The Aztec civilization was a highly advanced and filled with unique customs, a comprehensive language, and amazing technology. The history of the Aztec civilization is one that has long been admired and studied by people around the world.
Economy and the Aztec Civilization
The Aztec economy was very specialized and intricate. A variety of goods were produced within the Aztec empire, including tools, pottery, figurines, jewelry, cloth, and baskets. These goods were either made specifically for the ruler or sold in the local markets.
Other goods, however, were carried to the lowlands of the Gulf Coast, which is now Guatemala, and traded. These prized goods included items such as gold ornaments, salt, and garments made of fine clothe. Items valued within the Aztec culture, such as jaguar skins, tropical-bird feathers, rubber, cotton, chocolate, and cacao beans were received in return. These items were valuable to the Aztec Indians as they were used within many of the ceremonies, rituals, and other traditions of the Aztec people.
Getting their goods to the lowlands was a particularly extraordinary ordeal for the Aztec Indians. Since the Aztecs did not have draft animals or wheeled vehicles, goods had to be carried by canoe. When this wasn’t possible, goods were carried on the backs of porters in long caravans.Aztec warriors also went along on trades, as they were needed to protect the caravans in dangerous areas. The merchants also played another important role in the Aztec civilization, as they would act as spies for the Aztec empire when they visited lands still unconquered by their people.
Language and the Aztec Civilization
The development of the Aztec language, or Nahuatl, also played an important role in their civilization. Pictographs were used to represent their written language. The language, both written and spoken, was important in completing business arrangements and in keeping track of family and cultural histories. The Aztec language was also used to create beautiful poetry and other prose used in rituals and ceremonies. Many Aztec customs relied on the use of their language, as did the passing down of their legends and beliefs from one generation to the next.
The Importance of Tenochtitlan in the Aztec Civilization
Tenochtitlan was an island city at the center of the Aztec empire. At one point, this city had a population of about 200,000 people. The Great Pyramid was located here, which was the primary spot for religious ceremonies and rituals. Smaller pyramids were also located throughout Tenochtitlan. On these pyramids, incense and sacrificial fires were continually burned. The advanced Aztec technology made it possible to build these grand step pyramids, which sometimes stood over 100 feet tall. In keeping with the overall tone of the Aztec civilization, nobility lived in brick or stone homes while the common people lived in homes made of interwoven mud and twigs. Tenochtitlan played an immensely important role in the Aztec civilization because of the large population living there, as well as the abundance of religious buildings and activities that took place there.
Rise of the Aztecs
There were 12 rulers or tlatoani of Tenochtitlan:
- Legendary Founder: Tenoch
- 1375: Acamapichtli
- 1395: Huitzilihuitl
- 1417: Chimalpopoca
- 1427: Itzcoatl
- 1440: Moctezuma I (or Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina)
- 1469: Axayacatl
- 1481: Tizoc
- 1486: Auitzotl
- 1502: Moctezuma II (or Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, the famous "Montezuma," aka Motecuhzoma II)
- 1520: Cuitlahuac
- 1521: Cuauhtémoc
Education
Until the age of 14, the education of children was in the hands of their parents. There was a collection of sayings, called huehuetlatolli("The sayings of the old") that represented the Aztecs' ideals. It included speeches and sayings for every occasion, the words to salute the birth of children, and to say farewell at death. Fathers admonished their daughters to be very clean, but not to use makeup, because they would look like ahuianis. Mothers admonished their daughters to support their husbands, even if they turn out to be humble peasants. Boys were admonished to be humble, obedient, and hard workers.
Male children went to school at age 15. There were two types of educational institutions. The telpochcalli taught history, religion, military fighting arts, and a trade or craft (such as agriculture or handicrafts).
Human Sacrifice
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For the Europeans, human sacrifice was the most abhorrent feature of Aztec civilization. Human sacrifice was widespread at this time in Mesoamerica and South America (during the Inca Empire), but the Aztecs practiced it on a particularly large scale, sacrificing human victims on each of their 18 festivities. Overy (2004) comments that according to “European colonial sources…between 10,000 and 80,000 sacrifices were offered at the dedication of the main temple in Tenochtitlan in 1487….” Most were captured in war or ritually exchanged victims with other communities (164).
Poetry
Poetry was the only occupation worthy of an Aztec warrior in times of peace. A remarkable amount of this poetry survives, having been collected during the era of the conquest. In some cases, we know names of individual authors, such as Netzahualcoyotl, Tolatonai of Texcoco, and Cuacuatzin, Lord of Tepechpan. Miguel León-Portilla, the most renowned translator of Nahuatl, comments that it is in this poetry where we can find the real thought of the Aztecs, independent of "official" Aztec ideology.
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Downfall
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521, when after long battle and a long siege where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox, Cuauhtémoc surrendered to Hernán Cortés (aka "Cortez"). Cortés, with his army of up to 500 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala, and eventually from Texcoco, who were resisting Aztec rule. He defeated Tenochtitlan's forces on August 13, 1521. Failure was not an option for Cortés, who burnt his ships upon his landfall near Veracruz to prevent retreat. His job was not so much conquest as to claim territory that, according to the Pope Alexander IV's 1494 division of the world between Portugal and Spain (The Treaty of Tordesillas) was already theirs.
Cortés, soon after landing, appears to have been recognized as the expected white-skinned Quetzalcoatl, and played this to his advantage. Duran says that according to tradition, Quetzalcoatl had to be welcomed with “all the wealth” that the Aztecs then possessed (1994: 497). Impersonating Quetzalcoatl, Cortés faced little opposition before he occupied Tenochtitlan, seizing Montezuma as hostage. Duran says that the people complained of Montezuma's tyranny, thus many allied themselves with the Spanish .
Thousands of Aztec warriors surrounded the Spanish, who promptly brought Montezuma out in an attempt to pacify his people. Unhappy with his rule, however, they stoned him. Surrounded, outnumbered, and apparently doomed, Cortés and three others managed to work their way through to the chieftain of the Aztecs and killed him. Thinking that this was a "miracle," the Aztecs retreated.
It seemed that Cortés's initial intention had been to maintain the structure of the Aztec empire. Thus, the Aztec empire might have survived. The upper classes at first were considered as noblemen (to this day, the title of Duke of Moctezuma is held by a Spanish noble family), they learned Spanish, and several learned to write in European characters. Some of their surviving writings are crucial in our knowledge of the Aztecs. Also, the first missionaries tried to learn Nahuatl and some, like Bernardino de Sahagún, decided to learn as much as they could of the Aztec culture. Toynbee however, argued that even had the Spaniards not defeated the Aztecs, the empire could not have continued to sustain itself and would have imploded, being already in a troubled state, “the sequel to an antecedent breakdown” (271).
But soon all changed. The second wave of colonizers began a process of cultural subjugation. Eventually, the Indians were forbidden not only to learn of their cultures, but to learn to read and write in Spanish, and, under the law, they had the status of minors. They did have their defenders, such as Bartoleme de Las Casas (1475–1566) who roundly condemned Spanish abuses and cultural imperialism.
The fall of Tenochtitlan usually is referred as the main episode in the process of the conquest, but this process was much more complex. It took almost 60 years of wars to conquest Mesoamerica (Chichimeca wars), a process that could have taken longer, but three separate epidemics took a heavy toll on the population.
The first was from 1520 to 1521; smallpox (cocoliztli) decimated the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city.
The other two epidemics, of smallpox (1545–1548) and typhus (1576–1581) killed up to 75 percent of the population of Mesoamerica. The population before the time of the conquest is estimated at 15 million; by 1550, the estimated population was 4 million and less than 2 million by 1581. Whole towns disappeared, lands were deserted, roads were closed, and armies were destroyed. The "New Spain" of the sixteenth century was an unpopulated country and most Mesoamerican cultures were wiped out.
