Aztec Empire

Sigh. Nothing in history really comes all that simply. The first thing you learn when looking up the Aztecs is they aren't really called the Aztecs - at least that's not what they referred to themselves as. The word Aztec is a modern term, as the people that are being discussed are actually the Nahuatl-speaking people of Mexica ethnicity, typically part of the Triple Alliance empire in old-school central Mexico. By old-school I mean 14th to 16th centuries.

I also discovered that learning about the histories of countries that you know little about can have some problems that you wouldn't have anticipated. For instance, is Tepanec a king, city, or kingdom? Those were my first guesses, but as it turns out it's a people. Reading the wikipedia entry meant reading several other entries just to get the most basic understanding of the first. What follows is my best attempt at understanding it.

O.K., so a little history on the Mexica people. They were loyal to the Tepanecs, a much more powerful group at the time. The Mexica helped the Tepanecs in a war against the Acolhua city of Texcoco (the Acolhua name is mostly important in the sense that it's not Mexica or Tepanec, which I'll be talking about more). As a result, the Mexica were gifted the city of Texcoco - the Mexica now owned that, and their capital, Tenochtitlan, quite possibly the most difficult word to spell of all time. Oh boy. I know that's just a paragraph, but I still feel it needs a recap. The Mexica now have Texcoco and Tenochtitlan. The Tepanecs are currently allied with the Mexica.

The jaguar warrior; historians are unsure if it's a man
wearing the skin of a jaguar or a jaguar consuming a man.

The Mexica were buddies with the Tepanec king, Tezozomoc - bad news is, he died. Since no one plays nice when there's that much power to be taken, a succession disagreement sparked a civil war. The Mexica, ruled under Itzcoatl, a ruler who is missing several vowels, supported one son, but he was assassinated by his brother Maxtla who usurped the throne. The Mexica king was not so happy with this newcomer, and the feeling was mutual. Maxtla blockaded Tenochtitlan, presumedly because he was as frustrated with trying to pronounce it as I am, and demanded increased tributes. Naturally, that's going to screw a city pretty hard, and the Mexica prepared for war. The Aztec Empire was formed in essentially what is called the Triple Alliance, formed from the cities of Tenochtitlan, Texococo, and a Tepanec city that joined against their new king, Tlacopan. They went to war against the Tepanec king and won, splitting the defeated empire into three.

Over the next century, the Triple Alliance became quite powerful through the means of a tribute based empire. To solidify their position, they began to burn old books of the previous empire, changed the religion and rewrote the histories to have more of a Mexica central focus. They began to turn to imperial means of power and took over cities and tribes close to their centre, replacing uncooperative kings with puppet rulers loyal to the Mexica. The cooperative kings had bonuses in the form of tribute from far away lands; in a sense, they were running a pyramid scheme. Stay true to the main boss, and you'll have your own little empire. The difference is instead of selling useless products, they were allowed to govern by their own methods and stay under the protection of the empire - significantly more appealing than your buddies coming up to you saying "I have this excellent business opportunity for you".

Motecuzoma II - his title says he
is the leader of the Aztecs, but his
stance says "hey, big boy".

Their expansion started to become rather lucrative, and tribute flowed in like nobody's business. Over the next eighty or so years, they took over much of what is present day central Mexico. Naturally, the first leader couldn't lead forever and the leadership was passed on to Motecuzoma, a nephew of Itzcoatl. Now, he's not to be confused with the second Motecuzoma, a leader of the same name some time down the line. In what seems like a deliberate attempt to confuse historians, they didn't call him Motecuzoma II, possibly because that sounds like a horror movie.

The rulers for the empire typically had to deal with border issues with the Tarascan empire who were expanding west of them, a power they just couldn't overtake. In addition to that, they often had to quell uprisings in their communities, regardless of the fact that the empire was pretty hands-off. Think of it like the Mafia - they will give you protection in turn for tribute, but they're not going to tell you how to run your business. Oh, and protection means "we, personally, won't kill you and your family".

So things are good. They have tribute flowing, they're powerful, their borders may be contested by the Tarascan but they're holding their own. What could possibly break this empire up? Oh, right... Europeans. The Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, landing in 1519 with only 100 sailors and 530 soldiers, spelled the end. They were mostly only armed with a sword and shield along with a few horses, but despite the fact that the technology was vastly superior, that alone wasn't what was going to take down the Aztec rule - they were aided by large numbers of Indians, upset with the rule of the Aztecs and deciding to side with these mysterious Spanish. Oh, and smallpox. A lot of smallpox. That'll do the trick. Tenochtitlan eventually was destroyed, thus ending the empire.

Unfortunately, Motecuzoma did not expect the Spanish inquisi- ...I mean smallpox. They didn't expect the Spanish smallpox.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "The meals were served in a large hall, in which Motecuzoma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats and kept very clean." Yeah... I guess they weren't big on quotable stuff. That's the best I've got - they were clean and had mats. This rousing speech was given by Cortes.