The Story of the Aztecs: One of the Most Remarkable Stories in the World History

By Mr Ghaz, December 10, 2010

Image Credit

The Story of the Aztecs: One of the Most Remarkable Stories in the World History

Image Credit

The first great Mesoamerican civilization arose in about 1500 to 1200BCE, when the Olmec people built vast ceremonial centers at La Venta and San Lorenzo on Mexico’s southern Gulf coast and carved magnificent giant stone heads in homage to their rulers. The Olmecs developed religious ritual involving human sacrifice and bloodletting, trade vigorously across great distances, built temple pyramids and wide plazas, developed a writing system, and revered the jaguar-all elements that became central to the culture that was inherited and honored by the Aztecs.

Image Credit

The Olmecs’ many successors included the Zapotecs, builders in approximately 500BCE of a great settlement and trading center at Monte Alban that flourished for more than 1,000 years, the unknown builders of Teotihuacan, and the Toltecs. From a base at Tollan (near modern Tula) the Toltecs built up an empire in the region of Hidalgo province and the northern part of the valley of Mexico, where the Aztecs would later settle. Like so many Mesoamerican cultures, the Toltecs were keen practitioners of human sacrifice: in front of their temples they carved reclining stone figures called chacmools that carried a receptacle on their stomachs into which priests flung the heart of the ritual victim.

Image Credit

The Aztecs’ rise began in the 150 years after the collapse of Toltec power in the mid-to-late twelfth century. In their early days the Aztecs were probably known as Mexica. They came from the barren lands to the north for the fertile Valley of Mexico in the wake of many fierce nomadic groups known collectively as Chichimecs (a derogatory “sons of dogs”). The Mexica settled to the west of Lake Texcoco in the late 1200s under the protection of the Chulhua, founders of the city of Culhuacan. They fought for the Culhua against Xochimilco. The Culhua claimed connection to the revered Toltecs, and the Mexica-keen to gain honor by association-inter-married with their protectors and began to call them-selves the Mexica-Culhua. But in 1323 the Culhua, outraged that the Mexica had sacrificed a Culhua princess in a fertility rite, drove the settlers out of their lands and into the marshes of Lake Texcoco. There the Mexica founded their city tenochtitlan in 1325, and from this base they built a great empire.

Image Credit

The story of the Mexica prior to their settling near the lake is uncertain. The tribe told many tales of their past to account for their use of ritual human sacrifice, to explain the supremacy of their god Huitzilopochtli, and to legitimize their rule. Indeed, the Aztecs and their Mesoamerican forebears were generally happy to combine fact with mythical and religious material: they believed that such mythologized narratives spoke with all thee power and authenticity tat we ascribe to history.

Image Credit

According to one account, the Mexica/ Aztecs once lived at Aztlan (“Place of the Cranes”) on an island in a lagoon to the north of the Valley of Mexico. They left this place on the orders of Huitzilopochtli and began a 100-year migration into more fertile lands to the south in search of a place to settle. Another version told that they emerged from Chicomoztoc (“Place of the Seven Caves”). Historians have not been able to identify the location of Aztlan: some have suggested Lake Patzcuaro, which lies 150 miles (250km) north of Tenochtitlan, while others even propose sites in New Mexico and Arizona in the southern United States.

Image Credit

During their migration the Mexica sometimes settled for long enough to build temples and ballcourts and lay out fields of crops. But the urging of Huitzilopochtli always drove them on. According to myth, the divine lord had declared that the Mexica would found a city to his glory at the place where they saw an eagle on a cactus holding a serpent in his talons. In 1325, driven out by the Culthua, the nomads saw the prophesied vision on an island in Lake Texcoco.

Image Credit

Image Credit

As the first of the great Mesoamerican people thought to have given rise to civilization, the Olmecs are considered to have influenced all the cultures that followed. For example, their fascination with chronology and calculation was retained by the Zapotec who transmitted it to the Aztecs. One dramatic Olmec legacy os monumental sculpture. This giant stone head (9 feet/ 3 meter tall), known as "The Warrior" is now to be found in the Xalapa Museum of Anthropology Veracruz.

Soon after founding Tenochtitlan, the Mexica built another town, Tlateloco, on a second island close by. Over the next 100 years, they learned to grow food on artificial islands floating on the waters of the lake, traded with their neighbors, and fought in alliance with the Teppanec ruler Tezozomoc, who was creating an empire based on his city-state of Atzcapotzalco.

Image Credit

Following Tezozomoc’s death in 1426, the regional balance of power hanged decisively when Tenochtitlan joined with the cities of texcoco and Tlacopan to defeat Atzcapotzalco. The formation of the Triple Alliance was the birth of the Aztec Empire: Tenochtitlan was the largest and most powerful of the three cities.

Image Credit

Growth was rapid. Coming to power in Tenochtitlan in 1440, Motecuhzoma I launched such a campaign of territorial expansion that after his death in 1469 he was lauded as “father of the empire.” His successors largely maintained the progress and by the time Motecuhzoma II became emperor in 1502, the ruler of tenochtitlan was master of 489 city-states over an area of 58,000 square miles (150,000sq km). However, he was the last Aztec emperor to enjoy such power. A small force of soldiers from the Spanish colony in Cuba, in alliance with local tribe, imprisoned Motecuhzoma II, captured the imperial capital, plundered its stores of gold, and set in train the sequence of events by which the proud empire was reduced to the status of the colony of New Spain.

Image Credit

Hernan Cortes and 600 Spanish soldiers landed at San Juan de Ulua on the Mexican Gulf Coast in April 1519, lured by reports of an empire with unimaginable riches. Motecuhzoma initially suspected that the newcomers might be returning gods-for they landed at the very spot from which, according to Aztec tradition, the earthly incarnation of the god Quetzalcoatl had departed on a raft at the end of his worldly life, vowing to return. They also came in the Aztec calendar year (One Reed) predicted for his second coming.

Image Credit

The emperor sent envoys bearing magnificent offering of gold, silver, and ceremonial costumes. The gift included ritually prepared food sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificial victim, which the Spaniards rejected. But the invaders were happy to accept the treasure, which only whetted their appetite for further riches. Cortes and his men marched inland, bound for the imperial capital, and reached Tlaxcala, an independent highland kingdom that had over many years successfully repulsed all Aztec attempts to bring it into the empire. The small Spanish force defeated the Tlaxcalans and then won their support for a campaign against Tenochtitlan.

Image Credit

The Spaniards’ rejection of the ritual gifts and their alliance with Tlaxcala made it clear to Motecuhzoma that the new arrivals, far from being gods, were a real threat. He invited Cortes and his men into Tenochtitlan in the hope that Aztec warriors could defeat them there, in surroundings unfamiliar to the invaders. But once inside the city the Spaniards took the emperor prisoner.

Image Credit

Events developed swiftly and badly for the Aztecs: Montecuhzoma died in captivity and his brother, Cuitlahuac, was elected leader; the Spaniards stormed the Great Pyramid and set fire to the temple on its top a great symbolic victory, for to Mesoamericans the capture of an enemy temple signified total conquest. Fearing major retaliation, the Spaniards retreated by night. After regrouping, they laid siege to Tenochtitlan and on 13 August 1521 they captured Cuitlahuac’s successor Cuauhtemoc and seized his capital. Aztec might was at an end. The proud empire was brought to its knees.