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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.
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.
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]
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 .
Friar Diego Durán (c. 1537 –1588), who chronicled the history of the Aztecs, wrote of Aztec emperor Moctezuma I's attempt to recover the history of the Mexica by congregating warriors and wise men on an expedition to locate Aztlán. According to Durán, the expedition was successful in finding a place that offered characteristics unique to ...
The area would be conquered by the Aztecs in 1458. [7] In 1486, the Aztec would establish a fort on the hill of Huaxyácac (now called El Fortín), which would use to enforce the collection of tribute payments in Oaxaca. [7] The last battle between the Aztecs and the Zapotecs occurred between 1497–1502, under the Aztec ruler Ahuizotl.
Aztec codices (singular codex) are books that were written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices are some of the best primary sources for descriptions of Aztec culture . The pre-Columbian codices are largely pictorial; they do not contain symbols that represent spoken or written language. [ 190 ]