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The Aztecs were the last major civilization to control central Mexico before their defeat by the Spaniards and their indigenous allies in 1521. Although commonly known as the Aztecs, a name derived from their supposed place of origin in Aztlan, they called themselves the Mexica. One of many groups speaking Nahuatl, the major language of central Mexico, the Mexica had humble beginnings. They were an obscure hunting and gathering people who migrated to the populous Nahua region of the Mexican central plateau sometime before 1325, when they established a settlement at Tenochtitlan, on the snake-infested island in the middle of an inland lake system. After serving as mercenaries for other city-states, they became a power in their own right, the dominant member of the Triple Alliance, a confederation composed of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan, which conquered other city-states in central and southern Mexico and Central America.

In 1519 Tenochtitlan had a population estimated at 150,000, making it one of the world's major cities. It boasted huge temples, palaces of rulers and nobles, an enormous daily market, and a dense artisan and warrior population. Long-distance and local trade, with both permanent and periodic markets, was already well established, and Tenochtitlan became a major hub. The Aztecs built on the achievements of prior civilizations, which were highly complex. Their accomplishments are even more impressive given that there were no beasts of burden to ease human labor and provide a steady source of animal protein.

Much of the Aztecs' imperial history is recorded in glyphic writing. The conquest of other city-states garnered them payment of tribute goods and labor service, as well as captive warriors who became ritual sacrifices to the Aztec deities. The Aztecs were not unique in practicing human sacrifice in Mesoamerican civilizations, but they practiced it on a huge scale. When the great temple was dedicated in 1487, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of captives had their hearts offered to the sun god. The capture of warriors on the battlefield was considered the optimal way to acquire victims; this greatly affected combat. Tenochtitlan conducted ritual warfare with the nearby independent city-state of Tlaxcala in so-called flowery wars (xochiyaotl) to acquire warriors for sacrifice. Weaker city-states realized that their quick capitulation would prevent large-scale battlefield capture of warriors so a quick surrender was in their interest. They then had no incentive to revolt because unsuccessful uprisings put them at risk again for sacrifice. The specter of being sacrificial victims thus aided the Aztecs as conquerors and facilitated their continued control of other city-states. Following the Spanish Conquest, human sacrifice ceased, likely not just because the Christian Spaniards aggressively suppressed it, but because sacrificial victims were from populations other than the Aztecs themselves.

The Aztec Triple Alliance was fragile and quickly disintegrated during the Spanish-led Conquest because it was a confederation and not an integrated, unitary state. Although one language group (Nahuatl) dominated on the central plateau, city-states sought autonomy. Spaniards did not expend much effort to divide and conquer because the potential for fragmentation already existed. At the Spaniards' arrival, a number of key city-states saw the opportunity to gain powerful allies to pursue their own political goals, particularly the independent, secondary state of Tlaxcala, which had been a long-standing enemy of the Aztecs. Tlaxcalans and the Spaniards' other indigenous allies provided tens of thousands of warriors to battle the Aztecs, so the Aztecs' defeat was not accomplished by a mere five hundred seasoned Spanish soldiers of fortune, but also their numerous indigenous allies fighting for their own reasons.

The Spaniards had several technological and tactical advantages over native warriors, including horses, cannons and guns, steel weapons, and ships, as well as training in battlefield conduct. Horses were Spanish imports to the New World and gave riders protected by armor and armed with steel weapons enormous advantages in open field engagement. Furthermore, the Spaniards were not interested in capturing their enemies alive on the battlefield, but fought a war to the death. The dissimilarity between Spanish and indigenous practices afforded Spaniards a tactical advantage. Cannons and a long gun, the harquebus, gave Spaniards both firepower and a psychological advantage over warriors who had never seen explosive weapons that killed at a distance. Furthermore, the Spaniards took control of the inland lake system by building shallow draft brigantines and mounting a cannon on them, bombarding the Aztecs' island capital and cutting them off from water, food, and contacts with allies on the mainland.

Also key to the European victory was the rapid spread of smallpox during the siege of Tenochtitlan, unintentionally introduced by one of the Spaniards' African slaves who had an active case. Spaniards were largely immune to the disease due to prior exposure. In 1520 smallpox killed the Aztec emperor Cuitlahuac, who had rallied his people to defeat the Spaniards, just months after his accession to the throne following the death of the vacillating emperor Moctezuma, held captive by the Spaniards. Cuitlahuac's successor, Cuauhtemoc, attempted to again rally the Mexica, but the Aztecs' situation was untenable. Tenochtitlan was in ruins, its population ravaged by smallpox and cut off from food and water; its allies had deserted to join the Spaniards. Cuauhtemoc was captured on August 13, 1521, marking the end of the Aztec empire.

The Spaniards' goals during the Conquest are often summarized as gold, glory, and God, that is, material wealth, personal aggrandizement through warfare, and the spread of Christianity as the exclusive religion. In central Mexico Spaniards recognized that the long-term exploitation of its population was in the Europeans' material and religious interests because prior to European contact these central Mexican Indians were sedentary farmers and skilled artisans, accustomed to paying taxes and rendering labor service to their overlords. The Spaniards incorporated cooperative indigenous rulers into the colonial system as nobles, turning dynastic lords into important mediators between Spanish rulers and indigenous commoners, who continued to render tribute and labor. The Aztec empire as such disappeared and epidemics reduced the Nahua population, but nonetheless a sizable indigenous population remained. The essential structures of their society and economy became the basis for Spanish colonial rule. Spaniards built their colonial capital on the site of Tenochtitlan, drawing on its symbolic power as an imperial center.

Central Mexican populations prior to European contact were quite dense, largely sedentary agriculturalists living in nucleated settlements, although the exact numbers are controversial, perhaps between fifteen and twenty-five million for the whole region. There were many cities of significant size, and a network of towns and villages. Rapid population decline in the first fifty years after European contact, perhaps as high as 90 percent, was due to epidemics that killed populations with no immunity, not homicidal Spaniards bent on the Indians' extermination. The Spaniards viewed population decline with alarm because these Indians were a source of tribute and labor. Their attitude was unlike the English in North America, who considered Indians an environmental hazard and viewed their demise as providential. Epidemics had a major impact on transforming the post-Conquest central Mexican economy from one based on traditional compelled labor and delivery of tribute goods to a colonial economy based on free labor on Spanish landed estates that produced goods for a Spanish market. Colonial Mexico City, the former Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, continued to have a significant indigenous population, from natural increase and immigration from elsewhere. Although the imperial Aztecs were conquered in 1521, their descendants live in modern central Mexico, some still speaking Nahuatl.

SEE ALSO Indigenous Peoples

Sarah Cline