Episode 7: The Calm Before the Storm

If you study history long enough, you’ll start to see that all the great turning points in the past, those events that completely flip an existing order on its head and mark a pivot into a new era, they never come out of the blue.  Whether its wars, or revolutions, or assassinations, or shock elections, or economic catastrophes, these hinge events are almost always the product of a series of factors, some big, some small, all of which must transpire for these game-changing shifts to take place.  Often these events even have to unfold in a particular order, too, to the point where, if you go back and rerun these chapters again with just one of these factors left out of the sequence, it’s likely history would have unfolded differently. 

Sometimes these massive paradigm shifts are deliberate and the product of careful planning and coordination. Sometimes, though, and more often than not, these “turning point” events sort of happen unintentionally, or they take place out on the periphery or many months or years in advance of the monumental shift that the people they’re actually affecting don’t really notice them at first.  Natural disasters, assassinations, and plagues have been implicated throughout history, where they hit a civilization and unleash a series of events that completely destabilize the ruling order and erode power centers in ways that end in collapse.   

Sometimes it’s a seemingly innocuous political decision like the election of someone who turns out to be a tyrant many years later, or it can even be a technological development that’s the culprit. The invention of the cotton gin in the early 1800s comes to mind. This seemingly harmless technology was designed to improve the efficiency of processing raw cotton and its overall quality, but it had a massive domino effect by making cotton farming more profitable.  This incentivized farmers across the American South to plant more of it, which in turn necessitated a much greater demand for slaves, which expanded the slave trade, which increased Southern resolve to protect the institution of slavery, which led to greater confrontation with Northern states who were determined first to end slavery in newly added states in the west and eventually outlaw it everywhere, which, of course, led to the election of a Northerner, the anti-slavery Abraham Lincoln, which convinced the Southern States that abolition was imminent, which led to the secession of the southern states and the American Civil War. The war was likely inevitable without the cotton gin, but this certainly helped hasten its arrival.  

One of the reasons the clash between the Aztec and Spanish empires is so unique among the many paradigm shifting moments in history is that it encompasses all these themes.  It’s both the result of a long, deliberate series of events by both the Spaniards and the Aztecs that we spent the first few episodes setting up, AND it’s the nearly accidental consequence of an unintentional series of developments and almost out-of-the-blue lightening bolts of good luck from Cortes’ point of view.  It’s also the story of technology, of plague, of diplomatic intrigue and cunning on the part of the Spanish, and comical strategic errors born of a mix of hubris and ignorance on the part of the Aztecs. 

There are many myths, conflicting narratives, and outright lies that have infused the history of the conquest over the years, But despite the existence of legitimate controversy over some of the details of the story born from everything from the limitations of sources and point of view, to the pendulum swings of political, religious and racial biases through different eras, to advances in knowledge gained from archeology and other discoveries – despite all of this, I believe there is a true version of this story, and that’s what we’re going to attempt to tell here.


This episode takes us through the politics surrounding the appointment of Hernan Cortés to lead the expedition that would end with the conquest of the Mexica capital city of Tenochtitlan. We also get into the origins of the many rivalries and personality clashes that will be front and center as the clash of civilizations begins in earnest. Lastly, we’ll grapple with many of the contractions inherent in the way the Aztecs responded to the Spaniards in these early stages of encounter and dispel some myths along the way.

Juan de Grijalva

Juan de Grijalva is chosen to lead the second expedition to Yucatan. He makes contact with hostile Mayans and friendly Nahuatl-speaking cities further west and north. He also meets an emissary from the Aztec emperor,

The Totonacs

The Totonacs were a distinct ethnic group native to an area in and around the modern-day Mexican state of Veracruz. In the late 1400s they came under Mexica domination and were incorporated into the Aztec-led trade and tribute system.

The Great Escape

Cortes set sail on February 18th, 1519 from the port of Santiago de Cuba with 11 ships, nearly 600 men, and at least 16 horses. Officers sent by Governor Velazquez to arrest him arrive at the port just in time to see his fleet in the distance sailing out of the harbor.

Success After Failure

Juan de Grijalva’s expedition is a corking success and included an encounter with the Totonac people, who would prove instrumental to Cortés when he lands there a few months later to begin his march to the Aztec capital – and his date with destiny.

Pedro de Alvarado

Cortés’ most controversial lieutenant will play a central role in one of the most tragic and horrific chapters of this story. We meet him in this episode as he accompanies Grijalva and is sent back to Cuba to report to Velasquez.

Episode 6 - Sidebar: A Review of the Sources

When it comes to history, you’re only as good as your sources. A personal frustration of mine is when people have a twisted understanding of one historical epoch or another, and It’s usually because they’re “informed” only by a very narrow set of sources of dubious origin that are almost always filtered through the lens of a particular political or ideological agenda. In this day and age of internet information vomit splashing on us from all angles, this phenomenon has only gotten worse.

While accessing as broad a spectrum of sources as possible is important to achieving a thorough understanding of any period or historical episode, however, not all sources are created equal.

So-called “primary sources,” for example, can be riddled with problems. While they offer critical eye-witness or near-eye-witness accounts, they’re still just one perspective, and even when they’re genuinely attempting to be objective and thorough they’re almost always driven by personal biases and prone to weaknesses of their own ego. In a speech to Parliament after World War II, Winston Churchill famously quipped that he expected history would be kind to him because, he said, “I propose to write that history myself.” He went on to write a 5 volume history of the second world war for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

As we get deeper into this very controversial story, I think it’s important for you to know where I’m getting my information from, and I want you have access to that information as well.

As is the case with most of history, the primary sources at our disposal for The Conquest, though vivid and copious, are as hopelessly biased and even contradictory as you might expect. It has to be said, however, that historians have done a fairly good job over the centuries of sifting through all of these flaws to construct a narrative that’s not only thorough but plausible.  There are some key, controversial events and figures for which very important details remain disputed – either the sources don’t agree or what we know through archeology and historical precedent make certain versions unlikely – and each version of those events or interpretations of those characters has tremendous consequences, as we’ll see.

The big glaring gap in the historical record – the elephant that’s NOT in the room – remains the lack of a substantial Aztec side of the story. History is written by the victors, of course, and we explain in this episode how and why the Spanish were more intent on erasing Aztec history than subsequent colonial overlords were.

Over the last 75 years, however, anthropologists, scholars and linguists have uncovered and made public disparate elements of archeology, oral histories, and recently discovered written records from the immediate post-conquest period that have finally given a voice, however faint, to the Aztecs of this period. A full-throated account on behalf to the Mexica and their allies it is not, nor is it a line-by-line rebuttal of the established narrative, but it is at least a window into the Aztec mind during this apocalypse.

Below are links to the sources that we rely on to tell this epic story.

The True History of the Conquest of New Spain

-By Bernal Diaz del Castillo

Of all the primary sources, this first-person account by one of Cortés’ lieutenants has told the test of time. While much of it is flawed and many of its details falsified over the years, it remains the foundational narrative of Conquest that informs all future works on the subject.

The Broken Spears
-by Miguel Leon-Portillo

This remarkable cultural achievement takes oral histories recored in the Aztecs own language shortly after the conquest and constructs a narrative of sorts that finally gives the people of this lost civilization a voice in our modern conversation.

The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
-By Camilla Townsend

First published only in 2019, Townsend builds on the foundation of Broken Spears and incorporates new archeological evidence to construct what is the closest thing we have to a true Aztec account of the conquest. It also paints an intriguing portrait of life in the Aztec world before the arrival of the Spanish, in many cases in their own words.

Letters from Mexico
-By Hernan Cortés

Though almost pure propaganda written to bolster his claim to power in Mexico, the conquistador’s letters provide amazing detail of the people and places he encountered and give us tremendous insight into the real politic that unfolds not only with Moctezuma, but with rival factions in his army acting on behalf of his nemesis Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba.

When Montezuma Met Cortés
-By Matthew Restall

This brilliant new history centers on the monumental first meeting between Hernan Cortés and the Aztec Emperor on one of the outer islands of the Mexica Capital Restall also offers some stunning new theories backed by a mountain of evidence that paint Moctezuma not as a victim of a more powerful rival, but as an omnipotent and powerful leader in complete control of the situation who ultimately fell prey to his own hubris.

Episode 5: The Spanish Opening - Part 2

1492 was one of the great turning point years in all of history. In January, Spanish armies completed the Reconquista, ending 800 years of Muslim civilization in Europe. Later that month, Queen Isabella of Castile granted an audience to a little know Italian navigator named Christopher Columbus, who had a plan to reach Asia by sailing west and bypassing the established routes of the spice trade dominated by Venice, Portugal, and the Ottoman Empire. Isabella later agreed to fund and outfit his voyage, and in August he set sail.  In October he landed - not in Asia, of course, but in the islands of the Caribbean off the coast of a continent no one in the old world knew existed. Spain would not corner the Asian spice market like Columbus and Isabella initially hoped, but by the close of 1492, Spain was in possession of newly “discovered” islands that formed the foundation for what would become the largest empire the world had ever seen. 

Columbus claimed the position of Viceroy over the new colonies for himself and for his heirs, but he and later his bothers and sons proved to be so incompetent and unpopular that Spanish authorities reneged on their initial agreement after Isabella died. Into this power vacuum came ambitious members of the courts of Castile and Aragon with dreams of fortune and glory in the new world. One of the most successful was Diego Velasquez de Cuellar, who came first to Hispaniola to work for the crown and later led the conquest of Cuba.  He then ruled over the entire island as governor and brought all future conquests under his control, becoming the most powerful man in the Caribbean in the process.

Around 1505 the explorers and conquerors began to be joined by colonizers who would populate and build societies in the newly conquers islands. This included crown officers, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, and church authorities all looking for a piece of the new world for themselves. 

One of these ambitious figures was Hernan Cortés, a notary from a minor noble family in Extremadura, a backwater region in western Castile. A distant uncle happened to be the crown’s top official in the Caribbean and young Hernan took a position in his administration. Later, he joined Velasquez de Cuellar in the conquest of Cuba and took large tracks of land and mines as a reward. His new holdings made him wealthy.  He soon married Catalina Suarez, a young woman from a wealthy noble family, and was named mayor of Santiago de Cuba. Cortés, though, fell out of favor with Velasquez and was forced to watch from the sidelines as others were chosen to explore the new continental landmass discovered to the west. After two expeditions to scout the Yucatan peninsula in modern-day Mexico, Velazquez began planning a third, more ambitious mission, and soon Cortés would get his chance to redeem himself. Little did Velasquez de Cuellar realize; redemption was the last thing on Cortés’ mind. 

The Cutting Edge

Spanish Conquistadores were the elite warriors of their day. They were inheritors of 800s years of military advances in technology and tactics that were refined and perfected during their wars to reclaim the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors.

Spice Spice Baby

The spice trade was the economic engine of the middle ages. It formed a proto-globalization that connected east and west beginning in late antiquity. By 1500, that trade was dominated by the Portuguese, who had command of the sea route around Africa, and the Venetians and the Ottoamns, who together controlled the route that went through the mediterranean sea and then on to India and beyond by land and sea.

…Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Was he a great man who changed history? An evil man who initiated genocide? A con artist who failed to find a western route to Asia as he initially set out to do? Whatever your perspective on these questions, there’s no doubt that his voyage set the stage for the ascendency of western civilization that would come to dominate the world over the next 500 years.

If looks could kill

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano was born to a minor noble family in the backwater region of Extremadura in the kingdom of Castile. Thanks to a family member who represented the crown in the new Caribbean colonies, he made his way to the new world to seek his fortune in 1504.

Weapons of War

Conquistadores were experts of the most advanced weapons systems available anywhere in the world, including early firearms. They were also masters of tactics that allowed them to employ these weapons in the most lethal way possible.

In fourteen hundred ninety-two…

He thought he was sailing to Asia to corner the spice market, but what Columbus found would instead from the foundation for the largest empire the world had ever seen for his Spanish patrons.

The Power Broker

Diego Velazquez de Cuellar maneuvered to become the most powerful man in the Caribbean after he led the conquest of Cuba and brought all future exploration and expansion in the region under his authority.

Episode 4: The Spanish Opening - Part 1

Spain today is a deeply divided nation. It’s widely understood that those divisions are consequences of the tragedy that was the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and the brutal 40-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco that followed. But it may surprise many to learn that Spain has always been a divided nation. Some would even argue that it’s never really been a nation at all, just a collection of nations that trace their roots to the handful of medieval kingdoms that participated in the Reconquista, the centuries-long project to “retake” the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims who conquered almost all of it after its invasion in 711 AD. Understanding the Reconquista is key to understanding the Spain that would come to dominate Europe and build the world’s first truly global empire in the 1500s.

Whether or not the Reconquista was a true reconquest, or just another conquest in a long line of them, is all a matter of perspective. The Iberian Peninsula has been conquered multiple times over its history. The original bronze age inhabitants were displaced by the Celts beginning around 1,000 BC. Then came the Carthaginians, and later the Greeks. In the 200s BC the Romans would conquer and colonize the entire region, renaming it Hispania. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed in the 400s AD, the germanic Visigoths migrated there and made it their home, which it remained for 300 years until they were pushed out by the Muslim Moors. Successive caliphates would build a marvelous Islamic based civilization in Spain that lasted for nearly 800 years until the final Emirate of Granada was defeated in 1492 by those Christian kingdoms who by that time bore no resemblance or allegiance to the Visigoths that fled north all those centuries earlier. So who conquered or reconquered who?

Modern Tribute

The coat of arms of modern-day Asturias features the Victory Cross carried by Pelagius at the Battle of Covadonga in either 718 or 722. The battle is seen as the first victory of the Reconquista and carries immense symbolism to this day.

Roman Bones

'Hispania’ was among the most Romanized provinces of the empire and was thoroughly Roman for over 400 years. This aqueduct in the city of Segovia north of Madrid survives from the Roman period.

Al

Andalus

This map shows the extent of Muslim control over the Iberian Peninsula after 711, which they renamed Al Andalus, the land of the Vandals, which were a Germanic tribe that migrated from Germany through Spain and then across the straights of Gibraltar into North Africa where they settled after the collapsed of the Roman Empire in the 400s AD.

And Then There were Three

After a period of consolidation, three major kingdoms emerged to complete the reconquista: Portugal in the west, Aragon in the East, and Castile, the wealthiest and most powerful between them. Here you see the last Muslim kingdom of Granada on the eve of its final conquest.

Episode 3: The Rise of the Mexica - Part 2

When we left the Mexica at the end of episode 2, the year was 1425 on our calendar, and they were firmly established and accepted by the others Aztecs. They were living in a world dominated by the Tepanecs in the nearby city-states of Azcapotzlco and Tlacopan. They enjoyed a comfortable position as an ally of the Tepanecs and were secure in their island city.

But 1425 turned out to be a turning point for the Mexica, and the very next year events unfolded that would initiate a new phase in their history, this time from established and legitimate to greatness and dominance, and all in just a few decades.  

It began with the death of the Tepanec emperor Tezozomoc and the succession crisis that ensued. The heir apparent, Tayahauh, was deposed by Tezozomoc’s son, Maxtla, in a coup. Some Aztec city states lined up to recognize Maxtla, but the Acolhua did not. The Acolhua were only recently subjugated by the Tepanecs after Tepenec armies – with the help of the Mexica – sacked the Acolhua capital of Texcoco, and so they saw this as an opportunity to throw off the Tepanec yoke and regain their independence. The Mexica were loyal Tepanec allies but they did not consider Maxtla the rightful emperor. And so in a fateful move, the Mexica king, Chimalpopoca, decided not to recognize Maxtla’s coup. Shortly after making that announcement, Chimalpopoca dies, with some evidence suggesting he was assassinated by Maxtla. But the new Mexica king, Itzcoatl, likewise didn’t recognize Maxtla.

Itzcoatl learned that the Tepanecs in Azcapotzalco were not happy with Maxtla’s coup, either, and he convinced them to break off from Maxtla and the Tepanecs of Tlacopan and name their own king, who the Mexica agreed to recognize. They also convinced the Acolhua to join the alliance against Maxtla and help over thrown him.

While the Mexica engineered the diplomatic condition to overthrow Maxtla, it was an Acolhua who was tasked with assembling an army from the different groups of Aztecs. His name was Nezahualcoyotl, and he’s come down to us as maybe the greatest Aztec king of them all, and one of the most important and revered figures in all of Mexican History.

Nezahualcoyotl united the armies of the Acolhua, the Mexica and the Tepanecs from Azcapotzalco and led that combined force to defeat Maxtla’s armies and sack Tlocopan. His victory marked the end of the Tepanec empire and the beginning of what historians have come to call the Empire of the Triple of Alliance. Nezahualcoyotl is remembered as the Poet King, and he’s credited with influencing Aztec literature, engineering, architecture and law. He reigned as King of Texcoco for nearly 50 years until his death in 1472, and his court was the most prestigious during that entire time, attracting the greatest artists, philosophers and luminaries from across the valley of Mexico.

On paper the new Empire of the Triple Alliance was supposed to be a power sharing agreement between the kings of Texcoco, Azcapotzalco and Tenochtitlan, but in a matter of decades the Mexica maneuvered within this new power structure to essentially seize control of it. The Mexica king, Itzcoatl, was named the first Emperor of the Triple Alliance in 1426, and would be followed by Moctezuma I, Axayacatl, Tizoc, Ahuitzotl, and Moctezuma II – all Mexica.

Moctezuma I was the first Emperor to expand the new empire’s power outside the Valley of Mexico in force, add huge swathes of territory. Axayacatl came next and he pushed the frontiers of the empire west toward the frontier with Tarascans. After initial success he decided to launch a full scale war against the Tarascan Empire, but his armies were crushed. This fixed the empire’s western border as the frontier between Aztec and Tarascan territories and creating a cold-war like stalemate between the two civilizations – a situation that would hold for the duration of pre-Columbian Mexican history.

Emperor Ahuitzotl was named Emperor in 1486, and he presided over what many historians consider the golden age of the Mexica. He not only expanded the empire’s territory, he oversaw a massive expansion of the Mexica’s island capital, Tenochtitlan, including an overhaul of the sacred central precinct and a renovation of the great pyramid. He also reformed the ancient Aztec caste system and allowed merchants to join the nobility, many of whom had grown incredibly wealthy from the stability of his reign. He appears to have been well liked across the Valley of Mexico as well, and his Tepanec and Acolhua allies seemed content with his stewardship of the empire.

Moctezuma II succeeded Ahuitzotl in 1502 or 1503, and he immediately reversed the new policy that opened the nobility up to wealthy merchants. He also purged Acolhua and Tepanec officials from the offices that administered the empire, and reserved all important posts for the Mexica nobility only. He also set out to squeeze the provinces across the empire for every ounce of tax and tribute that he could, making him and the Mexica extremely unpopular outside the Valley of Mexico - something the Spanish would exploit when they land in 1519.

A Modern Take

This is a modern rendering of Tenochtitlan and its neighboring cities, and the layout more closely resembles what the Spanish would have found when they arrived.

Chimalpopoca

Chimalpopoca’s decision to oppose the new Tepanec emperor proved fateful for the Mexica – and for his life.

Layer Upon Layer

When Aztecs wanted to expand the size of their temples, they simply added layers of earth and stone on-top of existing structures and then finished them with more stone, motar and stucco. They could expand their temples almost indefinitely this way. This shows the many expansions of the Templo Mayor

Sacred

The central sacred precinct at the heart of the city was massive. This modern artist’s impression conveys its immense scale after Ahuitzotl’s expansion. It also depicts the gleaming white limestone stucco-like coating that temples and other civic buildings were finished with.

Golden Emperor

This depiction of Emperor Ahuitzotl is from the Codex Mendoza.

Make it stand out

Templo Today

Just off the Zócalo, the central square of modern day Mexico City, lie the recently rediscovered ruins of the great Mexica pyramid the Spanish called the ‘Templo Mayor,’ as well as many other structures and works of art that once adorned the massive central sacred precinct of Tenochtitlan. The many expansions of the pyramid are clearly visible.

Episode 2: The Rise of the Mexica - Part 1

The Mexica origin story is shrouded in myth and legend and full of propaganda and self-aggrandizing anecdotes - not unlike the origin stories of other civilizations around the world, including ours. They saw themselves – and just as importantly, they hoped others would see them – as underdogs that we looked down upon by their more civilized neighbors, and who, through their ferocious warriors and protection from their god Huitzilopochtli, entered the valley of Mexico as nomads and turned a few swampy islands no one wanted in the middle of the lake into a glorious city and the center of a massive empire in under 200 years.

The history is more complicated than that, of course. The Mexica had to be vicious warriors just to survive. It’s how they initially got the other Aztec peoples to accept them, not as equals, but as good soldiers who proved valuable as mercenaries in their wars with each other. Once the Mexica were able to settle down and build their own Altepetl, their own City-State, out on a pair of islands off the western shores of Lake Texcoco, they had to learn to be great traders and great builders just to make their city habitable.

The Mexica founded Tenochtitlan sometime between 1325 and 1345, and it would take them decades to master the logistical, political, and civil engineering challenges their island city presented. To solve the problem of limited land for farming and housing, they built artificial islands that were anchored to the shallow lake bed. To protect the freshwater around the city from being contaminated by the brackish water from other parts of the lake, they built a long dam made of wooden frames filled with stone and earth. They also engineered the dam with gates to control the water level around the city and eliminate the threat of seasonal floods. And they eventually built long causeways connecting the islands of the city with the cities on the lakeshore to the north, west and south.

Internal tensions led a group of Mexica, the Tlatelolca, to break off and form their own city within the larger metroplex of Tenochtitlan. Tlatelolco’s central market would develop into the massive trading hub of the entire Aztec world, and it made both groups of Mexica extremely wealthy, And so apart from some periods of tension, they remained closely linked physically and culturally, acting like one big city in all the ways that really mattered, though both did have their own kings and nobility and temples and other institutions.

By 1425, the Mexica were secure in their island city and the other Aztecs had finally accepted the reality of their existence. They weren’t yet respected in the way they would have liked, but they were now at least players in the region who had to be considered by the other city-states. Little did they know, however, that 1425 would be a turning point for them and set them on a trajectory to greatness.

A Sign From God

This is the cover of the Codex Mendoza, and it depicts the founding of Tenochtitlan on the spot where Mexica saw the prophesied sign: An eagle, perched on a cactus, eating a snake.

Huitzilopochtli

The primary God of the Mexica is depicted here in a stylized glyph from a later Codex. All Gods in int the Aztec pantheon would have similar glyphs

Tenochtitlan

The Mexica’s Island capital was a collection of two natural islands and dozens of artificial chinampas for both buildings and agriculture. Also depicted in this rendering is the artificial dam the Mexica constructed to control flooding and the salinity of the water.

‘More Glorious than Venice’

This is a Spanish map created after the conquest, and though heavily stylized in the medieval style, many of the details of the city like the dam and the causeways the cities on the lake shore can be made out.

Market Day

20th century mural by acclaimed artist Diego Rivera depicts a scene of the great Tlatelolco Market, or 'Tianguis’ in Nahuatl.

Templo Mayor

The Templo Mayor, as the Spanish called it, was at the heart of the Central Sacred Precinct, and it was dedicated to the Gods Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc, and each God had their own temple on top of the Pyramid. Here you can also see the circular pyramid temple dedicated to the much more ancient god, Quetzalcoatl.

Episode 1: The New World on the Eve of Armageddon

Mexico was thoroughly populated when the Spanish arrive in the new world.  Cities large and small dotted the landscape from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and from well north of Mexico City down to Central America.

The ascendent Aztec civilization, composed of a handful of ethnically distinct groups united by language, an integrated economy, a shared pantheon of gods, and a common origin story, dominates central Mexico. Under the aegis of the all-powerful Mexica, the Aztecs are expanding across the region from their power base in the Valley of Mexico - where modern-day Mexico City sits today.

To the east of the Valley of Mexico, the Huastecs, the Otomi and the Totonacs have been recently incorporated into the Aztec empire, and beyond them the remnants of the once-glorious Mayan civilization waits helpless for what seems like inevitable incorporation into the Aztec sphere. To the south west, the ancient Zapotec and Mixtec peoples find themselves newly under the Aztec yoke as well.

But not everyone has bent the knee. To the west of the Aztec heartland, the mighty Tarascan Empire checks their expansion toward the Pacific ocean. And just outside the Valley of Mexico, the defiant Tlaxcala – close kin to the Mexica – continue to be a thorn in the Aztec’s side.

The Aztecs consider themselves the legitimate successors to the long vanished and mysterious Toltec civilization that once dominated the region from their capital city of Tula just north of the Valley of Mexico. The Toltecs, whoever they were, appeared after the collapse of the glorious and even more mysterious Teotihuacan civilization, whose fabulous city with its monumental pyramids and temples that you can still see today, was already long-abandoned by the time the Spanish arrived.

In the next episode, we’ll take a deep dive into the origins of the Mexica and follow them along their rise to the pinnacle of civilization in the New World.

Zapoteca

The ruins of the great Zapotec city the Spanish called Monte Albán. This is the second oldest urban center in all of Mesoamerica, predating the Aztecs by more than 1,500 years and the arrival of the Spanish by 2,000 years.

Empire

The Aztec Empire reached its peak in the early 1500s, with various emperors extending its borders from 1425 onwards.

Toleteca

The mysterious Toltec civilization was based in the city of Tula just outside the lake region, and the ruins here showcase why their artistic achievements were so revered by the later Aztecs.

Anahuac

The Lake System of the Valley of Mexico in 1519 with the major cities around the lakes and the Mexica’s Island Capital of Tenochtitlan in the middle of Lake Texcoco, founded in the mid 1300s.

The City of the Gods

At the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacan, just north of modern day Mexico City, you will find the largest pyramids outside of Egypt. The Pyramid of the Sun, here, is nearly as large at its base as the great pyramid of Giza. The city was already abandoned and in ruins when the Aztecs rose to power.

Tarascan

The Aztecs were just one of several people in Central Mexico when the Spanish arrived. The mighty Tarascan people, also called the Purépechas, resisted Aztec expansion and developed their rival civilization based in here the city of Tzintzuntzan in modern day Michoacan.

The Time Has Come

Victor Hugo wrote, “There’s nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

Today, America finds itself at a critical moment where it’s finally reckoning with the contradictions and hypocrisies of its history in ways it hasn’t since the Civil War. Across the western world, in fact, the consequences of conquest, colonialism and slavery are being reexamined at a heightened pace, and the long-delayed process of reconciliation over these and other issues that have persisted into our modern age appears to be finally underway.

For Latinx Americans in particular, both in the United States and across Latin America, we are the living legacies of those consequences and all of their glories and tragedies. We see them in the mirror, in our children’s eyes, in our food, and in our language, religion and traditions. We also see them in the inequalities that plague our communities here and abroad. We, too, have long avoided confronting the traumatic episodes of our past that seeded our beautifully chaotic genetic and cultural mix – what Mexican philosopher Jose Vasconcelos named La Raza Cosmica, the Cosmic Race.

The seminal and most consequential of these episodes is the epic clash between the Spanish and Aztec empires that began 500 years ago – almost exactly to the year. As an American writer of Mexican descent, and a lifelong student of history, it has been the labor of a lifetime to write and create this story. Now is the moment to empower creative professionals to bring this story to life and present it to audiences around the world over the premier entertainment medium of our times. It is without a doubt an idea whose time has come.

—Peter Mellado, Writer / Creator

Birthplace

The Plaza of the Three Cultures today in modern-day Mexico City, just north of the Zocalo. Here we are looking southwest across the square toward the Spanish Colonial Church built with the stones of the destroyed temples of Tlatelolco, the ruins of which sit in front of the church.

Tlatelolco

This temple complex formed the core of the once vibrant independent city-state of Tlatelolco. It now sits silent in front of the Spanish Church built with its stones soon after the conquest, and modern concrete buildings, giving the Plaza of the Three Cultures its name. The camera here points northeast toward the church with the square to its left in this photo.

Massacre

This is monument dedicated to the victims of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre, when the Mexican Army was sent in to clear the thousands of demonstrators out of the square and the surrounding area. They had gathered to protest the spending and the corruption around the upcoming 1968 Olympics that were set to open, and the cleared them out with machine guns. The government acknowledges only a few dozen deaths, but the total number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds.

Neither a Victory, or a Defeat

This is all that commemorates the epic conclusion of the clash between the Aztec and Spanish Empires: A concrete slap erected just feet from the spot where Emperor Cuauhtémoc surrendered to Cortés, ending the long Aztec resistance to the Spanish invaders. The English translation is:

"On August 13th, 1521, the City of Tlatelolco, so heroically defended by Cuauhtémoc, finally fell into the hands of Hernán Cortés. It was neither a victory nor a defeat, but the painful birth of Mexico and all Mestizo people.”