The Impact Of The Aztecs

When discussing the natives that inhabited North America before Europeans came to the New World, people often refer to groups such as the Cherokee, the Apache, or the Crow. While these groups have all made an impact on the United States and North America as a whole, people often forget about a group of Native Americans that literally built an empire and dominated much of the landscape in southern Mexico. It is quite possible that this group may be overlooked all too often because their lifestyle didn’t exactly fit what the average person would consider as being “Native American” or “Indian.” Rather than living in small villages, these people lived in city-states. Instead of small hit and run strikes against their enemies, this group of people waged wars against other city states. This group was known at the Nahuatl, or more commonly referred to as, the Aztecs. Although the Aztecs were known for revolutionizing and impacting society across the continent, there were two things that jumped out at me as things that truly defined the Aztec culture. Firstly, the Aztec’s art of warfare was truly revolutionary in its time. Many

The first way that the Aztecs collected people to sacrifice was by way of volunteering by a fellow Aztec, which was very uncommon due to the fact that no one wants to willingly be sacrificed. The second way that the Nahuatl collected victims was by capturing prisoners during times of war. Elites in the Aztec army were heavily rewarded with rank and wealth for bringing back prisoners to sacrifice. The final way that the Aztecs collected people to kill was by way of what many scholars call the “Flower Wars.” These wars were not waged for wealth, land, or for conquering cities. Instead, the aim of these battles were to capture all of the enemies with minimal killing and then transporting them to an Aztec temple to be