The Aztec had found their island paradise, they built a temple their god Huitzilopochtli,
and then they celebrated!
But the good times would not last long.The Aztec had bigger issues to contend with: Their
capital of Tenochtitlan was located between three large kingdoms.
To the east was the kingdom of Tetzcoco, to the south were the Colhuacan whom the aztec
just escaped from, and to the west was the Kingdom of Azcapotzalco.
Each of these kingdoms controlled several cities and towns, while the Aztec controlled
only a small amount of people in a small town located on a small island.
The Aztec fully understood that they did not possess the economic, military, or political
resources to stand up to any of these larger kingdom.
And so the Aztec decided to lay low until such a time they could claim the land that
was theirs by the will of Huitzilopochtli.
The Aztec people became hunters, gatherers, and farmers.
Eventually developing enough to warrant traveling to neighbouring towns to trade raw materials
in exchange for manufactured goods or other raw materials not available to them.
But as they traded, they gained the unwanted attention of those same towns.
You see, these towns were part of the Kingdom of Azcapotzalco.
And these towns were being taxed in exchange for protection.
But now, here was a group of people who had recently settled an island, benefitting from
the safe trade provided by the Kingdom of Azcapotzalco, and yet paid no taxes.
This seemed unfair to many.
And so the king of Azcapotzalco implemented heavy taxes on the Aztec.
But the Aztecs, realizing their inferiority, decided to be diplomatic and sent a committee
to treat with the king, to plead with him for lower taxes.
To the king these were people who settled one of his islands, who had traded without
paying taxes, and who now dared to ask him to lower taxes.
So he increased the taxes even further.
These taxes would take such a heavy toll on the Aztec, that even the nobility had trouble
getting enough to eat.
Knowing that military action wasn’t an option, the Aztec begrudgingly decided to pay these
heavy taxes… becoming a tributary town of the kingdom of Azcapotzalco.
But this humiliation also made something blatantly clear to Aztecs: they needed to drastically
modernize their political system in order to keep up with their neighbour.
Tribalism simply wouldn’t do anymore.
And so they took over the feudalistic system that their neighbours used.
with a king at the top, a council of nobles who would rule large parts of territory, and
lesser nobles ruling small areas.
But who should be king?
Well, before they knew who should be king, they asked themselves what a good king should
be like.
And the answer to this question was rather simple: a good king should be the embodiment
of Huitzilopochtli on earth: Strong, intelligent, and most of all; a good warrior.
And these criteria would stay mostly the same for their entire history.
As we saw in the beginning with the Great Migration of the Aztec, they had evolved from
a religious and agricultural society into a militaristic society.
And this hadn’t changed.
The Aztec were still warlike and served in the armies of their Azcapotzalco overlords.
So when they had to choose a king, they didn’t choose him based on his skills in politics
or economics… they chose one based on their skill in battle.
And as we will see later on, this meant that the Aztec kings would often resolve problems
with military thinking instead of using political savviness, intelligence networks, or economic
skills.
And their search came to an end when they heard of a man named Acamapichtli, who the
Aztecs believed embodied all the traits a great ruler should have and invited him to
become their king.
And so, in 1375 the Aztec tribe became the Aztec Kingdom.
King Acamapichtli is said to have ruled his kingdom effectively and he is mainly credited
for his domestic policies.
It’s under his reign that the town of Tenochtitlan was turned into a proper city, with temples,
parks, wide open streets, residential areas, canals, and new land added to their island.
The kingdom enjoyed a period of peace of growth.
But as the king grew older, however, he realized that he would soon die.
The Aztec needed a successor to the throne.
But how do you choose a successor?
Do you handpick them?
Do you let them fight it out between them in bloody civil war?
Do you simply choose your eldest son by tradition?
Acamapichtli’s answer to this question was a very odd for a monarch.
He decided the people of Tenochtitlan would choose his successor in an election.
The people would get to vote on which of his 7 trueborn children would succeed him as king
(He also had a bastard son, but we will get to him later).
This election would set a precedent, for unlike many European or Asian monarchies, the successor
of the Aztec was often chosen by the Aztecs.
While this is the only public election the Aztec had ever had to settle the matter of
succession, from now on the council of nobles who served the king would be the ones who
would choose which of the king’s relatives would succeed him.
And again, they usually chose a military leader as their king, rather than someone who was
trained to be a king.
And so too in this election, the people had chosen the best warrior as their next leader…
and continuing their tradition of unpronounceable names, their next
king was named Huitzilihuitl.
Huitzilihuitl’s contributions were mostly political and continued many of the policies
of his father.
And after decades of the same policy of laying low, paying taxes, and forging alliances,
it finally bore fruit.
Upon the advice of the Aztec council, Huitzilihuitl went to the king of Azcapotzalco, to ask to
marry one of his daughters in a political alliance.
The royal council of Azcapotzalco was against this marriage, realizing that this was merely
a political move to request concessions from the king through his daughter.
Nevertheless, the king agreed to this marriage.
And just as the Azcapotzalco council had feared, on the wedding day, the new Aztec queen asked
her father to reduce the heavy tax burden on the Aztec.
And so, through this marriage, King Huitzilihuitl finally managed to eliminate many of the heavy
taxes his people were forced to pay.
The Aztec were now finally free from this burden and able to grow much faster.
In his later years, however, their Azcapotzalco overlord went to war against several of the
neighbouring kingdoms.
And as you will recall, the Aztec had been waging war since they got to this part of
the world.
So the the Aztec joined the army of their overlords and helped to expand the Azcapotzalco
kingdom by conquering of Tetzcoco and Colhuacan.
But in the middle of these wars, king Huitzilihuitl passed away in 1417.
He was succeeded by his son chimalpopoca.
At the age of 20, king chimalpopoca lacked both experience and useful advice.
He was completely subjugated to the interests of the council.
The most important thing he did, however, was being the grandson of the king of Azcapotzalco.
You see, his grandfather doted on the young Aztec King and the Aztec Council made good
use of this weakness.
They continually told chimalpopoca to go to his grandfather to ask for favours.
You see, mesoamerican politics revolved around favours and tribute.
Friends and allies would grant each other favours, be it food, laborers, or resources.
But overlords would demand that as tribute from their vassals.
And so, being the vassal, the Aztec requested favours from their overlords.
But with every request, the Aztec Council grew more bold, afterall, chimalpopoca was
the favourite grandson.
But the Aztec council, forgot to take into account the power of Azcapotzalco’s council.
For the council of Azcapotzalco was extremely upset that special favours were being granted
to the Aztec.
The Aztec were seeming less and less like a vassal but more and more like a potential
rival.
This all came to a boiling point when the Aztecs ‘requested’ that Azcapotzalco send
the men and materials to build an aqueduct to Tenochtitlan… this was something an overlord
would demand from their vassals, not something a vassal would request from their overlord.
And so the council of Azcapotzalco concluded that war was inevitable.
Their king, however, tried to prevent war, going so far as to plead with the council
to spare his beloved grandson.
But the council had made up its mind: The Aztec Kingdom must be subservient, the Aztec
people must pay taxes, and the Aztec king must die.
And according to the official record: upon hearing of the final verdict, the old king
died of anguish…
While there is no proof that he was murdered, the timing of his death is very convenient…
so that take that as you will.
The council of Azcapotzalco needed to eliminate the Aztec threat.
They decided against open warfare and instead opted for a sharp knife.
Assassins sneaked into the Palace of the Aztec king chimalpopoca and murdered him in his
sleep…
But they didn’t stop there.
They murdered almost the entire royal family… leaving the Aztec in a state of leaderless
panic.
Without a strong leader, they would surely lose this war.
And so the Aztec once again looked for a strong warrior to lead them in their war of independence.
And so they looked at for a man who was a strong general and of royal blood.
They found these qualities in a man named Itzcoatl, the bastard son of the first Aztec
king and the only royal family member who could take on this great burden.
And so in 1426, he was crowned King Itzcoatl.
He sent a messenger asking for peace, but that was refused.
The Aztec would need to fight… but they couldn’t do this alone.
They were but one city in a large kingdom which they had helped to forge.
So they turned towards the allies they had made and emphasised how terrible the Azcapotzalco
were treating them.
They first made an alliance with the city of Tetzcoco.
Tetzcoco was located on the other side of the lake that separated them from the rest
of Azcapotzalco’s territory.
And so they quickly conquered the remaining lands Azcapotzalco controlled on their side
of the lake.
The Aztec meanwhile conquered the lands north of Tenochtitlan.
And upon hearing of these victories, a third city decided to join the rebellion.
The people Tlacopan had suffered for too long under the tyranny of Azcapotzalco and joined
Tenochtitlan and Tetzcoco in a desperate war for liberation.
Together they formed the Triple Alliance, a strong military, political, and economic
coalition that would be the origin of what would eventually become the Aztec Empire.
The Triple Alliance met the army of Azcapotzalco in open battle, fighting fanatically and quickly
overpowered their enemy.
King Itzcoatl followed his enemy into the city of Azcapotzalco, which served as the
capital for the Kingdom of Azcapotzalco.
The Aztec invaded the city, murdered the majority of the population, and ordered the city to
be burned to the ground.
The Aztecs had finally gained their independence, Azcapotzalco is no more, the Aztec were free!
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