Michoacán

The Mighty Corn It is fascinating to understand how a tiny seed enabled our ancestors to build massive empires and sustain themselves for thousands of years. Going back to the indigenous people during the pre-Columbian era, all the way down to the conquest of Cortez, it is clear to see how corn made possible the development of societies, cultures, and beliefs. Even today, the domestication of corn plays a major role in the way our society operates, especially in the latino communities. People…

The Aztecs, as they are known, were a group of people who originated as a nomadic tribe in northern Mexico. Although the origins of the Aztecs are uncertain, they "are believed to begun as a northern tribe of hunter-gatherers whose name came from that of their homeland, Aztlan (“White Land”)." The Aztecs were also known as the Tenochca derived from their capital city, Tenochtitlan, and the Mexica. The Aztec empire was built in 1428 under leader Itzcoatl, forming a three-way alliance with the…

Hernan Cortes was a Spanish conquistador and explorer that traveled from Spain to the New World when he was only 19. In the New World, he commanded just 600 soldiers and was able to conquer the Aztec empire who commanded tens of thousands of men. He was able to perform this astonishing feat by using strategy, ruthlessness, cunning, and an extreme amount of luck. After his conquest in the New World, Cortes became the governor of New Spain. After seven years of being the governor he was appointed…

In Song of the Hummingbird, the book describes the story of an indigenous woman named Huitzitzilin who explains her story to a Spanish monk. The Spanish monk finds her story to be fascinating because it is not what he was taught back in Spain. He sympathizes with her and begins to see the conquest through her perspective. She details the events that her people endured at the hands of Cortes and his Spanish conquerors. The text is organized by chapters as Huitzitzilin reiterates her story to…

The Aztecs did not actually refer to themselves as Aztecs. In fact, a significant percentage of the Aztecs were of a tribe called the Mexica Tribe and the people were referred to as the Mexica People. The term Aztec was coined by the Spanish but was made popular by the Germans in the early 1900s. The topic of this essay is to find out if the Spanish Conquest of the Americas had a significant impact on the Aztecs. In the first paragraph, the way of life preceding Spanish arrival and interaction…

Akhil Kemburu Short Essay #1, Feb. 8th, Section D The Fall of the Natives’ Civilizations: Were the Spanish at Fault? Christopher Columbusis proclaimed as a hero and an explorer because if it were not were his voyage in 1492, the New World may not have been discovered until much later. His proposal to sail to India by traveling west is what led him to the New World, and the Europeans’ encounter with the Native Americans. Although Columbus is heavily praised today, the consequences of his…

European Invasion of the Aztec Empire After Columbus discovered the New World, Europeans began to flood into the new region where they encountered many native people mistakenly referring to them as people of India hence the term Indians. These native civilizations, though seeming cut off from the rest of the world flourished with large cities and advanced technology that is still revival in today’s modern science, especially in the field of Astrology. One of the societies the Europeans…

In 1116, the Aztec Empire began their two hundred year odyssey. Legend says that the Aztecs’ Sun god, Huitzilopochtli, gave them their journey. The Aztec people felt they were chosen to maintain the cosmos. They were chosen to be sure the sun had enough energy to travel across the sky and make certain the earth had enough nutrition to support their crops. They felt the way to do this was through blood offerings. To the Aztecs, the heart was the most valuable thing a mortal could offer the gods.…

From 1492 when Columbus first “discovered” the Americas, Iberian colonisation of the native Amerindian peoples had begun. Already inhabited by the native peoples, the Spanish and Portuguese begun the task of conquering through killing, enslaving and bringing the natives under their rule and power. This large and expansive conquest of Central and South America killed conceivably as much as 90% of the natives in little under 200 years, due to the introduction of old world disease and the power of…

Aztec is a term that refers to people linked trade, religion, and language. They were considered to be the most documented Mesopotamian civilization. They were known as the Nahuatl speaking people, of central Mexico, and there was known to be 11,000,000 of them. The Aztecs were first founded in the 6th century. The founding of the Aztecs began in Aztlan, Mexico. That is where they first settled on the journey of being an Aztec. They left their home, and they began a long journey of trying to…