By the 1470s the Tarascan armies were approaching central Mexico and Axayacatl prepared to do battle from a base in the Toluca Valley. In 1478 or 1479, some 24,000 Aztec soldiers went up against 40,000 Tarascans, resulting in an Aztec loss of 20,000 men either killed or taken prisoner. Axayacatl himself was seriously wounded in the battle. The remaining Aztec forces limped back to Tenochtitlan, and the Aztecs never again dared to engage the Tarascans in a major direct confrontation.
Axayacatl died in 1481 and was replaced by his brother Tizoc. Tizoc proved to be a weak ruler and a poor military leader. He added little new territory to the empire, although this did not prevent him from commissioning a major sculpture, the so-called “Tizoc stone,” that depicts him conquering numerous towns.25 Tizoc died, perhaps assassinated, in 1486 and another brother, Ahuitzotl, was crowned. By this time the title of the Mexica king had changed from simply tlatoani to huehuetlatoani or “supreme king.” The Acolhua tlatoani Nezahualpilli, son and successor of the great Nezahualcoyotl, apparently had lost some of his power to the Mexica, although officially the empire was still run by the Triple Alliance.
Reading a Historical Codex
City-state dynasties kept track of their histories on painted historical codices. An Aztec innovation was the adoption of the continuous year-count annal, in which year glyphs extend in a long line and pictures of events were connected to their year of occurrence with lines. This example (figure 2.11) is from the Tira de Tepechpan (Noguez 1978), a dynastic record from the Tepexpan city-state which was subject to the kings of Texcoco. In this codex, the line of years runs across the center of the page from left to right; events of the local dynasty are depicted above the line and events from Tenochtitlan and other polities are depicted below the line. The timeline of the codex runs from AD 1298 through 1590; here I show only the interval from 1501 to 1510. I have added the Christian dates next to the Aztec year glyphs (see chapter 11 on the year-count calendar used in this and other codices). This description of people and events is based upon the analysis of ethnohistorian Xavier Noguez (1978:v.1:99–103).
Year Event
10 rabbit 1502 Death of Ahuitzotl, king of Tenochtitlan. He is shown as a mummy bundle, wrapped in cloth and tied, with no face. The names of individuals are shown above and to the left of their heads.
(same year) Accession of Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin. The reed throne and turquoise crown indicate kingship.
2 reed 1507 Celebration of the New Fire ceremony. This is indicated by a knot under the year glyph (the New Fire was known as “the tying of the years”).
(same year) Death of Tencoyotzin, king of Tepexpan.
(same year) Ometochtzin, widow of Tencoyotzin (and daughter of king Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco) is pictured at the top. The line of dots shows that she survived her spouse and lived on until 1520.
3 flint-knife 1508 Construction of a temple in Tepexpan.
5 rabbit 1510 Accession of Cuacuahtzin to the throne of Tepexpan. Lines show that he was the son of Tencoyotzin and Ometochtzin.
Readers looking at the Tira de Tepechpan could see the outlines of the history of Tepexpan in relation to events elsewhere in central Mexico. Professional historians, however, would use this document as a guide or outline from which they would recount the events depicted in great detail.
Ahuitzotl's extravagant coronation was soon followed by another major state celebration upon completion of the Templo Mayor in 1487. One of Ahuitzotl's first tasks was to suppress a rebellion by the Huaxtec peoples of the Gulf Coast. Rebellions were a common occurrence in the Aztec Empire because of the indirect nature of imperial rule. Local dynasties were left in place as long as they cooperated with the Triple Alliance and paid their taxes. In many cases, the positions of rulers of provincial city-states were actually strengthened by their participation in the empire since these rulers could call on the empire for aid in the event of local troubles. Periodically, a provincial king would decide that he was strong enough to withhold tax payments from the empire. This is what the sources refer to as “rebellion.” The Triple Alliance would respond by dispatching an army to threaten the errant king and, if necessary, reconquer the city-state. As a result of repeated resistance and rebellion, many towns reappear in the conquest lists of multiple emperors. For example, Cuauhnahuac, initially conquered by Itzcoatl, had to be reconquered successively by Motecuhzoma I and Axayacatl.26
Figure 2.11 Page from the Tira de Tepechpan, an Aztec historical codex from the city-state of Tepexpan (modified after Noguez 1978:14)
The unstable nature of the Aztec Empire should not be taken as an indication that imperial expansion was random or haphazard. The Mexica and Acolhua followed two deliberate strategies in planning and implementing their conquests. The first strategy was economically motivated. The Aztecs wanted to generate tax income and promote trade and marketing throughout the empire. The Mexica rulers sponsored pochteca (professional merchants), imposed taxes in nonlocal goods (so that provincial towns had to engage in commerce to obtain their imperial taxes), and protected market towns and trade routes. The second strategy dealt with enemy frontiers. The Aztecs established client states and outposts along imperial borders to help contain their enemies (see chapter 7).
Ahuitzotl began a new cycle of imperial expansion, guided by these two strategies. He brought the Valley of Oaxaca and the Soconusco Coast of southern Mexico (Xoconochco) into the empire for their economic value. Major trade routes ran through the Valley of Oaxaca, and Xoconochco, the most distant province of the empire, was an important source of tropical lowland products such as cacao and feathers. Ahuitzotl pursued the frontier strategy by carrying out conquests and establishing client states along the Tarascan border. He built a fortress at Oztoma, along the southern part of the Tarascan frontier, and sent colonists from the Valley of Mexico to guard it and to settle the immediate area. Ahuitzotl's victories are shown as “Cycle 2” conquests in figure 2.10.
Ahuitzotl's reign was a time of unparalleled prosperity and growth in Tenochtitlan, accompanied by major territorial expansion in the empire. Ahuitzotl increasingly took over the duties of running the empire from the other Triple Alliance kings, and by the end of his reign, the Mexica state was clearly dominant over the others in power, prestige, and influence.
Ahuitzotl died in 1502, and his funeral must have been a massive and extravagant spectacle. In 2006 archaeologists working near the Templo Mayor uncovered a large stone monolith depicting the god Tlaltecuhtli (figures 2.12, 2.13). A date carved on the monument – 10 rabbit – corresponds to 1502, and most authorities think the monument marks the location of the tomb of Ahuitzotl. The excavation, directed by Leonardo López Luján, has proceeded very slowly, and at the time of writing it is still not clear whether or not a royal burial will be found. Fieldwork has been hindered by a series of technical obstacles, from the engineering problem of removing a broken 12-ton monument amidst fragile Aztec and Colonial period buildings to the difficulties of excavating below the water table. Under the monument was a series of rich offerings in stone chambers, one below the other, extending more than eight meters below the level of the streets of Mexico City. Each offering contained hundreds of valuable and fragile items and required much time to properly excavate while preserving the remains. No Aztec royal tomb has been found before this, and if the Tlaltecuhtli monument did indeed mark Ahuitzotl's burial place this will be a find of the highest importance.27
Figure 2.12 Stone monolith with image of the deity Tlaltecuhtli, excavated 8 m under the Mexico City street level (4.17 m × 3.62 m, 12 tons). This may be near the tomb of Ahuitzotl (photograph by Leonardo López Luján; reproduction courtesy of the Proyecto Templo Mayor)
Figure 2.13 Excavation and cleaning of the Tlaltecuhtli monument by Ximena Chávez Balderas (photograph by Leonardo López Luján; reproduction courtesy of the Proyecto Templo Mayor)
Ahuitzotl was succeeded by his nephew, the son of Axayacatl, Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (figure 2.9). Motecuhzoma II was a seasoned general who had partic
ipated in many of Ahuitzotl's wars of conquest. His style of rulership was virtually the opposite of Ahuitzotl's. Motecuhzoma II eliminated the status of quauhpilli and reserved all important military and government positions for members of the Mexica hereditary nobility. He replaced all of Ahuitzotl's officials and had many of them killed. Instead of ruling through the pride and cooperation of talented officials, Motecuhzoma II controlled his court through terror. Some scholars have seen these actions as steps toward the creation of an absolute monarchy among the Aztecs.28
Just as Axayacatl's reign had been concerned with the consolidation of his predecessor's conquests, his son Motecuhzoma II's imperial activities centered around the consolidation of Ahuitzotl's conquests. Some of the distant towns had to be reconquered, and Motecuhzoma II continued his predecessors' long-standing war with Tlaxcalla. Like the Tarascan empire, the states of the Tlaxcalla area remained unconquered enemies. The ancestors of the Tlaxcallans had come from Aztlan, but these city-states grew apart culturally from the other Aztec peoples. The Aztec armies were never able to defeat the Tlaxcallans, but the empire did manage to surround the area and reduce its commerce with the outside world. Motecuhzoma II fought a number of battles with the Tlaxcallans in which the Aztecs appeared to have had the upper hand, but victory proved elusive.
Then in 1519 Hernando Cortés arrived and formed an alliance with the Tlaxcallans to defeat Motecuhzoma II and the Aztec Empire. The empire was at the height of its glory when it was destroyed by Cortés. Some writers, citing the slowdown of imperial expansion under Motecuhzoma II, have asserted that Aztec culture and the empire had begun a process of decay and decline before 1519, but that was not the case. Motecuhzoma II's relatively modest additions to the empire were simply part of the rhythm of Aztec imperial expansion, in which major conquests by one king were followed by consolidation of control by the next. In the first of two cycles of conquest, Motecuhzoma I added many new areas to the empire and then Axayacatl consolidated these gains. In the second cycle, Ahuitzotl conquered much new territory, which was then organized and secured by Motecuhzoma II (figure 2.10). By the year 1519 this was the second-largest empire in the ancient New World (the Inca empire of South America covered more territory), and there were few if any signs of decline or decay.
Chapter three
People on the Landscape
In those times these hills and valleys were populated with thousands of souls who lived, following their custom, in many scattered hamlets, a short distance from one another.
Juan de la Cruz y Moya, Historia de la santa y apostólica provincia de Santiago de Predicadores de México en la Nueva España (author's translation)
The arrival of the Aztlan migrants and the subsequent development of Aztec civilization transformed the central Mexican countryside from the thinly populated backwater of Toltec times into a densely settled landscape. On the eve of Spanish conquest, the Aztecs had more people, more cities, and larger cities, than any other ancient culture of the New World. This large population was not the result of a gradual build-up over many centuries; rather it expanded in a single dramatic surge between 1200 and 1400. In part, the Aztec population explosion can be attributed to the arrival of the Aztlan migrants at the beginning of this time period, but two other factors were also responsible. First, central Mexico was relatively free of major droughts during the Early Aztec period, unlike earlier and later times.1 An overall increase in rainfall led to a dramatic improvement in agricultural productivity, and the resulting increased food supply helped set off the population surge. Second, once the Aztec migrants settled in and established their city-states, political and economic conditions encouraged people to have larger families.2
The large size of the population influenced many aspects of Aztec society and culture. Although it is no longer fashionable among archaeologists to attribute social change solely to “population pressure,” it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Late Aztec population explosion brought about a series of fundamental changes throughout central Mexican society. The most obvious of these are in the realm of food and agriculture. As their numbers grew, the Aztecs had to adjust their diet by finding new sources of food. They were also forced to increase their farming efforts to produce enough food. This process, known as agricultural intensification, led to a massive modification of the landscape as canals, dams, terraces, and crop beds were constructed all over central Mexico.3
The Late Aztec demographic surge also changed the nature of both urban and rural settlement in central Mexico. More cities were founded, and cities grew larger than in earlier times. At the same time, nonurban settlement dispersed across the countryside to the point where people were living almost everywhere (see the quotation at the start of the chapter).
How Many Aztecs?
Just over one million people were living in the Valley of Mexico when Hernando Cortés and his army arrived in 1519, and another two to three million Aztecs dwelt in the surrounding valleys of central Mexico. How have scholars arrived at these estimates?
Counting Back from Colonial Census Figures
The Aztecs kept several types of census-like written records to keep track of land holdings and tax obligations (chapter 11), but too few have survived to be of much help in determining the total size of the Aztec population. First-hand accounts by Spanish soldiers and missionaries who saw the Aztecs before they were devastated by smallpox and other diseases are another potential source of information. Unfortunately, these are difficult to use because their descriptions of population sizes vary wildly. For example, Hernando Cortés estimated the size of the Tlaxcaltecan army at 100,000 soldiers, whereas his soldier Bernal Díaz counted the same army at 40,000 soldiers.4 These men were hardly dispassionate observers since both writers were trying to justify and glorify the Spanish Conquest of the Aztecs. Even if such estimates could be trusted, first-hand observations exist for only a few cities and armies, far from complete coverage of the Aztec population.
After the conquest of Mexico in 1521, Spanish administrators began to collect information on their new Nahua subjects. Systematic census-taking began soon after the conquest in some areas, but it was not until 1568 that the entire area of central Mexico was subjected to a comprehensive and standardized census whose findings are known today. In the half century between the Spanish Conquest and the 1568 census, however, the Aztec population dropped precipitously owing to the introduction of European diseases (see chapter 13). In 1568 there were 410,000 non-Spanish occupants of the Valley of Mexico and 970,000 in central Mexico as a whole.
Several studies have attacked the problem of measuring the size of the Aztec population in 1519 using these accurate but late Spanish census figures. There are quite a few scattered pieces of information that relate to the sixteenth-century demographic loss, but it is almost impossible to piece these together into a single continuous picture of population loss in any single town or area. All demographic studies of this time period must rely upon a series of assumptions and estimates that are difficult to verify. Table 3.1 lists the most influential estimates of the Aztec population. The size of Native American populations before European conquest and colonization is a contentious issue that was debated hotly by historians and archaeologists of the 1980s and 1990s. Of the several studies of the historical demography of Early Colonial central Mexico, William T. Sanders uses the most reasonable assumptions and the widest range of information, and Thomas Whitmore employs the most sophisticated methods (computer simulation). For these reasons, most scholars favor their estimates over the very high figures of Woodrow Borah and Sherburne Cook.5 Although the lower estimates in table 3.1 are the more reasonable ones, these still show a very high Aztec population size and density. These were the highest population levels of any pre-Hispanic time period. Modern population in the Valley of Mexico did not surpass Aztec levels until the mid-twentieth century. The overall population density of 160 persons per square kilometer, which includes uninhabited areas such as the lakes and steep hillsides,
is a very high figure for a preindustrial society.
Table 3.1 Documentary estimates of the Aztec population in 1519.
Counting sites
William Sanders' estimate, based on documentary evidence, of one million inhabitants in the Valley of Mexico, is corroborated by results from the Valley of Mexico Archaeological Survey Project. These archaeological population estimates were produced as follows. Based upon the archaeological principle of analogy, the directors of the survey hypothesized that ancient settlements in the Valley of Mexico resembled modern traditional settlements. They carried out studies of the modern traditional settlements and classified them into types such as dispersed village, nucleated village, nucleated town, and hamlet. The settlements composing each type share characteristics such as population density and settlement layout.
Information on the modern settlements was then applied to the ancient sites located in the regional survey. The size of each archaeological site was measured for each of the time periods during which it was occupied. Sites were then assigned to types (again, for each time period) based upon information such as the density of artifacts, the number and arrangements of mounds, and the size of the site. The population of a site in a given time period was estimated by multiplying the population density figure for that type (as determined from the modern settlements) by the total area of the site in that period. The results of this operation for the Early and Late Aztec periods are listed in table 3.2 and are portrayed in the maps of figure 3.1. These findings provided the first indication of the Aztec population explosion mentioned above and are among the most important results yet achieved by archaeologists working in central Mexico.6
Figure 3.1 Schematic map of population growth in the Valley of Mexico from the `Early Aztec to the Late Aztec period. The dots labeled “small sites” show areas where such sites are numerous; there are far too many small Late Aztec sites to mark each one on a map of this scale (data from Sanders et al. 1979:maps 17, 18; drawing by Ellen Cesarski)
The Aztecs Page 8