Aztec colonialism

What is the best pre- columbian colonization POD?

  • Viking colonization of Americas

    Votes: 17 45.9%
  • Malian colonization of Americas

    Votes: 5 13.5%
  • Roman colonization of Americas

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • Carthagian colonization of Americas

    Votes: 2 5.4%
  • Chinese colonization of Americas

    Votes: 4 10.8%
  • Polynesian colonization of Americas

    Votes: 7 18.9%

  • Total voters
    37
What if the Aztec empire expanded overseas, into the Caribbean, maybe as far as the Pacific? For this to be possible the Aztecs would need a strong central government and boats capable of seafaring. What do you think? Could this work? How would this affect the people and places they colonize?
 
Technically, they put both coasts to tribute.

For conquering the Caribbean islands, they would need sufficient returns for the expense of campaigning. The Caribs and Taino had gold, feathers and some cotton but much of it was procured through trade with the Yucatan. It's also very far away from central Mexico compared to the Yucatan...it would be more likely for the Caribbean to be Maya-influenced than Aztec.
 
Technically, they put both coasts to tribute.

For conquering the Caribbean islands, they would need sufficient returns for the expense of campaigning. The Caribs and Taino had gold, feathers and some cotton but much of it was procured through trade with the Yucatan. It's also very far away from central Mexico compared to the Yucatan...it would be more likely for the Caribbean to be Maya-influenced than Aztec.

What do you mean by Mayan influenced? Do you think the Mayans would be a better colonial power?
 
i've heard that some evidence exists that the Aztecs may have reached as far north as Oak Island, a suggestion being that they built something there centuries before whatever treasure was supposedly hidden there ever came to be. more solidly, i've also heard that they may have had more consistent contact with cultures in the American Southwest, evidence iirc being a Mesoamerican ballgame court in the region
 
Yes, there is some evidence for central Mexican influence in the US Southwest (ball courts, macaw feathers, trade items, some social traits) but it would be inaccurate to call that "Aztec" since this all predates the rise of the Aztecs to preeminence in the Valley of Mexico. Actual Aztec influence over subject tribute areas did extend to the Pacific Coast, but the likelihood that the Aztecs could (or would) come to dominate the Caribbean is slim to none.
 
What do you mean by Mayan influenced? Do you think the Mayans would be a better colonial power?
Not necessarily "better", but the Maya, unlike the Central Mexicans, did engage in waterborne trade, including with some near coastal islands in the Caribbean. They would be much more likely to become a seafaring people than anyone from the Valley of Mexico.
 
I think the only possibility the Aztec empire has at "expanding" beyond Cental Mexico is if they change how the empire works.

If they actually conquered the nations around them in the usual sense of the word; then a centralized government and people can expand their influences outward and put more emphasis and water travel and trade.

By only having subdued client states eager to rebel because your Flower wars taking captives for sacrifice; means centralized pushing outwards to areas unknown to you or with little cultural resemblance is hard, almost impossible.

I could possibly see a bigger Pochteca class make it to the Caribbean and set up possible bases but having full fledged Aztec colonialism is a lost cause without a structural change to how the empire is run IMO.
 
Not necessarily "better", but the Maya, unlike the Central Mexicans, did engage in waterborne trade, including with some near coastal islands in the Caribbean. They would be much more likely to become a seafaring people than anyone from the Valley of Mexico.

Interestingly, it could also be a major life-saver for their civilisation once water problems kick in. Set up a few colonies in Cuba, or Hispaniola - and you have a place for people to go when the population pressure picks up. Not to mention that (by and large), it is an easier place to live than in the Yucatan. In fact, if you had Hispaniola and Cuba in a 'Greater Maya', it wouldn't surprise me if the colonies became more important than the mainland.

EDIT : I see this working sort of like the Greeks and Phoenicians at first, until the colonies become politically and economically independant of the Yucatan.

(Hilariously, if they expand enough, I could see them wanting to settle New Yucatan. Also known as Florida)
 
What if the Aztec empire expanded overseas, into the Caribbean, maybe as far as the Pacific? For this to be possible the Aztecs would need a strong central government and boats capable of seafaring. What do you think? Could this work? How would this affect the people and places they colonize?

They meet the Polynesians.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
What evidence is there regarding how much the Aztecs were aware of the world outside of their own sphere of influence?
 
What evidence is there regarding how much the Aztecs were aware of the world outside of their own sphere of influence?

They knew that there were nomadic people to the north that were on lands too poor for agriculture. Somehow they seemed to know about people to the east (how they figure this out without sails, I have no idea). So they knew the people existed somewhere.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
They knew that there were nomadic people to the north that were on lands too poor for agriculture. Somehow they seemed to know about people to the east (how they figure this out without sails, I have no idea). So they knew the people existed somewhere.

I bet the books burned by the Spanish could tell us. :mad:
 
I bet the books burned by the Spanish could tell us. :mad:

See that's the thing... their "records" were basically pcitures/ comic books without any text on the account of not inventing an alphabet like the Phoenicians did or even inventing a syllabary like the Japs did.
 
What evidence is there regarding how much the Aztecs were aware of the world outside of their own sphere of influence?

Well, they were at least loosely attached to the wider North American land trade network, so they'd at least be aware that there were other people who produced these exotic things the merchants coming from the North were selling them. Maybe they even knew rumors about the civilizations who existed behyond the Great American Deseret (I.E.: Northern Mexico, Texas, and the Great Plains). But I don't believe they made any active efforts to go out and learn about these people.
 
Someone must be playing too much Sunset Invasion.

Sunset Invasion? What's that?

They meet the Polynesians.

That would be interesting. However, they would need better sailing technology. Maybe if they first of all develop sefering technology capable
Of reaching, say, Cuba, they could eventually develop something that could reach the Pacific.

See that's the thing... their "records" were basically pcitures/ comic books without any text on the account of not inventing an alphabet like the Phoenicians did or even inventing a syllabary like the Japs did.

:closedeyesmile:. Wait, didn't the Aztecs have hieroglyphics? I think your confusing them with the Incas.

Why? Real life doesn't follow a strict chain of 'progression' like a Civilization tech tree.

Sailing watercraft came before the wheel, even...

So, the Aztecs could still build sailing ships without any wheel?
 
See that's the thing... their "records" were basically pcitures/ comic books without any text on the account of not inventing an alphabet like the Phoenicians did or even inventing a syllabary like the Japs did.
Except that there's way more to the symbology and semasiography of Aztec codices than just 'comic books'. Just because they didn't faithfully emulate human speech in neatly ordered rows doesn't mean detailed information was not or cannot be encoded. Despite not using a purely glottographic system they were still able to recount history and narratives, record genealogies, store instructions and especially compile tribute data.

Furthermore, they did have standardized glyphs that did have inherent phonetic elements; this property allowed scribes to combine glyphs to create ones for new words using the rebus principle, something that really came in handy when handling tributary provinces and altepetl.

Even the less noticable motifs and stylistic elements of the codices served a semantic purpose and were more than just aesthetic decorations. There's definitely stuff there, it's just not in the format most are used to. Tlacaelel wouldn't have needed to burn clerical books if they weren't capable of contradicting the stuff in his planned political-religious reformation. The Aztec codices are incredibly valuable to historians and archaeologists as windows into pre-Hispanic culture and history and it would have been a travesty if they were all destroyed.

However, Anaxagoras may be confusing these books with Diego de Landa's deliberate destruction of Maya codices that were truly glottographic. While there was almost definitely local destructions of some codices throughout Mexico, there was no organized book-burning for Aztec codices like there was in the Yucatan. The fate of a great many Aztec codices seems to be that they were simply lost, unfortunately.
:closedeyesmile:. Wait, didn't the Aztecs have hieroglyphics? I think your confusing them with the Incas.
See above; they had ways of encoding a decent amount of information onto a 2-dimensional surface, and had both logograms and a few phonetic glyphs, but it's not a full-fledged 'writing' system of hieroglyphs like Mayan or Egyptian script.
So, the Aztecs could still build sailing ships without any wheel?
Of course. Why is this wholly unrelated technology a barrier?
 
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