A network of traveling merchant-spies were essential to the expansion of the Aztec Empire. In ancient Mesoamerica, an elite class of merchants helped build the Aztec Empire. How? By mastering the arts ...

Toward the end of 1519, Spanish explorers arrived at the Aztec capital in what is now Mexico City. They were awed by the Aztecs' sophistication and soon demanded the land and resources for themselves.

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Spanish conquerors did not themselves bring inequality to the Aztec lands they invaded, they merely built on the socio-economic structure that was already in place, adapting it as it suited their ...