The Aztec and Inca Empires

1427 O.S. – 24 Sep 1572 O.S.69 items

americasempires
“The Meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma”, from the Conquest of Mexico series, oil on canvas by unknown Mexican artists, second half of the seventeenth century. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Library of Congress. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
“The Meeting of Cortés and Moctezuma”, from the Conquest of Mexico series, oil on canvas by unknown Mexican artists, second half of the seventeenth century. Jay I. Kislak Collection, Library of Congress. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Two empires, one conquest

In 1428 the Mexica of Tenochtitlan and their allies broke the power of Azcapotzalco and began the empire we call Aztec. A decade later, by tradition, an Inca prince who took the name Pachacuti saved Cusco from the Chanka and began to build Tawantinsuyu. Neither knew the other existed. Within a century both fell to a few hundred Spaniards fighting beside far larger Indigenous armies, with epidemics running ahead of them. This timeline runs from 1427 to 24 September 1572, when the last Inca of Vilcabamba, Túpac Amaru, was beheaded in Cusco.

How it is built

  • Two stacks of bands run side by side: each empire, then each ruler of Tenochtitlan and each Sapa Inca, then the four Incas of Vilcabamba who held out for thirty-five years after Cusco fell.

  • Campaigns, sieges and the smallpox of 1520 are bands of their own. The marches of Cortés in 1519 and Pizarro in 1532 are drawn as routes.

  • A last band follows the collapse of the population, which outlasted every battle here.

Filter by tag to follow one thread: aztecs, incas, spain, war, colonialism, epidemics. Smaller threads follow sieges, uprising, gold, religion and writing.

We were amazed and said that it was like the enchantments they tell of in the legend of Amadis, on account of the great towers and cues and buildings rising from the water, and all built of masonry. And some of our soldiers even asked whether the things that we saw were not a dream? — Bernal Díaz del Castillo, on first seeing Tenochtitlan, translated by A. P. Maudslay

Dates

Spain kept the Julian calendar until October 1582, so every day date here is Julian, as the Spaniards wrote it. Tenochtitlan fell on 13 August 1521 Julian, which is 23 August in the Gregorian calendar we use today; Cajamarca was 16 November 1532 Julian.

Dates before contact are traditional. Aztec reigns come from the Mexica year counts, turned into European years by colonial writers. Inca reigns come from John Rowe’s 1945 reading of the chronicler Cabello Valboa, and carry a range of years here: radiocarbon dates from Machu Picchu suggest the Inca expansion began decades earlier than Rowe’s dates allow.

Items

  1. Itzcoatl

    ≈ 13 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  2. The Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire)

    ≈ 93 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  3. The Tepanec War: Azcapotzalco falls

    Azcapotzalco, Mexico City

  4. Nezahualcoyotl rules Texcoco

    Texcoco, State of Mexico

  5. Tawantinsuyu (Inca Empire)

    ≈ 95 years · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  6. Pachacuti

    ≈ 33 years · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  7. The Chanka attack on Cusco

    Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  8. Moctezuma I

    ≈ 29 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  9. Machu Picchu

    Machu Picchu, Urubamba valley

  10. The famine of One Rabbit

    Basin of Mexico

  11. Topa Inca Yupanqui

    ≈ 22 years · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  12. Axayacatl

    12 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  13. Topa Inca conquers Chimor

    Chan Chan, near Trujillo, Peru

  14. Tenochtitlan conquers Tlatelolco

    Tlatelolco, Mexico City

  15. Defeat by the Tarascans

    Taximaroa (Ciudad Hidalgo), Michoacán

  16. Tizoc

    ≈ 5 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  17. Ahuitzotl

    16 years · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  18. The Templo Mayor rededicated

    Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  19. Huayna Capac

    ≈ 34 years · Quito, Ecuador

  20. Moctezuma II

    ≈ 17 years, 11 months · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  21. The last New Fire

    Huixachtlan (Cerro de la Estrella), Iztapalapa

  22. Malintzin joins the Spaniards

    Potonchán, near the mouth of the Grijalva, Tabasco

  23. Cortés lands at San Juan de Ulúa

    San Juan de Ulúa, Veracruz

  24. Cortés’s march to Tenochtitlan

    2 months, 24 days · Cortés’s march from Cempoala to Tenochtitlan (approximate)

  25. Alliance with Tlaxcala

    Tizatlán, Tlaxcala

  26. Massacre at Cholula

    Cholula, Puebla

  27. Cortés meets Moctezuma

    Huitzillan, on the southern causeway into Tenochtitlan

  28. The collapse of the population

    ≈ 52 years

  29. Smallpox in central Mexico

    7 months, 4 days

  30. The Toxcatl massacre

    Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  31. Moctezuma dies

    Palace of Axayacatl, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  32. La Noche Triste

    The Tlacopan causeway, from Tenochtitlan to Tlacopan (Tacuba)

  33. Battle of Otumba

    Plain of Otumba, State of Mexico

  34. Cuitláhuac

    ≈ 3 months, 1 day · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  35. Cuauhtémoc

    8 months · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  36. Brigantines launched at Texcoco

    Texcoco, State of Mexico

  37. The siege of Tenochtitlan

    2 months, 19 days · Templo Mayor, Tenochtitlan (Mexico City)

  38. Tenochtitlan falls

    Tlatelolco, Mexico City

  39. Cuauhtémoc hanged in Acalan

    Itzamkanac (El Tigre), capital of Acalan, Campeche

  40. Huáscar

    ≈ 5 years · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  41. Huayna Capac dies of a new disease

  42. The Thirteen of Gallo

    Isla del Gallo, off Tumaco, Colombia

  43. The Inca civil war

    ≈ 3 years

  44. The Capitulación de Toledo

    Toledo, Castile

  45. Atahualpa

    ≈ 1 year, 24 days · Main square, Cajamarca

  46. Pizarro’s march to Cajamarca

    1 month, 22 days · Pizarro’s march from San Miguel to Cajamarca (approximate)

  47. Atahualpa captured at Cajamarca

    Main square, Cajamarca

  48. Atahualpa’s ransom

    ≈ 6 months · El Cuarto del Rescate, Cajamarca

  49. Atahualpa executed

    Main square, Cajamarca

  50. Pizarro enters Cusco

    Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  51. Manco Inca

    ≈ 10 years, 6 months · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  52. Lima founded

    Plaza Mayor, Lima

  53. The college of Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco

    Tlatelolco, Mexico City

  54. The siege of Cusco

    10 months, 4 days · Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco

  55. The Spaniards storm Sacsayhuamán

    Sacsayhuamán, above Cusco

  56. The Neo-Inca State of Vilcabamba

    ≈ 34 years, 11 months · Vilcabamba (Espíritu Pampa), Cusco region

  57. Manco’s victory at Ollantaytambo

    Ollantaytambo, Urubamba valley

  58. Francisco Pizarro assassinated

    Plaza Mayor, Lima

  59. The Codex Mendoza

  60. The New Laws

    Barcelona, Aragon

  61. Sayri Túpac

    14 years · Vilcabamba (Espíritu Pampa), Cusco region

  62. Manco Inca killed at Vitcos

    Vitcos (Rosaspata), Vilcabamba

  63. Silver at Potosí

    Cerro Rico, Potosí, Bolivia

  64. The cocoliztli of 1545

  65. Titu Cusi Yupanqui

    ≈ 13 years · Vilcabamba (Espíritu Pampa), Cusco region

  66. Titu Cusi dictates his account

  67. Túpac Amaru

    ≈ 1 year, 2 months · Vilcabamba (Espíritu Pampa), Cusco region

  68. Vilcabamba taken

    Vilcabamba (Espíritu Pampa), Cusco region

  69. Túpac Amaru executed in Cusco

    Haukaypata (Plaza de Armas), Cusco