Aztec Empire Essay Sample

The Aztec Empire peaked in the 1500s, creating an empire that was capable, organized and powerful. They were part of the Triple Alliance along with Texcoco and Tlacopan, gaining control over the territories in The Valley of Mexico. The Aztec Empire was based in The Valley of Mexico after conquering the civilization living there, the Toltec civilization and renouncing their nomadic ways, to follow one of their gods, Huilzilopchtli’s command. The Valley of Mexico provided them with fertile land and large bodes of water, allowing them to have good agriculture which lead to the expansion of the territory and of the people. They also had large amounts of obsidian allowing them to create razor-sharp weapons  that they were able to conquer their neighboring territories with and trade it with others.

The Aztec Empire was able to thrive and grow through the unification of social classes and the creation of communication systems. 

The hierarchical system of the Aztec Empire created balance and reliability for both people of noble and commoner origin. They only had three social classes, nobles, commoners, and slaves. The emperor was always of noble origin, however nobility wasn’t granted through birth rather it was earned. Through the military, men were able to achieve noble status for themselves and their families by climbing the ranks and performing brave, risky acts in battle (Richard).  This created balance because majority of the soldiers were originally farmers or of lower class yet they had the chance to become nobles, or even emperor, and it would allow for lower classes to rely on nobles as they came from their own and could relate to them. The Empire was run by the emperor who was so great in the eyes of his people that they couldn’t even look him in the eyes. The emperor was omnipotent over the rest of society, however he had advisors and governmental officials to give input (McDougal). This created balance because the emperor was of noble origin and everyone had the ability to become nobles meaning they could become emperor.

Through the creation of different structures and systems the people of the Aztec Empire became unified. As the empire grew they needed various structures and systems to allow all the people, conquered and captive as well as born, to communicate. They had a language called Nahuatl, or Aztec, which originated from European explorers coming from the north. The language spread to the territories around them such as the Toltec civilization (Aztec). This unified them as the two civilizations were able to communicate and when the Toltecs were conquered, they were still able to communicate with the  Aztec people when they were held captive. The language lead to a writing system of sorts, however, it was made up of glyphs and pictographs rather than words (Aztec). They used them to keep record of events and of people, similar to a census. They spread their religion to their neighbors as they conquered them, as religion was a key part of their lives. They had over 1000 gods but the one they prioritized the most was Huitzilopochtli, the sun god, they would worship the gods by performing rituals and sacrifices, which often included humans, leading them to sacrifice thousands of people every year (McDougal). They spread this to the surrounding territories, and this unified them as they had one common belief and they were able to worship and sacrifice together.