AZTEC. This most famous of native American peoples, known also as Mexica, belonged to the Nahua-speaking division of the great Uto-Aztecan family. Their traditions carry them back to an origin from an island cave in Aztlan, the situation of which has been sought in northern Mexico or beyond, but vainly, this portion of the legends being mythical, and Aztlan meaning only "Aztec place." Equally apocryphal are the legendary statements that the Aztec ancestors some centuries before 1492 were nomadic hunters; nearly the whole range of Uto-Aztecan territory is shown by archaeological discoveries to have known maize agriculture sev eral thousand years ago. These traditions are unconscious fabri cations exalting the later rise of the Aztec by contrast with humble beginnings.
When the Aztec first emerge into semi-history about iioo A.D., the Toltec power in and about the valley of Mexico was disinte grating, and the Aztec appear as one of a number of Nahua-speak ing communities and peoples—the Tlazcalteca, Huexotzinca, Tla huica, Chalca, Xochimilca, Tepaneca—attempting to obtain a lodgment in the area, or to strengthen themselves in it. The places at which according to their records the Aztec lived in this period and which can be accepted as more or less authentic, are all in the valley of Mexico or within a hundred miles to the northwest. In 13 2 5 they effected a settlement on a marshy island near the western edge of the brackish lake of Tezcoco, named Tenochtitlan, a sister community settling at Tlatelulco a mile north.
This event marks an epoch, in that the Mexica were never again dislodged. They were at this time a small and weak town or vil lage community, probably with limited farmlands and depending considerably on fishing and trade. They were at times subject and tributary to near-by towns, such as Culhuacan and later Tepanec Coyoacan and Atzcapotzalco, which survive as suburbs of Mexico City. After about 5o years they had become strong enough, under the patronage of Culhuacan, to reckon Acamapichtli as their first "king." Fifty years later, however, the third of the line, Chimal popoca, was captured and killed in Atzcapotzalco.
At this point, however, the tide turned, and the new Aztec ruler, Itzcoatl, joined a revolt in 1427, which soon permanently broke the Atzcapotzalcan and Tepanec power. The lead in this war was probably taken by Tezcoco, a large town across the lake, where Toltec and immigrant "Chichimec" or semi-barbarian elements had fused. At any rate, Tenochtitlan or Mexico ("Mexica place"), Tezcoco and Tlacopan (a Tepanec town, now Tacuba), formed an offensive-defensive alliance, which preserved to each member au tonomy and the right to independent conquests, but provided for the division of tribute from joint undertakings in the ratio of 2:2:I. This league, which was organized on a model no doubt long familiar in the region, prospered, but the Aztec, perhaps as the youngest and most vigorous community, became the most ag gressive and soon forged ahead. When Cortez arrived the league was still in existence, but the overwhelming majority of conquests, including all at a distance, had been made by the Mexica alone, and their influence was strong in the internal affairs of Tezcoco. The whole duration of the league and of the empire growing out of it was only 90 years.
The Aztec conquests were slow at first, and confined to Mexico valley. Xochimilco, Chalco, and other towns offered a bitter and prolonged resistance. Some communities paid voluntary tribute and were regarded as allies ; those that resisted or were beaten after rebelling had the captives taken away for sacrifice. Almost always conquered towns were rebuilt by the survivors, and often flourished, being left in possession of their lands, from which they paid tribute in kind. Confiscation of farmlands to the chiefly lineages of Mexico, resulting in so-called crown domains, was a custom that seems to have grown slowly, not becoming extensive, apparently, until the latter part of the i 5th century.
The first conquests outside the valley of Mexico occurred under the second ruler after the throwing off of Atzcapotzalcan over lordship, Montezuma I. (144o-69), the most successful of the Az tec lords. Under him and his successors rapid progress was made in the building up of a foreign vassalage, which was still growing, though slowly and evidently near its apogee under Montezuma II., when Cortez landed near Vera Cruz in 1519. This realm was known and feared in Yucatan and Guatemala, collected tribute as far as the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and included as more or less subject populations the Otomi, Totonac, Zapotec, Mixtec, various Nahua-speaking groups, and others in the central highlands and on both Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It extended, however, only a short distance west of Mexico City, to Toluca, the Tarasca of Michoacan defeating an Aztec invasion decisively and remaining unconquered to the end.
The "empire" also included formally allied cities like Tezcoco, and others like Cholula, which were friendly, acting under Mex ican direction when Cortez came, but apparently not paying trib ute. It included also, territorially, the Tlaxcalteca and Huexot zinca of Tlaxcala, independent and confirmedly hostile popula tions, who met the Aztec almost annually in border battles, from which each side retired to sacrifice its prisoners before the temples. The populations about Oaxaca appear to have been held in precari ous or intermittent subjection. Characteristic is the fact that as late as 1475, when the period of foreign domination was already well under way, the sister city of Tlatelulco "revolted." Obviously, the Aztec empire paid no heed to territorial con tinuity; and quite evidently, too, it was not an empire or state in our sense but a loosely knit aggregation of units related to the dominating community in varying ways. It also embraced only a small fraction of the modern republic of Mexico. Baudelier, therefore, was largely right when he denied (Peabody Mus. Rep., vol. ii. 1876–i9) that Montezuma II. was an emperor or even king in our sense ; although he overshot the mark in trying to construe the Aztec social, economic and political status as essentially equivalent to those of a leaderless, clan-organized tribe of the United States. Aztec society grew out of a relatively primitive condition ; but it had been made over.
When Tenochtitlan was founded in 1325, the population may have numbered a thousand or two; in 1519 it was probably a hundred thousand. In the interval, wealth and a species of luxury grew; the temple pyramids rose successively higher ; the number of victims mounted; learning and specialization of professions in creased; aqueducts, causeways, and public buildings were con structed. The whole basis of culture was, however, already pro vided in the civilization current in the area and shared in by hun dreds of towns, large and small, according to the degree of their prosperity. Most of this civilization was already possessed by the Toltecs. It altered in detail and appearance, so that objects of Toltec and Aztec period can usually be distinguished without diffi culty. As yet, however, not a single important invention or major element of Mexican culture can be designated as having originated in the post-Toltecan period. Of what is called Aztec civilization, the bulk was carried by peoples other than the Mexica : this corn munity came to be the administrator, legatee, dominator and dis seminator of the culture. Even the Aztec realm is likely to have had a predecessor among the Toltec of Tula or Teotihuacan ; and, like theirs, it would probably have crumbled in a century or two and another have arisen in its stead after a period of disintegration had the Caucasian not appeared on the scene.
Cortez conquered the Aztecs not only because of the awe, won der and fear which he inspired and through superior organization, discipline, armament, intrepidity and ruthlessness, but because the great majority of peoples in the Aztec sphere either carefully watched the conflict from apart or allowed Cortez to impress them into his service; or, like the Tlaxcalans, aided him actively. The Mexica put up a heroic battle at the last ; but it was the stand of a desperate people, outgeneralled, with the fruits of two centuries of national upbuilding already lost, and fighting almost hopelessly for self-preservation, With Tenochtitlan finally conquered, the whole empire and large surrounding districts lay completely paci fied under Spanish rule.
The Spaniards carried and established Aztec place names over most of Mexico and Central America. Their speech absorbed an appreciable stock of Nahua words, which remain part of the lan guage of the country, and some of which have become interna tional: coyote, axolotl, ocelot, tomato, metate, chocolate. There are to-day nearly a million Indians in Mexico speaking Aztec Nahua.
See Torquemada, Monarqula Indiana (1723) ; E. J. Payne, History of the New World (1892) ; P. Radin, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch. Ethn., vol. xvii. (192o) ; Prescott, Conquest of Mexico; T. A. Joyce, Mexican Archaeology (1922) ; H. J. Spinden, Ancient Civilizations of Mexico and Central America (1922). (A. L. K.)