Expansion of the Aztecs

Conrad and Demarest portray the Aztecs Empire to have expanded in a rapid way that made it lose its power. We can see from the beginning of the book how the Aztecs started to lose their territory but with the help of other natives they were able to become the Mexica Aztecs. The Tepanec native tribe made it possible for this the Mexica Aztecs to have gained territory and to keep their divine quest over the Mexican territory.

            I find it very interesting that the Aztecs were able to maintain political, economical, and religion as one of their main focus.  I say this because the authors describe the Aztecs as a group of people to have fundamentals of how an empire should be run. “The evolution of its social economic, and political institutions, the religious system of the Mexica Society increasingly came to resemble that of its more  ‘civilized’ Mesoamerican neighbors” (26). This truly demonstrates how quickly the Aztecs learned to develop their conquest over other native tribes.

            Also at the beginning of the book we can see that the Aztecs organized themselves and also ruled themselves by having “elections”.  Their way of thinking led them to establish an Empire that was massive. That also led them to believe that everything that was done was justify by their beliefs, but in my opinion it was more of their imperialistic instinct.

            War to them was simply part of their militaristic view. They needed that in order to improve their empire. The sacrifices that they made were purposeful and religion served as a justification. Their Gods would grant them with more benefits, that would support their economical, political and religion aspect.