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Aztecs: Lake Texcoco
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The Aztecs were the Native American people who dominated northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. A nomadic culture, the Aztecs eventually settled on several small islands in Lake Texcoco where, in 1325, they founded the town of Tenochtitlan, modern-day Mexico City. Fearless warriors and pragmatic builders, the Aztecs created an empire during the 15th century that was surpassed in size in the Americas only by that of the Incas in Peru.
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The Aztecs... known as the Tenochca or Mexica, were the last Chichimec tribe to arrive, possibly forced to leave their home at Aztlan by drought or over-population. There was little available land for occupation and the Aztecs lived a peripatetic existence, periodically being moved on by one state after another appalled by their savage ways and liking for human sacrifice. Eventually, they settled on some uninhabited swampy islands near the western shore of Lake Texcoco where, according to legend, they saw a sign previously prophesied as indicating the site for their capital: an eagle with a snake in its beak sitting on a cactus. The twin Aztec towns of Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco were founded in
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The Aztecs produced a variety of goods, some for the ruler and his noblemen, and some that were sold in markets. Gold ornaments, brightly colored woven cloth and salt harvested from the lake bed were luxury items that were traded with distant peoples to the south. They were traded for other luxury items, such as tropical bird feathers and jaguar skins (used for ceremonial garments), cotton, rubber, and cacao beans (for making chocolate). Trading goods were carried by canoe and by long caravans of porters, since the Aztecs had no wheeled vehicles or pack animals. Aztec warriors traveled with the caravans and the merchants who led them to protect them in dangerous areas.
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The Aztecs formed an extensive state (often referred to as the Aztec Empire) in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, based in the central Mexican highlands during the late Postclassic period in Mesoamerican chronology. Since its popularization in historical literature from the 19th century onwards, the term Aztec has been used to refer to several different (but related) groupings of Nahuatl-speaking peoples, and its usage varies somewhat with the context. Often, it refers exclusively to the people who traditionally founded their capital Tenochtitlan, who were self-described as the Mexica, Culhua-Mexica or Tenochca. Sometimes it ... includes Tenochtitlan's two principal city-state allies, the Acolhuas of Texcoco and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan, who together with Tenochtitlan formed the Aztec Triple Alliance that gave rise to the extensive empire in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.[1] In other contexts it may refer to all the various Nahua peoples and altepetls that became participants and tributaries to the dominating state.
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After having wandered as outcasts and mercenaries through the territories in the southwestern corner of the Valley, the Aztecs, the last of the seven tribes to enter Anahuac, finally found a home on two islands in the middle of Lake Texcoco. There, in 1325, they built the city of Tenochtitlan. They had been guided to this spot by their deity, Huitzilopochtli, who had told them to settle where they should find an eagle standing on a nopal and devouring a serpent.
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The Aztecs were famous for their agriculture, cultivating all available land, introducing irrigation, draining swamps, and creating artificial islands in the lakes. They developed a form of hieroglyphic writing, a complex calendar system, and built famous pyramids and temples.
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