Aztec Empire Research Paper

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The Fall of the Aztec Empire is a widely known historical event. What is the true cause of this? In Central Mexico during the early 1500s, the Spanish invaded the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, seized the empire and began the conversion of the Aztec religion to Catholicism. The Spanish simultaneously attacked and undermined Aztec rule by taking advantage of disagreements over taxation within the Aztec Empire. They also used their advanced weapons and organization tactics to attack the Aztec Empire in addition to using the Aztecs’ religious/spiritual beliefs against them. The Aztec tribe started out as wandering hunters and gatherers during the 1200s. Supposedly, they were told by the god of war, Huitzilopochtli, and the god of rain, Tlaloc, to …show more content…
They took this sighting as a sign from the gods that this was their new home. The once nomadic tribe had found their new residence on Lake Texcoco and started to construct temples and settlements. The Aztecs quickly expanded their empire by increasing their economy through agriculture and military conquests. By 1519, their tribe had turned into one of the world's greatest civilizations and Tenochtitlan was one of the biggest cities in the world at the time. In the Aztec religion, they practiced human sacrifice rituals. For their practice, they waged war with nearby areas only to capture people to use as sacrifices. As they started to bring in people from their nearby conquests, they began to tax more frequently. While the working and poor had to pay taxes, the nobles did not, which started to create anger and resentment. The Aztecs introduced taxes to the new territories they conquered. The Aztecs gained most of their wealth through these taxes, which the Spanish perceived as a weakness and a way to destroy the empire. When the Aztecs conquered new lands around them, they imposed taxation through metals, stones, enslaved people, and

Aztec Empire Research Paper

To a significant extent the fall of the Aztec Empire in 1521 was due to the individual actions of Hernán Cortés. However, without the aid of many factors from within, as well as without he would have never had successfully conquered the Aztec Empire. Hernán Cortés was born in Medellin, Spain, into a family of semi-nobility, receiving a university education before leaving Spain in search of the riches and renown that complemented those explorations of ‘new worlds’. Subsequently, after assisting in…

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