1325-1520 - Aztec / Mexica
The Mexica Empire reached an outstanding social, economic and politic organization among Mesoamerican civilizations. Two main hypotheses compete to explain the Mexica origin: a social reorganization of the groups already present in the Central Valley after the fall of the Classic centres or a population replacement of the Mesoamerican groups by migrants from the north and the consequent setting up of the Mexica society.
After the downfall of the Toltec Empire (AD 900-1170), the population occupying the capital city of Tula dispersed, enabling immigrants to occupy Central Mexico (Townsend 1992). The classical foundation tale tells that the first Mexicas would have started a pilgrimage from their homeland, the mythological city of Aztlán (the heron's city, located somewhere in the north) towards their Promised Land. Lead by their hero-god Huitzilopochtli, they finally reached the Central Valley and, in 1325, Tenochtitlán, the central city of the empire, was founded on one of the islands of Lake Texcoco.
In the thirteenth century two city-states achieved considerable splendor. One of them, the famous Culhuacan, was located on the southernshore of the lake, near what is now the University of Mexico. Much of its greatness resulted from the fact that many of its inhabitants were of Toltec origin. The other state, Azcapotzalco, which now forms part of the northeastern sector of the capital, was a mixture of a great many ethnic groups. Its people were especially gifted as warriors and administrators, and Azcapotzalco therefore became a good deal more powerful than its neighbor to the south.
The Aztecs, also known as the Tenocha or Mexica (may-SHEE-cahs), were the last of the many nomadic tribes to enter the Valley of Mexico from the north. They arrived during the middle of the thirteenth century, and attempted to settle in one or another of the flourishing city-states, but wherever they appeared, they were violently driven away as undesirable foreigners. It is true that they spoke the same language as the old Toltecs, but otherwise theywere almost totally uncultured. The only heritage they brought with them, besides the Náhuatl tongue, was an indomitable will.
They are believed to have abandoned their as yet unidentified island home at Aztlán (or Aztatlán; Náhuatl: "place of the heron', probably in a lagoon somewhere on the north-west coast of Mexico) in about AD 1111. Led by their god-king Huitzilopochtli (Náhuatl: "humming bird of the south"), they came via Chicomoztoc (Náhuatl: "seven caves"), origin, so legend has it, of all the migrant 12th c. Náhuatl-speaking peoples, into the Valley of Mexico. The warlike tribe, by this time calling themselves the Mexica, arrived at Chapultepec (Náhuatl: "grasshopper hill") in 1299. Reduced at first to servitude by the Tepanecs, they fled to Culhuacán. Driven out once more, in 1345 [other sources report that the ancient codices state that their city was founded in the year 1325] they founded Tenochtitlán (tay-noach-TEE-tlahn) (Náhuatl: "place of the cactus fruit") on an island in Lake Texcoco. In 1358 a second city, Tlatelolco (Náhuatl: "earth mound"), was established on a neighbouring island. For a long time it was in rivalry with Tenochtitlán before being annexed by the greater power. Afterwards it assumed an important role as the commercial capital of the Aztec empire. At the Mexicas' hypothetical arrival, the main settlement prevailing in Mexico Central Valley was Azcapotzalco. This city was ruled by the Tepanecos, and constituted the main economic, military and cultural centre since the Early Postclassic, four centuries earlier.
A political arrangement linked Tenochtitlán with the other large cities of Texcoco and Tlacopán the relatively insignificant city of to form the Triple Alliance, the base of the Aztec empire. During the long warfare that predated the definitive organization of the Triple Alliance, Mexicas would have banished the Tepanecos a century after the foundation of the Great Tenochtitlán. The Aztecs prospered, grew in numbers and extended their power over the Chalcos and other tribes bordering on the lakes of the valley of Mexico and carried their conquering arms from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and, from some distance north of Mexico City, southward past the Isthmus of Tehuantcpec almost to the border of modern Guatemala, where they encroached upon the land of the Maya.
The Aztec tribe was composed of twenty clans. Each clan occupied a number of communal houses. A clan was governed by a council composed of elected chiefs. Ordinarily each clan had a political as well as a military chief. Aztec clans were organized into four phratries which were commanded by their respective war captains. Lands were reserved for the use of temples, markets, and other public buildings. A section of tribal territory was assigned to each clan. The territory of a clan was divided into portions which were allotted to the married men for agricultural purposes. Originally the title to the land, however, remained in the clan: the tiller of the soil could neither sell his allotment nor transfer it. Tribal officials - who could not till their own allotments - were given the products of lands which were cultivated for them by a dependent class. Public lands were set apart for clan councils and for officials of temples and other public buildings.
A prime object of the Aztec confederacy was to wage war. Triple Alliance armies of professionally trained soldiers controlled a large territory with more than 11 million inhabitants, an empire whose main purpose was to provide tribute to the capital. Each of the confederated tribes possessed an independent organization and had a right to certain land. Upon this territory the town from which the respective tribe took its name was located. Each tribe might wage war on its own account and levy tribute upon the territory which it conquered. Taught how to fight at an early age, the men of all the tribes were warriors. Military officers were elected by the tribe or by the clans. The clan was the military unit.
In time of joint action the Aztec war chief was the commander in chief of the combined forces; but when the war had terminated the tribes resumed their independent military organizations. A council aided and advised the war chief, who almost possessed the powers of an Emperor. Conquered tribes had to furnish tribute to the confederates. Apparently the Aztec conquests extended from about 20° latitude on the north to a line some distance beyond the frontier of the Mayans.
A principal -- and sometimes only -- objective of Aztec war expeditions was to capture prisoners for sacrifice. The arrangement in a war waged by the three confederates was that the Aztecs should receive two-fifths of the spoils, the Tezcocans two-fifths, and the Tlacopans one-fifth. Most of the sacrifices involved tearing out the heart, offering it to the sun and, with some blood, also to the idols. The corpse was then tumbled down the steps of the pyramid and carried off to be butchered.
The Aztecs did not normally eat people of their own polity, which would have been socially and politically disruptive, so they needed nearby "enemy" populations on whom they could prey for captives. The Aztecs frequently withdrew from conquered territory without consolidating their conquest in the Old World fashion. This puzzled Cortés, who asked Moctezuma to explain why he allowed the surrounded Tlaxcalans to maintain their independence. Moctezuma reportedly replied that his people could thus obtain captives for sacrifice - from the Aztec point of view, the Tlaxcalan state was preserved as a stockyard. The Aztecs were unique among the world's states in having a cannibal empire.
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