The Spanish Conquest Of The Americas Flashcards
Who was La Malinche?
In 1519 Cortes and his soldiers had won a battle against the Maya people, who came from the region of the Tabasco River. The Maya were forced to pay a tribute to the Spaniards and so presented the conquistadors with 20 young slave women. One of the slaves, who became known as Dona Marina, or La Malinche, is believed to have been the daughter of a noble Aztec family.
Malinche was born in about 1505 in the Aztec village of Paynala. She spoke the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and was well educated. Malinche’s fortunes changed when her father died and a struggle for power in Paynala resulted in her being cast out of her community. Malinche was sold to Maya slave traders where she learned to speak their language.
Who was the Aztec god of Rain?
Tlaloc
What were the Aztec calendars?
The Aztecs had two calendars that organised their year:
The Xiuhpohualli calendar was divided into a 365-day year and was used to organise agriculture and predict weather patterns.
The Tonalpohualli calendar was divided into a 260-day sacred year and was used to identify the time for rituals, commemorations and knowledge of the gods.
What happened during human sacrifice?
The two calendars matched up every 52 years. For five days before the end of the 52-year cycle, all the temple fires were extinguished and the people went into mourning for what might happen to their world. On the final day, the priests looked for a sign that the world might be spared and selected a perfect human sacrificial victim. After being ritually dressed, drugged and laid out on the sacrificial table, the victim’s chest was cut open and the heart was removed. A fire was then kindled in the victim’s chest cavity from which sacred torches were lit. The sacred flame was carried by relays of torch runners to all parts of the empire. When the sun once again rose on the first day of the new cycle, the people celebrated with sacrifices and feasts.
Aztec trade and crops
The first American people established links with each other by trading valuable goods such as furs and flint tools. Over the following millennium, the cultivation of crops developed.
In North America, farmers grew a variety of fruit from gourd plants and sowed sunflowers for their seeds and oil.
In Central America, a crop called maize, or corn, was developed from a local wild grass. Plants such as avocado and chilli were collected and developed as crops for cultivation.
In South America, people grew gourds, squashes, manioc (a sweet tropical plant), potatoes and beans. In the rich soils of the narrow valleys of Peru, farming flourished, producing a wide variety of crops, including capsicum and cotton.
Trade spread these crops across the continent. Another feature of indigenous life in South America was herds of domesticated animals such as the llama, which was highly valued for its wool and milk.
