Effects of Colonization for the Aztecs

When the Aztec civilization was taken over by the Spanish, many things changed. Some of the changes include, war and violence, religion, disease and population decline, the destruction of culture and cities, Spanish rule and land owner ship; and a few positive effects.

When Cortès and group of 11 ships and five hundred men set out to explore Mexico and the Central American Coast, they had no intention of finding a huge new civilization in the middle of a lake, although they had heard rumours of a grand kingdom in Mexico. When they arrived Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs thought they were some sort of god. Following this, they sent him gifts. But Cortès was not satisfied. He waited until Montezuma, the Aztec King, had sent him a sufficient amount of gifts, before attacking, but when he did attack, in was in an extremely bloodthirsty way.

Once the Spanish had taken over the Aztecs, there were many things they wanted to change.

English: Reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the capit...

Aztec Calendar

An illustration from Codex Mendoza depicting elder...

One of these was religion. There were huge amounts of Aztecs converted to Christian, which was the Spanish native religion. The main orders of Spanish monks who were doing this converting were the Fracsciscians, the Dominicans, and the Augustinians.

One of the problems that the Spanish imposed on the Aztecs was the fact that many of them carried around diseases. Epidemics spread throughout Mexico in the Sixteenth century like wildfire. The main diseases were measles, smallpox, typhus, mumps and a few unknown ones. Sixty percent of the Central Mexicans were wiped out with one epidemic of Typhus.

The destruction of the Aztec culture and tradition was inevitable once the Spanish had arrived. Most of the languages were lost, and the land ownership system had been changed. Despite the losses, there were some things that didn't change. The Spanish left the...