Cortés the Explorer B 57
Native Civilizations of Mexico=
When Cortés landed, Mexico had been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. The
Classic, or “Golden Age,” of Maya civilization was already past. Between 200
B.C. and A.D. 900, the Maya had developed arts, sciences, and literature of great
sophistication. Their mathematicians measured time more accurately than the
Gregorian calendar used in Europe. Maya sculpture and architecture flourished,
creating ornate stone ceremonial temples, which can still be visited throughout
Mexico and Central America.
For unknown reasons, Maya civilization declined and nearly disappeared in
about A.D. 900, to be replaced by militaristic societies. The most powerful of
these were the Mexica, better known as the Aztec, a nomadic people who set-
tled in the marshland around Lake Texcoco in south central Mexico. In the mid-
dle of the shallow lake they built their capital city, Tenochtitlán, which Cortés
later destroyed and rebuilt, calling it Mexico City. Aztec conquests gradually cre-
ated an empire that included all of Mexico except Yucatán.
A ruling class of priests and
military leaders governed
Aztec society. This hierarchy
and a separate merchant class
were supported by a large pop-
ulation of farmers and crafts-
men. Most common labor was
done by slaves, who were
taken from or sent in tribute by
conquered lands. Such taxa-
tion, which supplied thou-
sands of human sacrifices
annually for Aztec religious
ceremonies, was resented by
other Mexican peoples and
helped Cortés attract allies in
his conquest of Tenochtitlán.
Compared to the civilizations
of Mexico’s “Golden Age,” the
Aztec empire was compara-
tively young when it fell—less
than 150 years old.\
The Aztec calendar stone was discovered in
Mexico City in 1790. Approximately 13 feet wide,
it is covered in pictographs recording the history
of Aztec civilization. (Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division [LC-D4-3162])under Aztec rule. In the Totonac tribe,
caciques—a Caribbean Indian name for a
chieftain or tribal leader that the Spanish
adopted for all such men in the Americas—
complained bitterly of Aztec demands for
tribute. “They told us that every year many of