Those 'poor Aztecs' were a bunch of greedy bloodthirsty scum. Think of their fate as merely reaping what they sowed for hundreds of years of abusing everybody else around them. And, most 'native American' tribes liked to torture captive for fun and entertainment and they also had slaves; few of them lived very long, though. The Aztecs liked to murder people and use their heads for footballs, fun pagan stuff like that, and they loved tossing young girls into volcanoes and deep water filled pits. You want to lean more about those 'poor innocent natives', get a copy of Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy Daniel Usner, Jr. , for one, and then there is a site putting together a history of North American tribes before The evil white Man came along, documenting the various genocidal tribal wars, and how easy it was to hire any tribe to murders other tribes for a few kegs of crappy booze. They were not 'victims', they were full players, and nasty ones to boot. Forget the stupid Hollywood fantasy garbage about them being some sort of environmentalist hippie commune culture just sitting around making handicrafts, smoking pot, and pondering Deep Thoughts n Wise Sayings N Stuff.