The Aztec Empire

The Aztecs were latecomers to the valley of Mexico. These people from the Chichimec culture began to arrive around 1200 A.D. They came from a place called Atzlan, and used to call themselves The Mexica.

The Mexica sacrificed the daughter of a Culhua king, and they were punished and driven into exile. They were forced to wander in the wilderness for years. According to the legend, their warrior god, Huitzilopochtli led them to an island in a swamp.

Then they saw an eagle standing on a cactus with a snake in its beak. Their warrior god told them that, this was their new homeland. They drained the swamp and began to build an urban center that would soon become the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.

The Mexicas were known for being ferocious fighters. They worked as hired soldiers for the Tepanecs. A new Tepanec, feared the progress of the Mexicas, did a series of attacks against them.

The Mexicas made a war alliance with two city-states and called it the Triple Alliance. They all defeated the Tepanecs in 1428. This marked the beginning of the the Aztec Empire.

The Mexica king Itzcoatl was the first of six Aztec emperors. He created an Aztec feudal system, that concentrated wealth, privilege, and political power, in hands of the emperor, his warriors, and other nobles. He gave gave lands from the Tepanecs that they defeat, to his warrior elite.

Itzcoatl thought that common people owed the, economic tribute, labor, and military service. He gave the people the responsibility of keeping the gods and the world alive with a constant supply of human blood. He altered the Aztec religion to justify an expanding empire.

Itzcoatl was engaged in conquering other Aztec city-states in the valley of Mexico. The Aztecs had no army, all the Triple-Alliance males were forced into service whenever they were in war. Aztecs fought to kill, but they mostly fought to take captives.

They believed that if they died in battle, their souls would join the gods. Soldiers would usually fight one-on-one with spears and wooden swords embedded with deadly rows of a sharpen form of volcanic glass. When they won a war, Itzcoatl would dictate an amount of tribune to be collected by the defeated city-state and he would name someone he trusts as its new king.

Itzcoatl died in 1440, and Moctezuma I was chosen to be the next Aztec leader. He strengthened the tribune system and started the construction of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. He also started a system of schools for boys and girls.

The Aztec Empire reached its peak in size and power under Ahuitzotl, the fifth emperor. He also finished the construction of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan. The Great Temple consisted of a massive pyramid topped by two temples, one for Huitzilopochtli, the warrior god and representation of the sun, and the other for Tlaloc, the god of rain, water, and fertility.

When Moctezuma II, the sixth and last Aztec ruler, became emperor in 1502, the empire was already beginning to weaken. Spaniard Hernando Cortes reached Tenochtitlan, and he was amazed when he saw the island-city. In 1521 the Aztecs fought the Spaniards for 85 days, it was estimated that the Aztecs lost over 100,000 soldiers. The fighting ended after the last defenders were cut down. That was the fall and the end of the Aztec Empire.