The+Aztecs

The Aztecs

This is a short project on the Aztecs.

First, on a worksheet provided, please write down what you know about the Aztecs and what you want to know about the Aztecs.

Questions: These five questions and a front page cover will make up this mini project on the Aztecs. As a bonus, you can add another page of your choosing.

1 Who were the Aztecs and where did they come from? 2 What did they believe in? 3 What was life like during the time of the Aztecs? 4 What did the Aztecs achieve? 5 What led to the downfall of the Aztecs?

green = easy to read, amber = a little more challenging to read, red = the most challenging to read,

Mr. Donn's Website:

1 Who were the Aztecs and where did they come from?

Around 1300 CE, about 200 years after the Maya Indians disappeared, a tribe of Indians went into the Valley of Mexico. These people were called the Aztecs. When the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico, other tribes were already there. The other tribes had already taken the best land. The Aztecs had to stay on the shores of Lake Texcoco.
 * green:**

World History for Kids Website: In A.D. 1200 a group of nomadic hunters called the Aztecs migrated into Mesoamerica in search of food and wild game. By A.D. 1325 the Aztecs had settled in present day Mexico City. They built a large, beautiful and powerful city, on a small island which they called Tenochtitlan.
 * red:**

THE AZTEC EMPIRE The ancestors of the Aztecs settled on a marshy island in Lake Texcoco in either 1325 or 1345. According to legend the Aztecs settled at a place where they saw an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its mouth. They took this as a sign from their god that they should settle there. The Aztecs called the place Tenochtitlan, which means place of the cactus. At first they were an unimportant people but in the 15th century the Aztecs gradually built up a large empire.
 * amber:**

**green** Around 700 years ago the Aztec peoples left their homes in Atzlan somewhere in North West Mexico. They came to the Valley of Mexico named Anahuac, led by their chieftain Tenoch. They were a poor people who ate rats, snakes, and stole food. They were just too wild and nasty. So they were chases away from one place to another. Then Tenoch had a dream. Huitzilopochtli told him to lead his people to a swampy island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. He was told to look for an eagle perched on a cactus, growing from a rock or cave surrounded by water. They were to build their city there and thank Huitzilopochtli for his brilliant idea with human sacrifices. The city they built was called Tenochtitlán, the city of Tenoch in around 1325. It was very hard to build Tenochtitlan because the Aztecs only had a small piece of land in the surrounding marshes. The Aztecs made the swampy, shallow lake into chinampas or floating gardens. They made islands by piling up mud from the lake bottom. They used this as their city foundations. To start with they built a few thatched, mud huts, and some small temples. Then they built causeways and bridges to connect the city to the mainland. They dug canals and lined them with stone so that people could move easily around. They chose a man called Acamapichtli as their first emperor. He ruled until 1395. ||  || The city and the Aztecs were all powerful... an EMPIRE. By 1519 there were about 60,000 people in the city every day.
 * By 1376, the city was growing quickly. They built larger and larger temples. People came from miles around to live in their city Tenochtitlan.

2 **What did the Aztecs believe in ?**
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