Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The reducciones brought people and animals in much closer contact with one another. Animals imported from the Old World were potential disease vectors for illnesses. [17] The Aztecs and other Indigenous groups affected by the outbreak were disadvantaged due to their lack of exposure to zoonotic diseases. [17]
Mexico's native population was one of the first to experience a smallpox epidemic, where many succumbed to the disease. In 1520, the first wave of smallpox killed 5–8 million people. From 1545 to 1576, up to 17 million people died from smallpox. This large amount of deaths in the second wave are thought to be the result of hemorrhagic fevers. [5]
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
Diseases like smallpox could travel great distances and spread throughout large populations, which was the case with the Aztecs having lost approximately 50% of its population from smallpox and other diseases. [33] The disease killed an estimated forty percent of the native population in the area within a year.
It killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year in the 18th century, including five reigning European monarchs. [28] Most people became infected during their lifetimes, and about 30% of people infected with smallpox died from the disease, presenting a severe selection pressure on the resistant survivors. [29]
Tlacaelel recast or strengthened the concept of the Aztecs as a chosen people and elevated the tribal god/hero Huitzilopochtli to the top of the pantheon of gods. In tandem with this, Tlacaelel increased the level and prevalence of human sacrifice, particularly during a period of natural disasters that started in 1446 (according to Durán).
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
When Cortés and his men killed one of the Aztec leaders, the Aztecs broke off the battle and left the field. [ 48 ] : 303–05 In this retreat, the Spaniards suffered heavy casualties, losing 860 soldiers, 72 other Spanish members of Cortés' group, including five women, and 1,000 Tlaxcalan warriors.