Mesoamerican empires were mostly about indirect political control. They would tax subjects but mostly leave them to their own devices as opposed to the European method of religious conversion and colonization. So when the Tlaxcalans allied with the Spanish, they likely just saw the Europeans as another force on the landscape that could help them achieve their own goals, rather than a force seeking total domination over the region.
Tlaxcalan forces added about 10, to 20, warriors to the roughly Spaniards at this time. They tested their alliance initially against Cholula, a large Aztec-controlled city-state with one of the two largest pyramids in the whole region and an enemy of the Tlaxcalans, burning and razing the city and massacring thousands of people.
Some sources claim that the Aztec leader, Moctezuma II, was someone ineffective at dealing with the situation. The Europeans remained there for about eight months. Moctezuma II is killed shortly after—the Spanish sources claim a crowd stoned him as he spoke while the Aztecs point the finger at the Spanish. In any case, the Spanish and Tlaxcalans retreated from Tenochtitlan as the whole city rose against them.
Hundreds were killed in their escape through the narrow causeways through Lake Texcoco that surrounded the city, and many more were wounded by the time they reached Tlaxcala. The second Spanish force Velasquez sent at this point did its true damage. By August 13, , the Tlaxcalans and Spanish finally succeeded in toppling Tenochtitlan and the neighboring Aztec city of Tlatelolco.
But the Spanish had a long struggle ahead of them. The alliance ended up working for the Tlaxcalans for a while, as they were relatively insulated from colonial interference. They enjoyed autonomy within the new Spanish colony for some time—the modern day state of Tlaxcala still maintains the general borders of this historic region, Carballo says.
This city, which was once big and gorgeous and was called Tenochtitlan, was razed to the ground in a very short period of time and in a very cruel manner by foreign invaders on August 13th, Once Tenochtitlan was a capital city of the Aztecs or how they called themselves Mexica , which they founded in the year In the course of only few centuries they managed to establish an immense empire, which is known as the Aztec empire today.
Thus, in this term paper I will be dealing with the Chicano culture at its very beginning. Who were the Aztecs? What does Aztec mean? Where did they come from? And how did they manage to establish such a big and powerful empire? Why Tenochtitlan has been destroyed?
This term paper works with these questions. In order to answer them, a little journey through the history has to be done. Hence, this term paper also offers an overview of the most important events that occurred at that time. But my primary concern will be to find out how the European invaders managed to overthrow the Aztec empire.
Or how could the Aztec empire fall to a small group of Spanish invaders? How is it possible? In other words, I would like to find out the reasons for the fall of the Aztec empire. A paper about the history, and especially the Ancient history, is a hard venture. Because of a great variety of secondary literature and accordingly of the different opinions and views of the authors of this books relating to this theme one can quickly lose track of things.
The analysis is getting even more difficult because we have only few source documents from the Aztecs today, so that one can not know for sure what really happened at that time.
The information about the Aztecs survived in the Aztec codices like, for example, Codex Mendoza, where the conquests of the Aztec kings and tribute areas are registered, it contains also a short ethnographic overview. But it is really arguable whether the information of this kind is true and reliable. Hence, I do not make use of these documents in my paper. I relate to the secondary sources that are listed in the bibliography at the end of this paper.
According to a legend the Aztecs came from a place Aztlan northwest of Mexico. It was a small tribe that made a living doing fishing and hunting. By means of their priests the migrants were connected with the gods and they permanently received instructions concerning direction and halt. It was a priest Huitzilopochtli who, by means of his prophecy, prompted the Aztec tribe to leave their homeland.
Four priests carried all the time a sacred bundle that contained a picture as well as other relics of this tribe prince who became a god. When the Aztecs finally arrived the Valley of Mexico the best areas were already occupied and the former settlers did not want to give off their territories to these new people, least of all to an insignificant tribe of abject and despised nomadic people from the North whom all considered barbarians.
Thus, in search of a land, the Aztecs had to walk across the settlements of a numerous tribes and assert themselves as tireless warriors. Finally they settled in Coatepec, close to the abandoned capital of the Toltecs — Tollan.
But it did not take long and they kept moving around and no one wanted to leave in his region the people who were known as violent and cruel. Cortes and some soldiers then marched into Mexico, aided by a native woman known as Malinche, who served as a translator. Thanks to instability within the Aztec empire, Cortes was able to form alliances with other native peoples, notably the Tlascalans, who were then at war with Montezuma.
Though the Aztecs had superior numbers, their weapons were inferior, and Cortes was able to immediately take Montezuma and his entourage of lords hostage, gaining control of Tenochtitlan.
The Spaniards then murdered thousands of Aztec nobles during a ritual dance ceremony, and Montezuma died under uncertain circumstances while in custody. European diseases like smallpox, mumps and measles were also powerful weapons against the local population, who lacked immunity to them. After his victory, Cortes razed Tenochtitla and built Mexico City on its ruins; it quickly became the premier European center in the New World.
But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics, and left behind an astonishing The Aztec Empire was a shifting and fragile alliance of three principle city-states.
The Aztec Triple Alliance exerted tremendous power over a Teotihuacan is an ancient Mesoamerican city located 30 miles 50 km northeast of modern-day Mexico City.
Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their The history of chocolate can be traced to the ancient Mayans, and even earlier to the ancient Olmecs of southern Mexico. The word chocolate may conjure up images of sweet candy bars and luscious truffles, but the chocolate of today is little like the chocolate of the past. The ancient Maya, a diverse group of indigenous people who lived in parts of present-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, had one of the most sophisticated and complex civilizations in the Western Hemisphere.
0コメント