The Aztec Empire

The Aztec Empire

The Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Mexico to the early twelfth century, from northwestern Mexico. Other towns of language Nahuatl had previously reached the Mesoamerican region from the so-called Latin arid. The seven tribes Aztecs, led by several priests and chieftains, settled on the Lake Patzcuaro and Coatepec before reaching the valley. In 1272 the Aztecs settled in Chapultepec where he became known for their aggressiveness and their sacrifices. In 1319 were defeated by other people and were confined to Tizapan. Then allied with the Culhuas, but after the sacrifice of the daughter of the lord of Culhuacan had to flee to the interior of Lake Texcoco. In one of the islets of the lake, the sight of an eagle eating a snake perched on a cactus I point out the place where they should build their new capital, Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325.

Eventually the inhabitants of Tenochtitlán, who called themselves Tenochca, conquered Tlatelolco and they rapidly expanded. The Tenochca actually created new land to farm and build on by anchoring wicker baskets to Lake Texcoco's shallow bottom and piling silt and plant matter on top of them, thus making chinampas, artificial islands. The Tenochca formed an alliance with a people called the Alcohua against other peoples of central Mexico. They took a new name too. They began to call themselves Aztec after Aztlán, their legendary homeland.

In the following years, Tenochtitlán grew on top of the chinampas to a city of thousands of stone buildings, interconnected by numerous canals, with about 200,000 inhabitants. This population center is the site of present-day Mexico City, one of the largest cities in the world. The Aztec launched many military campaigns against surrounding peoples, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. Aztec armies were well organized and well armed. They used bows and arrows, darts and dart throwers, clubs, maces, and swords with blades of volcanic glass. Thick, quilted cotton was used to make shields as well as armor. Through conquest, the Aztec Empire came to comprise 5 million people.

The Aztec conquered their neighbors for economic purposes. They imposed taxes on their subjects, taking raw materials from them (such as gold, silver, copper, jade, turquoise, obsidian [black volcanic glass], and pearls), as well as food products (such as corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, mangoes, papayas, avocadoes, and cacao, or chocolate). They also demanded cotton for clothing and for armor, and domesticated animals, such as dogs and turkeys, for meat.

Religion

Through warfare the Aztec obtained captives for human sacrifice. In their religion, the letting of human blood was believed to appease the many different deities. An important god for the Aztec was Quetzalcoatl, the Great Plumed Serpent, who was central to the religions of the earlier Mesoamerican civilizations as well. But Quetzalcoatl was a benign figure who, according to tradition, showed mercy. It was the war god Huitzilopochtli who demanded the most blood. Priests sacrificed thousands of prisoners to Huitzilopochtli in the temples at the top of the ...