Chapter 3
The Mesoamerican World
at Spanish Contact
The Mesoamerican world that confronted the Spanish conquistadors at the begin-
ning of the sixteenth century was extremely complex, the result of a long development
as outlined in the two preceding chapters. In this chapter we consider the extent to
which Mesoamerica formed an interconnected world where events taking place in
one social unit affected those in another, however distant they might have been from
one to the other. Such an approach will help simplify for us the complexity of
Mesoamerica, while also casting into relief the underlying cohesiveness and unity that
has allowed the peoples of the region to resist cultural destruction during the centuries
following Spanish contact. We will begin our discussion of Mesoamerica at Spanish
contact with a brief description of its social and cultural complexity, and then turn to
an analysis of Late Postclassic Mesoamerica as a world system.
The reconstruction of contact-period Mesoamerica to follow is based primarily
on archaeological and ethnohistoric (documentary) studies. These two approaches
often yield quite different information, but together they make possible a more
rounded and complete view of the Mesoamerican peoples. They also provide a mean-
ingful connection between the preceding Chapters 1 and 2, and this chapter. Many
of the archaeological studies upon which the account is based—especially those deal-
ing with the remains of Mesoamerican settlements that flourished at the time of
Spanish contact—are cited and discussed in Chapter 2.
The two most important types of documentary sources employed in this chapter
consist of Spanish accounts, provided by the first explorers, conquerors, and colo-
nizers of the region; and written accounts left to us by the Mesoamericans them-
selves (see Chapter 6 for a full discussion of these latter documents). Useful
supplementary information comes from studies of linguistic and cultural features
that the descendants of those original Mesoamericans successfully preserved through
five difficult centuries of “colonization.” Based on these various sources of informa-
tion, we attempt to answer the question of what the Mesoamerican world was like on
the eve of contact with the Spaniards.120