Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
Reconstruction of an Aztec market in Tenochtitlan in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Tenochtitlan can be considered the most complex society in Mesoamerica in regard to social stratification. The complex system involved many social classes. The macehualtin were commoners who lived outside the island city of Tenochtitlan.
The Aztecs were conquered by Spain in 1521 after a long siege of the capital, Tenochtitlan, where much of the population died from hunger and smallpox. Cortés, with 508 Spaniards, did not fight alone but with as many as 150,000 or 200,000 allies from Tlaxcala , and eventually other Aztec tributary states.
From 1427 to 1521, the tlatoque of Tenochtitlan were alongside those of the cities Tetzcoco and Tlacopan the leaders of the powerful Triple Alliance, commonly known as the Aztec Empire. The rulers of Tenochtitlan were always pre-eminent and gradually transitioned into the sole rulers of the empire; under either Tizoc (1481–1486) [1] or ...
However, over time, Tenochtitlan assumed paramount authority in the alliance, and although each partner city shared spoils of war and rights to regular tribute from the provinces and were governed by their own Huetlatoani, Tenochtitlan became the largest, most powerful, and most influential of the three cities.
At least 40,000 Aztec civilians were killed and captured. [6] After the Fall of Tenochtitlan the remaining Aztec warriors and civilians fled the city as the Spanish allies, primarily the Tlaxcalans, continued to attack even after the surrender, slaughtering thousands of the remaining civilians and looting the city.
The Spanish campaign against the Aztec Empire had its final victory on 13 August 1521, when a coalition army of Spanish forces and native Tlaxcalan warriors led by Cortés and Xicotencatl the Younger captured the emperor Cuauhtémoc and Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. The fall of Tenochtitlan marks the beginning of Spanish rule ...
La Noche Triste ("The Night of Sorrows", literally "The Sad Night"), was an important event during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, wherein Hernán Cortés, his army of Spanish conquistadors, and their native allies were driven out of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.