Aztec Empire: short summary

The Empire mexica, as this town is also known, it is one of the most fascinating civilizations in Central America and has always been covered with a halo of uncertainty. In this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to do a short summary on the Aztec Empire, so that in this way you can understand its form of organization, in addition to the most important characteristics of one of the towns that confronted the Spaniards upon their arrival in the new lands just discovered.

Index

1. Birth of the Aztec Empire
2. The form of government of the Aztecs
3. The social organization
4. The economy of the Aztec Empire

We start this short summary on the Aztec Empire speaking of the creation of said town. In the first place, we must say that the Aztec Empire (or the also known Mexica Empire) emerged as a series of alliances of various peoples belonging to Central America and more specifically is linked to this civilization with the Valley of Mexico and Lake Texcoco.

Of said union of several peoples, prontor the Aztecs would stand out for the use of force For everything, with this they managed to impose their customs on the other two allies that were the Mexica and the Acolhua.

The Aztecs were a nomadic people, who went from one place to another, always being exiled by the neighboring towns. It is believed that they came from the north of Mexico and that going down they reached the valley where they settled in an empty location that nobody wanted, an island within Lake Texcoco. There they would create their city Tenochtitlán and from there they began to make a series of alliances in order to benefit, until they ended up absorbing the peoples of this, and then coming into contact with other nearby cultures. Once these two groups were dominated, an annual tax system was imposed on them, in addition to impose your tongue, the nahuatl.

Later on, a series of military actions was promoted to put an end to all the different languages ​​that existed in the interior. of Mesoamerica (place of domain of the Empire), therefore we will find an expansion that would reach the places known today What: Mexico, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Warrior, Chiapas, Estad Hidalgo and much of Guatemala.

Despite this expansion, we must know that there was great resistance to the abandonment of the other existing languages ​​and, although the nahuatl it was used as a lingua franca, it was not adopted for more uses.

On the other hand, we must talk about his life span, which goes from the year 1325 until the conquest by Hernán Cortes in 1521, thus ending a fairly authoritarian form of government that had almost wiped out a large part of the populations that inhabited these lands since before the arrival of the Mexica.

In this other lesson from a TEACHER we will discover a brief biography of Hernán Cortés.

Map: blogsUA

Continuing with this rshort summary of the Aztec EmpireWe must stop at the government that they established after the control of the triple alliance. In this way we will see that the main character was the Tlatoani, similar to the figure of the emperor.

This was the one who made all the decisions concerning the Empire, although as a general rule he allowed himself to be advised by a court. This character was chosen from among an elite, that is, he was not hereditary. After this, the most important characters were:

• Cihuacoatl: he was in charge of the administration of taxation, religion and justice. Therefore we are before the strongest man after him Tlatoani.
• Tlacochcálcatl / Tlacatécatl: he was the head of the army.
• Huitzncahuatlailótlac: the head judge.
• Tlatoque: he was the head of a province or district.
• Tecutli: judge and collector of taxes in the provinces.

After the annexation of a new territory to the Empire, it was divided into provinces, which used to be in a way that would break the culture that inhabited there so that in that way the control would be much more cash.

Each of them was sent a governor, who used to belong to the elite of Tenochtitlán, to be in charge of supervising that everything was correct. They normally used to intertwine with the powerful families of defeated civilizations so that insertion into the Empire would be faster and there would be fewer problems at the time of taxation.

If we go a little further into the Aztec empire, we will realize that civilization was divided into twenty clans, which were called calpullisWe can assimilate this if we want the clans that were in Rome. Within each clan we will find in turn a series of subdivisions according to their stratum:

Nobles

It was the elite and therefore the only ones who could agree to direct the government or to hold positions within the religion. The only difference in this regard with other civilizations is that they also had to pay tribute.

Macehualtin

Or also known as normal people, peasants, merchants and artisans belonged to this group. All of them were free people and did not have their own lands (that was only reserved for the nobles), in addition they had to pay a series of taxes.

Tlatlacotin

They were the slaves, who used to be prisoners of war, people who had committed a crime or those who had obtained a series of debts and could not pay them. In the latter case they were enslaved for a period of time and then returned to freedom.

Image: Educational Portal

We end this short summary about the Aztec Empire by now talking about economic organization. The trade they owned was based on barter, being mostly artisan objects, food and some luxury items that had a lot to do with clothing made with feather ornaments and cotton fabrics.

On the other hand, another of the important sources of trade would be slaves, since the nobles would have a large number of them, as would the State. We cannot say much more about this because little we know about the life of this civilization until the arrival of the Spanish.

The industry can be divided into mining, closely related to obtaining obsidian, which was obtained from the southern and western Sierra Madre. With this material weapons, glasses, necklaces,… were made. And on the other hand we will find the textile industry that had great importance within the population. Here we will find cotton and bird feathers as the main elements of this, being of great value to the Aztecs.

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