Unit 2 European Explorers and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Lesson 2
Europeans Encounter Native Americans

The Aztecs

After Spanish Conquest

Before Spanish Conquest
by Hernan Cortes in 1519
• Indigenous people—
Population

Aztecs
• Indigenous people—Aztecs • Ladinos—people of
Native American and
Spanish ancestry
Geographic

• Cortes destroyed
Location

• Central Mexico
Tenochtitlan and rebuilt
• Capital: Tenochtitlan a Spanish city now know
as Mexico City
• Spoken language—
Spanish
Language

• Pictorial language—glyphs • After a while, native

• Spoken language—Nahuatlan
• Polytheistic (worship of
Religions
people were banned from
learning to read and
write in Spanish
• Cortes banned human

different gods) sacrifices

• Impersonalization of deities • Converted to
which ended in human Christianity by
sacrifices missionaries
• Natural 365 day calendar
which followed the
Technological
Achievements

agricultural year
• Lack of achievements
• Agricultural advancements—
terracing, chinampas • Forced to work in an
encomienda system
• Systems of roads and canals
• Architecture and engineering
of temples

Putnam/ Northern Westchester BOCES

Grade 5 Integrated Social Studies English Language Arts Curriculum
Page 1 Revised August 2018