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| Coat of Arms of Mexico |
The Aztecs were peoples of central Mexico. They spoke the Nahuatl language and conquered the territory of Mesoamerica between 14th and 16th century. The Aztecs organized the Empire as a huge system of tribute payings. Most areas within the empire were city-states, each ruled by its legitimate king. Their capital was Tenochtitlan. The Aztec civilization was rich and developed. It had interesting religious traditions, and strong, scary cult of human sacrifice. In 1440, Moctezuma I became the emperor. His half-brother Tlacaelel, however, preferred to be the strong political figure in the shadow. Tlacaelel reorganized the society and introduced new elements in their religion. He declared that the Aztecs were the chosen people of their god, Huizilopochtli. He invented ritual wars in order to keep the soldiers in top form. And finally, it was him who introduced the cult of human sacrifices for the sun, in order to keep it moving. The fall of the Aztec Empire took place in 1521. A fistful of Spanish soldiers led by Hernán Cortés had many indigenous peoples as allies with him (which spoke Nahuatl language) and rather soon conquered the capital and the Empire. Having the Spaniards as their masters, the natives soon reached the bottom of the society and were almost exterminated.
The Spaniards could not imagine that, unlike in Europe, the roads in Aztec Mexico were so safe that even women and children could travel alone. Unfortunately, after conquering the Empire, the Spaniards did not bother to take care of the roads at all, and they just became ruins or simply disappeared in the jungles.
In order to buy food and different items, the Aztec mostly used cacao beans and standardized lengths of cotton cloth called „quachtli“. If they wanted smaller things, such as small rabbits or turkey eggs, they payed with cacao beans, while cotton cloth was used to buy bigger items. A man could also sell his daughter as a sexual slave or for some religious ceremony and could get almost 700 cacao beans for her. Real money was used in the markets which were organized throughout the country. A market in smaller towns was held one day a week, while larger cities had markets every day. Almost 60,000 people used to come every day to the central market of the Tlatelolco city. Aztec Mexico economy included different types of money, many markets with their merchant people, but land and labor could not be traded. The developed commerce enabled Aztec rich and middle class people to get new exotic things from the new areas. The economic system was organized in the way that all towns were to pay tributes (luxury and regular goods) twice or four times a year. Tributes were paid by feathers, adorned suits, greenstone beads, cloth, firewood, food and they represented a huge buredn for the citizens. They had to increase their work and production and satisfy the nobles who were given extremely high privileges to take care that everybody paid the tribute. The Empire had the network of the roads among the cities. One could only walk on these roads, because Aztecs did not have neither transport animals nor any type of vehicles. Naturally, the roads were maintained by the mentioned tributes. There was a certain infrastructure on the roads, such as places to rest and eat. Couriers called „paynani“ were constantly on the road and they informed Aztecs authorities of everything. They had a very, very important duty to take care of: keep the roads safe for all travelers.
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| Aztec warriors from Codex Mendoza folio |
The highest class was the nobility called pili. Naturally, the sons of pillis had money, education and all priviliegies. A class below the nobility (called the macehualtin) were peasants mostly dedicated to arts and crafts. Commerce, arts and crafts represented important sources of incomes for the society, and 80 percent of the population was involved in these activities. Only 20 percent of the population was involved in agriculture and food production The Empire had professional soldiers, warriors called tecuhtli and spies called pochtecah. Both were very important because they maintained the commerce and communication throughout the Empire. At the bottom of society were pawns and slaves (tlacotin). Pawns were extremely poor persons who from time to time used to sell themselves to work for richer people. An Aztec person could become a slave because of his debts, or because he comitted some criminal act, or when he became a war prisoner. As a slave, he could own some material things and could even hold other slaves, but had to give his animals and money to his owner. The slaves could gain their freedom in two ways: either by buying themselves out, or by getting married with their masters, and or having children with them.
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| Aztec sun calendar |
The empire had two supernatural figures: teotl and teixiptla. Teotl was considered to be "god" or "demon", but it actually represented an impersonal force of the world. Teixiptla showed physical appearance of the teotl. In the beginning, Huitzilopochtli was the god of hunting. However, after the founding of Tenochtitlan in the 14th century, Huitzilopochtli became the central religious figure. As the personification of the sun and war, it became the crucial figure for everything that happened in the Empire. Legend says that Huitzilopochtli told the nomad tribes to build a city on the site where they would see an eagle greedily eating up a snake. Supposedly, that site was the place where the Aztecs later built their capital city of Tenochtitlan, today Mexico City, and this story is depicted on the Coat of Arms of Mexico. The Aztecs believed that the first four worlds had come to their end when the sun died, and that they lived in the "fifth world". In order to keep this world alive, they were convinced that it was very important to keep the sun alive. How? By giving the human sacrifices to the sun. That was the main reason why their cult of human sacrifices became so strong and important to them. They analyzed the death, and created beliefs that different gods controlled different deaths. For instance, those who died by drowning, leprosy, goat, lightning or lung disease were killed by the god Tláloc, who placed them in his paradise. On the other hand, it was the sun which had the power to take warriors in battle, people in rituals, merchants on the roads and women while giving birth to their first child. Everyone else who had different kind of death spent four years in the the home of Miclantecuhtli, the god of death. After having reached the ninth hell, they all just disappeared.
For example, for the ceremony of sacred Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs wrote down that they had sacrificed 84,400 prisoners during only four days. It is possible that those figures are not correct, and that they sacrificed around 2,000 people, but it does not change the issue. It seems that the Aztecs were not touched at all by the Spanish judgments about them, saying that their rituals did not differ much from the European killings. The only difference was that Europeans killed the warriors during the battle, while they killed the warriors after the battle.
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| Aztec education |
The Aztec food is mainly the food Mexicans eat today, such as maize, beans and squash with chilis and tomatoes. They bred acocils, a small shrimp of Lake Texcoco, as well as Spirulina algae. They also exploited maguey, a type of agave, for many things: to get food and drink, or to get fibers for cloth. Generally speaking, Mesoamerican diet was the vegetarian one. Together with plants and vegetables, they loved insects such as grasshoppers (chapulines), worms, ants and so on, and even today insects are main food in some parts of Mexico. The Aztecs kept dogs and turkeys on their households. They ate them. Some experts claim that the Aztec nobles ate human flesh in certain rituals. Some experts deny that. In their spare time, the Aztecs played a kind of the Mesoamerican ballgame. As for education, parents and the mentor called calpolli taught their children, until the age of 14. Children had to learn a collection of sayings that represented the Aztecs' main philosophy. After turning 15, all boys and girls, regardless of their status, had to attend all regular schools. The teachers were very rigid, and followed stoicism. There were two main types of schools: military schools, and regular schools having subjects like reading and writing, astronomy and theology. However, it is more likely that girls were barely taught to read or write. It was much more important for the society to teach them how to maintain the households, raise children, and practice religious ceremonies.
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| Xochicalco pyramid |
In times of peace, warriors loved to hear poetry. There were many poetry contests and festivals throughout the Empire. They had different poetic genres devoted to different themes, such as war and the gods of war, mythology and nature itself. It is interesting that the names of the poets were always mentioned. Apart from poetry, the Aztecs had theater as well. They had plays with actors, musicians and acrobats. Plays of their gods were extremely popular among the people. Written by converted Indians in in Nahuatl language, these plays additionally helped the natives to accept Catholicism. Many of the called "pastorelas" are played during Christmas period. The capital city of the Aztec empire was Tenochtitlan, which is now the Mexico City. Situated on Lake Texcoco, the city had a canal network between its small islands which were used for transportation. Tenochtitlan proves that the Aztec civilization was a highly developed one. The capital was built according to the organized architectural plan and centered on the fields for rituals. The houses were made of wood and loam, roofs were made of reed, while pyramids, temples and palaces were made of stone. The city probably had over 200,000 inhabitants together with Tlatelolco, which used to be an independent city but later was connected to Tenochtitlan. The complete surrounding area probably had between 300,000 and 700,000 inhabitants.
A strong theory is the one that explains how Aztecs considered the Spaniards to be gods with Cortés as their central religious figure. Another thing destroyed Aztecs. European diseases such as smallpox were something completely strange to the poor natives, and many Aztec soldiers died of it in a short period of time. Very soon the disease overtook the rest of the population. With no cure, a quarter of them died very soon. During the siege of Tenochtitlán in 1520, the citizens had no food at all and were dying of smallpox epidemics. After their king Cuitláhuac and many important army generals died of smallpox, the Aztec army totally fell apart. A brief summary of the fall of the Aztec empire (after the arrival of Hernando Cortes until the fall of their capital)
During the 16th century, the population of Mexico had two races: the indigenous race on and the Spanish (white, European) race. Today, the majority of Mexicans are mestizos, people of mixed indigenous and European Spanish roots. The Aztec Nahuatl language survived to the present time, and is spoken in remote mountains in central Mexico by almost two million people. Nahuatl also influenced Mexican Spanish, and some of its words, like chocolate and tomato, entered other world languages. Important part of the Aztec legacy is the Mexico City that was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan. Many of its districts, parks and other facilities have the original Nahuatl names. Mexican meals include original Aztec agricultural products and ingredients, most of which also have their original Nahuatl names. The modern Mexican flag has the emblem of the Aztec legend. It is also very interesting that the country`s main religious figure, the Virgin of Guadalupe, has many similarities to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin.
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| Hernán Cortés |
The arrival of the Spanish and other Europeans hit the indigenous world completely. They were not able to deal with new diseases brought from Europe, and during less than a century, the indigenous population declined from 25 million people to only a million.
After the fall of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish crown gave their conquistador Hernán Cortés the title of the Governor and Captain General of Nueva España (New Spain). In that way Cortés had power to control the huge territory which was to be explored by his army. Above all, the Spanish wanted gold and silver. They also exploited other valuable items Mexico had. On the ruins of Tenochtitlán, Cortés founded colonial Ciudad de Mexico, with Aztec pyramids, temples and palaces. With the new lands, Spain faced many organizational challenges, as their distanced colonies were on the other side of the world. Therefore, the king of Spain Carlos V formed the Council of the Indies which was to take care of the things across the ocean. Very soon, New Spains`s first Audiencia was founded and for some reasons the king ordered Cortés to come back to Spain. Because Cortés did not want his king to become angry, he brought him many gifts from the new world, such as, gold, jade, exotic plants like cacao and exotic animals like colorful parrots. In spite of all precious gifts, Cortés returned to Mexico only as Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca where he continued to have problems with other ambitious rivals. He sailed back to Spain but again did not succeed to please the King. Disappointed, he came back to Mexico, fell sick and died un 1547. The mentioned first Audiencia was controlled by Nuño de Guzmán who was involved in corruption and other affairs and tried to cover up them from the King. Some affairs became evident and Guzmán was sent to prison in Spain. Antonio de Mendoza replaced Guzmán as the first Viceroy of New Spain. During 15 years, he had very important duties and titles: the Viceroy, the army commander-in-chief, and the boss of all administration. Colonies grew larger and were named after the Spanish regions. Due to its colonies, Spain became a very rich country. It exploited all Mexican natural riches, especially gold and silver. The country`s colonial cities developed rapidly. Indian masters of architecture had to build cathedrals, convents, and palaces for the Spanish nobility in the colonies. The Spanish crown considered the religious issue to be a very important one, and sent an army of monks to converse the natives to Catholicism. The monks treated the natives very nice and during a half of the century millions of the natives accepted the new religion. It is interesting to mention that in the 16th century the indigenous slavery was abolished, however black slaves were kept.
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| Spanish colonial architecture |
In colonial Mexico, it was very important whether your roots were from Spain or from the indigenous remote areas, whether your skin was dark or white. The masters of the colonial society were the Spanish born in Spain, a small number of them. Called “peninsulares”, they were also considered to be a part of aristocracy in Mexico, although back in Spain they would be ranked much, much lower. Next were the criollos, people who were born in Spain by their pure Spanish parents. On the social scale, below the criollos came persons of mixed indigenous and Spanish parents called mestizos. At the very bottom of the society were the indigenous people and African slaves. There were plenty of the poor who worked for minimal wages, who therefore gained lots of debts and became totally dependant of their employers. They were called “peones”. During two centuries, some criollos became extremely rich and influential commerce men, also involved in mining and agriculture. Typical Mexican large households called “haciendas” began to flourish. As their economic status rose, the criollos wanted more political power in Mexico for themselves, becoming more discontent with the Spanish crown. After the Crown expelled the Jesuits in 1767, it took all church lands, buildings and money, which did not suit the criollos at all. The idea for rebellion appeared in 1808 when Napoleon occupied Spain, because Spain could not control firmly the situation at home and abroad.
The leader of the Mexican Independence movement was Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the criollo Roman Catholic priest. He preached the rebellion, trying to inform and encourage criollos, mestizos, and zambos to raise against Spanish colonial government and wealthy Spanish families who lived in Mexico. He considered New Spain to have all rights to be independent and the criollos were to govern it.
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| Hidalgo y Costilla |
Mexican War of Independence started on September 16, 1810. The Criollos (the people of mixed ancestry) grew rich and at the same time did not get along with the Spanish colonial government and the policy they conducted. The indigenous also wanted to get free of the Spanish crown and supported the criollos. Both liberal and conservative parts of criollo population wanted to get rid of the Spanish minority who held all privileges. At the time, three movements were implemented among the people: some were in favor of the independence, some were autonomists and some were royalists, chaos that made the situation even harder for criollos. On September 16, 1810, the rebels attacked the big colonial mining town of Guanajuato, and killed many Spanish there. However, a year later the rebel army was defeated by the Spanish army and the rebels had to escape to the regions very close to the US-Mexican border. The Spanish colonial troops caught Hidalgo y Costilla and he was accused and was sentenced to death. After being executed, his head was put on the Guanajuato`s main square to warn other rebels.
José María Morelos replaced Hidalgo y Costilla. In 1813, the first official document of independence, known as the "Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America" was signed by the Congress. The war became even worse. Two years after signing the document, the Spanish colonial authorities caught Morelos and had him executed. The war of independence was organized in small, divided guerilla units which had two heroes: Guadalupe Victoria and Vicente Guerrero. At the same time, across the ocean, Spanish politician Javier Mina did not accept the King colonial policy and was exiled. Mina decided to take the advantage of the Mexican situation in order to get even with the king. He came to Mexico and organized his rebel army. In December 1820, Viceroy of New Spain Juan Ruiz de Apodaca decided that it was very important to destroy Vicente Guerrero guerilla group. For that reason he appointed Agustín de Iturbide to lead the mission. However, Iturbide changed his mind about the situation and proposed Guerrero to unite their armies. Furthermore, Iturbide designed a document known as "Plan of Iguala", which could be considered to be a pre-constitution draft for independent Mexico. Among other things, the plan stated that the religion was to be Roman Catholicism thus gaining the protection of the powerful Catholic Church. The peoples of Mexico were to be equal, regardless of their origins and skin color. More precisely, Mexico would become a constitutional monarchy and the Congress would write a constitution for the monarchy.
There was no democracy, no free elections and no free press and the co Thuntry was ruled by the military. Only one thing could come as a result: the revolution.
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| Porfirio Díaz |
Agustin de Iturbide proclaimed himself emperor of the constitutional monarchy in 1821. Three years later the republic was established and Guadalupe Victoria, a former independence general, became the first president of Mexico. During the 19th century many presidents came to power and step down from office, and the country had a long period of instable changes. Mexico also lost a great deal of its northern territories as the US took it either in battles or in dirty business. The political situation was rather complicated in the country. People were divided among conservatives (in favor of monarchy) and liberals (in favor of a republic). Conservatives tried to bring Maximilian of Habsburg, an archduke from the Royal House of Austria. As the French were interested in exploiting the Mexican mines, they got involved and sent their troops. On May 5th, 1862, the French army destroyed the Mexican army. Maximilian of Habsburg wanted Republic and liberal government. However, in 1867, he was executed by the forces loyal to President Benito Juárez. Juárez implemented the new constitution which, among other things, confiscated all the properties and money of the Catholic Church. He also established civil marriages and expelled priests from any kind of public and political engagement. He was eager to separate the Church from State. Juárez died in 1872 and Porfirio Díaz became the new president. During the 30 years long period (from 1876 to 1911), a period known as Porfiriato, some significant changes occurred. Díaz brought foreign investors to invest their money as the country's infrastructure was a complete disaster. Among other things, telephone and telegraph lines were organized, and the rail network was done. In spite of some economic improvements, the people suffered during the Porfiriato. The investors were very satisfied as the minimal wage for workers was extremely low. By exploiting the country`s resources, many national and international investors were becoming rich, while the majority of the workers shared a horrible social situation and wanted the revolution.
