Tenochtitlan and the Fall of the Mexica Empire: Exhaustive Study Notes
Class Administrative Details and Upcoming Walking Tour
Tentative Schedule for Next Class: * The instructor plans to conduct a walking tour of Savannah rather than a typical lecture on Thursday afternoon, provided it does not rain. * Weather Conditions: Storms are forecast for Thursday night, but the instructor will monitor the weather for the afternoon. * Announcements: Students must check for an announcement on the day of class regarding the final decision. * Equipment: If the tour proceeds, students should wear walking shoes. * Route: The tour usually goes from the classroom location into historic downtown and ends at Forsyth Park. * Logistics: Students will not return to the classroom; all personal belongings must be brought along. * Contingency: If it rains, the class will remain in the normal session. If the tour is canceled this week, it will be rescheduled for a future date.
Introduction to Tenochtitlan and the Mexica Empire
Nomenclature: * Mexica: The proper, scholarly name for the people known as the Aztecs. * Aztec: A name given to the civilization centuries later by a German historian (specifically, the instructor mentions a name like "Humble something"). * Empire Hub: The Mexica transformed a lake district into the central hub of a powerful empire.
Spanish Impressions: * Hernan Cortez and the Spanish conquistadors were astonished by the city's paved streets, orderliness, and cleanliness—qualities they found lacking in European cities of the period. * Bernal Diaz de Castillo, a Spanish soldier, wrote that the buildings rising from the water looked like an "enchanted vision" or a dream.
Population and Scale: * City Population: Approximately people. * Comparative Scale: At the time, Tenochtitlan was the largest city in the Americas and rivaled the largest European cities like Paris and Naples. * Empire Population: The wider empire is estimated to have contained close to people.
Historical Documentation: * Information about the city is preserved in the accounts of Spanish Conquistadors and in Mexica codices (visual texts). * Mexico City stands today on the site where Tenochtitlan was razed to the ground.
Geography and the Valley of Mexico
The Landscape: * Located on a high plateau in the Valley of Mexico, approximately miles across. * Ringed by snow-capped mountains. * Elevation: The lake sits at over \text{ meters above sea level}.
Hydrology: * The city appeared to float on a huge, salty inland lake (Lake Texcoco). * There are two tall mountains in the valley: one is dormant and the other is currently an active volcano.
The Axolotl: * Originally native to this lake. Due to the shrinking of the lake over centuries, only one natural habitat remains today. * Most axolotls seen today (as pets or in labs) descended from specimens taken back to France by a French botanist/natural historian.
Urban Planning and Hydraulic Engineering
Man-Made Landscape: * The city was largely constructed on artificial islands created by moving earth, digging canals, and draining marshes.
Chinampas: * Often called "floating gardens," though they do not actually float. * Construction: Fenced plots made of mud and vegetation. Willow trees were planted along the sides to fix the roots into the lake bed, providing stability, timber, and shade. * Agriculture: Used to cultivate beans, maize (corn), tomatoes, and chilies.
Infrastructure: * Canals: Used for transport via boat (comparable to Venice). * Causeways: At least five major land routes connected the island city to the edges of the lake. * Aqueducts and Dams: Systems built to manage water flow and bring fresh water from the mountains into the city.
Political Organization and Moctezuma II
The Triple Alliance: * A coalition between three royal capitals: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. * This alliance united different ethnicities against common rivals and established a tributary system. * Tenochtitlan remained the dominant partner.
Social Hierarchy: 1. Royalty and the Priestly Caste (at the top). 2. Elite class. 3. Commoners. 4. Slaves (at the bottom).
City Subdivisions: * Altepetl: Meaning "water and mountain." The essential building block of political life; a unit of organization including commoners, elites, land, and a ruler. * Calpulli: Meaning "large house." Neighborhood-level units often based on lineage or occupation (e.g., merchants). Managed by a male elder and a council of elders who kept a census and land maps.
Moctezuma II (r. - ): * Meaning: "He who frowns like a lord." * Governance: Devoted to order and balance; strengthened the empire through a system of provinces and armed garrisons to collect tribute. * Rivals: The people of Tlaxcala, who lived in a wooded valley to the east, remained bitter enemies and refused to submit to Mexica rule.
Religious Architecture: The Sacred Precinct
Founding Myth: * An omen predicted that the city should be founded where a cactus grows out of a rock—this is the origin of the name Tenochtitlan ("The place of the cactus rock"). This symbol is featured on the modern Mexican flag.
Templo Mayor (The Twin Pyramid): * Height: Approximately \text{ feet}. * Design: A stepped pyramid with a grand staircase leading to two separate temples at the top. * Southern Temple: Dedicated to Huitzilopochtli (the hummingbird/war god), symbolizing war. * Northern Temple: Dedicated to Tlaloc (the rain/fertility god), symbolizing agriculture and life cycles. * Construction: Successive rulers added new layers to the pyramid to immortalize their reigns.
Archaeological Parallels: * The Mexica emulated the grid-based, orthogonal plan of Teotihuacan (an ancient city they believed was "the place where the gods walked").
Mythology and Iconography in Stone
Coyolxauhqui (Bells on Her Cheeks Stone): * Located at the base of the war god's side of the pyramid. * Myth: Coyolxauhqui tried to kill her mother, Coatlicue (Serpent Skirt). At the moment of the attack, Huitzilopochtli was born fully grown; he decapitated and dismembered his sister, rolling her body down the mountain. * Imagery: The stone depicts her decapitated head, dismembered limbs, and scallops representing spurting blood.
Tlaltecuhtli (Earth Lord): * A massive monolithic stone found in retaining original pigments. * Imagery: Shown in a squatting childbirth pose with fangs to ingest sacrifices and blood flowing from the mouth.
Chacmool: * A sculpture of a male figure holding a vessel on his abdomen, used to receive offerings.
Snake Mountain: * Many temples feature serpent balustrades, referencing the mythic place of origin.
The Practice of Human Sacrifice
Social and Spiritual Context: * From the Mexica perspective, sacrifice was not viewed as cruel but as vital for the survival of the world. * Analogy: Similar to modern concepts of "carbon neutrality" to prevent climate catastrophe; sacrifice was perceived as a necessary debt to the gods to ensure the sun rose and the seasons changed.
The Rituals: * Bodies were often tossed down the temple stairs after sacrifice to mimic the myth of Coyolxauhqui. * Initially, great warriors from the Mexica's own ranks were sacrificed (an honor). Over time, this shifted toward sacrificing captured enemies or the greatest warriors of conquered lands. * Victims were treated regally and fed well before their death.
Tzompantli (Skull Racks): * Racks used to display the skulls of sacrificed humans and animals on wooden poles. * One excavated rack measured \text{ meters } \times 36\text{ meters}.
Residential and Educational Structures
Vernacular (Commoner) Houses: * One or two rooms made of adobe brick with thatched roofs and earthen floors. * Minimal furniture due to an ancestral nomadic history; used pine knots for light and reed mats for beds. * Houses included a "sweat house" for steam baths and hives for bees.
Elite and Royal Palaces: * Elite homes were made of stone masonry with multiple rooms (sleeping, cooking, reception) arranged around a patio. * Moctezuma's Palace (Tecancalli): * Contained administrative rooms, council chambers, armories, and accommodations for 600 servants. * Featured a menagerie (zoo), aviaries, ponds, and hundreds of baths. * Unlike the Forbidden City, it was a high-activity hub where hundreds of people visited daily.
Calmecac (The School): * Meaning "house of lineage." * Places where elite children were taught writing, religion, morality, astronomy, and science. * Students sat on mats and practiced using brushes, paints, and tablets.
Hernan Cortez and the Start of the Conquest
Cortez's Background: * Born in Medellin, Spain; grew up in a context of war. * Trained as a lawyer at the University of Salamanca (important because Spanish colonization was highly legalistic). * Known as a violent gambler and a "chancer."
Initial Expeditions: * Cortez worked for Governor Velasquez in Cuba. He was eventually sent to lead an expedition to Mexico in 1519. * The Breach: Cortez sailed away before Velasquez could revoke his command, taking 50013 horses, and cannons.
Geronimo de Aguilar: * A Franciscan priest shipwrecked in the Yucatan and enslaved by the Maya. He learned the Maya language and became Cortez's first translator. * His companion, another friar, chose to stay with his Maya family and eventually fought against the Spanish.
La Malinche and the Chain of Translation
Background: * Given to Cortez as one of 20 enslaved women. * Her family had sold her into slavery to the Mexica, giving her a deep-seated grudge against them. * Linguistic Chain: 1. Locals spoke Nahuatl to Malinche. 2. Malinche translated Nahuatl to Maya for Aguilar. 3. Aguilar translated Maya to Spanish for Cortez. * Eventually, Malinche learned Spanish and became Cortez's primary advisor, negotiator, and strategist.
The Siege and Fall of Tenochtitlan
Arrival in the City: * The Spanish arrived in 1519. Moctezuma initially welcomed them into the city, hosting them in the Palace of Axayacatl. * Cortez used legalistic arguments that Moctezuma had "ceded" his empire to Spain, though this was likely a misunderstanding of diplomatic flowery language.
Escalation: * Cortez took Moctezuma prisoner within his own palace. * The Conflict with Panfilo de Narvaez: Velasquez sent Narvaez with 1,000 men to arrest Cortez. Cortez left Tenochtitlan, suborned Narvaez's men with promises of gold, and defeated Narvaez.
La Noche Triste (The Night of Sorrows): * While Cortez was away, Pedro de Alvarado massacred civilians during a religious festival. * The Mexica retaliated, besieging the palace. * The Escape (June 30, 1520): The Spanish tried to flee at midnight using makeshift portable bridges. They were discovered by a woman washing laundry; hundreds of Spaniards were killed or sacrificed, and their gold fell into the lake.
Biological Warfare: * The second wave of Spaniards brought smallpox. * Impact: 2/31/31521$$): * Cortez regrouped with the Tlaxcalans. * Martin Lopez, a shipbuilder, constructed a fleet on the shores to blockade the island. * The Spanish cut off the aqueducts and food supply. * On June 30, 1521, Tenochtitlan finally fell.
Colonial Transformation into Mexico City
Urban Reuse: * The Spanish built modern Mexico City directly on top of the Mexica ruins. * Metropolitan Cathedral: Built on top of the Templo Mayor, utilizing the stones from the destroyed pyramid. * National Palace: Built over Moctezuma's palace. * The Zocalo (Plaza Mayor): The central square remains the political heart of the city, just as it was for the Mexica.
Persistence of Layout: The major boulevards and waterways of Mexico City still follow the axes set down by the original Mexica city planners.
Questions & Discussion
Q: Is Mexica the name of an empire? * A: Mexica is the name for the people. "Aztec Empire" and "Mexica Empire" are used interchangeably, though Mexica is more scholarly and correct.
Q: How do you spell Mexica? * A: M-E-X-I-C-A.
Hummingbird behavior: The instructor notes that hummingbirds are "vicious beasts" that stab each other with beaks over territory, making them appropriate symbols for a warrior god.
Discussion on Gold: Gold was valuable globally because it was a universal currency, portable, lightweight, and highly divisible (easy to split into chests for different soldiers).
Discussion on Disease: Europeans were more resilient due to centuries of herd immunity/exposure to livestock; Amerindians were isolated and had no biological protection.
The Human Zoo Theory: Some historians (like Matthew Restall) speculate Moctezuma was not "ceding" power but treating the Spaniards as items for his collection of curiosities/human zoo.