What on Earth Happened to the Aztecs and Mayans?

here's two groups that nearly every person in the Western world has heard of in modern American society the Aztecs are basically seen as the reigning champs of pre-columbian civilizations while the Mayans are generally thought of as the less violent neighboring tribe that mostly minded their own business and wanted to end the world in 2012 but there is of course so much more to these ancient peoples than what you see from Hollywood and a few misconceptions regarding their role in history and you might just be surprised by the sheer amount of influence that these old civilizations still have on the surrounding region and beyond to this day now interestingly neither the Aztecs or Mayans had a standard alphabet for their languages although most of what we do know from their history comes from an ancient writing system used by the Aztecs that used pictures and symbols to represent various events not too dissimilar to Egyptian hieroglyphs the Aztecs also known as Nagas today along with the Mayans mixed texts Olmecs and many others inhabited a region known as Mesoamerica roughly encompassing modern Mexico and Central America although it's believed that the antecedents of the Aztecs actually originated from north of Mesoamerica migrating south while the Mayans are believed to be much older in the region many have argued that ancient Egyptians Romans or even Malians had traveled to and/or interacted with the ancient Mayans or other Mesoamerican civilizations due to a few key similarities and culture and architecture however so far no conclusive evidence has been proven and there is no widely accepted consensus on the matter unlike the Aztecs when the Spaniards first stumbled upon them in the 16th century the Mayans were organized into any powerful Empire instead simply being a loose a source men of unaffiliated tribes numbering perhaps as many as 10 million people however years before many Mayan states located on the yucatán Peninsula formed into a confederation known as the League of mayapan however this union dissolved by the mid 15th century at a tight the Aztec empire spanned over 100,000 square miles or 300,000 square kilometres with approximately 5 million people living within its borders although if we're compare since Spain was nearly twice as large an area and had over 8 million people which interestingly would have actually given the Aztecs a higher population density than mainland Spain despite the prevailing depiction of Aztec territory as little more than vast jungles the Aztecs were about as far from a unified Empire as you can imagine yet we're able to hold on to their territorial dominions through subjugation and fear not unlike the Romans the Aztecs were infamously brutal in their policies of human sacrifice and slavery sometimes committed against their own people so you can only imagine what they did to the inhabitants of the areas they conquered and naturally this didn't make them very popular with the neighboring tribes and the list of enemies of the Aztec empire grew nearly as fast as the Empire itself and this gave the perfect opportunity for Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes to gather allies in the region in preparation for his campaign against the Aztecs early contact between Spaniards and the Mesoamericans also occurred through scouting parties and other explorers who traveled along the coast of Yucatan with one example being the story of Gonzalo Guerrero who along with several other men were shipwrecked in the Yucatan Peninsula in 1511 after sailing from Panama to what was supposed to be Hispaniola upon being spotted by a local Mayan tribe almost all of the men were sacrificed with the exception of Gonzalo and a few others with Gonzalo actually being taken as a slave and forced to fight for the local chieftain slowly rising up the ranks until he earned his freedom through the span of eight years after these eight years one of Guerrero's shipwrecked companions joined Hernan Cortes as a Mayan translator although Guerrero himself did not having all but assimilated into the indigenous Mayan culture by 1519 Cortes had managed to garner massive support from the surrounding tribes amassing nearly 100,000 indigenous troops in addition to the thousand or so Spaniards and began their siege on Tanakh chitlin executing the Aztec emperor Montezuma and taking the city although a counter siege by Montezuma's nephew led to nearly all of Cortez's troops being wiped out and Cortes himself being seriously wounded and fleeing back to Cuba however possibly the best weapon Cortez had was already in motion as during this time a massive smallpox outbreak had taken to not chitlin by storm doing far more damage than the Spaniards could have ever imagined and once Cortez had recovered from his wounds the city was ripe for the taking and this ultimately spelled out the doom for the Aztecs and many of their indigenous enemies alike as none of them possessed the same genetic immunity to these old-world diseases many of the Aztecs who survived the plague were taken as slaves by the Spaniards or fled to the surrounding countryside and tenha chitlin which actually used to be located on an island in a very large lake known as Lake Texcoco was completely drained in the following centuries in order to curb the massive flooding that would plague the city as well as to make way for the ever-expanding populace which eventually became known as Mexico City the saga does not end there however as the Spaniard captive turned Mayan Lord Gonzalo Guerrero was gaining power and status among the Mayan people although initially supportive of the Spanish cause against the Aztecs Guerrero was married to a Mayan woman and had started a family as the chieftain of his own tribe and although the Spaniards tried to convince him to join in the conquest of the Mayan people reminding him of his previous loyalties to the Spanish crown and Christian faith Guerrero refused instead leading many of the Mayans against the Spanish having an integral knowledge of the Spaniards battle tactics and weaponry Guerrero was able to stave off the encroachment for a few years although eventually diseases and warfare would the Mayans just like the Aztecs and Guerrero died in battle to this day many Mexicans and especially Mayans in the region see Gonzalo Guerrero as a hero and he is greatly admired for his bravery and loyalty to his adopted nation while the Spanish see him as a bit of a Benedict Arnold the former Aztec and Mayan territory was subsequently absorbed into the Spanish Empire as a part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain which made up most of the modern western United States Mexico and Central America and additional plagues along with huge waves of migrants from Spain and other parts of Europe drastically changed the ethnic makeup of the region as the spaniards mixed with much of the remaining Tech and Mayan population to create the mestizos and by 1810 around half of this region was non indigenous although full-blooded individuals did survive in the interiors of the area in the present day they're around 2.8 million people of noir Aztec descent including nearly 50 thousand in the United States mostly a result of recent immigration from Mexico while those of Mayan descent far outnumber the Aztecs and eight million people which makes them the second largest group of pure Amer Indian descent remaining in the Americas or in other words over one out of every six Native Americans alive today and this includes over 100,000 recent immigrants in the u.s. 30,000 in Belize and the remaining millions in Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico the highest concentration of Nahuatl speakers in Mexico today is in Hidalgo and Puebla states in the central region of the country and nearly all Novato people today have been assimilated into the mainstream mexican society practicing Roman Catholicism and speaking Spanish as a first or second language not only are the full-blooded descendants of these ancient Mayans and Aztecs still very much alive and kicking but it can easily be assumed that the majority of the mestizo population of the central Mexican states could also trace back a significant proportion of their ancestry to the Aztecs and likewise mestizos from Guatemala Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula could trace their ancestry back to the ancient Mayans and just maybe there are a handful of people that can boast to send for both the Aztecs and Mayans I've actually personally visited the traditional mine homeland on the Yucatan Peninsula a few years ago passing through quaint annaroo and Belize and Mayans without a doubt have some of the most easily distinguishing physical features of any ever Indian group giving them a unique and very recognizable appearance although like any group large in group disparities do exist and some Mayan languages are completely unintelligible with one another and although there is no standard dialect of mine the Kichi and yucca Tec languages are the most widely spoken today in fact 12 out of mexico's 32 states and territories have an etymological origin that can be traced back to the aztec language and three that can be traced back to the mayans as well as the names of neighboring Belize and Guatemala the name Mexico itself actually comes from the Aztecs endo name for their own homeland so in a way virtually all Mexicans today carry on the legacy of the Aztecs through their name alone perhaps most ironically and hilariously of all is the fact that many cities and counties in the United States today are named after famous Spanish conquistadors although there is a Montezuma County of 26,000 people in the far southwest corner of Colorado which as you can guess is named after the late emperor of the Aztec empire although the county seat of Montezuma County Colorado is named Cortes after Hernan Cortez the man who near single-handedly caused its downfall the pole for today's video will ask what you think the most fascinating ancient Mesoamerican civilization is and by the way if you're curious as to why so many Mesoamerican cultures peoples and places and with the suffix Tek it's because Tech is a Gnawa word meaning people of similar to how there are so many countries and regions with the suffix Stan which pretty much means the same thing it's rather strange to think that these ancient near legendary peoples are still around in the world in very large numbers today and they certainly have some of the most fascinating stories to tell out of any nations on earth especially considering that Hernan Cortes his cousin Francisco Pizarro was responsible for the conquest of another great Native American Empire the Incas but that's a story for another day go ahead and let me know your thoughts on the two closely intertwined nations of the Aztecs and Mayans and other Mesoamericans and as always thank you all for watching it has been Mason and I will see you next time

Channel: Masaman

Views: 389,924

Keywords: masaman, Aztecs, Mayans, Aztec People, Mayan People, History, Race, Ethnicity, Genetics, Mexican People, History of Mexico, History of the Aztecs, History of the Mayans, Mayan History, Aztec History, Hernan Cortes, Spanish Empire, History of the Spanish Empire, Spanish History, Conquest of the Aztec Empire, Aztec Empire, Aztecs vs Mayans, Aztec Documentary, Conquistadors, Maya, Mayan Civilization, Sacrifice, What on Earth Happened to the Aztecs and Mayans, Aztec Whistle, Mexico, Whistle

Id: fH9niiE-K3w

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 30 2018