--- title: The Aztecs and the Inca — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «The Aztecs and the Inca», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: About 700 years ago a wandering people, the Aztecs or Mexica, settled in the Valley of Mexico. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / The Aztecs and the Inca # The Aztecs and the Inca Lesson 19 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/0/) — About 700 years ago a wandering people, the Aztecs or Mexica, settled in the Valley of Mexico. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/1/) — Legend says they built their city where they saw an eagle on a cactus, on an island in a lake; that eagle is on Mexico's flag today. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/2/) — Their capital, Tenochtitlan, had causeways, canals, floating gardens and a huge market, and was bigger than most European cities of the time. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/3/) — The Aztecs believed the sun needed offerings and sacrificed people, often war captives, so their neighbours feared and hated them. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/4/) — Far to the south, the Inca ruled along the Andes mountains, the largest empire in the Americas, joined by 40,000 kilometres of roads and rope bridges. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/5/) — They had no writing as we know it, but kept records with knotted strings called quipu. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/7/) — They did not win alone, like a small team in a film beating a giant: tens of thousands of native allies and smallpox did most of it. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/8/) — The Aztecs, or Mexica, were a wandering people who settled in the Valley of Mexico about 700 years ago and in about 200 years built one of the largest empires in the Americas. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/10/) — Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, was built on a lake with causeways, canals, floating gardens and a huge market, and it was bigger than most European cities of the time; Mexico City stands on its ruins. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/11/) — The Aztecs believed the sun needed offerings to keep moving and made human sacrifices, often of war captives, and neighbouring peoples feared and hated them for this and for their heavy tribute, the goods conquered peoples had to hand over every year. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/12/) — In 1519 Hernán Cortés arrived with a few hundred men, and with tens of thousands of native allies and smallpox spreading he conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/13/) — Mexico then became a Spanish colony for 300 years. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/14/) — About 500 years ago the Inca ruled a huge empire along the Andes mountains, from today's Ecuador to Chile, the largest empire in the Americas. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/15/) — The Inca built about 40,000 kilometres of roads with rope bridges over gorges, and relay runners carried messages very fast. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/16/) — The Inca kept records with quipu, strings with knots of different colours and positions, to count people, taxes and goods. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/17/) — Machu Picchu is an Inca town high on a mountain ridge, built of stones fitted so tightly that a knife blade cannot slip between them; the Spanish never found it, and it became world famous in 1911, though local people always knew it. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/18/) — Potatoes first came from the Andes and were later taken to Europe; the Andes peoples grew thousands of kinds of potatoes, freeze-dried them in the mountain cold, and kept llamas and alpacas for wool and carrying loads; the Inca had no horses and no carts with wheels, so people and llamas carried everything along the roads. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/19/) — In 1532 Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca emperor Atahualpa, who filled a room with gold to buy his freedom, but the Spaniards killed him anyway. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/19-the-aztecs-and-the-inca/20/) — A civil war and smallpox had already weakened the Inca, and Spain took over their empire. - ← previous: [The Maya](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/18-the-maya/) - next →: [The Middle Ages begin: the Vikings](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/20-the-middle-ages-begin-the-vikings/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)