22 CHAPTER 1 ANCIENT AMERICA
MAYA DECLINE AND TRANSFORMATION
OF MESOAMERICA
By 800 CE, the Mesoamerican world had been
shaken to its foundations by a crisis that seemed
to spread from one Classic center to another. Teo-
tihuacán, the Rome of that world, perished at
the hands of invaders, who burned down the city
sometime between 650 and 800 CE. Toward the
latter date, the great ceremonial center at Monte
Albán was abandoned. And by 800 CE, the process
of disintegration had reached the Classic Maya
heartland of southern Yucatán and northern Gua-
temala, whose deserted or destroyed centers re-
verted one by one to the bush.
From this Time of Troubles in Mesoamerica
(approximately 700 to 1000 CE), a new Postclas-
sic order emerged, sometimes appropriately called
Militarist. Whereas priests and benign nature gods
may have sometimes presided over Mesoamerican
societies of the Classic era, warriors and terrible
war gods clearly dominated the states that arose
on the ruins of the Classic world. In central Mexico,
the sway of Teotihuacán, probably based above all
on cultural and economic supremacy, gave way to
strife among new states that warred with one an-
other for land, water, and tribute.
The most important of these, successor to the
power of Teotihuacán, was the Toltec “empire,” with
its capital at Tula, about fi fty miles from present-day
Mexico City. Lying on the periphery of the Valley of
Mexico, Tula may have once been an outpost of Teo-
tihuacán, guarding its frontiers against the hunting
tribes of the northern deserts. Following the collapse
of Teotihuacán, one such tribe, the Toltecs, swept
down from the north, entered the Valley of Mexico,
and overwhelmed the pitiful survivors among the
Teotihuacán people.
Toltec power and prosperity reached its peak
under a ruler named Topiltzin, who moved his
capital to Tula in about 980. Apparently renamed
Quetzalcóatl in his capacity of high priest of the an-
cient god worshiped by the Teotihuacáns, Topiltzin-
Quetzalcóatl reigned for nineteen years with such
splendor that both he and his city became legen-
dary. The Song of Quetzalcóatl tells of the wonders
of Tula, a true paradise on earth where cottongrew
in bright colors, and the soil yielded fruit of such
size that small ears of corn were used not as food
but as fuel to heat steam baths. The legends of an-
cient Mexico celebrate the Toltecs’ superhuman
powers and talents; they were described as master
artisans and creators of culture. Over this Golden
Age presided the great priest-king Quetzalcóatl,
who thus revived the glories of Teotihuacán.
Toward the end of Quetzalcóatl’s reign, Tula
seems to have become the scene of an obscure
struggle between two religious traditions. One
was associated with the worship of Tezcatlipoca,
a Toltec tribal god pictured as an all-powerful and
capricious deity who demanded human sacrifi ce.
The other was identifi ed with the cult of the ancient
god Quetzalcóatl, who had given maize, learn-
ing, and the arts to men and women. In a version
of the Quetzalcóatl legend that may refl ect post-
Conquest Christian infl uence, the god asked the
people for only the peaceful sacrifi ces of jade,
snakes, and butterfl ies. This struggle found fanciful
expression in the native legend that tells how the
black magic of the enchanter Tezcatlipoca caused
the saintly priest-king Quetzalcóatl to fall from
grace and drove him into exile from Tula.
Whatever its actual basis, the Quetzalcóatl
legend, with its promise that a mystical Redeemer
would someday return to reclaim his kingdom,
profoundly impressed the people of ancient Mexico
and played its part in the destruction of the Me-
soamerican world. By a singular coincidence, the
year in which Quetzalcóatl promised to return was
the very year in which Cortés landed at Veracruz.
Belief in the legend helped immobilize indigenous
resistance, at least initially.
Topiltzin-Quetzalcóatl was succeeded by lesser
kings, who vainly struggled to solve the grow-
ing problems of the Toltec state. The causes of
this crisis are obscure: tremendous droughts may
have caused crop failure and famines, perhaps ag-
gravated by Toltec neglect of agriculture in favor
of collection of tribute from conquered peoples. A
series of revolutions refl ected the Toltec economic
and social diffi culties. The last Toltec king, Hue-
mac, apparently committed suicide about 1174,
and the Toltec state disappeared with him. In the
following year, a general dispersion or exodus of