THE AMERICAS
BY KIRK H. BEETZ
In the ancient Americas people who openly disagreed with or
resisted those in power tended to be treated harshly. Dissent
was seen as a threat to the entire community for its risk of
upsetting the social structure or incurring the wrath of the
supernatural world. Th e mythology of North Americans sug-
gests that dissenters were ejected from their tribes or villages.
Sometimes these outcasts founded a new home and became
celebrated as persecuted people who began a new and glorious
village or culture. Behind the mythology is the implication
that people needed to be in groups to survive, and outcasts
usually did not survive expulsion.
More is known about the eff ects of resistance and dissent
in the societies of ancient Mesoamerica than in those from
lands farther north. Perhaps the greatest city of the ancient
Americas was Teotihuacán, which reached its peak from be-
fore 100 c.e. to about the mid-500s c.e. It had a highly regi-
mented society. Its commoners lived in apartments that were
organized into gridlike blocks. Each apartment housed three
families, with sleeping, cooking, and working areas for each
family. Archaeologists speculate that the housing was in-
tended to keep commoners well organized. One eff ect would
be t hat a n i nd iv idu a l fa m i ly wou ld have l it t le pr ivac y i n wh ich
to conspire against the government. For those people who did
resist the rulers of Teotihuacán, appalling fates awaited. Th ey
would be tortured and executed, perhaps sacrifi ced to a god.
Despite the government’s eff or t s to keep it s people i n l i ne ,
dissent seems to have become a problem. During the 400s c.e.
the commoners may have become restive, perhaps even re-
belling on occasion. Th eir grievances may have included the
conspicuous and ever-widening gap between their welfare
and that of the social elite. Eventually, much of the center of
the city was burned during either an attack from outside or a
revolt of the residents of the city. Because there seems to have
been no one outside the city powerful enough to challenge it,
archaeologists are inclined to believe that the destruction was
caused by residents fi ghting against their rulers. Th e revolts
marked the decline of Teotihuacán. Most of the people of the
city moved away to join Mayan city-states or to found agri-
cultural communities in Mexico.
When the Olmec fl ourished is debated among archaeolo-
gists, but the culture seems to have lasted about a thousand
years, from about 1500 to 500 b.c.e. Th e Olmec developed a
complex culture and built some large monuments. Th ey are
now best known for their huge carvings of stone heads. Th ey
did not develop large cities and presumably did not have city
cultures. Dissent among the Olmec may have taken the form
of religious protest, and one reason they did not build big
cities may have been resistance by commoners to being or-
ganized in large groups separated from the life of the land—
agriculture, hunting, and gathering.
Th e Maya drew some of their culture from the Olmec,
though many archaeologists believe that the Maya were not
necessarily descendants of the Olmec. Near the end of their
era the Olmec developed writing, something the Maya used
to organize their society. Writing allowed rulers to extend
the reach of their laws and traditions through written doc-
uments, much as other literate cultures have done in other
parts of the world.
Th e Maya worked at creating a society in which every per-
son knew his or her role in the community. Each person was
supposed to have a place and a duty within society from birth
and was expected to focus on that place and duty throughout
his or her life. Th is became a social contract between com-
moners and their lords in which the elite had obligations to
the commoners just as binding as those the commoners had
to the elite. Th e Maya may have escaped some of the problemsIvory panel commemorating Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, an orator
and fi gure in Roman government and a prominent pagan; he was
banished by the emperor, a Christian. (© Th e Trustees of the British
Museum)
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