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The Aztec were a war-like people located in the central valley of Mexico and dominated much of southern Mexico during the 15th and early 16th centuries until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. The Aztecs were a Nahua-speaking peoples. The Aztecs known to history and which the Spanish encountered were a tribe of the Mexica peoples--the Tenochca. The Mexica migrated south into the Valley of Mexico about the 12th century AD. They were a small group that eked out a meager existence in some of the least desirable land in the Central Valley. They gradually adopted the more advanced culture (Mixteca-Pueblo) that dominated the Central Valley and originated in the culture of Teotihuacán. The Tenocha who built Tenochititlan were at first a small tribal group surrounded by more powerful neighbors, but gradually developed more effective civil and military organizations. The Mexica by the 15th century had organized a military alliance with neighboring Nahua tribes known as the Aztec Confederation. The Confederation through wars of conquest came to dominate vitually all of the tribes of southern Mexico, from Rio Fuerte south to Guatemala. The Aztec Empire was not a centralized state, but rather composed of allies and tributary states that were not forced to adopt Aztec culture. Within the Aztec domains were tribes that resisted their rule, especially the Tlaxcalan tribe which was more than willing to fight with the Spanish. The Aztecs were notable archetects and astronomers. Their religion was, however, barabaric and involved mass human scarifices. A major goal in Aztec wars was the acquisition of victims for human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was practiced by many Native American cultures, but the Azztec are notable for the large numbers of sacrificial victims.
The Aztec were a war-like people located in the central valley of Mexico and dominated much of southern Mexico during the 15th and early 16th centuries until the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores.
The Aztecs known to history and which the Spanish encountered were a tribe of the Mexica peoples--the Tenochca. The Mexica migrated south into the Valley of Mexico about the 12th century AD. They were a small group that eked out a meager existence in some of the least desirable land in the Central Valley.
The Aztecs adopted many aspects of the Toltec civilization. The Toltecs in the first centuries of the Christian era migrated south and entered the Central Valley of Mexico. They founded Tulan Tulantzinco. The archeological remains are evidence of a great civilization. The Totecs were largely conquered by the Chicimecas who essentially adopted Toltec culture (11th century). Seven allied Nahuatlan tribes migrated south probably from New Mexico and Aruizona to the Central Valley (12th century). The Aztecs after entering the Central Valley gradually adopted the more advanced culture (Mixteca-Pueblo) that dominated the Central Valley and originated in the culture of Teotihuacán. The Tenocha who built Tenochtitlán were at first a small tribal group surrounded by more powerful neighbors, but gradually developed more effective civil and military organizations. The Aztecs were notable archetects and astronomers. There appear to have been a less-civilized tribe than those they conquered. [Wells, p. 656.] Some writers romanticize the Incas and other native American peoples. Their achievments were remarkable, but they were a neolithical civilization, perhaps 2-3 millenia behind the technology of Europe and Asia, comparable to pre-dynastic Egypt or the Simerians. [Wells, p. 656.] The interesting question is why the technology of native Americans was so retarded. We have never noted a fully satisfying assessment of this question. Surely a primary factor was the total isolation of the Americas. There was no Silk Road connecting America with Europe or Asia or even connecting the two great civilizations within the Americas. The Aztecs were a Nahua-speaking peoples.
The Aztec were a small group that eked out a meager existence in some of the least desirable land in the Central Valley. Aztec agriculture was one of the reasons they emerged as a dominant force in central Mexico. They were simply a more productive society which meant their population could increase. Their superior output meant that the ztec could devote more time and energy to other persuits, such as war. The Mexica founded a settlement on Lake Texcoco in an undesirable and unihabited marshy area (about 1325 AD). Aztec legend proclaims that the Gods instructed the Aztec to build their city on the spot where an eagle, perched on a cactus, would be seen eating a snake. This is how the Aztecs suposedly selected the site for their city in a region of lakes and islands. Causeways were erected to Tenochtitlán. This not only served to make Tenochtitlán a virtually impregnable fortress, but daming the marshes increased the land available for cultivation. The area was avoided by other peoples because of the marshy, snake infested land. The Aztecs and Tenochtitlán, however, flourished. The Aztecs cut irrigation channels to drain the marshy land. Shallow areas of the lake awere filled in and anchored with trees. The abundant water allowed the Aztecs to farm more intensely than neighboring people. Crops could be grown throughout the year.
The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán was a small agrarian village in the early-15th century before the Aztec Aztec conquests of the mid-15th century. The Aztec triumps provided the wealth and slave labor to build a great city. Tenochtitlán became a city of palaces and pyramid temples to the gods. The canals became part of the city's defense system. Cortez and the other Spanish were astounded by the beauty and order of Tenochtitlán when they first saw it. It was a huge city in comparion to other cities of the day, including Euopean cities. Historians estimate the size of the city at anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 inhabitants. Cortez provided an acount of the city, "This great city of Tenochtitlán is built on the salt lake , and no matter by what road you travel there are two leagues from the main body of the city to the mainland. There are four artificial causeways leading to it, and each is as wide as two cavalry lances. The city itself is as big as Seville or Córdoba. The main streets are very wide and very straight; some of these are on the land, but the rest and all the smaller ones are half on land, half canals where they paddle their canoes. All the streets have openings in places so that the water may pass from one canal to another. Over all these openings, and some of them are very wide, there are bridges ... There are, in all districts of this great city, many temples or houses for their idols. They are all very beautiful buildings.... Amongst these temples there is one , the principal one, whose great size and magnificence no human tongue could describe, for it is so large that within the precincts, which are surrounded by very high wall, a town of some five hundred inhabitants could easily be built. All round inside this wall there are very elegant quarters with very large rooms and corridors where their priests live. There are as many as forty towers, all of which are so high that in the case of the largest there are fifty steps leading up to the main part of it and the most important of these towers is higher than that of the cathedral of Seville..." [Cortez]
Their religion was, however, barabaric and involved mass human scarifices. A major goal in Aztec wars was the acquisition of victims for human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was practiced by many Native American cultures, but the Azztec are notable for the large numbers of sacrificial victims. The Aztecs believed that it was necessary to appease the gods with human hearts in order to ensure that the sun would rise each morning. One reasin the Aztec engaged in war was to secure living prisoners for sacrifice. These victims would not be sacrificedimmediuately. Instead many would be held for some time before being required for sacrifice. The victims would be ushered up a templel pyramid, laid over a stone altar, and then an Aztec priest would cut their chests open with an obsedian blade and rip out their still beating hearts. Their lifeless bodies were then down the steps of the pyramids. Cortez was horrified at this practice when he arrived in Tenochtitlán. He ordered thge pyramids razed. And on those sites churches were built. The remains of Tenochtitlán today provide the foundations of Mexico City. The Templo Mayor has ben ecavatd. It can be seen today adjacent to the Mexico City Cathedral. Many more Aztec sites have not be excavated.
All Aztec boys were educated. Aztec boys studied in telpuchcalli meaning "house of youth". One source reports this began at age 15. I'm not sure about the education of younger children. The telpuchcalli were schools in which the boys learned Aztec religion and history and his civic duties. They also learned martial skills. Boys were taught the trade or craft approprite to his calpulli (family kinship group). Slave boys were for the most part excluded from the telpuchcalli. There were special schools for the children of nobility--a calmecac. This was for the members of the six most important calpulli. These children learned the religious duties of priests and secret rituals.
The basic Aztec garment for men was a simple cloth knotted in the front. Men also wore a length of fabric tied in a knot on their shoulder, depending on the circumstances. More important individuals wore finer materials and decorated cloaks. Men did not wear cloaks unless they had scars or cuts on their legs. A war commander was entitled to wear a cloak because it showed that he had captured many prisoners. Cloaks were seen as a sign of courage. Women wore tunics made rather like ponchos which could be brightly embroidered and fringed. Heavier cloaks might be made of rabbit fur, but this was for the upper-class. Women also wore wraparound skirts of varying length from the knee to the ankles. I do not yet have details as to the clothing worn by children. The nobility wore the same basic as the common people.
The principal cloth worn by the common people was woven with fibre from the maguey cactus. High status individuals wore clothing woven from more comfortable fabric. There was no cotton or wool. One material used was rabbit fur, but this required tedious weaving and were only worn by high-status individuals. The nobility while wearing the same basic garments as common people had garments that were more intensely colored and decorated. The Aztec had very strict sumtory laws. Common people might be severely punished or even put to death if seen wering clothes ment fr high-status individuals.
A boy's hair was left uncut. This was seen s a sign of youth or imaturity because it symbolized that the boy was still a child and had not yet fought and killed in a battle. Warriors had their hair tied in a knot with a ribbon tied on top of his head. Unmarried girls wore their head let down, with their hair down and colored ribbon round the top of their head. Married women wound their hair into plaits round their head with two ends sticking out looking rather like horns. Importantindividuals ore hair dresses. Green quetzal feathers and blue cotinga feathers were usedin hairdresses. Gold and jade were also used. An Aztec baby might be given a small jade pendant as a good luck charm which h or she might wear as a child.
Mexica warriors sustained by their intensive agriculture and invulnerable city. They gradually developed more effective civil and military organizations. The Mexica gradually expanded their terriory and power over neighboring tribes. The Mexica by the 15th century had organized a military alliance with neighboring Nahua tribes known as the Aztec Confederation. The first Aztec Emperor was Itzcoatl who began to conquer neigboring tribes and buld an Aztec Empire. The Confederation through wars of conquest came to dominate vitually all of the tribes of southern Mexico, from Rio Fuerte south to Guatemala. The Aztec Empire was not a centralized state, but rather composed of allies and tributary states that were not forced to adopt Aztec culture. They did have to pay tribute as well as human victims for sacrifice. Within the Aztec domains were also tribes that managed to successfully resist their rule, especially the Tlaxcalan tribe which was more than willing to fight with the Spanish.
Slavery was common and an important institution in Aztecs culture. It was different than the modern concept of slavery. It was not racially based nor was it a permanent condition. There were various ways a individual became a slave: 1) being captured in war, 2) committing certain crimes, especially theft, and by 3) voluntarily entering into slavery because od debts, or 4) being sold by one's parents again primarily because of debts. Vast numbers of prisoners taken by the Aztecs in war were used for human sacrifices. There are accounts of such sacrifices on a vast scale. Others were spared and enslaved for labor. The Aztecs ececuted major building programs for roads and aqueducts as well as temples and other buildings in Tenochtitlán. Not a great deal is known about the numbers of captives that the Aztecs spared for slavery or about the conditions of servitude and ultimate disposition. Captives who had a useful trade were the most likely to be spared sacrifice. Nor do we know much about the captives taken and the extent to which children were enslaved. It was not just foreign tribes that were enslaved. We know that some Aztecs sold themselves or their children into slavery to settle debts. This parctice played a role in the demise of the Aztecs. Tha Aztec skave girl Malinche became a key adviser and confident to Cortez. Aztec slavery is, however, apparently not forgotten. A law firm in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2002 announced plans to file a lawsuit against Mexico City municipal government seeking reparations for the Aztec use of slave labor. The lawsuit claims slaves captured by the Aztec ruler Ahuitzotl as a result of military operations in Oaxaca during the late 15th century built the foundations for Mexico City. The suit claims that the ancestors of those slaves should now be compensated. A Mexico City Municipal Counsel Emilio Montalban did not take the suit to seriously, telling a reporter that the plaintiffs "ought to be joyous," to know their ancestors did not have their living hearts cut from their chests, which was the fate of many of the human sacrifices. [Smeed]
The voyages of Columbus and the other European Voyages of Discovery had profound consequences for both Europe and the world. Following on Columbus' voyages, Spain rapidly beagan estalishing colonies. At first Columbus and the Spanish did not realize that they had chanced upon an entirely new continent--the Americas. They thought it ws India and thus called it the Indies and the Caribbean Islands have become known to us as the West Indies. Spanish colonization was at first in the Caribbean and extrodinarily brutal. The native Americans on the islands were for the most part exterminated. Next the Spanish looked to the mainland where rumors described natin American civilizations of vast wealth. This led to Diego Cortez's Conquest of Mexico. The gold and silver flowing from the Americas made Spain a European super-power and financed the Great Armada.
Gruzinski, Serge. The Aztecs: Rise and Fall of an Empire (Thames and Hudson).
Smeed, Dover. "Reparations Sought For Descendants of Aztec Slavery," CNSNews.com, March 26, 2002.
Wells, H.G. The Outline of History: The Whole History of Man (Doybleday & Company: New York, 1971), 1103p.
West, Rbecca. Survivors in Mexico (Yale University Press, 2003), 264p.
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