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Pros And Cons Of The Aztecs

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A century after Columbus made the Americas known to Europe, the Spaniards sent out additional ships to explore and bring back wealth and knowledge. However, Hérnan Cortés, the leader of this expedition, did not follow his mission. He first conquered a city on the coast and moved inward to continue overtaking the Aztec empire (Lecture?). The moment Cortés and his men touched the land, European diseases such as smallpox and yellow fever began decimating the Aztecs, who had never built up immunities. In addition to this, there had already been drought, causing a shortage of food and water throughout the empire. In all, this made it relatively easy for Cortés to capture the capital city of Tenochtitlan. The immune systems of the inhabitants of the Americas were completely unaccustomed to the diseases of the Old World. Thus, smallpox, a disease that the Europeans usually caught in their childhoods, wiped out up to ninety percent of the population of the Aztecs. The pestilence inhibited the Aztecs from even the smallest movement which made a great percentage of the population bedridden. This caused them to weaken, and starve due to the fact that no person could rise to get food, and those who were …show more content…

The drought led to “the price of grain skyrocketing, left granaries empty and many people without water.” When the battle of Tenochtitlan began, the city was put under siege. The citizens, already starving and dying from smallpox, began to run out of food. One Aztec accounted that “there was famine, [and] many died of hunger…The water they drank was salty. Everything was eaten: lizards, swallows, maize straw, grass that grows on salt flats…and they chewed at…wood, glue flowers, plaster, leather…” Anything that could possibly be eaten, was consumed to some degree. In this way, many of the Aztec people died off without Cortés having to kill them

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Using the native peoples, the Spaniards gained an advantage in knowledge and strength which helped them mostly conquer the Americas. Finally, the spread of disease can both be agreed upon in both Guns, Germs, and Steel and Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Restall says that the diseases began to be brought to Mexico in the year of 1518 and spread to South America by the end of the 1530’s . Disease in this time is almost inescapable and targeted both the conquistadors and the indigenous alike.

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The Aztecs were one of the most famous and successful early civilizations of the Americas that we know of, who ruled an empire in the modern day country of Mexico from 1350 to 1519. From their capital city of Tenochtitlan, now known as Mexico City, to their daily routines, the Aztecs had many achievements that they deserve recognition for. Two very important components in the history of the Aztecs are agriculture and human sacrifice. Although they both play huge roles in Aztec culture, historians should emphasize on their methods of farming. The reasons why historians should center their focus on the Aztecs' agricultural techniques are they affected the growth of their empire, were used on a huge scale, and were very unique in comparison to other

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Instead of converting the Aztecs to Christianity, Hernan Cortes committed genocide. Originally he traveled with an army of six hundred men to Tenochtitlan, to introduce the Aztecs to Christianity. In the end, he was a murderer in the eyes of the Aztecs and conquered the Aztec Empire. Hernan Cortes was a villain because, he was ignorant, manipulative, and ambitious. He slaughtered a nation and destroyed a magnificent city.

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In the Age of Exploration, the Columbian Exchange was created between Europe and the Americas as a massive exchange of plants, animals, and diseases. In document 2, the Columbian Exchange is depicted, and a main part of it shows how many diseases– smallpox, measles, and typhus– were brought by Europe to the Americas. In The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico, Miguel Léon-Portilla claims that diseases struck "everywhere in the city and kill[ed] a vast number of... people" (Document 7). The illnesses caused many sores to appear on peoples' faces and bodies. Some people could not walk or move as they were helpless and cried in agony.

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Diseases only found in the European world, such as smallpox, spread to the Americas due to people migrating with these diseases. Since natives did not have diseases like these, they were easily killed off by them. These diseases ended up killing 90 percent of the population native to America. The large number of deaths allowed the conquistadors to greatly outnumber indigenous people and easily capture the now weak tribes. Some may point out that the American diseases must have also affected the Europeans.

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With the Spaniards venturing to the Americas during their conquest, they unintentionally brought diseases along with them. While this could have been little to no issue, it turned into a massive killer for the natives due to them not having the tolerance against them like the Spaniards did. The “...epidemic of smallpox..” took cities by storm and caused deaths that could easily have been avoided (The Broken Spears, 92). This “... terrible plague that… spread throughout the city” weakened the natives to the point where “...no one could walk or move”, leaving them helpless and unable to take care of themselves (The Broken Spears, 91-93). This tragedy may not have been directly the fault of the Spaniards, considering spreading a disease was more than likely not their top priority, however, it is something that caused the natives great deals of pain and suffering over the course of the Spaniards’ conquest and demonstrated how little the Spaniards cared about the Native Americans and their

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Summary Paper The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs had massive empires with amazing achievements, but each of them had their downfall. European exploration drastically changed the lives of these empires. They valued the Earth and the land where as Europeans did not causing them to conclude that they were different which made them think of the native Americans as savages. However European exploration was not the main factor of their downfall; the Incas and Aztecs downfall was from poor leadership, however the Mayan’s downfall came from over farming and civil disorder.

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The Aztec leader Montecuhzoma was a poor leader, he wasn’t concerned about the wellbeing of his people. In Broken Spears, readers will see that the Spaniards use nearby tribes to take over the Aztecs land, the Spaniards killed men, women and children. When the Aztecs hear about what the Spaniards have done they become furious and plan to retaliate but are quickly stopped by the diseases brought by the Spaniards. The Aztecs are exposed to small pox and measles but the Spaniards were unaffected by the diseases because they are well known in Europe and they are exposed to diseases

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Around 90% passed on because of ailment with the most reduced Native American populaces recorded in 1900. The introductory 50 years after Columbus ' landing crushed the populaces of the Caribbean and Meso America. It is currently clear that the success of the Aztecs by Cortes was helped significantly by the ailments acquired by the Spanish 1519. In South America illnesses, particularly smallpox, spread in front of the Spanish to bring about a common war among the Inca furthermore debilitate their armed forces to give preference to Pizarro and his when they touched base in 1532. The waterfront zones of Brazil were settled by the Portuguese starting in 1500 and the beachfront zones endured the best populace loss of Native Americans at first.

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The Spanish had to retreat but one of the most lethal weapons was disease that had already been passed on to the Aztecs. Smallpox with no treatment or prevention swept through the Aztec population. This killed their army leaders and left them weak to attack. Cortés took this as an advantage and in his final attack along with Aztec enemies he

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Slide 1- Introduction Good morning/afternoon everybody, today I have been assigned with informing you all about the Aztecs, or more importantly, the reason for their annihilation. Now you may be thinking that it was mainly to do with a war, but it is actually almost solely a disease called the variola disease or as it’s more commonly known, small-pox Slide 2-What were the symptoms and effects Now you may be wondering what made the disease so dangerous to the Aztecs. The main problem of the disease was the fact that not only did it kill 3/10 people effected it also severely lowered the victims fighting capabilities meaning that when the Spanish attempted to fight the Aztecs, it became much more favourable to the Aztecs. (Healthline, n.d.)

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Cuitlahuac Soon died from Chickenpox. Then Cuauhtémoc took throne, how is Cuitlahuac’s nephew. The Spaniards brought Chickenpox, Measles, Mumps, and a few other dieses from Europe. It is estimated that almost 80 percent of the Aztec population was killed by dieses, this is because the Aztecs having no immunity to these dieses what so ever.

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The Spanish were able to colonize Mexico without much resistance.” After the smallpox epidemic, the Aztecs were even more vulnerable. The Spanish exploration and conquering of Tenochtitlan was to gain power for the Spanish empire, but the city’s people were somewhat considered rebellious, and consequently, Cortes needed to conquer/kill the people first. By taking down the people of the city, Cortes was exposed to the city’s great treasures for his reward of gold; he retrieved all the gold he could, and travelled back to Spain where he was labelled a hero for his acts of

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Due to the native belief that their god Quetzalcoatl was going to come back, they mistook the European riding a horse as their god and invited him into their intricate kingdom. However, a civil war breaks out and the Europeans destroyed the empire with their more advanced weapons and European diseases such as smallpox. Similarly in Peru, Francisco Pizzaro destroyed the Inca Empire with advanced weapons and smallpox. Latin America was now a site of colonization as it became exploited of its natural resources and people.

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The Colonisation of Latin America had a major negative impact on these indigenous people as the arrival in Latin America collided with 12,000 years of isolation from Eurasia which imposed many diseases on the natives. The natives were unable to fight of these diseases as they did not have the immune system for these types of sickness nor the appropriate medicine so many of them died as a result. These diseases included small pox, measles and influenza, bubonic plagues, cholera and tropical

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