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.