How Did The Americans Lead To The Destruction Of The Aztecs

The conquest of the Americas started when North and South America was first discovered by Christopher Columbus. During the time of the conquest, civilizations across the ocean were racing to inhabit the new found land. However, they were not the first people to live there. Native Americans have inhabited the land for more than 10000 years prior to the “discovery” of the new land. With new people inhabiting the land, new disease that the natives never saw before appeared. These diseases were one of the main causes of the destruction of the Aztec and Incan empires because they killed their population and threw their civilizations into turmoil.

Christopher Columbus was the man who found the Americas on his Spanish funded adventure.
They were one of the greatest civilizations in the world due to not only its sheer size but also its advanced governing system. At its peak, the Inca civilization reached over 3,400 miles; within this range spanned large snowy mountains to vast dry deserts. Because of the great size, the Empire had to be split up into quarters called Suyu and each ruled by its own governor called an Apu. Each quarter was then divided up further into towns called Wamani. These Wamani were made up of groups of people called Ayllu, and each Ayllu had to pay its own taxes. Taxes were paid in three ways; food, resources, and labor. To pay the Labor tax, a man between the age of 16 and 60 had to work a portion of a year for the government as a miner, farmer, builder, or warrior. Additionally, a portion of all the taxes went to the church and the Highest Priest for the Inca people were very involved in their religion. Incas worshiped many deities which made them polytheistic. They also strongly believed in an
When looking at a graph of population in South America at the time of the Spanish Conquest, 80% of its population was lost by the 1600’s. In the area where Peru is now located lived 32 million people. Within 28 years from when the Europeans arrived, the population dropped down to 5 million people. A graph shows an exponential decrease in population from when the Spanish first appeared to the end of the Aztec and Inca era. A decrease in population this drastic can only be brought upon by disease. A way to prove this is by looking at other huge instances of disease; an example would be the Black Death. If you look at a population chart during the Black Death outbreak in Great Britain, you will see an exponential decrease in population. Because of such a large decrease in population, both the Inca and Aztec population were not able to sustain themselves. The large amount of death also threw both civilizations into a large famine. Because of famine, the Spanish made many more Natives slaves. They worked tirelessly in attempt to provide food to the people but they were not able to be fed themselves. In the end that made the famine that much more severe. A Spanish witness even recognized that what happened to the Incas was the fault of the