Tecoaque is a Mesoamerican archaeological site, located in western Tlaxcala state, central Mexico, close to Calpulalpan. The site was inhabited by the Acolhua, one of the three ethnic groups making up the Aztec Empire (their capital being Tetzcohco, one of the three seats of Aztec power). Tecoaque had many white-stucco temples and was the home to approximately 5,000 people, mostly priests and farmers.
The name is a colonial transcription of the Nahuatl Tēcuahqueh, meaning both "they ate people" [1] and "people eaters". It consists of tē-, the indefinite object prefix for people; cuah, the past / participle form of the verb cua (to eat), meaning "ate" / "eating"; and the plural suffix -queh.
Tecoaque replaced the earlier name of Zōltepēc, meaning "at quail mountain" (from zōlin, quail, and tepētl, mountain). [2]
Tecoaque includes a prominent circular structure dedicated to Ehecatl. [3] Parts of this primary three-tiered structure, which has an eastern facing stairway, were restored in 1992. Nearby archaeological features include residential structures and an important rectangular plaza.
This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on 6 December 2004 in the Cultural category. [4]
Initially, the Aztecs emperor Moctezuma allowed the Spaniards, led by Hernán Cortés into Tenochtitlan. Cortés turned on the Aztecs, taking Montezuma hostage, in order to control the empire through him. [5] In the midst of this strategy, Pánfilo de Narváez arrived in Mexico from Cuba to arrest Cortés. The conquistador left Tenochtitlan in the hands of Pedro de Alvarado, who ordered the massacre of nearly 1000 Mexica who were participating in the festival of Toxcatl. After dealing with Narváez, Cortés prepared to return to Tenochtitlan with a bigger force, having taken control of Narváez's crews. But first he sent ahead a caravan of supplies and people, including "Spanish women and children, enslaved Africans, and other servants carrying burdens and leading livestock." [6]
Learning of Alvarado's massacre, Cortés then rushed to Tenochtitlan to try to quell the violent reaction to the Spaniards' cruelty. Not longer after he arrived, however, he and his men were expelled, resulting in the deaths of nearly all the soldiers and horses Narváez had brought. Before being completely routed, the Spaniards killed Cacamatzin, king of the Acolhua capital of Texcoco. Not long afterward, the slow caravan that Cortés had sent first came through a mountain pass just north of Iztaccihuatl. A recent archaeological expedition revealed that Acolhua warriors captured this group of Spanish civilians as they traveled to Tenochtitlan. The Acolhua were part of the Aztec Empire, and acted in response to the murder of Cacamatzin, their king. This expedition reveals that the Aztecs did resist the Spanish Conquest.
The Aztecs imprisoned the Spanish caravan and over the course of six months, several hundred Spaniards and their slaves were sacrificed, tortured and partially eaten. The bones found shows that about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out during ritual offerings, and had their bones boiled and scraped clean. [7]
"It was a continuous sacrifice over six months. While the prisoners were listening to their companions being sacrificed, the next ones were being selected", Enrique Martinez, director of the archaeologist dig explained to a visiting reporter from the Reuters news agency. [8]
When Cortés found out much later what had been done to his people in Zōltepēc, he renamed the town Tēcuahqueh which means "they ate people" or "people eaters" in the indigenous Nahuatl language. He then sent an army to destroy the town.
Research published by the INAH in January 2021 found that at least a dozen women and their children were butchered. Residents knew a revenge attack was coming and set up defensive works that failed. Some of the men were able to flee, but remains of women protecting ten 5 or 6 year old children were discovered over a 120 metres (390 ft) stretch of road in the center of the town. Victim′s bodies were found mutilated inside rooms. Temples were burned and statues were decapitated. [1]
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.
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.
The Aztecs 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. 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, the capital city of the Mexica or Tenochca, Tetzcoco, 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 19th century.
Pedro de Alvarado was a Spanish conquistador and governor of Guatemala. He participated in the conquest of Cuba, in Juan de Grijalva's exploration of the coasts of the Yucatán Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico, and in the conquest of the Aztec Empire led by Hernán Cortés. He is considered the conquistador of much of Central America, including Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.
Tetzcoco was a major Acolhua altepetl (city-state) in the central Mexican plateau region of Mesoamerica during the Late Postclassic period of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican chronology. It was situated on the eastern bank of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico, to the northeast of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. The site of pre-Columbian Tetzcoco is now subsumed by the modern Mexican municipio of Texcoco and its major settlement, the city formally known as Texcoco de Mora. It also lies within the greater metropolitan area of Mexico City.
Cacamatzin (1483–1520) was the tlatoani (ruler) of Texcoco, the second most important city of the Aztec Empire.
Ixtlilxochitl II was the son of Nezahualpilli, Tlatoani of Texcoco. In 1516 Nezahualpilli died, and the succession was contested by several of his sons, including Cacamatzin and Ixtlilxochitl. The former gained the support of Moctezuma II, Tlatoani of the Aztec Empire. A civil war ensued, and ended in a tripartite division of Tetzcoco, by which one third of the kingdom, with the capital, was awarded to Cacamatzin, the northern part to his brother Ixtlilxochitl, and the third part to another claimant to the throne. Ixtlilxochitl became from that time the enemy of Moctezuma II.
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.
Cempoala or Zempoala is an important Mesoamerican archaeological site located in the municipality of Úrsulo Galván in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The site was inhabited mainly by Totonacs, Chinantecas and Zapotecs. It was one of the most important Totonac settlements during the postclassical Mesoamerican period and the capital of the kingdom of Totonacapan. It is located one kilometer from the shore of the Actopan River and six kilometres from the coast.
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.
Aztec is a 1980 historical fiction novel by American author Gary Jennings. It is the first of two novels Jennings wrote in the Aztec series, followed by Aztec Autumn, 1997. The remaining four novels were written by other authors after Jennings died in 1999.
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.
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.
Cannibalism in the Americas has been practiced in many places throughout much of the history of North America and South America. The modern term "cannibal" is derived from the name of the Island Caribs (Kalinago), who were encountered by Christopher Columbus in The Bahamas. Numerous cultures in the Americas were reported by European explorers and colonizers to have engaged in cannibalism. However, these claims may be unreliable since the Spanish Empire used them to justify conquest.
La Conquista is an opera in two acts by Lorenzo Ferrero set to a trilingual libretto by the composer and Frances Karttunen, based on a concept by Alessandro Baricco. It depicts the major episodes of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521 and the subsequent destruction of the Aztec civilization. The libretto (English-Spanish-Nahuatl) is a blend of historical and literary sources drawn from transcriptions of indigenous and European literature, both kept, with some exceptions, in their original languages. The texts are taken from The Truthful History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Book XII of the Florentine Codex, the works of Juan Boscán Almogáver, Bernardino de Sahagún, Lope de Vega, Heinrich Heine, and from Aztec prayers, songs and poems as collected in Cantares Mexicanos and Romances de los señores de Nueva España.
Xicomecoatl, Chicomácatl, or as he was referred to as by the Spanish conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo, "Cacique Gordo", was the ruler of the city of Cempoala while it was under control of the Mexica Empire.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)