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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.
Pictographic codices in which the Aztecs recorded their history say that the empire's place of origin was called Aztlán. Early migrants settled the Basin of Mexico and surrounding lands by establishing a series of independent city-states. These early Nahua city-states or altepetl were ruled by dynastic heads called tlahtohqueh (singularly ...
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.
The calpulli ran a temple for adoration of the calpulli's deity and also a school called the Telpochcalli where young men were trained, predominantly in martial arts. In some Aztec city-states calpullis practiced a specialized or specific trade, and these calpullis functioned something like a medieval trade guild .
Mexica children were forcibly taken to newly established Christian schools where they were indoctrinated into Christian beliefs and Spanish culture, and the surviving Mexica men and women were sent to work in newly-established Spanish estates, known as haciendas, as well as mines and other civil projects, such as digging canals.
The Aztec social class of the mācēhualtin were rural farmers, forming the majority of the commoners in the Aztec Empire. The mācēhualtin worked lands that belonged to the social unit of the calpolli called chinampas , with each family maintaining rights to the land so long as it did not lie fallow for more than two years.
His children formed the upper class in the society, called the nobles or pipiltin (singular pilli). This established a enduring tradition wherein future monarchs were consistently chosen from the ranks of the pipiltin, solidifying their role as the aristocratic elite within Aztec society. [1] Portrait of Acamapichtli, the first Aztec King
By July 1853, they were under the guardianship of a man named Anderson, and were taken to Europe to be exhibited before Queen Victoria. [11] While in London, they were examined by biologist Richard Owen, who considered them to not be Aztecs. They were the product of the mixing of the Spanish and American Indian ancestry. [12]