Preston Tu

Period 3

Unit 1 Comp LEQ

In Medieval c. 600 CE - c. 1450 CE, the emergence and expansion of the empire began.

State building is a political system built to support long-term social, economic, and political

development. The two most essential empires that shared similarities while having differences

are the Hausas from Africa and the Aztecs from the Americas. In Medieval Africa, communities

formed were usually made up of small kin-based networks, including the Bantu migration.

Kin-based networks are families or similar language groups that govern themselves where the

male head of the network is usually a chief that determines solutions themselves. The Hausas and

the Aztecs are similar in state-building strategy because they both had the same way of fighting

or violence. In contrast, the Hausas and the Aztecs differ because the Hausa kingdoms were

monotheistic while the Aztecs were polytheistic.

The similarity in state-building strategy between the Hausa kingdoms and the Aztec

Empire was that they both had a way of violence. They are similar in violence in that they both

are specialized in military circumstances. In the Hausa kingdom, they used military forces to

protect themselves from other states from attacks. These attacks were important as they had

rivalries with each other, trying to gain power and dominance over the other states. Likewise, the

Aztecs also had a military that allowed them to dominate nearby states. Although the Aztecs

used human sacrifice, their military allowed them to obtain these victims for human sacrifice.

This granted warriors to be at the top of the Aztec social structure.

 The difference between the Hausa kingdoms and the Aztec Empire was that the Hausas

were monotheistic while the Aztecs were polytheistic. The Hausa Kingdoms were monotheistic,

meaning that they only believe in god. On the other hand, the Aztecs were polytheistic meaning

that they believed in more than one god. These gods were the Aztec sun and war god,

Huitzilopochtli, the rain god Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent and god on wing and

learning, and Tezcatlipoca, the shrewd, elusive god of destiny and fortune. Their military would

capture humans and offer them as sacrifices to these Gods, thinking that without it, the sun

would stop rising and the world could end.