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Aztec Dbq Analysis

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Human sacrifice has been a part of many religions, so why do historians only emphasize the barbarities of human sacrifice and not why people were sacrificed? The Aztecs were one of the many groups of people to use human sacrifice. The reign of the Aztec Empire was during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries in Southern Mexico. The Aztec Empire had a huge population and was very influential in its time. Although influential and powerful the reign of the Aztec Empire came to an end in the year 1519 when Hernan Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, invaded the Aztec Empire and destroyed much of their culture. While the Aztec empire was flourishing they practiced human sacrifice for flower wars, political reasons, and other ulterior motives. Historians …show more content…

"Aztec rulers, priest, and nobility used the cult of war and large-scale human sacrifice for political purposes to terrorize their neighbors and subdue the lower class (Doc F)." The Aztec found a way to use the act of human sacrifice to their advantage, they were able to accomplish this by using intimidation on their rivals. The Aztec also made "independent territories resulting in deliberate policy that unoccupied lands remain for future "flower wars" (Docs A). The Aztec people were really smart in how they did that but extremely cruel. The Aztecs made sacrifice the main purpose of life of these people. Even though they had well executed plans to capture as many people for sacrifice it was no way to treat a person. Also, historians rarely talk about the ulterior motives of the rulers of the Aztec empire and where or not the sacrifices were just for the keeping the gods at ease. One "possible explanation is demographic. If central Mexico was as densely populated as we believe, then the sacrifices may have been a kind of population control (Doc F)." Although there isn't any tangible evidence it would only make sense why they might have used sacrifice as a population control in a society struggling to produce

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