Aztec troops, members of the noble class, farmers and artisans all fell victim to the disease. While many Spaniards had acquired an immunity to the disease, the virus was new in the Americas and few Indigenous understood it. Spaniards and their allies were taken in as prisoners the Aztecs tended to hold captured prisoners for sacrifice to the gods, rather than kill them in battle and traces of the virus were left on the clothes, hair and on the dead bodies of those who had had the disease.
The conquistadors arrived in Mesoamerica with steel swords, muskets, cannons, pikes, crossbows, dogs and horses. None of these assets had yet been used in battle in the Americas. The Aztec fought the Spanish with wooden broadswords, clubs and spears tipped with obsidian blades. When the Spanish arrived in the Americas they came from a war-oriented culture that had seen battle against other European nations for dominance and against North Africans for sovereignty.
The conquistadors arrived in Mesoamerica with better guns and had been trained in tactical strategies. They deployed a cavalry that could chase down retreating warriors, dogs trained to track down and encircle enemies and horses capable of trampling adversaries. Up against large armies of Spanish and Indigenous forces, surrounded and cut off from the mainland, and with a population succumbing to an unknown, devastating virus, the Aztec Empire was unable to fight off the invading Spanish conquistadors.
Weiner, Stanford University Press , , p. Oldstone, Oxford University Press , , p. They introduced the Aztecs to domestic animals, sugar, grains, and European farming practices.
The conquered peoples resented the Aztec demands for tribute and victims for the religious sacrifices, but the Aztec military kept rebellion at bay. The Spanish tried to change the Aztecs into Catholics and make them act like Spanish people. They made it easier to change from Aztec rule to Spanish rule by letting many Aztec nobles become Spanish nobles.
The conquistadors rewarded people who had helped them defeat the Aztecs. The Aztecs were not familiar with them. Why were the Spanish able to defeat the great Aztec Empire despite their inferior numbers? It was because the Aztecs thought that they were gods so they would not harm them, the disease of smallpox was killing them, and they had better weapons like guns and steel swords.
Why were Native Americans unable to defeat the Spanish conquistadors? Native Americans were unable to conquer the Spanish because the Spanish had more powerful weapons than them.
Explanation: The Spanish alone did a lot of damage to the Aztecs, like how they brought in European diseases and exposed the native people, which definitely weakened the Aztecs, but they did find enemies of the Aztecs like the Texaclans who aided the spanish conquistadors to defeat the Aztec people.
Hernan Cortes was able to conquer the Aztec Empire by scaring the natives with the 16 horses, gaining alliances with the other enemies of the Aztec, having superior and better weapons than the natives like guns , having armor, and having steel. What advantages did the Spanish have over the Native Americans? The overthrow of the Aztec Empire by Cortez and his expedition rests on three factors: The fragility of that empire, the tactical advantages of Spanish technology, and smallpox.
Modern disease theory and understanding simply did not exist on either side of the Atlantic in the early 16th Century. Smallpox, bad enough for European populations, is vicious with a 'virgin field' epidemic in a population with no prior exposure to the disease.
In the end, the Aztec armies lay down and died. Please provide specific examples and reasoning :. World History. John C. Apr 9, Explanation: The Aztec Empire was a analagous to a feudal model that the Spanish Conquistadors could recognize, but with refinements that severely weakened it. Related questions How do I determine the molecular shape of a molecule?
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