HOME Columbus Text  Arrival of the Spanish text
THE AZTEC
The Aztec were hunter-gatherers living on a small island in northwestern Mexico, when their god, Huitzilopochtli (wee tsee loh POCH tlee), told them to leave their homeland. He said:
"Go where the cactus grows, on which the eagle sits happily…there we shall wait, there we shall meet a number of tribes and with our arrow or with our shield we shall conquer them."

 They journeyed through deserts and over steep mountains.

They were hungry and thirsty, hoping at every turn to see the promised sign:
an eagle sitting on a prickly pear cactus, eating a snake.

There was no time to grow food, so they ate fly eggs and snakes to survive. There was no time to weave cloth, so they wore animal skins for clothing.

 They journeyed through the lands of tribes that were larger and stronger. These tribes looked down on the Aztec, calling them Dog People because of their barbarian ways. They did not allow the Aztec to settle. Besides, the Aztec still had not seen the sign.

After 200 years of wandering, the Aztec came upon the promised sign. They found the eagle eating the snake on a cactus on a small, swampy island in Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. There they started to build a powerful empire.

They named their new home Tenochtitlan,(tay nawch tee TLAN) " Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus." No one knows exactly why the Aztec came to the Valley of Mexico. Perhaps they liked the valley's good soil, or the valley's  mild temperatures.  		By the time the Aztec arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the early 1300s, powerful tribes had already claimed the best farm lands in the area.

Building an Empire  

So they settled on a soggy, uninhabited island in Lake Texcoco. The island was about 12 miles square in size.

Adapting to the Land     

The future did not look good for the Aztec. Because the land on their island was mostly swamp, they couldn't grow corn for food or cotton for clothing. 
Since there wasn't much wood and stone on the small island to build huts, the Aztec used grass and mud from the swamp to make their houses.

They caught and ate birds and fish that lived on the island or in the water around it. The ate algae from the water too!

From the tribes around them, the Aztec learned a method of farming that worked well in the swampy areas. This way of farming made use of chinampas, or "floating gardens."  Chinampas are narrow strips of land about 300 feet long and 15 to 30 feet wide, almost completely surrounded by canals. The Aztec built these floating gardens around their central city. They used the canals to get to the chinampas by boat.
Look at the pictures of the floating gardens around their central cities.

 Using chinampas, Aztec farmers grew corn, squash, chili peppers, beans, and tomatoes.
       The Aztec also used canals to travel by canoe to the city of Tenochtitlan and nearby islands. They also built roads to the mainland so they could travel back and forth on foot. One causeway (roadway raised above the water) was over five miles long.

      The Aztec traded for food, timber, and stone with peoples in these nearby areas.
 According to Aztec legend, their neighbors were more powerful and more civilized. They forced the Aztec to serve as soldiers in their armies.
From these more powerful tribes, the Aztec learned to be skilled warriors.
 
The number of Aztec warriors increased, and so did their  reputation. In 1428, the Aztec formed an alliance, or union, with two other powerful tribes. This Triple Alliance increased Aztec military strength.
 
They began to build a huge empire that would one-day cover the southern third of Mexico and include what is today Guatemala.The Aztec Empire covered an area about 375 miles wide and 315 miles long.

One of the greatest rulers of the empire was Ahuitzotl (ah WEE soh tl).

From 1486 until his death in 1502, he led Aztec armies in conquest throughout Mexico and Central America. He made lightning-quick attacks that took his enemies by surprise.
    Ahuitzotl also completed the pyramid of the Great Temple, which he dedicated to the god Huitzilopochtli.

When Ahuitzotl died in 1502, his nephew, Moctezuma , became the new ruler. 

Like Ahuitzotl, he led his warriors into battles of conquest. 
Under his rule, which lasted until 1520,the empire reached its greatest size, with a population of about 25 million people.
LIVING IN THE EMPIRE
    As the empire expanded, Aztec society became more complex.  
Social Classes


 Commoners made up the majority (biggest group) of the Aztec population. They farmed their own land but also had to farm the nobles' land. While the men worked in the fields, the women cooked and made cloth and cared for the younger children. At about age 10, commoner boys were sent to school, where they learned Aztec religion and history. Aztec commoners had to pay tribute(a kind of tax paid in goods or services) to the government.
Tribute could be paid in crops

in handmade items such as jewelry
 
or clothing,

and by work on state projects, such as temples, canals, and dams.

Like commoners, serfs (peasants) had to work the land, but they could not own it. Serfs made up about one-third of the Aztec population.   Slaves were the lowest of the Aztec society. Many slaves were captives of war.
Others were Aztec who had committed crimes or who had not repaid debts.
   
The nobles were the smallest class, but they controlled the other classes. Being a noble was hereditary (passed down from one generation to the next). Nobles were government officials, priests, and warriors. Nobles lived off tribute paid by commoners and conquered peoples.
 

Most of those living in the Aztec Empire were conquered peoples.
The Aztec allowed each conquered tribe to keep its own religion, language, and customs.
    
But Aztec rule was also harsh. The Aztec Empire was wealthy because of all of the tribute paid by subject ( conquered) tribes.
Many tribes were forced to give up so much of their food as tribute that they were nearly starving.
 
 The endless demand for tribute made these tribes very angry at Aztec rulers.  Aztec merchants traveled throughout the empire bringing back colored feathers, jade, and cocoa for the nobles.

Slaves walked in long caravans carrying heavy loads for trips of 250 miles or more. Merchants sold many of their goods in city markets throughout the empire.  The marketplace was an important center in Aztec cities. 
The Spanish explorer Hernando Cortes later reported that more than 60,000 people visited the city market daily in Tlatelolco(tlah teel OHL koh).

The Aztec built fancy palaces, temples, and government storehouses out of stone and brick. 
Aztec craftworkers created beautiful feather headdresses,
stone sculptures

 and jewelry with precious stones
 
Perhaps the most important Aztec artifacts that archaeologists have discovered are the Aztec codices
( a kind of book, with pages made from tree bark).

The pages open and close like folding screens and include brightly colored hieroglyphs( pictures that stand for words).  At one time there were hundreds of these books.
Unfortunately, the Spanish burned many of the codices, and others simply rotted in the humid climate.  From the few that remain, historians have learned about Aztec life.  
Fighting for the gods
The everyday lives of all classes of Aztec society revolved around religion.
These are just a few of the 1,000 Aztec gods- most of them represented forces of nature.
Corn

 Water

 Fire

Food
 Mother
 Flowers
Wind
Moon
Sun
 
Because the Aztec lived by farming,  the two most important gods in the Aztec world were  Tlaloc (tla LOHK), the god of rain, 
 		 and Huitzilopochtli, the god of the sun and of war who could destroy the world whenever he wanted.

Human Sacrifices
The Aztec held many religious ceremonies throughout the year where priests offered sacrifices to the gods to make their crops grow.
Human sacrifice was common.  When the Temple of the Sun in Tenochtitlan was dedicated to the sun and rain gods, the Aztec sacrificed as many as 10,000 people !
The reasons for the human sacrifices are still not clear.  Most of the people sacrificed by the Aztec were captives of war. 
The Aztec believed that sacrificing an enemy warrior especially pleased their gods.  Some think that the Aztec arranged wars just to capture sacrifices for the gods.
 
War and Religion
     The Aztecs also wanted to control the Valley of Mexico, so they made war on any tribes who resisted them. The Aztec needed more land to grow crops and more tribute to support the larger government and population. So they conquered more and more tribes. The Aztec needed a well trained army to keep expanding.

At schools, the boys learned ruthless fighting methods and became strong warriors.
They plundered homes and captured victims for sacrifice. Aztec warriors fought without fear of death. They believed that if they died in war, they would go live with the gods in the heavens.
"Only this my heart craves: death in war."
(from an Aztec codice)
Warriors also fought hard because the more captives they took, the higher their social rank would be.
 
The ruthless tactics of the Aztec helped them build an empire. 		 But their cruelty led to deep anger among conquered tribes. Later, Spanish invaders would use this anger to help defeat the Aztec.