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Axayacatl was the sixth tlatoani of the altepetl of Tenochtitlan and Emperor of the Aztec Triple Alliance.
Cuitláhuac or Cuitláhuac was the 10th Huey Tlatoani (emperor) of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan for 80 days during the year Two Flint (1520). He is credited with leading the resistance to the Spanish and Tlaxcalteca conquest of the Mexica Empire, following the death of his kinsman Moctezuma II.
Cuauhtémoc, also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler (tlatoani) of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, making him the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle", and is commonly rendered in English as "Descending Eagle", as in the moment when an eagle folds its wings and plummets down to strike its prey. This is a name that implies aggressiveness and determination.
Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Marina or Malintzin, more popularly known as La Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, became known for contributing to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521), by acting as an interpreter, advisor, and intermediary for the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. She was one of 20 enslaved women given to the Spaniards in 1519 by the natives of Tabasco. Cortés chose her as a consort, and she later gave birth to his first son, Martín – one of the first Mestizos in New Spain.
Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, referred to retroactively in European sources as Moctezuma II, was the ninth Emperor of the Aztec Empire, reigning from 1502 or 1503 to 1520. Through his marriage with Queen Tlapalizquixochtzin of Ecatepec, one of his two wives, he was also king consort of that altepetl.
Tenochtitlan, also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican altepetl in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the city. The city was built on an island in what was then Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico. The city was the capital of the expanding Aztec Empire in the 15th century until it was captured by the Tlaxcaltec and the Spanish in 1521.
Year 1520 (MDXX) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.
Cacamatzin (1483–1520) was the tlatoani (ruler) of Texcoco, the second most important city of the Aztec Empire.
Doña Isabel Moctezuma was a daughter of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II. She was the consort of Atlixcatzin, a tlacateccatl, and of the Aztec emperors Cuitlahuac, and Cuauhtemoc and as such the last Aztec empress. After the Spanish conquest, Doña Isabel was recognized as Moctezuma's legitimate heir, and became one of the indigenous Mexicans granted an encomienda. Among the others were her half-sister Marina Moctezuma, and Juan Sánchez, an Indian governor in Oaxaca.
The Massacre in the Great Temple, also called the Alvarado Massacre, was an event on May 22, 1520, in the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, in which the celebration of the Feast of Toxcatl ended in a massacre of Aztec elites. While Hernán Cortés was in Tenochtitlan, he heard about other Spaniards arriving on the coast – Pánfilo de Narváez had come from Cuba with orders to arrest him – and Cortés was forced to leave the city to fight them. During his absence, Moctezuma asked deputy governor Pedro de Alvarado for permission to celebrate Toxcatl After the festivities had started, Alvarado interrupted the celebration, killing all the warriors and noblemen who were celebrating inside the Great Temple.
Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl was a nobleman of partial Aztec noble descent in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain, modern Mexico; he is known primarily for his works chronicling indigenous Aztec history.
The fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, was an important event in the Spanish conquest of the empire. It occurred in 1521 following extensive negotiations between local factions and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. He was aided by La Malinche, his interpreter and companion, and by thousands of indigenous allies, especially Tlaxcaltec warriors.
The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadores and their native allies who ruled under Hernán Cortés defeated them in 1521.
La Noche Triste 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.
The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. They called themselves Mēxihcah.
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire, ultimately reshaping the course of human history. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, and his small army of soldiers and indigenous allies, overthrowing one of the most powerful empires in Mesoamerica.
Oconahua is a small town in the Mexican state of Jalisco. It is a Delegation of the municipality of Etzatlán. The population was 2,360 according to the 2020 census. Oconahua, Jalisco, MX is now an archeological site for the Ocomo Palace, which is the most monumental structure and best preserved within a site of nearly 400 hectares, there are remains of terraces, sunken courts, pyramids and platforms. The building can be dated between the Epi and early Postclassic This palace is very similar to the palace of Quinantzin, drawn in the codex of the same name, tells the use of this building for administrative, not religious, but was the key as a gateway of trade between the lowlands and the upper reaches of the West. In the square outside there were four large stelae with carvings and intricate designs, including possible glyphs. These stelae were destroyed by a Franciscan in the late nineteenth century. Most stones are carved bas-relief, although there are fragments of sculptures in the round. Oconahua, a community located 10 miles from municipal Etzatlán which has about 2100 inhabitants. Oconahua, small valley crossed by two streams and located at the bottom of the Serrania de Ameca to 1490 meters, is a farming community with some Indian identity is said to have been founded between 1512 and 1515 by Aztec tribes led by a woman named "Tepelzamoca" who first gives the name to the place of "Cacalotlán", then "Huexolotlán" and finally, in 1521 Pedro de Alvarado and Cristobal de Olid, name it "Oconahua". Their economic activities are agriculture with crops like corn and livestock in the field’s poultry, pork and beef. Its streets are paved and the construction of their homes and show no uniformity in a large number of them are made of brick contrasting sharply with several adobe homes yet. As almost all of the communities in Jalisco, Oconahua has a main square with its integrated Kiosk. In the south, well groomed, wearing his only temple dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, while to the north, are the administrative offices of this place. Although many people have implied that Moctezuma was a retiring king, more contemplative than bellicose, colonial codices point out that he was an accomplished warrior and managed to extend the tributary system rather than lose land, like Tizoc before him. Campaigns under his name travelled south to Tapachula in the Xoconochco region and the Chontal Maya states of Xicallanco in Tabasco. This is where Cortés would find La Malinche, noblewoman and interpreter, during the conquest. Some kingdoms remained defiant, such as the Tarascans to the west, and the neighbouring Tlaxcallans. Nevertheless, the Aztec empire was at its largest when the Spanish arrived in 1519. The Codex Mendoza shows all the lands that Moctezuma conquered. Many territories regularly rose up against the Aztecs and had to be conquered again. For this reason their names were repeatedly painted into codices, part of the tally of conquests made during the reigns of different Huey Tlatoque. The state of Huexolotlan, for example, appears in the Codex Mendoza under the conquests of the emperors Ahuítzotl (1486-1502), and Moctezuma . One of the great things that Moctezuma did was to conquer the South-eastern region of Xoconochco, a place full of great riches. There, one could find precious blue/green Quetzal feathers, gold, jaguar skins and cocoa beans. These were great luxuries for the Aztecs, who could not produce them in their cold highland capital. Moctezuma is written off as a just, even ruler, unlike Ahuítzotl who was less predictable. The previous king was said to greatly enjoy the company of women, a delight professed to be shared by warrior types. Although Moctezuma is reported to have been married to “thousands of women”, this was to form marital alliances through the daughters and nieces of provincial chiefs and smaller kings who ruled their regions whilst under Aztec domination. Only two wives were allowed to be “of the mat”, or “official” wives, they were Tezalco and Acatlán. Their superior position amongst the wives was unquestioned and they were both of Toltec descent. Cristóbal de Olid (1487–1524) was a Spanish adventurer, conquistador and rebel who played a part in the conquest of Mexico and Honduras. Olid leads the conquest of Jal-ixco (Jalisco), 1522. From Lienzo de Tlaxcala Born in Zaragoza, Olid grew up in the household of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. In 1518 Velázquez sent Olid to relieve Juan de Grijalva, but en route a hurricane destroyed Olid's ship and he returned to Cuba. On January 10, 1519, Olid sailed with Hernán Cortés' fleet, and took an active part in the conquest of Mexico. He fought at the Battle of Otumba on July 8, and also took part in the campaign against the Tarascans, who proved difficult foes due to their use of iron weapons, which the Aztecs lacked. During the siege of Tenochtitlán, Olid squabbled with Pedro de Alvarado, and refused to assist him in an assault on the causeways leading into the city. This refusal lead to a resounding Spanish defeat, and Olid fled to Coyohuacan. While in Mexico, he married a Tlaxcalan woman. In 1522, Olid led Spanish soldiers with Tlaxcalan allies in the conquests of Jalisco and Colima in West Mexico. In 1523, Cortés made Olid the leader of an expedition to conquer Honduras, but while resupplying in Havana, Olid declared his independence from Spain and set out to conquer Honduras for himself. Landing east of Puerto Caballos, he founded the settlement of Triunfo de la Cruz. Many of Olid's supporters moved to Naco, where there was good agricultural land and gold. When Cortés learnt of Olid's rebellion, he sent Francisco de Las Casas against Olid with two warships. Despite the fact that both these ships were destroyed in a storm and many of his soldiers defected to Olid, Las Casas defeated Olid in battle and captured him. Accounts of how Olid died vary; Bernal Díaz del Castillo asserts in his Verdadera Historia de la Conquista de Nueva España that Las Casas had him beheaded at Naco, while Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas wrote that Olid's own soldiers rose up against and then murdered him. History of Tlaxcala is an illustrated codex written by and under the supervision of Diego Muñoz Camargo in the years leading up to 1585. Also known as Lienzo Tlaxcala and by its Spanish title, Historia de Tlaxcala, this manuscript highlights the religious, cultural, and military history of the Tlaxcaltec people, in particular focusing on the post-conquest aspects. The History of Tlaxcala is divided into three sections: • "Relaciones Geográficas" or "Descripción de la ciudad y provincia de Tlaxcala", a Spanish text written by Camargo between 1581 and 1584 in response to Philip II of Spain's Relaciones Geográfica questionnaire. • The "Tlaxcala Calendar", a largely pictorial section, with both Spanish and Nahuatl captions. • The "Tlaxcala Codex" a largely pictorial section, with both Spanish and Nahuatl captions. La Malinche, known also as Malintzin, Malinalli or Doña Marina, was a Nahua woman from the Mexican Gulf Coast, who played a role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, acting as interpreter, advisor, lover and intermediary for Hernán Cortés. She was one of twenty women servants given to the Spaniards by the natives of Tabasco in 1519. Later she became a mistress to Cortés and gave birth to his first son, Martín, who is considered one of the first Mestizos . The historical figure of Marina has been intermixed with Aztec legends. Her reputation has been altered over the years according to changing social and political perspectives, especially after the Mexican Revolution, when she was portrayed in dramas, novels, and paintings as an evil or scheming temptress. In Mexico today, La Malinche remains iconically potent. She is understood in various and often conflicting aspects, as the embodiment of treachery, the quintessential victim, or simply as symbolic mother of the New Mexican people. The term malinchista refers to a disloyal Mexican. La Malinche was born in 1496, in a then "frontier" region between the Aztec Empire and the Maya states of the Yucatán Peninsula). In her youth, her father died and her mother remarried and bore a son. Now an inconvenient stepchild, the girl was sold or given to Maya slave-traders from Xicalango, an important commercial town furthers south and east along and hard the coast. Bernal Díaz del Castillo claims Malinche's family faked her death by telling the townspeople that a recently deceased child of a slave was Malinche. The Conquest of Mexico Malinche was introduced to the Spanish in April 1519, when she was among twenty slave women given by the Chontal Maya of Potonchan after the Spaniards defeated them in battle. Her age at the time is unknown; however, assumptions have been made that she was in her late teens or early twenties. Bernal Díaz del Castillo remarked on her beauty and graciousness; she was the only one of the slaves whose name he remembered. Cortés singled her out as a gift for Alonzo Hernando Puertocarrero, perhaps the most well-born member of the expedition. Soon, however, Puertocarrero was on his way to Spain as Cortés' emissary to Charles V, and Cortés kept her by his side for her value as an interpreter who spoke two native languages—Mayan and Nahuatl. According to Díaz, she spoke to emissaries from Moctezuma in their native tongue Nahuatl and pointed to Cortés as the chief Spaniard to speak for them. Cortés had located a Spanish priest, Gerónimo de Aguilar, who had spent several years in captivity among the Maya peoples in Yucatán following a shipwreck. Thus he had learned some Mayan, but he did not speak Nahuatl. Cortés used Marina for translating between the Nahuatl language and the Chontal Maya language. Then Aguilar could interpret from Mayan to Spanish, until Marina learned Spanish and could be the sole interpreter. She accompanied him so closely that Aztec codices always show her picture drawn alongside of Cortés. The natives of Tlaxcala, who formed an alliance with Cortés against Moctezuma, called both Marina and Cortés by the same name: Malintzin. According to surviving records, Marina learned of a plan by natives of Cholula to cooperate with the Aztecs to destroy the small Spanish army. She alerted Cortés to the danger and even played along with the natives while Cortés foiled their plot to trap his men. Cortés turned the tables on them and instead, slaughtered many Cholulans. Following the fall of Tenochtitlán in late 1521 and the birth of her son Don Martín Cortés in 1522, Marina stayed in a house Cortés built for her in the town of Coyoacán, 8 miles south of Tenochtitlán, while it was being rebuilt as Mexico City. Cortés took Marina to quash a rebellion in Honduras in 1524–26 when she is seen serving again as interpreter While in the mountain town of Orizaba in central Mexico, she married Juan Jaramillo, a Spanish hidalgo. Historians such as Prescott generally lost track of Marina after her journey to Central America. More contemporary scholars have determined that she died less than a decade after the conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan at some point in 1529. She was survived by her son don Martín who would be raised primarily by his father's family and a daughter doña María who would be raised by Jaramillo and his second wife doña Beatriz de Andrada. Role of La Malinche in the Conquest of Mexico For the conquistadores, having a reliable interpreter was important enough, but there is evidence that Malinche's role and influence were larger still. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, a soldier who, as an old man, produced the most comprehensive of the eye-witness accounts, the Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España, speaks repeatedly and reverentially of the "great lady" Doña Marina. "Without the help of Doña Marina," he writes, "we would not have understood the language of New Spain and Mexico." Rodríguez de Ocana, another conquistador, relates Cortés' assertion that after God, Marina was the main reason for his success. The evidence from indigenous sources is even more interesting, both in the commentaries about her role, and in her prominence in the drawings made of conquest events. In the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, for example, not only is Cortés rarely portrayed without Malinche poised by his ear, but she is shown at times on her own, seemingly directing events as an independent authority. If she had been trained for court life, as in Díaz's account, her loyalty to Cortés may have been dictated by the familiar pattern of marriage among native elite classes. In the role of primary wife acquired through an alliance, her role would have been to assist her husband achieve his military and diplomatic objectives. Origin of the name "La Malinche" The many uncertainties which surround Malinche's role in the Spanish conquest begin with her name and its several variants. At birth she was named "Malinalli" or "Malinal" after the Goddess of Grass, on whose name-day she was born. Later, her family added the name Tenepal which means “one who speaks much and with liveliness”. Before the twenty slave girls were distributed among the Spanish captains to serve them in "grinding corn", Cortés insisted that they be baptized. Malinalli then took the Christian name of "Marina", to which the soldiers of Cortés added the "Doña", meaning "lady." It is not known whether "Marina" was chosen because of a phonetic resemblance to her actual name, or chosen randomly from among common Spanish names of the time. A Nahuatl mispronunciation of "Marina" as "Malin" plus the reverential "-tzin" suffix, formed the compounded title of "Malintzin," which the natives used for both Marina and Cortes, because he spoke through her. One possible reading of her name as "Mãlin-tzin" can be translated as "Noble Prisoner/Captive" - or "Marina's Lord" - a reasonable possibility, given her noble birth and her initial relationship to the Cortés expedition. "Malinche" was a Spanish approximation of Mãlin-tzin. To distinguish the masculine "Malinche" from the feminine, the prefix "La" gives the name by which the historical and legendary figure is best known: La Malinche. It may be assumed that her preferred name was "Marina" or "Doña Marina," since she chose it and it has not acquired the negative connotations that engulfed the name "Malinche" after her death. The word malinchismo is used by some modern-day Mexicans to refer pejoratively to those countrymen who prefer a different way of life from that of their local culture, or a life with other outside influences. Some historians believe that La Malinche saved her people from the Aztecs, who held hegemony throughout the territory and demanded tribute from its inhabitants. Some Mexicans also credit her with having brought Christianity to the "New World" from Europe, and for having influenced Cortes to be more humane than he would otherwise have been. It is argued, however, that without her help, Cortes would not have been successful in conquering the Aztecs as quickly, giving the Aztec people enough time to adapt to new technology and methods of warfare. From that viewpoint, she is seen as one who betrayed the indigenous people by siding with the Spaniards. Recently a number of feminist Latinas have decried such a categorization as scapegoating, blaming her for forces beyond her control. Malinche’s image has become a mythical archetype that Latin American artists have represented in various forms of art. Her figure permeates historical, cultural, and social dimensions of Latin American cultures. In modern times and in several genres, she is compared with the figure of the Virgin Mary, La Llorona and with the Mexican soldaderas for their brave actions. La Malinche's legacy is one of myth mixed with legend, and the opposing opinions of the Mexican people about the woman. Many see her as the founding figure of the Mexican nation. Still many, however, continue to find the legends more memorable than the history, seeing her as a traitor, as may be assumed from her twin sister that went North and the profane nickname La Chingada associated with her twin. This name uses Spanish naming customs; the first or paternal family name is Cortés de Monroy and the second or maternal family name is Pizarro. Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro, 1st Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue a livelihood in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda and, for a short time, became alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, an expedition which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored. Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous peoples against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter; she would later bear Cortés a son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Corté
The Battle of Otumba was fought between the Aztec and allied forces led by the Cihuacoatl Matlatzincátzin and those of Hernán Cortés made up of the Spanish conquerors and Tlaxcalan allies. It took place on July 7, 1520, in Temalcatitlán, a plain near Otumba during the development of the Conquest of the Aztec Empire. The result of the battle was a victory for the Spanish, which allowed Cortés to reorganize his army, having suffered casualties a few days before in the episode known as La Noche Triste. A year later, by reinforcing his army with new men and supplies, and creating alliances with the indigenous peoples who had been subjugated by the Aztec, Cortés managed to besiege and conquer Tenochtitlan.
Teotlalco was a Nahua princess of Ecatepec and Aztec empress—the Queen of Tenochtitlan.
References
- ↑ Gugliotta, Bobette (1989). Women of Mexico: The Consecrated and the Commoners, 1519-1900. Floricanto Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-915745-16-6.
- 1 2 León, Vicki (2001). Uppity Women of the New World. Conari Press. pp. 242–243. ISBN 978-1-57324-187-8.