The division between the classic and postclassic periods is somewhat arbitrary. Not only is there no single explanation for the collapse of Teotihuacan and many of the major Maya centers, but these events occurred over more than a century and a half. In fact, some important classic-period civilizations survived unscathed while elsewhere the essential cultural characteristics of the classic period survived in the postclassic era.
At the same time, there were some important differences between the periods. There is evidence that the population of Mesoamerica expanded during the postclassic period. Resulting pressures led to an intensification of agricultural practices and to increased warfare. The governing elites of the major postclassic states—the Toltecs and the Aztecs—responded to these
Harsh realities by increasing the size of their armies and by developing political institutions that facilitated their control of large and culturally diverse territories acquired through conquest.
The Toltecs
Toltecs Powerful postclassic empire in central Mexico (900-1175 C. E.). It influenced much of Mesoamerica. Aztecs claimed ties to this earlier civilization.
While modern archaeology has revealed the civilizations of the Maya and Teotihuacan in previously unimaginable detail, the history of the Toltecs (TOLL-tek) remains in dispute. The Aztecs regarded the Toltecs as powerful and influential predecessors, much as the Romans regarded the Greeks. Memories of Toltec military achievements and the violent imagery of their political and religious rituals dominated the Mesoamerican imagination throughout the late postclassic period. The Aztecs and their fifteenth-century contemporaries erroneously believed that the Toltecs were the source of nearly all the great cultural achievements of the Mesoamerican world. As one Aztec source later recalled:
In truth [the Toltecs] invented all the precious and marvelous things. .. . All that now exists was their discovery. .. . And these Toltecs were very wise; they were thinkers, for they originated the year count, the day count. All their discoveries formed the book for interpreting dreams. .. . And so wise were they [that] they understood the stars which were in the heavens.2
Origins
In fact, all these contributions to Mesoamerican culture were in place long before Toltec power spread across central Mexico. Some scholars speculate that the Toltecs were originally a satellite population that Teotihuacan had placed on the northern frontier to protect against the incursions of nomads. Others suggest that the Toltecs were migrants from the north who later borrowed from the cultural legacies of Teotihuacan and other cultures. Regardless of their origins, it is clear that the Toltecs created a state based largely on military power, which they used to extend their influence from their political capital at Tula (TOO-la) (also called Tollan; founded in 968 c. E.) north of modern Mexico City to Central America.
The End of Toltec Power
Until recently historians relied primarily on sources from the era of European conquests. According to these sources, two chieftains or kings shared power, and this division of responsibility eventually weakened Toltec power. Sometime after 1150 c. e. a struggle between elite groups identified with rival religious cults undermined the Toltecs. Legends that survived among the Aztecs claimed that Topiltzin (tow-PEELT-zeen) —one of the two rulers and a priest of the cult of Quetzalcoatl—and his followers bitterly accepted exile in the east, “the land of the rising sun.” One of the ancient texts relates these events in the following manner:
Thereupon he [Topiltzin] looked toward Tula, and then wept. . .. And when he had done these things. . . he went to reach the seacoast. Then he fashioned a raft of serpents. When he had arranged the raft, he placed himself as if it were his boat. Then he set off across the sea.2
Similarities in architecture and urban planning in the Toltec heartland and in some Maya postclassic centers, like Chichen Itza (CHEECH-ehn EET-zah) in the Yucatan Peninsula, led some scholars to suggest a Toltec presence in the Maya region. Scholars now dispute this linkage.
We do know that the Toltec state entered a period of steep decline after 1150 c. E. that included internal power struggles and a military threat from the north. By 1175 disaster had befallen the once-great city of Tula. Scholars generally agree that a site north of Mexico City includes the ruins of this once powerful city (see Map 12.2). Its public architecture features colonnaded patios and numerous temples in the Toltec style. Representations of warriors and scenes suggesting human sacrifice decorate nearly all public buildings and temples. Even in ruins, the grandeur, creativity, and power of the Toltecs as celebrated by the Aztecs are visible at Tula.
The Aztecs
Altepetl An ethnic state in ancient Mesoamerica, the common political building block of that region.
The Mexica (meh-SHE-ca) were among the northern peoples who pushed into central Mexico in the wake of the Toltec collapse. As their power grew through political alliances and military conquest, they created a Mexica-dominated regional power called the Aztec Empire (see Map 12.2). At the time of their arrival the Mexica were organized as an altepetl (al-TEH-peh-tel), an
Costumes of Aztec Warriors
In Mesoamerican warfare individual warriors sought to gain prestige and improve their status by taking captives. An Amerindian artist employed by the Franciscans produced this illustration in the sixteenth-century Codex Mendoza. It shows the Aztecs’ use of distinctive costumes to acknowledge the prowess of warriors. The individual on the bottom right shown without a weapon was a military leader. As was common in Mesoamerican illustrations of military conflict, the captives, held by their hair, are shown kneeling before the victors.
Aztec Origins
Ca Ipolli A group of up to a hundred families that served as a social building block of an altepetl in ancient Mesoamerica.
Tenochtitlan Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco.
Its population was about 150,000 on the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on its ruins.
Aztecs Also known as Mexica, the Aztecs created a powerful empire in central Mexico (1325-1521 c. e.).
They forced defeated peoples to provide goods and labor as a tax.
Ethnic state led by a tlatoani (tlah-toh-AHN - ee) or ruler. The altepetl, the common political building block across the region, directed the collective religious, social, and political obligations of the ethnic group. A group of calpolli (cal-POH-yee), each with up to a hundred families, served as the foundation of the altepetl, controlling land allocation, tax collection, and local religious life.
In their new environment the Mexica began to adopt the political and social practices that they found among the urbanized agriculturalists of the valley. At first, they served their more powerful neighbors as serfs and mercenaries. As their strength grew, they relocated to small islands near the shore of Lake Texcoco, and around 1325 c. E. they began the construction of their twin capitals, Tenochtitlan (teh-noch-TIT-lan) and Tlatelolco (tla-teh-LOHL-coh) (together the foundation for modern Mexico City).
Military successes allowed the Mexica to seize control of additional agricultural land along the lakeshore and to forge military alliances with neighboring altepetl. Once these more complex political and economic arrangements were in place, the Mexica-dominated alliance became the Aztec Empire (see Map 12.2). With increased economic independence, greater political security, and territorial expansion, the Aztecs transformed their political organization by introducing a monarchical system similar to that found in more powerful neighboring states. A council of powerful aristocrats selected new rulers from among male members of the ruling lineage. Once selected, the ruler had to renegotiate the submission of tribute dependencies and then demonstrate his divine mandate by undertaking a new round of military conquests. For the Aztecs war was infused with religious meaning, providing the ruler with legitimacy and increasing the prestige of successful warriors.
The Aztecs succeeded in developing a remarkable urban landscape. The population of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco combined with that of the cities and towns of the surrounding lake-shore was approximately 500,000 by 1500 c. e. Three causeways connected this island capital to the lakeshore. Planners laid out the urban center as a grid where canals and streets intersected at right angles to facilitate the movement of people and goods.
Major Mesoamerican Civilizations, 1000 B. C.E.-1519 c. E. The Aztec Empire in 1518 was based on military conquest. The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan was located near the classic era’s largest city, Teotihuacan, and Tula, capital city of the postclassic Toltecs.
Interactive Map
Aztec Social Structure
Although warfare gave increased power and privilege to males, women held substantial power and exercised broad influence in Aztec society. The roles of women and men were clearly distinguished, but women were held in high esteem. Scholars call this “gender complementarity.” Following the birth of a boy, his umbilical cord was buried on the battlefield and he was given implements to signal his occupation or his role as a warrior. In the case of a girl, her umbilical cord was buried near the hearth and she was given weaving implements and female clothing. Women dominated the household and the markets, and they also served as teachers and priestesses. They were also seen as the founders of lineages, including the royal line.
Aztec military successes and territorial expansion allowed the warrior elite to seize land and peasant labor as spoils of war. In time, the royal family and highest-ranking members of the aristocracy possessed extensive estates that were cultivated by slaves and landless commoners. The lower classes received some material rewards from imperial expansion but lost most of their ability to influence or control decisions. Some commoners were able to achieve some social mobility through success on the battlefield.
However, by 1500 c. E. great inequalities in wealth and privilege characterized Aztec society. One of the Spaniards who participated in the conquest of the Aztec Empire remembered his first meeting with the Aztec ruler Moctezuma (mock-teh-ZU-ma) II (r. 1502-1520): “Many great lords walked before the great Montezuma [Moctezuma II], sweeping the ground on which he was to tread and laying down cloaks so that his feet should not touch the earth. Not one of these chieftains dared look him in the face.”4 While commoners lived in small dwellings and ate a limited diet of staples, members of the nobility lived in large, well-constructed, two-story houses and consumed a diet rich in animal protein.
A specialized class of merchants controlled long-distance trade. Given the absence of draft animals and wheeled vehicles, lightweight and valuable products like gold, jewels, feathered garments, cacao, and animal skins dominated this commerce. Merchants also provided essential political and military intelligence for the Aztec elite. Although merchants became wealthy and powerful as the Aztecs expanded their empire, they were denied the privileges of the high nobility, which was jealous of its power.
The Aztec Economy
Tribute system A system in which defeated peoples were forced to pay a tax in the form of goods and labor. This forced transfer of food, cloth, and other goods subsidized the development of large cities. An important component of the Aztec and Inca economies.
Aztec Religion
SECTION REVIEW
The Aztec state met the challenge of feeding an urban population of approximately 150,000 by efficiently organizing the labor of the calpolli and of additional laborers sent by defeated peoples to expand agricultural land. Aztec chinampas contributed maize, fruits, and vegetables to the markets of Tenochtitlan. The imposition of a tribute system on conquered peoples also helped relieve some of the pressure of Tenochtitlan's growing population. Unlike the tribute system of Tang China, where tribute had a more symbolic character (see Chapter 11), one-quarter of the Aztec capital's food requirement was satisfied by tribute payments of maize, beans, and other foods sent by nearby political dependencies.
Like commerce throughout the Mesoamerican world, Aztec commerce was carried on without money and credit. Barter was facilitated by the use of cacao, quills filled with gold, and cotton cloth as standard units of value to compensate for differences in the value of bartered goods. Aztec expansion facilitated the integration of producers and consumers in the central Mexican economy. Hernan Cortes (1485-1547), the Spanish adventurer who eventually conquered the Aztecs, expressed his admiration for the abundance of the Aztec marketplace:
One square in particular is twice as big as that of Salamanca and completely surrounded by arcades where there are daily more than sixty thousand folk buying and selling. Every kind of merchandise such as may be met with in every land is for sale. .. . There is nothing to be found in all the land which is not sold in these markets, for over and above what I have mentioned there are so many and such various things that on account of their very number. . .
I cannot detail them.5
Religious rituals dominated public life in Tenochtitlan. Like the other cultures of the Mesoamerican world, the Aztecs worshiped a large number of gods. Most of these gods had a dual
Nature—both male and female. The chief god of the Mexica was Huitzilopochtli (wheat-zeel-oh-POSHT-lee) or southern hummingbird. Originally associated with war, the Aztecs later identified this god with the Sun. Tenochtitlan was architecturally dominated by a great twin temple devoted to Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, the storm-god, symbolizing the two bases of the Aztec economy: war and agriculture.
The Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli required a diet of human hearts to sustain him in his daily struggle to bring the Sun's warmth to the world. Sacrifices were devoted to other gods as well. Although human sacrifice had been practiced since early times in Mesoamerica, the Aztecs and other societies of the late postclassic period transformed this religious ritual by dramatically increasing its scale. Military expansion and conquest had become the basis of empire and sacrifice its ritual center.
In the postclassic era, large, professional militaries allowed Mesoamerican elites to create empires through conquest, resulting in increasingly hierarchical societies.
The Toltecs used military conquest to create a powerful empire with its capital at Tula. Their influence spread across central Mexico.
After the Toltecs, the Aztecs gradually built an empire from their island center of Tenochtitlan, which became powerful from forced transfers of labor and goods from defeated peoples.
The Aztec religion, reflecting this permanent state of war, demanded increasing numbers of human sacrifices.
Aztec merchants controlled long-distance trade, and Aztec women had substantial power.
World History
