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THE AZTECS
Teotihuacan
City-State of Mexico
 Outside modern-day Mexico City
 Abandon by 750 A.D.
 “City of the Gods”

Toltecs
Took over after the fall of Teotihuuacan
 Leader, Topiltzin, tried to change the
religion and end sacrifices.
 Quetzalcoatl- feathered serpent god

AZTEC EMPIRE LOCATION
The Aztecs were a great nation of
nomadic warriors who traveled Mexico in
about 1200 A.D. years ago in search of a
land to call their own.
THE EAGLE AND THE SNAKE
The Aztec chief had a dream in which
their god appeared to him and
declared that the Aztecs would build a
great nation where the eagle with a
snake in its talons lands on a cactus.
THE ISLAND IN THE LAKE
The warriors searched for many days
and came upon a lake. They were
tired and hungry. They gazed out
upon the lake and saw a huge eagle
swoop down, grab a snake in its
talons and land on a cactus that was
on an island in the middle of the lake.
GREAT BUILDERS
Began to build a great nation in the
middle of a huge lake (Tenochtitlan)
 Great gardens and streams.
 They traveled by boat much like in
Venice.
 Planned city built of gold

Floating Gardens

As the Aztec population grew,
more food was needed.

Created “floating” gardens.
They built a series of rafts, which
they anchored to the lake bed.
They piled on dirt and grew
crops. They made walkways out
of mud and reeds to connect the
floating rafts.

Grew chili peppers, squash,
corn, tomatoes, and beans
THE AZTEC EDUCATION
Very well educated
 Advanced calendar
 Performed brain surgery
 Great in mathematics,
architecture, building,
astronomy, medicine,
surgery, and farming

THE AZTEC RELIGION
Polytheistic
 Personification (i.e.
Sun, Moon)
 They thought that the
moon and the sun did
battle every night and
day.

THE AZTECS GODS
Believed that in
order to give the
Sun power to defeat
the moon and rise
each morning the
Sun must have a
blood sacrifice.
 Sacrificed a beating
heart everyday

THE AZTEC SACRAFICES
Forced to be at constant war to obtain
prisoners to sacrifice
 Never killed their enemies.
 Captured them and held them for daily
sacrifice.
 Placed on a bench, and their heart was cut
out while a stone statue of Chac-mool was
placed in.

THE AZTEC WARFARE
The Aztecs were
feared and hated
by all of the
other Indian
tribes of Mexico.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE SPANISH
Hernán Cortes had
heard of the infamous
Aztecs.
 The Spanish were
experiencing gold
fever
 Agreed to come to the
Americas and conquer
the Aztecs and steal
their gold

THE CONQUEST OF THE
AZTECS
The Spanish conquistadors landed in
Mexico with approximately 300 men
and 40 horses.
 Traveled Mexico and met with the
Indians
 Upon hearing how fierce the Aztecs
were, Cortes’s men became scared
 Cortes burned his ships. This forced his
men to fight or die.

THE AZTEC TRAITOR
Another Indian tribe
gave Cortes a woman
slave by the name of
Malintzin.
 She had been
captured as a child
by the Mayas.
 She was an Aztec and
spoke many different
languages because
she had been traded.

THE COMING OF THE AZTEC GOD
Malintzin became
infatuated with
Cortes because he
was nice.
 Told Cortes that the
Aztecs were awaiting
their god
Quetzalcoatl to
return this year

THE MEETING
According to Aztec
legend a tall white man
had appeared and ruled
and left the Aztecs after
promising to return in
100 years to rule them
again.
 Hernán Cortes was
Spanish. He was a tall
white man.
 He came to
Tenochtitlan that exact
year.

MOCTEZUMA
Hernán Cortes
presented
himself to the
Aztec leader
Moctezuma and
claimed to be
their returning
God.
THE END OF THE AZTECS
Moctezuma gave the
Spaniards gifts of
gold and welcomed
them to his city.
 The Aztecs had never
before seen horses
and guns and wept
with fear.
 They believed Hernán
Cortes to be their
long lost god.

HERNAN CORTES
Hernan Cortes and his men killed
Moctezuma.
 They had given an enemy a key to the
city.
 Disease spread throughout
Tenochtitlan.
 One third of the Indians were stricken
and died of Small Pox.

THE GREAT BATTLE
The Aztecs decided to kill the Spaniards.
However, they were sick with disease
and without a leader.
 Spaniards were out numbered one
thousand to one.
 The other Indian tribes saw this as an
opportunity to be rid of the Aztecs and
came to help.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE GOLD?
While some were fighting the
Spaniards, the Aztecs men, women, and
children worked and gathered up the
gold throughout the city and piled it
into boats.
 One by one they sunk those boats into
the lake.

MEXICO CITY
The bulk of the Aztec gold was lost to the
world.
 The great Aztec empire fell. Mexico then
built a great city on the site which used
to be Tenochtitlan.
 The Aztec symbol is proudly flown on the
Mexican flag, and today the Mexican
people view the Aztecs and not Cortes as
national heros.
