The overseas expansion under the Crown of Castile was initiated under the royal authority and first accomplished by the Spanish conquistadors. The Americas were incorporated into the Spanish Empire, with the exception of Brazil, Canada, the eastern United States and several other small countries in South America and The Caribbean. The crown created civil and religious structures to administer the region. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Catholic faith through indigenous conversions.
The Aztecs were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec peoples 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. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (altepetl), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427, Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahua polities or peoples of central Mexico in the prehispanic era, as well as the Spanish colonial era (1521–1821). The definitions of Aztec and Aztecs have long been the topic of scholarly discussion, ever since German scientist Alexander von Humboldt established its common usage in the early nineteenth century.
Tlaxcala, officially Tlaxcala de Xicohténcatl, is the capital city of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala and seat of the municipality of the same name. The city did not exist during the pre Hispanic period but was laid out by the Spanish as a center of evangelization and governance after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. It was designated as a diocese but eventually lost this status to Puebla as its population declined. The city still has many of its old colonial structures including the former Franciscan monastery, as well as newer civic structures such as the Xicohténcatl Theater.
The Nahuas are a group of indigenous people of Mexico and El Salvador. Their Uto-Aztecan languages, Nahuatl and Pipil (Nawat), consist of many dialects, several of which are mutually unintelligible. About 1.5 million Nahuas speak Nahuatl and another million speak only Spanish. Less than 1,000 native speakers of Nahuatl remain in El Salvador.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Native Mexicans, or Mexican Native Americans, are those who are part of communities that trace their roots back to populations and communities that existed in what is now Mexico prior to the arrival of Europeans.
Aztec codices are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Nahuas in pictorial and/or alphabetic form. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices mostly do not in fact use the codex form and are, or originally were, long folded sheets. These sheets were typically made from stretched deerskin or from the fibers of the agave plant. They also differ from European books in that they mostly consist of images and pictograms; they were not meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives.
The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, or the Spanish–Mexica War (1519–21), was the conquest of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish Empire within the context of the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the events by Spanish conquerors, their indigenous allies and the defeated Aztecs. It was not solely a contest between a small contingent of Spaniards defeating the Aztec Empire but rather the creation of a coalition of Spanish invaders with tributaries to the Aztecs, and most especially the Aztecs' indigenous enemies and rivals. They combined forces to defeat the Mexica of Tenochtitlan over a two-year period. For the Spanish, the expedition to Mexico was part of a project of Spanish colonization of the New World after twenty-five years of permanent Spanish settlement and further exploration in the Caribbean.
Apizaco is a city in Apizaco Municipality located near the geographic center of the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, approximately 25 minutes by car from the state's capital city of Tlaxcala. The city gets its name from the Nahuatl language words "ātl" (water), "pitzāhuac" (thin), and the suffix "co" (place), forming "Āpitzāco", or roughly "thin water place". Those seeking to reach the port of Veracruz by railroad from Mexico City must travel through Apizaco. The city began because of its location on this railroad.
The traditions of indigenous Mesoamerican literature extend back to the oldest-attested forms of early writing in the Mesoamerican region, which date from around the mid-1st millennium BCE. Many of the pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica are known to have been literate societies, who produced a number of Mesoamerican writing systems of varying degrees of complexity and completeness. Mesoamerican writing systems arose independently from other writing systems in the world, and their development represents one of the very few such origins in the history of writing. The conquistadors brought their distinctive cultural baggage, in the form of books, from Spain to the New World.
Xicotencatl I or Xicotencatl the Elder was a long-lived tlatoani (king) of Tizatlan, a Nahua altepetl within the pre-Columbian confederacy of Tlaxcala, in what is now Mexico.
Charles Gibson was an American ethnohistorian who wrote foundational works on the Nahua peoples of colonial Mexico and was elected President of the American Historical Association in 1977. He studied history at Yale University with George Kubler, and he taught for a number of years at University of Iowa before moving to University of Michigan. His dissertation on the Nahua polity of Tlaxcala, a key ally of the Spaniards in the conquest of Mexico, was the first major study of conquest and early colonial era Nahuas from the indigenous perspective. It remains a model for scholars working on Mesoamerican ethnohistory, or more simply put, history of Mexican Indians. He also contributed to the creation of important bibliographic guides to works in Mexican history, such as the Handbook of Latin American Studies and Mesoamerican ethnohistory as well as an index to the journal Hispanic American Historical Review. The culmination of his work on colonial-era Nahuas is The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519-1810 (1964), which "reordered the research priorities for a generation of colonial historians."
Indian auxiliaries or indios auxiliares is the term used in old Spanish chronicles and historical texts for the indigenous peoples who were integrated into the armies of the Spanish conquistadors with the purpose of supporting their advance and combat operations during the Conquest of America. They acted as guides, translators, or porters and in this role were also called yanakuna, particularly within the old Inca Empire and Chile. The term was also used for formations composed of indigenous warriors or Indios amigos, which they used for reconnaissance, combat, and as reserve in battle. The auxiliary Indians remained in use after the conquest, during some revolts, in border zones and permanent military areas, as in Chile in the Arauco War.
Tlatelolco was a prehispanic altepetl or city-state, in the Valley of Mexico. Its inhabitants were known as Tlatelolca. The Tlatelolca were a part of the Mexica, a Nahuatl-speaking people who arrived in what is now central Mexico in the 13th century. The Mexica settled on an island in Lake Texcoco, founding the altepetl of Mexico-Tenochtitlan on the southern portion of the island. In 1337, a group of dissident Mexica broke away from the Tenochca leadership in Tenochtitlan and founded Mexico-Tlatelolco on the northern portion of the island. Tenochtitlan was closely tied with its sister city, which was largely dependent on the market of Tlatelolco, the most important site of commerce in the area.
Panotla Municipality is a municipality in Tlaxcala in south-eastern Mexico. It is located about four km to the west of the city of Tlaxcala. Panotla contains a number of notable churches from different eras of its history. The San Nicolás de Bari church was dedicated in 1796. It has an ornate baroque facade framed by an arch and a two level bell tower. The baroque elements of both are made with mortar and include estipite columns as well as floral, animal and human motifs. These face onto a large atrium which is bordered by a wall. The interior of the church consists of a single nave with Neoclassical altarpieces and an organ from the 17th century. The Nuestra Señora de la Defensa Sanctuary is located in the community of San Ambrosio Texantla was constructed between the 17th and 18th centuries. The exterior has an octagon dome and a tower with merlons on its corners. The facade is tiled. The interior contains an image of the Virgin Mary called Our Lady of the Defense brought by Juan Bautista de Jesús which can be seen on the main altar. The San Ambrosio Texantla Church was built between the 19th and 20th centuries, whose atrium contains a number of graves. The San Francisco de Asis Church located in the community of San Francisco Temetzontla is in the north of the municipality and built in the 18th century. The facades has two levels the top of the portal is framed by a shell form. The bell tower has three levels and contains a clock.
Nahuatl, known historically as Aztec, is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about 1.7 million Nahua peoples, most of whom live in central Mexico.
The Tecolutla River is a river in the state of Veracruz in Mexico, and the main drainage of the historical and cultural region of Totonacapan. It is principally fed by four rivers that rise in the Sierra Norte de Puebla: from north to south, they are the Necaxa, the Lajajalpan, the Tecuantepec and the Apulco. These rivers converge in the municipality of Espinal, Veracruz, and from here the Tecolutla flows about 100 kilometres (62 mi) east through the coastal plain and the municipalities of Papantla and Gutiérrez Zamora to its mouth at the town of Tecolutla on the Gulf of Mexico, On its south bank the Tecolutla receives the Joloapan River near Paso del Correo, and the Chichicatzapan River via the Ostiones estuary near its mouth.
Tlaxco is a municipality in Tlaxcala, Mexico.
