Download Travellers` tales: how would the Spaniards describe the Aztecs to

Travellers’ tales: how would the
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Spaniards describe the Aztecs to
their friends back in Europe?
After that first meeting between the Spanish and the Aztecs, Moctezuma invited the
Spanish to live in the royal palace in Tenochtitlan for a while. Perhaps he hoped these
strange foreigners would be so overwhelmed they would go away and leave him alone. The
Spaniards were amazed – and horrified – as they found out more about Moctezuma’s
empire. What stories would you tell about the Aztecs to your friends back home – if you
were a sixteenth-century Spaniard – and how do these stories help to explain why the
Spanish built up their empire?
ACTIVITY
Over the next five pages you are going to write or record a description of the Aztecs.
Part of this description will explain why the Spanish wanted to conquer the Aztecs.
You are going to try to see the Aztecs not with your 21st-century eyes, but as one of
Cortes’ men saw them. You are going to look through a conquistador-window.
Conquistador is the Spanish for conqueror.
The conquistadors were mostly interested in three things. This was their window.
The conquistador says:
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My country is, Spain, is the most powerful country in
Europe and now we want an empire in America. We can build
ships that can sail across oceans. We have swords that are
light but lethal: long, sharp, pointed and made of Toledo
steel, the best in Europe. We have portable handguns. We
know how to fight!
→SOURCE 1
Aztec warriors.
Cortes and Moctezuma got on well and had many
long discussions. Cortes learned that the Aztecs
were almost continuously at war with
neighbouring peoples, and were always victorious,
which was why their empire was so large. The
Aztec soldiers carried spears made of sharp
stones set in a wooden frame. They wore cotton
armour, so thick it could stop an arrow. They ran
into a battle screaming and whistling, wearing
fierce warpaint and eagle headdresses. The elite
squad dressed as jaguars. They danced and
chanted as they fought. This was all designed to
terrify the enemy.
ACTIVITY
What are you going
to tell people at
home about Aztec
fighting? How does
↑SOURCE 2 - Aztec account book, showing
goods to be traded.
what you see
encourage you to
try to conquer the
Aztecs?
For example:
I think these Aztec
swords might wound us
but they won’t kill us. We
have the best swords in
Europe. The Aztecs try
to be frightening but…
The conquistador says…
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ACTIVITY
My family is poor, but I
want to get rich, go home
and live the life of a
nobleman! I want gold!
What are you going to
tell people at home
about Aztec daily life
and their possessions?
How does what you can
see encourage you to
try to conquer the
Aztecs?
The conquistadors marvelled at Tenochtitlan, the
Aztec capital city on the lake. One of them
wrote:
‘Towers, temples, stone and limestone buildings,
all built on the water. Our soldiers thought they
were dreaming. We were seeing then what we
had never seen or heard or dreamt of.’
It is thought that the city was at least 8km
square and housed at least 200,000 people. It
was divided into different areas for each trade –
woodworkers, fishermen, mosaic makers and so
on. Each area had its leader, its own temple,
priests and school. Everyone paid taxes,
collected by government officials. Poorer people
paid by working – for example, the streets of the
city were cleaned each day by 1000 sweepers.
↑SOURCE 4 – Map of Tenochtitlan.
Everyone had their place in society, from
↑SOURCE 3 – Aztec marriage ceremony: the
knotted cloak symbolises the bond of marriage.
nobles at the top, then priests, warriors,
merchants, farmers and craftsmen, to slaves
at the bottom. You could tell instantly what
layer of Aztec society someone belonged to
from the colour, quality or pattern of their
clothing.
→SOURCE 5
– Aztec child
being
punished by
being held
over a fire of
smoke from
burning chilli
peppers.
One of the conquistadors
wrote: ‘We saw on the lake
a multitude of ships, some
of which were loaded with
There was no democracy and the law was enforced with
harsh punishments, such as strangling or burning.
However the city was quiet and orderly and people were
respectful.
goods…And when we had
looked at it all, we turned to
the great market square
and the large crowd buying
and selling there. The noise
and the sound of the voices
could be heard more than a
mile away. Among us there
were soldiers who had been
in many parts of the world,
in Constantinople, in the
whole of Italy, in Rome, but
they said they had never
seen a market so well
organised and so orderly, so
large and so crowded.’
↑SOURCE 6 – Aztec market.
At the market many things on sale were new to
sixteenth century Europeans: tomatoes, squashes,
chilli peppers, sweet potatoes, avocados, peanuts,
popcorn, chewing gum, chocolate, tobacco, turkeys.
Then there were exotic goods sent as tributes
from all over the Aztec conquests: jaguar skins,
←SOURCE 7 – This
gold lip ornament was
worn through a hole in
the wearer’s lip as a
sign of nobility.
hummingbird feathers, shells, precious stones – and
lots of gold objects of all kinds. All these goods
were carried on boats on canals into the city and
then on the backs of porters: the Aztecs had no
pack-animals.
The conquistador says…
The Christian religion is
the truth, the only truth!
There were temples
everywhere in Tenochtitlan,
with the two largest in the
central square. They were
stepped pyramids with flat
tops. The pyramids were
stained white with lime and
were dazzling in the sun. On the
top of the pyramids Aztec
priests carried out human
sacrifices.
Prisoners of war – men, women
and children – were brought to
the temple and led in
procession up to the top. Each
one was held down on the altar,
then a priest cut out the
victim’s heart and raised it, still
beating and hot, to the sun. The
heart was then placed in a holy
cup, while the priests coated
the walls and statues, and
themselves, with blood. The
body was thrown back down the
steps. The skull was removed
and placed on a skull-rack, while
the soldier who had captured
the prisoner ate the rest of
the body.
→SOURCE 6 – Aztec picture of
the bodies of sacrificial victims
being thrown down the steps.
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The Aztecs believed that without this gift of human blood, the sun would not
rise the next day and the world would end. Cortes calculated that 20,000
human sacrifices had taken place that year. The smell of blood was
everywhere and the priests’ hair was so caked with blood that it could not be
combed.
This religion was nothing like the conquistadors’ Christianity. They were used
to Christian services with prayers, hymns and the story of Christ dying to
save other people. The idea of human sacrifices to the gods was not part of
their religion at all. As Christians, the conquistadors also believed that
Christianity was the one true religion and all other religions were wrong.
People worshipping other gods should be taught about the Christian god.
→SOURCE 9 – Aztec skull
with stone knives at nose
and mouth. These were the
knives used to cut out the
victim’s heart at the top of
the temple.
←SOURCE 10 – This is a
flint sacrificial knife with a
carved wooden handle.
ACTIVITY
What are you going
to tell people at home
about Aztec religion?
How does what you
can see encourage
you to try to conquer
the Aztecs?