THE AZTECS OF MEXICO 23
the Toltecs took place. Tula itself fell into the hands
of barbarians in about 1224.
The fall of Tula, situated on the margins of
the Valley of Mexico, opened the way for a general
invasion of the valley by Nahuatl-speaking north-
ern peoples. These newcomers, called Chichimecs,
may be compared to the Germanic invaders who
broke into the dying Roman Empire. Like them,
the Chichimec leaders respected and tried to ab-
sorb the superior culture of the vanquished people.
They were eager to intermarry with the surviving
Toltec royalty and nobility.
These invaders founded a number of succession-
states in the lake country at the bottom of the
Valley of Mexico. Legitimately or not, their rulers
all claimed the honor of Toltec descent. In artistic
and industrial development, the Texcocan king-
dom, organized in 1260, easily excelled its neigh-
bors. Texcocan civilization reached its climactic
moment two centuries later during the reign of
King Nezahualcoyotl (1418–1472), distinguished
poet, philosopher, and lawgiver, and perhaps the
most remarkable fi gure to emerge from the mists of
Ancient America.
The Aztecs of Mexico
Among the last of the Chichimecs to arrive in the
valley were the Aztecs, or Mexica, which was the
name they gave themselves. The date of their de-
parture from the north was probably about 1111
CE. Led by four priests and a woman who carried
a medicine bundle that contained the spirit of their
tribal god, Huitzilopochtli, they arrived in the Val-
ley of Mexico in about 1218 after obscure wander-
ings. The traditional belief that they were basically
a hunting-and-gathering people who were only
“half civilized” but had some acquaintance with
agriculture has been questioned by some scholars,
who hold that by the time of their arrival, the Aztecs
were typically Mesoamerican in culture, religion,
and economic and social organization. Finding the
most desirable sites occupied by others, they were
forced to take refuge on the marshy lands around
Lake Texcoco, where, in 1344 or 1345, they built
the town of Tenochtitlán. At this time, the Aztec
community was composed of a small number of
kinship, landholding groups called calpulli.
The patches of solid ground that formed the
Aztec territory were gradually covered with huts
of cane and reeds. They were followed later by
more ambitious structures of turf, adobe, and light
stone. As the population increased, a larger cul-
tivable area became necessary, and the Aztecs
adopted their neighbors’ technique of constructing
chinampas—artifi cial garden beds made of earth
and sediment dredged from lake beds and held in
place by wickerwork. Eventually, roots would grow
and grasp the lake bottom, creating solid ground.
On these chinampas the Aztecs grew maize, beans,
and other products.AZTEC IMPERIAL EXPANSION
For a long time, the Aztecs were subservient to their
powerful neighbors in Azcapotzalco, the dominant
power in the lake country in the late fourteenth
and early fi fteenth centuries. A turning point in
Aztec history came in 1428. Led by their war chief
Itzcoatl, the Aztecs joined the rebellious city-state
of Texcoco and the smaller town of Tlacopan to de-
stroy the tyranny of Azcapotzalco. Their joint vic-
tory (1430) led to the rise of a Triple Alliance for
the conquest fi rst of the valley and then of much of
the Middle American world. Gradually, the balance
of power shifted to the aggressive Aztec state. Tex-
coco became a junior partner, and Tlacopan was
reduced to a satellite. The strong position of their
island fortifi cation and a shrewd policy of forming
alliances and sharing the spoils of conquest with
strategic mainland towns, which they later came
to dominate, help explain Aztec success in gaining
control of the Valley of Mexico. In turn, conquest
of the valley offered a key to the conquest of Middle
America. The valley had the advantages of short
internal lines of communication surrounded by
easily defensible mountain barriers. Openings to
the north, east, west, and south gave Aztec war-
riors easy access to adjacent valleys.
Conquest of Azcapotzalco gave the Aztecs their
fi rst beachhead on the lakeshore. Most of the con-
quered land and the peasantry who lived on it were
assigned to warrior-nobles who had distinguished