from 1325 after J. - C. at 1520 after J. - C.
A fulgurating history
Populate Amerindian forming in the beginning a tribe belonging to the group of Chichimèques, pre-Columbian wandering populations of septentrional Mexico, the Aztec ones remarkably invested civilizations which had preceded them and were, to the XV E century, the founders of an empire which was going to dominate all the Mexican isthmus. With the Spanishs, who discovered them and which conquered their empire in the three years space (1519-1521), they offered the spectacle of the size, the organization and refinement, but also that, terrible, of the temple-pyramids stained of the blood of the human sacrifices.
The tribal stage: “people of Aztlán” At the origin, the Aztec ones are however only one tribe of nomads or seminomads who move in the septentrional steppes of Mexico, living hunting and gathering, and perhaps of an episodical agriculture. Following other Chichimèques (“cruel” people come from North), they were introduced, to the XII E century, on the central plate, high place of Mexican civilizations since the beginning of the Christian era (thus Teotihuacán, whose apogee ranges between 300 and 600 after J. - C.). Aztec manuscripts, the codices, describe this wandering starting from a legendary place, Aztlán, from where the tribe draws its name: Azteca means indeed, in the language nahuatl, “people of Aztlán”.
When the Aztec ones arrive on the central high plateau, the brilliant toltèque civilization, established around Tula since X E century, already crumbled (falls of Tula in 1168), for badly known reasons. Toltèques dispersed on the plate and beyond; Chichimèques, civilized with their contact, also. They constituted of tens of small seigniories, whose capitals are separate often only of a few kilometers. Each one is made proud of a toltèque ascent, which represents - and this to the XVI E century - nobility and legitimacy. The Aztec ones are the last come in the valley of Mexico City, occupied in its center by a chain of lakes and lagoons; they find all the good grounds taken and are treated everywhere bet some.
The stage semi-sedentary
Their first attempt at sedentarisation takes place with Chapultepec, on Western bank of the big lake of Texcoco. But the Aztec ones attract each other the hostility of the close cities, which league to fight them. Decimated, they must take refuge in the south of the lake, close to Colhuacán, around 1299. They obtain from the local sovereign the permission to be established in the vicinity, under condition of supervision. Relegated on rocky grounds, controlled, they benefit however from this period of respite, which will last a few years, for “toltéquiser”.
Driven out again, pushed back of all shares, they are driven back in the middle of the marshes of the lake Texcoco, where they will be established definitively, in 1325, on a group of inhospitable small islands. Indeed, they discover there the awaited sign of the “Promised land” describes by their priest-soothsayers at the origin of their migration: an eagle posed on a cactus, in the middle of a watery vegetation. Mexico City-Tenochtitlán is founded.
Formation of the Empire
After 1325, the Aztec Empire is constituted in a little more than one century. By the war and the diplomacy, the old ones bet impose their hegemony on the small seigniories of the high plateau. In 1375, Acamapichtli becomes the first Aztec sovereign; he is recognized downward of Quetzalcóatl, the king-priest of Tula which merges in the legend with the Quetzalcóatl god, the Plumed serpent.
Alliance Triple
At that time on the valley two other powers reign: Azcapotzalco, tépanèque city with for Tezozómoc sovereign, and Texcoco, city founded by Toltèques east of homonymous lake, which one will call “Athens of America” because of his refined civilization. Combined with Mexicas, Tezozómoc, warrior and fine strategist, succeeds in 1418 imposing itself on Texcoco. But an inversion of alliance takes place in 1426, when Tenochtitlán and Texcoco are linked against the new leader of Azcapotzalco. The old power falls in 1428, and Texcoco finds holding it legitimate of its throne. Alliance Triple from now on is sealed for one century between the cities of Tenochtitlán, Texcoco and Tlacopan; it will be dominated soon by Mexico City, Tlacopan remaining an extra, whereas Texcoco is affirmed like a center shining of the letters and arts.
Moctezuma I
In 1440, Moctezuma Ier succeeds Itzcoatl. Founder of the size mexica, Moctezuma, which is then forty years old, very quickly undertakes a war - which will last until the arrival of the Spanishs - against the people nahuas who live on “the other side of the volcanos”, in the east, in the valley of Puebla, where the seigniories independent of Tlaxcala and Cholula are. The purpose of this perpetual combat, called the “flowered war”, is not to overcome nor to subject, but to capture the most prisoners possible, in order to offer them in sacrifice to the gods. Indeed, human blood, “invaluable water” ritually versed, only allow, in the religious design and cosmogony Aztec, the survival of the gods and the perpetuation of the world.
Other wars undertaken by Moctezuma I er and its successors aim to extend the Aztec domination on the tropical countered rich person of the South, the West and the East which abound in which gleam feathers, of precious stones, cotton, cocoa: as many food products extremely appreciated of the Aztec nobility and absent from the valley of Mexico City. Moctezuma I er subjects little by little important cities and whole areas to the borders of current Guatemala. Under the reigns of Ahuitzotl (1486-1502) and Moctezuma II (1502-1520), Aztec supremacy is still reinforced.
The organization of the Empire
The Aztec company kept of its tribal past and seminomad an organization as clans. The latter, which practice inside their districts (calpulli) a form of direct democracy directed by the old ones and delegate members to the superior council of the tribe, were refashioned by the phase of the conquest in a monarchical, military and hierarchical direction.
The emperor
The emperor - tlatoani, “that which has the word” -, elected among the members of royal chalk-lining by a college of dignitaries, expresses the will of the gods. It is, at the beginning of the XVI E century, a quasi divine character, surrounded by a religious halation. Its main mission consists in defending, increasing and embellishing the temple of Huitzilopochtli, the organizing god of the world of the Aztec ones, to which it offers, often itself, of the sacrifices.
The emperor lives in a superb palate, surrounded by his wives, his advisers, his soothsayers, his dwarves and his buffoons. No one cannot look it opposite, nor to touch it. It is to him interdict to press the ground. Two major orders surround it: warriors and priests, dressed and avoided according to their row and their merits. A system of social conventions and a complicated label of court regulate until the correct way to hold and breathe a bouquet of flower. The ornaments of jade, turquoise, to obsidian or gold, the coats woven or embroidered, the large plumes of feathers come from the tropical grounds, the refinement of the table of the emperor, the richness of his gardens in exotic plants, all testifies to its magnificence.
The exercise of the power
The secular power of the emperor is also immense. As chief of the war, it organizes the campaigns, exempts the high military ranks, distributes spoils and tribute. It perceives many taxes directly, in the form of food products (food, fabrics, precious stones) and of drudgeries, and has vast domains, cultivated by serfs. It is the supreme jurisdiction. But, in fact, most its functions are delegated to a true host of officers.
Four officers, royal voters and members of the tlatocan, the superior council of the tribe, are in charge of the executive power. They direct the armed forces, maintain the order between the councils and arbitrate quarrels and competitions. Two of them have in load the legal affairs, a third carries out the sentences, the last is a civil servant mid--civilian, mid--soldier. The Aztec administration counts other very important characters the such tax collectors (calpixques), the communal factory inspectors (tequitlatos), the scribes (tlacuilos), the priests, the judges and the police officers.
Justice is a model of organization. Thanks to a remarkable hierarchy of the jurisdictions, which understands magistrates' courts (teccali) and a supreme court or Court of Appeal (tlacxitlan), justice is returned with speed and effectiveness. No lawsuit lasts more than eighty days, including the judgment and the stop. The judges are named by the sovereign and the chief of the district where the court (four calpulli with Tenochtitlán) is held.
The social pyramid
The Aztec company, rigorously treated on a hierarchical basis and codified, assigns with each one a place, to which clothing and attire correspond. However, it authorizes with the “common men” a true social advancement, for little which they cover with glory to the combat.
At the top are the pilli, noble by the birth and members of royal chalk-lining. Below are the macehualtin, commoners who form large population. The bottom of the pyramid is consisted the mayeques ones, serfs attached to grounds, deprived or pertaining to the State.
Inside the caste of the macehualtin, classes are different by the richness or the official functions. In reward of military important facts, commoners can receive a load of calpixque or judge. A “common man” who captured four enemies with the war is promoted with the dignity of tacuhtli, is admitted in one of the orders of the military elite, the “knight-tigers” or the “knight-eagles”, and finally sees himself allotting a field with the serfs who are attached there; he, moreover, is exempted tax with equal of noble.
The caste of the macehualtin is divided into many other social categories, of which most prestigious are the pochteca, merchants, also spies in the pay of the emperor, charged to traverse the empire to bring back of them the most invaluable food products, and the craftsmen - concise, goldsmiths, plumassiers -, who bear the glorious name of the ancestors toltèques: totleca. All the urban occupations carry it, in terms of distinction, on those of the countryside.
The education system
The colleges perpetuate the social differences. The girls are sent in an institution directed by priestesses, where they learn domestic arts and the religion. The boys must pass by one of the two systems of education which coexist in Mexico City. The sons of tradesmen, craftsmen or ordinary citizens attend the “houses of young people” (telpochcalli).
Children and teenagers receive an education, primarily practical there, of “average citizen” and warrior. Young people of this school carry out a rather brilliant and free collective life. They sing and dance after the sunset and have as partners of young courtesans. They only leave the school to marry and take the weapons. The sons of dignitaries follow a teaching exempted by the priests in the colleges higher (calmecac), annexed than the temples.
There, an austere and studious life prepares the teenagers with the priesthood or the exercise of high loads of the State. Subjected to frequent fasts and hard work, they study the crowned books, the myths, the divinatory calendar, the history of their country, the art of public speaking, and are initiated with poetry and the good manners. Self-control, abnegation, devotion with the gods and devotion to the public thing are the cultivated virtues. At twenty years, they choose priesthood, and consequently the celibacy, or the marriage and the service of the State.
A great civilization
Based on the toltèque heritage, enriched by the contribution by the various cultures by the subjected or combined countries empire, animated especially by the formidable dynamism of its people, Aztec civilization produced, in many fields, in particular artistic, remarkable works.
Control natural environment
In 1519, the basin of Mexico City shelters between 1 million and 1.5 million inhabitants, that is to say a density of 200 h./km2, for a cultivated ground surface which hardly exceeds 3 000 km2. Space favourable with the culture is indeed very reduced, because in particular the low thickness of the grounds, erosion, the presence of many lakes and marshes. The Aztec genius knew to however benefit from it maximum thanks to original agricultural techniques: manuring of the grounds with human and animal excrements, irrigation, dry farming, rise in terraces. But most remarkable is undoubtedly the way in which Mexicas drained most of the lakes of the valley and emphasized the marshes by means of the chinampas, rafts of reeds fixed by piles and covers of a layer of muddy ground where corn, beans, marrows and peppers are planted.
The agriculture of the basin of Mexico City and that of the tropical areas under Aztec domination gave to the Old World the ingredients of a food revolution: the corn, about fifty species of beans, of which French beans, pumpkins, onions, the tomatos (tomatl), potatoes, the peanuts (tlacacahuatl), vanilla. For this nonexhaustive list, it is necessary to associate a drink made with seed of the amaxocoatl, known under the name of “cocoa” or “chocolate”, which will be such a success that the Spanishs will drink some even with the church.
Cosmology and cosmogony
Following the example of the Mayas and of Toltèques, Mexicas worked out system very complex of calendars, mixing astronomical observations and metaphysics, instrument of location of the natural phenomena, the such seasons or the movement of the stars, but such an average to determine the destiny of the men and the world.
The solar calendar is divided into 18 20 days months, that is to say 360 days, to which are added 5 days “hollow”, which are famous very harmful and which, in fact, do not have a sign. The divinatory calendar (tonalpohualli) comprises 260 days. Each day itself is indicated by a name, represented by a sign (among a series of 20 signs) and by a number (from 1 to 13).
Each solar year is indicated by the name of its first day, taken itself in the divinatory calendar. Only four signs can begin one year: tecpatl (the flint), acatl (the reed), calli (the house), tochtli (the rabbit). Compounds each one with the thirteen fundamental numbers of the divinatory calendar, they offer 52 possible beginnings of year. At the conclusion of this cycle of fifty-two years, time famous is suspended: it can then dissolve, and it is the end of the world so much dreaded, or to repeat itself, the old exhausted signs becoming again carrying life owing to a sacrificial ceremony. Beyond this closed cycle, the names of the days and years are repeated indefatigably.
Priests are charged to interpret the signs and the numbers of the calendar at the time of multiple events, such as births, marriages, departures of the merchants for remote countries, elections of the chiefs.
A tormented religion
The god of Aztec to whom is addressed the worship is warlike and triumphing. Huitzilopochtli is son of a goddess of the Earth, he personifies the Sun by his victory over his/her brothers and sisters, Darkness and Star of the morning. Sun and war: such are the two organizing principles of the Aztec religion. Thus, deaths with the combat or sacrificed know an imposing survival, because they are charged to help the Sun in its race. Every days during four years, they accompany it by raising to the zenith. Spent this period, they are metamorphosed in hummingbirds or butterflies. That which dies in its house, on the contrary, disappears in Darkness. As of his childhood, the Aztec man is prepared with the idea of the sacrifice; he should live only to give his heart and his blood “to our Mother and to our Father, the Earth and the Sun”, and to contribute of the kind to beautiful scheduling of the world: to allow the sunrise, fallen from the rain, the growth of corn. The “flowered war”, pact of blood between tribes sisters, of the same origin and of the same culture, were sealed for this purpose.
Human sacrifices
The chronicles report that in 1487, during the votive ceremonies which marked the unveiling of the Large Temple of Mexico City and the beginning of the reign of Ahuitzotl, 80 ' 000 prisoners were sacrificed in four days! If this number appears exaggerated, one can reasonably think that reality ranges between 16 ' 000 and 20 ' 000 immolated people.
In a sanctuary located at the top of a pyramid, the priests extirpate with a sacrificial flint knife cut the heart of the alive victim, and place it in a receptacle. The body is cut up; while a priest revêt the skin of sacrificed, the remainders are precipitated with the bottom of the pyramid. The Sun, supplied with this river of blood, can continue its race.
The Spanish conquest
On February 18th, 1519, Hernán Cortés unloads in Yucatán accompanied by a few tens of soldiers. On August 13th, 1521, Tenochtitlán falls under its attacks; the last emperor is captured, the Aztec ones are decimated and subjected forever.
Reasons of Aztec collapse
One can wonder why a State organized at this point for the war and such an elaborate civilization crumbled like sandcastles in front of a handful of Spanishs. The explanation is undoubtedly due to the technological shift (Mexicas have neither iron swords nor firearms). It is also due to the pessimism of the Aztec religious vision. Moctezuma II, scrupulous and meditative, very attentive with predict, believes to recognize in the Spanishs who arrive on the coast of Mexico the representatives of Quetzalcóatl, the king-priest of Toltèques, the god-snake with feathers whose return is announced by old prophecies. Moreover, the year 1519 coincides with the end of a calendar cycle of fifty-two years, which marks the suspension of time. These strange, white beings, bearded and dressed in iron, which launch the lightning and have horses, animals that nobody never saw in Mexico, have all the characters of the gods. Aztec the, ready ones to accept them like such, want only to honor them.
The fall of Tenochtitlán
The explanation lies finally in the active complicity of the close people, subjected since too long to the power mexica, tired to give their fortune to his emperor, and to their children with its gods. Totonaques and the lords of Tlaxcala join the Cortes, which is presented in front of Tenochtitlán-Mexico City with an army of more than 30 ' 000 natives. Moctezuma hesitates: he seeks the proof that he is in front of gods. He receives the Spanishs and prepares for them festivals, in the honor, in particular, of Huitzilopochtli. But the Cortes must regain the coast with haste to fight emissary of Spain come to ask him for accounts on its epopee. During this time, Alvarado, its lieutenant remained on the spot, organizes, under one does not know which pretext, the massacre of crowd come to witness a religious ceremony. With its return, the Cortes finds the capital Aztec in revolt; Moctezuma, held responsible for the situation, is killed by the people. The insurrection progresses. Besieged, the Cortes and his/her companions must cut through a path out of the city; they are decimated by the mad Aztec warriors: it is Noche Triste (the Sad Night) of June 30th on July 1st, 1520. The Cortes however escapes from it. It will reconstitute its forces and methodically will reinvest Tenochtitlán starting from the end of 1520. On August 13th, 1521, in the middle of the ruins of his city devastated by the guns, the last Aztec emperor goes to the Spanishs. He is called Cuauhtémoc, it “Eagle-which-fall”, i.e. the setting Sun; the Aztec sun dies out for always.