to explore other possivilities concerning the time of the contact and the route by which it takes place...

Gonzaga said:

I don't know much about the Caribbean native people, but could the Taino, for example, become a kind of Talassocracy, ruling the a maritime trade net from Colombia to Mexico and then be the responsible for the contact between the Aztecs and the Incas?

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It may certainly be possible (I think). I believe that only through the Tainos or the Caribe whe can have contact between Incas and Aztecs through that route. Mainly, I don't see the Aztecs or other Mesoamericans expanding to Venezuela, even as sailors, nor do I see the Incas expanding any further than the Colombian highlands (the Tropical Colombian coast doesn't seem like a place they'd like to live in).

But I wouldn't discard the Pacific route. After all, the natives of Panama told the Spaniards that they new about a people down South full of gold because "ships" from those lands visited them periodically to trade llama wools and textiles. They were even able to draw a llama to the conquistadors, which the Spaniards mistook for a donkey. And, during one of Pizzaro's expedition, he was surprised to find a "sail" in the Pacific, as nono of the Amerindians that had met used sails.

As the peoples in the Pacific akready had sails and had a better technology than the Taino, The Pacific route seems a better means for a direct (and sooner) contact between both civilizations than the Atlantic. But the problems seem to be the currents...

Hrrm. I remember seeing a very interesting article on this once by Dale Cozort. Let me see If I can find it...

http://members.aol.com/althist2/aug00/perumexico.htm

Ah. There it is.. Hrrmm. It posits a meeting between the Chimu and Mesoamericans, but it does provide some interesting points.

Anyways, the major effects are the spread of llamas and guinea pigs to mesoamerica, the utrkey to the Andes, and los of cross-crop pollination. Expect major population growth to ensue. The Andes are also more advance metallurgically, something which may also cross the to Meosamerica.

An American version of the silk road between Mexico and Peru would allow the transfer of technuiques, ideas etc between the 3 major civilisation areas; writing from the Maya, the wheel etc from Mexico and the Llama and metalurgy from Peru. The result could be a cultures which use Llama chariots, bronze arms and armour and advanced writing and astronomy. But by the time of the Aztecs and Incas it was too late. A better time would be when the Maya, Teotiahacan and an advanced sth American culture were simultaneously exsisting.

The Mayans had already declined by the time of the Spanish incursion. Peru was in the midst of a civil war when they showed up there and would have been split up into smaller kingdoms by the end of the century as we count it. The Aztecs while still advancing and expanding their empire, Montezuma was showing the first signs of decay through being a weak leader. This could have lead to strife and possible rebellion of vassal states with any number of other catalysts besides the arrival of a handful of soldiers with superior weaponry.
On the positive side for this to happen, there were deep sea going fishing villages along the Atlantic. If someone had thought of exploration for the Aztec empire's number one need, sacrifices they would have gone south.
The Caribbean wasn't always a friendly place. While easy to trade with, they also had some formidable warriors. The Aztecs could not have floated a big enough flotilla to conquer them, or even raid them for a worthwhile amount of captives.
They were already familiar with land routes north and knew more or less what to expect. The Apaches, Navajos and Hopi have already had negative encounters with the Aztecs before 1492.
I don't know if the Aztecs were aware of the Maya. By 1492 the Mayans were reduced to small farming enclaves in the Jungle. If the Aztecs were aware of them they might not have found them important enough to mention, being they had control of all the important civilized nations of the area.
I thing there must have been some kind of contact between Mezoamerica and The Andes, maybe earlier during the more advanced Toltec and Olmec empires just from the fact that they both built similar pyramids and while the Aztecs were bloodthirsty killers and the Incas were a little more mild on the sacrificial side they both did it the same way.

Llamas are not good when hitched to anything, much less a chariot.

HueyLong said:

Llamas are not good when hitched to anything, much less a chariot.

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Agreed... At best, they are more like the living equivalents of wheelbarrows...

I'm inclined to think that with just 25 or 50 years more the Incas would have conquered Colombia and Venezuela. Then they would have make contact with Carib pirates and would have built a fleet of warships with sails in the Caribbean to protect their holdings. Not so much later some of these ships would have meet Mayan traders and from them the Incas would have learned about the Aztecs.

So this would just require Europe not knowing about the Americas for a century more than IOTL or even less.

Riain said:

An American version of the silk road between Mexico and Peru would allow the transfer of technuiques, ideas etc between the 3 major civilisation areas

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A road won't work. There is no pack animal suitable for the task and the jungle does not help. Kevin is right in that it has to be maritime. Moreover, you have to have regular traffic for ideas to really flow otherwise they don't stick.

For regular traffic you need goods. In the Old World it was spices and silk westwards and gold and silver eastwards. The ideas (chess, numbers, printing, etc ) were incidental although that is not to understate their importance.

Michael B said:

A road won't work. There is no pack animal suitable for the task and the jungle does not help. Kevin is right in that it has to be maritime. Moreover, you have to have regular traffic for ideas to really flow otherwise they don't stick.

For regular traffic you need goods. In the Old World it was spices and silk westwards and gold and silver eastwards. The ideas (chess, numbers, printing, etc ) were incidental although that is not to understate their importance.

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Both the Inca and the Maya were excellent road builders, and there is one all terrain pack animal, humans.

Michael B said:

A road won't work. There is no pack animal suitable for the task and the jungle does not help. Kevin is right in that it has to be maritime. Moreover, you have to have regular traffic for ideas to really flow otherwise they don't stick.

For regular traffic you need goods. In the Old World it was spices and silk westwards and gold and silver eastwards. The ideas (chess, numbers, printing, etc ) were incidental although that is not to understate their importance.

Click to expand...

The Incas did fairly well with an all-human road system.... but you are right in that the system can not be extended up to Aztec lands.

As for conquering Columbia or Venezuela, doubtful. jungle was not their thing. They could do mountains and plains pretty well.

Check out ,1493, in the shared worlds forum. They're fleshing out a POD at 1493.

Might give you some insight