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AZTEC
Relations between the Tenochcas and Culhuacan became
bitter after the Tenochcas sacrificed a daughter of the
king of Culhuacan; so enraged were the Culhuacans that
they drove all the Tenochcas from the mainland to the
island. There, the Tenochcas who had lived in Culhuacan
taught urban culture and architecture to the peoples on
the island and the Tenochcas began to build a city. The
city of Tenochtitlan is founded, then, sometime between
1300 and 1375. A succession of kings followed Mocteuzma I until the accession of Mocteuzma II in 1502; despite a half century of successful growth and conquest, Tenochca culture and society began to suffer disasters under Mocteuzma II. First, tribute peoples began to revolt all over the conquered territories and it is highly likely that Tenochca influence would eventually have declined by the middle of the sixteenth century. Most importantly, the reign of Mocteuzma II was interrupted by the invasion of the Spaniards under Cortez in 1519-1522. The Spaniards kidnapped Mocteuzma and eventually killed him in 1524. When the city of Tenochtitlan fell, the remainder of Mexico fell very rapidly. The Spaniards managed this conquest for several reasons. First, Aztec conquest was not concerned with political or territorial influence; the conqests only had to do with the payment of tribute. There was, then, a large group of subject peoples with no loyalty to Tenochtitlan and alot of hostility. Cortez conquered Tenochtitlan largely by using these enmities. Second, the Aztecs had nothing like formal military strategy; wars were largely fought as large-scale individual combats. Finally, Cortez and his men were desperate; they had entered Mexico against orders and knew that, unless they conquered Mexico, that they would be severely punished when they returned
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Copyright © 2009 Wynton's World |
The
term, Aztec, is a startlingly imprecise term to
describe the culture that dominated the Valley of Mexico
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Properly
speaking, all the Nahua-speaking peoples in the Valley
of Mexico were Aztecs, while the culture that dominated
the area was a tribe of the Mexica (pronounced
"me-shee-ka") called the Tenochca ("te-noch-ka").
At the time of the European conquest, they called
themselves either "Tenochca" or "Toltec," which
was the name assumed by the bearers of the Classic
Mesoamerican culture. The earliest we know about the
Mexica is that they migrated from the north into the
Valley of Mexico as early as the twelfth century AD,
well after the close of the Classic Period in
Mesoamerica. They were a subject and abject people,
forced to live on the worst lands in the valley. They
adopted the cultural patterns (called Mixteca-Pueblo)
that originated in the culture of Teotihuacán, so
the urban culture they built in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries is essentially a continuation of
Teotihuacán culture. 
The
history of the Tenochca is among the best preserved of
the Mesoamericans. They date the beginning of their
history to 1168 and their origins to an island in the
middle of a lake north of the Valley of Mexico. Their
god, Huitzilopochtli, commanded them on a journey to the
south and they arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1248.
According to their history, the Tenochca were originally
peaceful, but their Chichimec ways, especially their
practice of human sacrifice, revolted other peoples who
banded together and crushed their tribe. In 1300, the
Tenochcas became vassals of the town of Culhuacan; some
escaped to settle on an island in the middle of the
lake. The town they founded was Tenochtitlan, or
"place of the Tenochcas.
The
Tenochcas slowly became more powerful and militarily
more skilled, so much so that they became allies of
choice in the constant conflicts between the various
peoples of the area. The Tenochcas finally won their
freedom under Itzacoatl (1428-1440), and they began to
build their city, Tenochtitlan, with great fervor. Under
Itzacoatl, they built temples, roads, a causeway linking
the city to the mainland, and they established their
government and religious hierarchy. Itzacoatl and the
chief who followed him Mocteuzma I (1440-1469) undertook
wars of conquest throughout the Valley of Mexico and the
southern regions of Vera Cruz, Guerrero, and Puebla. As
a result, Tenochtitlan grew dramatically: not only did
the city increase in size, precipitating the need for an
aqueduct system to bring water from the mainland, it
grew culturally as well as the Tenochcas assimilated the
gods of the region into their religion. 