The Aztec Empire: Tenochtitlan, Tribute and the Spanish Conquest

The Aztec Empire was not, strictly, one state. Wikipedia describes it as a Triple Alliance of three Nahua city-states — Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco and Tlacopan — that ruled in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until it was defeated in 1521 by the Spanish conquistadors under Hernán Cortés and their many Indigenous allies. The word "Aztec" itself, Wikipedia notes, is not one the people would have used; it comes from aztecatl, "[people] from Aztlan", the mythical place of origin of the Nahua.

The peoples who came before — Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Toltec, Maya — are covered in Mesoamerica before the Aztecs. This guide starts with the Mexica arriving late.

Latecomers on an island in Lake Texcoco

Wikipedia says the Mexica were the last Nahua migrants to reach central Mexico, entering the Basin of Mexico around 1250, when most good farmland was already claimed. They served as mercenaries for Culhuacan, were driven out, and moved to an island in Lake Texcoco where, by their tradition, an eagle nested on a nopal cactus. They founded Tenochtitlan there in the year ōme calli, "Two House" — 1325 AD.

That date is a tradition recorded in the Mexica's own history, and Wikipedia notes their migration story joins "earthly and divine history" in a search for legitimacy. It also notes an allegation that the official Tlacaelel later ordered older books burned and history rewritten to put the Mexica at the centre — a claim the article itself flags as needing a citation. Origins written by the winners deserve the questions set out in how to analyse a primary source.

1428 or 1430? Dating the alliance

The empire grew out of a civil war. When the Tepanec king Tezozomoc of Azcapotzalco died in 1426, his son Maxtla seized the throne and turned on the Mexica. In 1427 Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Tlacopan and Huexotzinco went to war with Azcapotzalco, winning in 1428.

Here the article gives two dates. Its opening says the three cities ruled "from 1428"; its section on the Tepanec War says Huexotzinco withdrew and the remaining three formed the treaty "now known as the Triple Alliance" in 1430. Both can be true — one is the victory, the other the formal pact — but they change the arithmetic:

Either way, the empire that astonished the Spanish was less than a century old.

Tribute instead of garrisons

Wikipedia calls Aztec rule "hegemonic or indirect". Conquered rulers stayed in place if they paid semi-annual tribute and supplied soldiers; in return, the imperial authority offered protection and an integrated economic network, while local communities kept significant autonomy. Peoples could keep their own gods, provided they added the Mexica patron god Huitzilopochtli to their pantheons.

Over time the system tightened. Under Moctezuma I, who became ruler in 1440, uncooperative kings were replaced with loyal ones, and Mexica collectors began taxing populations directly. At its height, Wikipedia says, there were 38 tributary provinces under high stewards (huecalpixque), and Moctezuma I assigned two stewards per province — one in the province, perhaps to oversee collection, and one in Tenochtitlan, perhaps to oversee storage. Hereditary merchants, the pochteca, also served as diplomats, spies and market judges.

Much of what is known of this system comes from the Codex Mendoza, which Wikipedia describes as an Aztec codex believed to have been created around 1541 under the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, after the Spanish crown asked for evidence of the Aztec political and tribute system. Its first section runs from the founding of Tenochtitlan in 1325 to the conquest in 1521, listing each ruler and the towns conquered. It is a colonial document about a pre-colonial state, made in haste — its own interpreter apologises for the rough style.