Indios like India: A Mesoamerican Raj

1. If the French or English had gotten to Mexico first, would they have left the native rulers in place more instead of absorbing and assimilating them?

2. Are the Aztecs equivalent to the Mughals, an existing hegemonic power who ends up being deposed by the Europeans?
 
1) I don’t rightly know. My best guess would be no, but it depends on the manner of first contact.

2) The circumstances surrounding the fall of the Mughals and the Aztec are wildly different and not comparable. Furthermore, the Mughal Empire was an incredibly sophisticated polity, ruling a civilisation dating back several millennia.
 
2) The circumstances surrounding the fall of the Mughals and the Aztec are wildly different and not comparable. Furthermore, the Mughal Empire was an incredibly sophisticated polity, ruling a civilisation dating back several millennia.
The Mesoamericans were technologically behind Eurasia, but their society was hardly primitive or new.
 
The problem with the Aztecs et al are all the germs that the Europeans brought. Germs that the real Indians had levels of immunity to. Had the Spanish not had the "fortune" (misfortune for the Mesoamericans) of those plagues they would have had to invest a lot more in dominating Mesoamerica. More faithful alliances and investments in those alliances could possibly have been attempted. You wouldn't see a twin of the Raj, but something similar perhaps.
 
The Mesoamericans were technologically behind Eurasia, but their society was hardly primitive or new.

I believe that the Aztecs themselves were aware of the origins of aspects of civilization in the Mexican Valley. They spent time in Teotihuacan and relished in the thought that they were the successors of this city and the Toltecs with whom the Mexia were also aware of. Both of these origins or believed origins for the Mexia Triple Alliance, predate Islam and thus represent an even older system of viewing history than that of the Mughals, who were not using the Maurya, Gupta or Vedic periods as their ruling legitimacy, but that of Timur, Mongol Hordes, Turkic Hordes and Islam. All of which are far younger than conceptions the Aztec had felt connected to.
 
I don't remember claiming that. Pointing out that the Mughal Empire was a far more sophisticated polity doesn’t equal naming the Aztecs “primitive”
It kinda does imply that, in what way were the Mughals "far more sophisticated" as a society than the Aztecs? The Aztecs had an organized state with its own levels of bureaucracy and some of the largest cities in the world that by Spanish accounts were well-kept, none of this implies they were behind the old world in societal sophistication.
 
2. Are the Aztecs equivalent to the Mughals, an existing hegemonic power who ends up being deposed by the Europeans?
'Sophistication' aside, I wouldn't say it's one-to-one, seeing as the Mughals were already losing control of the subcontinent prior to the Europeans really sinking their influence and fangs into India (there's the claim that the Battle of Karnal and the ensuing sack of Delhi emboldened the British to be as expansionistic towards India as they were OTL, since those events highlighted exactly how weak central authority was in India by the mid-1700s) while the Aztec collapse was a bit more connected with the Spanish coming into the scene. For the Mughals, there were the Maratha rebelling and playing kingmaker, the Afsharid sacking Delhi, and the local lords growing to be independent in all but name while the Mughal emperors' authority was shrinking to nothing more than Delhi before the Battle of Plassey. The British did help remove the last chance for the Mughals to make a comeback by filling the power vacuum and eventually exiling the emperor but the Mughals were already on the way out before, while the Aztecs weren't quite so bad off before the Spanish arrived.
 
I imagine not, with the key factor being the economics of it. The colonization of India by the Companies was profitable/driven by latching onto the already-existing systems of trade and mass goods production; there was little to gain by disrupting the pre-existing conditions when you can just skim the cream off the top. Mexico, on the other hand, made it's big profit by extracting precious metals and implementing plantation-esque agriculture, which required the imposition of new labor structures and the purpose of local production. That requires having a more direct control of the reigns of power client rulers just can't provide; there's a reason the VOC moved away from trade monopoly treaties to imposing direct rule over the islands as they moved from merely shipping the spices to trying to vertically integrate the whole chain.
 
1. If the French or English had gotten to Mexico first, would they have left the native rulers in place more instead of absorbing and assimilating them?
The problem Is The sicknes, the Spanish weren't that númerous when they conquered México, four thousand at most, Even if the French of the English arrived km america first, The situation Will not be that diferent. The Europeans Will eventualy found themselves as the only organized force in The country and the Allure of the gold and Silver Will be The same
 
Did the French and English even have the resources to project their power across the ocean at this time? Even if it's just enough power for indirect empire?

Of course, the Spanish technically didn't either, so to speak.
 
It kinda does imply that, in what way were the Mughals "far more sophisticated" as a society than the Aztecs? The Aztecs had an organized state with its own levels of bureaucracy and some of the largest cities in the world that by Spanish accounts were well-kept, none of this implies they were behind the old world in societal sophistication.

To quote the Dude: well that's just, like, your opinion, man. I'm not downplaying the civilisational accomplishments of the Mesoamerican empires, thank you very much. But whatever. I'll bite.

First and foremost, the Mughal Empire's administrative system was an exceedingly well-oiled machinery, partially inherited from previous Muslim dynasties on the Indo-Gangetic plain, which allowed the empire to effectively expand its centralised governance over almost the entire length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent; supporting the growth of an economy which by the 1600s totalled between 20 and 25% of the entire world's GDP. This behemoth of a polity with its millions upon millions of subjects belonging to a myriad of different cultures and religious creeds used a single common currency, was governed, taxed and administered by the emperor's appointed officials and governors. Then there's the advanced state of Mughal India's agriculture (at some points even more advanced than those of Europe, IIRC) and its pioneering development of manufactories, not to mention the fact that it kept a standing army.
 
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I would argue that the Mughals were more sophisticated simply because the relevant time periods we're comparing are different and they had access to technological advances in weaponry. So in terms of that, of a means in which they could deter European invaders, they win in that category.
 
I could actually see the Spanish setting up something like this. There were a couple of Aztec rulers after the conquest that the Spanish appointed. Just have Cortes be less power hungry (or dead) and you might end up with an indigenous puppet of Spain rather than a colony.
 
The problem Is The sicknes, the Spanish weren't that númerous when they conquered México, four thousand at most, Even if the French of the English arrived km america first, The situation Will not be that diferent. The Europeans Will eventualy found themselves as the only organized force in The country and the Allure of the gold and Silver Will be The same

Sure, I get that disease will end up decimating the natives, but I wonder if the French or the English will bother to go through setting up the elaborate missions system and colonial hierarchy that ended up in the Mestizo societies we see today, a hybridized society. I mean, it's more likely for that to happen there than in North America, numbers of native-wise, but it feels like the Spaniards were just more zealous about civilization-building at least religious-wise.

The French in North America didn't face a ton of natives and they were fairly content to trade furs with them, and uh, support them against the Iroquois as pawns. But I mean it's a far cry from the Spanish system.
 
Thing is, there was extensive use of rule by Mesoamerican rulers, to the point that the administration was usually termed 'the two republics', as native peoples living under their own monarchs and chiefs were subject to different laws and govermental structures to the Spanish and mestizo populations.
 
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