1. Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs
TEKS 6.1A, 6.2B

2. What do you think are some differences between Aztec society and Kiowa society?
Which people likely had math and literacy?
The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Tenochtitlan was located where Mexico City is today.
A Kiowa village.

3. The Aztecs were a farming people. They primarily grew corn.
Here they farm on a Chinampas: a type of Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds
What are the advantages of farming or hunting and gathering?

4. Why do you think the warriors dressed like this to fight?
Aztec Warriors.
Why do you think the warriors dressed like this to fight?
Aztec club called a macuahuitl or “hand stick” in Nahua the Aztec Language. The edge is sharp obsidian.

5. The Aztecs valued feathers more than gold
The Aztecs valued feathers more than gold. (They were not a monetary society). They would send out hunting expeditions to hunt for birds.

6. The Aztecs would capture people from neighboring tribes to sacrifice to their gods. In this picture a captive is sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli the Aztec sun god.
How big of a role did religion have in Aztec society?
Why would a farming society have gods devoted to the sun and water?

7. This is a map of the Aztec Empire showing all the other tribes they had conquered.
Why do you think the Aztecs wanted to conquer other people?

8. In 1519 the Aztec were conquered by the Spanish
In 1519 the Aztec were conquered by the Spanish. From 1519 to 1821 Mexico would be a Spanish colony.
The same fate happened to the Inca in Peru in Spanish conquistadors defeated 100,000 Inca warriors!
Machu Picchu in the Andes mountains of Peru.
The Inca Empire