Aztec and Incan Empire Comparison Essay

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The way in which the Aztecs and Incas were governed was quite different. The Aztecs were governed by one ruler, but also, technically not. Aztecan society was split up into city-states. Each individual city-state had its own ruler. It could be argued that there was not even an Aztec ruler of all city-states. At the time, it was more of control. Each city-state had to pay tribute to the leader of Aztecan society yearly. If they didn’t, things like privileges were taken away from the city-state. Each city-state had many contrasting things. City-states were different in layout and there were also variations in how each city-state was governed. In contrast, the Incas had a different way of governing their empire. Rather than having separate city-states throughout the empire, the Incas were more closely connected and ruled by a single ruler in the form of a monarchy. As a benefit to their monarchy, the Incas built a series of roads throughout the empire to allow for closer communication. What was more shocking was that the Incas even had these messenger runners to send messages across the empire. The messenger runners would run a limited route and send the message to the next messenger who would run it to the next messenger. This was quite an efficient way of sending messages from one place to another at the time. The reason for this difference in political government is mostly due to the relationships inside the empire. It is quite obvious through the creation of city-states in the Aztec empire, that relationships were more tense than those inside the Incan empire, especially through the fact that the Aztec ruler demanded tribute from the city-states yearly.