Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin is known to world history as the Aztec ruler when the Spanish invaders and their indigenous allies began their conquest of the empire in a two-year-long campaign (1519–1521). His early rule did not hint at his future fame. He succeeded to the rulership after the death of Ahuitzotl. Moctezuma Xocoyotzin ( "He frowns like a lord, the youngest child"), was a son of Axayacatl, and a war leader. He began his rule in standard fashion, conducting a coronation campaign to demonstrate his skills as a leader. He attacked the fortified city of Nopallan in Oaxaca and subjected the adjacent region to the empire.
Final Aztec rulers and the Spanish conquest
Aztecs
Aztecs | Final Aztec rulers and the Spanish conquest
1519–1521 1519. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context. Sorry. I cannot find the answer based on the context.
the culture of the aztec empire was based around which geographic form
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Central Mexico
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this culture became popular between which time period?
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Post-classic period from 1300 to 1521
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which language was spoken by the people of that time?
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Nahuatl language
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what was the reason for the population decline during that time?
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After the arrival of the Europeans in Mexico and the conquest, indigenous populations declined significantly.
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when did they arrive?
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After the arrival of the Europeans in Mexico and the conquest, indigenous populations declined significantly. This was largely the result of the epidemics of viruses brought to the continent against which the natives had no immunity. In 1520–1521, an outbreak of smallpox swept through the population of Tenochtitlan and was decisive in the fall of the city; further significant epidemics struck in 1545 and 1576. There has been no general consensus about the population size of Mexico at the time of European arrival. Early estimates gave very small population figures for the Valley of Mexico, in 1942 Kubler estimated a figure 200,000.
Aztecs | Population decline
In 1963 Borah and Cook used pre-Conquest tribute lists to calculate the number of tributaries in central Mexico, estimating over . Their very high figure has been highly criticized for relying on unwarranted assumptions. Archeologist William Sanders based an estimate on archeological evidence of dwellings, arriving at an estimate of inhabitants in the Valley of Mexico. Whitmore used a computer simulation model based on colonial censuses to arrive at an estimate of for the Basin in 1519, and an estimate of for all of Mexico. Depending on the estimations of the population in 1519 the scale of the decline in the 16th century, range from around 50% to around 90% – with Sanders's and Whitmore's estimates being around 90%.
Aztecs | Population decline
Cabeza de Vaca reported that in 1528, when the Spanish landed in Texas, "half the natives died from a disease of the bowels and blamed us." When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the Incan empire, a large portion of the population had already died in a smallpox epidemic. The first epidemic was recorded in 1529 and killed the emperor Huayna Capac, the father of Atahualpa. Further epidemics of smallpox broke out in 1533, 1535, 1558 and 1565, as well as typhus in 1546, influenza in 1558, diphtheria in 1614 and measles in 1618. Recently developed tree-ring evidence shows that the illness which reduced the population in Aztec Mexico was aided by a great drought in the 16th century, and which continued through the arrival of the Spanish conquest.
Conquistador | Disease in the Americas
The estimations given for the total population range from 3,799,561 to 6,122,354. It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of whites and mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%–17% per century. The authors assert that rather than whites and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies in their suffering higher mortality rates due to living in remote locations rather than in cities and towns founded by the Spanish colonists or in being at war with them.
Demographics of Mexico | 1793 census
The first people to arrive here were probably the Culhuas, led by a chief named Cuauhtepexpetlatzin, after this group had already settled in the Valley of Mexico. Other peoples to arrive here include the Matlazincas, the Ocuiltecos and the Otomi. By the time the Aztecs arrived, the area was dominated by the Matlazincas, who had settled earlier in the Toluca Valley by 8th century CE, then migrated here. By the mid-15th century, the Aztecs and the Matlazincas had something of an understanding. However, in 1476, the Aztecs subjected this area to their empire under the rule of Axayacatl. While Axayacatl conquered this area, it was a successor, Ahuizotl who had most of the Aztec shrines, temples and other constructions built here.
Malinalco | History
The exact number of deaths is disputed, but unquestionably more than 3 million natives who they had no immunity. Other sources, however, mentioned that the death toll of the Aztecs might have reached 15 million (out of a population of less than 30 million) although such a high number conflicts with the 350,000 Aztecs who ruled an empire of 5 million or 10 million. Severely weakened, the Aztec empire was easily defeated by Cortés and his forces on his second return with the help of state of Tlaxcala whose population estimate was 300,000. The native population declined 80–90% by 1600 to 1–2.5 million.
Mexico | Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521)
However, these western areas had become ethnically mixed due to influxes of Nahuas and Otomis long before the Spanish arrived. When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, the region was dominated by the Totonacs, who were then in turn dominated by the Aztec Empire. Because of this, the Totonacs allied with the Spanish against the Aztecs to conquer Tenochtitlán . However, war, disease and forced labor brought the Totonac population down drastically. The Totonac population in Cempoala is estimated to have been about 80,000 when the Spanish arrived in 1519 but with only eighty left in 1550. The Spanish also took their lands for cattle raising until the ethnicity occupied only about half of what it used to.
Totonacapan | History
Any population estimate of pre-Columbian Mexico is bound to be a guess but 8–12 million is often suggested for the area encompassed by the modern nation.
Mexico | Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521)
The two published a series of monographs on the pre-Hispanic and colonial demography, "The population of Central Mexico in 1548: an Analysis of the Suma de visitas de pueblos" (1960); "The Indian Population of Central Mexico on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest" (1963); "The Population of the Mixteca Alta, 1520-1960"(1968).and "Essays in Population History: Mexico and the Caribbean" (3 vols., 1971–79). They concluded that they preconquest Indian population living in central Mexico totaled over 25 million. Their unexpected high numbers implied that natives died by the millions or tens of millions when the Spanish arrived, igniting a fierce debate among scholars.
Woodrow Borah | Academic career
In the colonial era, "altepetl" were renamed "cabeceras" or "head towns" (although they often retained the term "altepetl" in local-level, Nahuatl-language documentation), with outlying settlements governed by the "cabeceras" named "sujetos", subject communities. In "cabeceras", the Spanish created Iberian-style town councils, or "cabildos", which usually continued to function as the elite ruling group had in the pre-conquest era. Population decline due to epidemic disease resulted in many population shifts in settlement patterns, and the formation of new population centers. These were often forced resettlements under the Spanish policy of "congregación". Indigenous populations living in sparsely populated areas were resettled to form new communities, making it easier for them to brought within range of evangelization efforts, and easier for the colonial state to exploit their labor.
Aztecs | Social and political continuity and change
The Spanish arrived in the 1520s. The first Spaniard to arrive here is said to have been Gonzalo de Umbria, sent by Hernán Cortés to explore the area to see if there was any gold. The conquest caused the native peoples to mostly abandon the area, and it is not known where they went. Those left to provide tribute were known in the Mexican highlands for their cotton shawls and decorated conch shells. The oldest document with Zihuatanejo's name is called the Matricula de Tributos (Record of Tribute). Today the local dialect has been lost and the only trace of the native population is a small archaeological site that was explored by INAH in the 1990s.
Zihuatanejo | Colonial era
The first Spanish arrived in the area in 1522. According to chronicler Bernal Díaz del Castillo the area had a native population of about 15,000 inhabitants although other estimates have put that number as high as 75,000 in the 1520s. Pedro de Alvarado is credited with the conquest of the Soconusco as he headed down into Central America from the Spanish stronghold in southern Veracruz in 1524. The conquest caused a steady depopulation of the area with the disappearance of much of the native population either due to migration out of the area or death from the diseases the Europeans brought with them.
Soconusco | Spanish Conquest
Spanish women immigrated from the conquest era onward, most usually because they joined family members who had already immigrated. Their presence helped consolidate the Spanish colony. Spaniards founded cities, sometimes on the sites of indigenous cities, the most prominent being Mexico City founded on the ruins of Aztec Tenochtitlan. Spaniards preferred living in cities and with so many immigrant artisans present from an early period, Spanish material culture was replicated in Mexico by tailors, leather workers, bakers, makers of weapons, construction workers, book sellers, and medical specialists (barber-surgeons). In 1550, of the 8,000 Spanish immigrants in Mexico City, around ten percent were artisans.
Immigration to Mexico | Colonial era, 1521-1821
The Ahomes were a native people resident around the mouth of the Fuerte River at the time they first came into contact with the Spanish. The Ahomes were brought under Spanish military control and Jesuit religious leadership from 1600 to no later than 1609, and largely were merged into the culture of New Spain after this time.
Ahomes | Introduction
The Otomis and Nahuas arrived later but the time line for these migrations is disputed. One Nahua incursion occurs in 800 CE related to Tula and the other due to the expansion of the Aztec Empire. The Aztecs conquered from the south and west to an area they called Chicoaque or Tzicoac in 1458, which was probably the area which is now Mesa de Cacahuatengo in the municipality of Ixhuatlán de Madero.
Huasteca | History
Later, Nahua people would come and settle in the area. By the 15th century, however, the Aztecs (a Nahua people) would dominate this area, making the Otomí a tributary people. This would end with the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century. In the late 16th century, a number of Spanish families began renting lands from local chiefs here on which to raise cattle and sheep. These ranches would lead to more Spanish immigration to the area, who intermarried with the local population. During most of the colonial period, until 1714, the Chiapan area remained intact as an entity.
Villa del Carbón | History
When the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century, the largest indigenous group in the state was the Otomi, many of whom were living more or less under Purépecha rule. This population would increase with Otomi refugees from Aztec lands fleeing the Spanish. Another significant group was the Chichimecas. With the fall of Tenochtitlán, then the Purépecha Empire, the Spanish gained some control over the southern portion of the state. However, the area was still very independent, filled with peoples who lived in small isolated villages or nomadically. There were no major cities, nor large societies there or north.
Querétaro | History
Sometimes, nonetheless, "White Mexican" is used. Europeans began arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire; and while during the colonial period most European immigration was Spanish (mostly from northern provinces such as Cantabria, Navarra, Galicia and the Basque Country,), in the 19th and 20th centuries European and European-derived populations from North and South America did immigrate to the country. According to 20th- and 21st-century academics, large-scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native Indigenous peoples produced a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican Revolution.
White people | Mexico
Spanish immigration to Mexico began in 1519 and spans to the present day. The first Spanish settlement was established in February 1519, as a result of the landing of Hernán Cortés in the Yucatán Peninsula, accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses and a small number of cannons. In March 1519, Cortés formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown, and the conquest of the Aztec Empire, a key event in the Spanish conquest of modern-day Mexico in general, was completed in 1521. In the 16th century, following the military conquest of most of the new continent, perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports.
Spanish diaspora | Mexico
He came from across the sea to the east, wearing brilliant armor (as the deity Quetzalcoatl is oft depicted) accompanied by four men (possibly believed to be the other four progenitors of the Mesoamerican people that survived the massacre before coming to earth or Topiltzin’s messengers). The Spanish arrival terrified the ruling class. They feared they would be exposed as frauds and, at the very least, lose their ruling status to Topiltzin. Conversely the oppressed Aztec people, taxed and forced to wage war for sacrifices, hoped that these arrivals would bring a new era of peace and enlightenment (Carrasco 2000:145-152).
Ce Acatl Topiltzin | Topiltzin's legacy
Population estimates for the beginning of the 16th century are: Cuauhnáhuac, 50,000; Huaxtepec, 50,000; Yautepec, 30,000; Tepoztlán, 20,000; Totolapan, 20,000; and 12,000 each for Tlayacapan, Tetela, Yecapixtla, and Ocuituco. The Spanish under Hernán Cortés arrived in central Mexico in 1519. After Cortés's defeat in Tenochtitlan (La Noche Triste) and retreat into Tlaxacala in 1520, he sent expeditions to Morelos. One of the first Mexicas to accept Spanish authority was in Ocuituco. Gonzalo de Sandoval then set out with 8,000 men for Huaxtepec (Oaxtepec). After a two-day fight, Sandoval returned to Texcoco to inform Cortes of his victory. Cortes returned with 20,000 men and defeated Tlayacapan on April 8.
Morelos | Conquest and colonial period
The first inhabitants of the area arrived during the Paleoindian Period (12000-8000 a.C) characterized by hunters of large size animals. Archeological digs for this periods have been found in the Quereo site. The second period is the Archaic (8000 -200 a.C) with a population of hunters and gatherers. The third population period is the Agro-Potters with: a) the El Molle complex (130 a.C-700 d.C), b) Las Ánimas (800-1000 d.C) and c) Diaguita culture (1000-1536 d.C). Finally the Incas conquered this territory shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards, which establish their main population center about 5 kilometers away, at the confluence of the rivers Illapel and Choapa, founding the city of Illapel.
Cuz Cuz | History
On 8 November 1519, after the fall of Cholula, Cortés and his forces entered Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Mexica-Aztecs. It is believed that the city was one of the largest in the world at that time, and the largest in the Americas up to that point. The most common estimates put the population at around 60,000 to over 300,000 people. If the population of Tenochtitlan was 250,000 in 1519, then Tenochtitlan would have been larger than every city in Europe except perhaps Naples and Constantinople, and four times the size of Seville. To the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan was the "altar" for the Empire, as well as being the city that Quetzalcoatl would eventually return to.
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire | Entry into Tenochtitlan
Spaniards make up the largest group of Europeans in Mexico. Most of them arrived during the colonial period but others have since then immigrated, especially during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) and the Francisco Franco regime (1939–75). The first Spaniards who arrived in Mexico, were soldiers and sailors of Extremadura, Andalusia and La Mancha who discovered the Yucatán Peninsula, the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and then made the conquest of what they call the New Spain. Among the soldiers sent by the Spanish crown to the colonial territory were Muslims converts from Córdoba and Granada. At the end of the 16th century, both common and aristocrat people migrated to Mexico and disseminated by its territory.
Immigration to Mexico | Spanish
The overwhelming cause of the decline in both Mexico and Peru was infectious diseases, such as smallpox and measles, although the brutality of the Encomienda also played a significant part in the population decline. Of the history of the indigenous population of California, Sherburne F. Cook (1896–1974) was the most painstakingly careful researcher. From decades of research, he made estimates for the pre-contact population and the history of demographic decline during the Spanish and post-Spanish periods. According to Cook, the indigenous Californian population at first contact, in 1769, was about 310,000 and had dropped to 25,000 by 1910. The vast majority of the decline happened after the Spanish period, during the Mexican and US periods of Californian history (1821–1910), with the most dramatic collapse (200,000 to 25,000) occurring in the US period (1846–1910).
Spanish colonization of the Americas | Demographic impact of colonization
It is a matter of debate whether the enormous city of Teotihuacan was inhabited by speakers of Nahuatl, or whether Nahuas had not yet arrived in central Mexico in the classic period. It is generally agreed that the Nahua peoples were not indigenous to the highlands of central Mexico, but that they gradually migrated into the region from somewhere in northwestern Mexico. At the fall of Teotihuacan in the 6th century CE, a number of city states rose to power in central Mexico, some of them, including Cholula and Xochicalco, probably inhabited by Nahuatl speakers. One study has suggested that Nahuas originally inhabited the Bajío area around Guanajuato which reached a population peak in the 6th century, after which the population quickly diminished during a subsequent dry period.
Aztecs | Central Mexico in the classic and postclassic
Moctezuma, then-chief of the Aztecs, had been receiving accounts of the Europeans' arrival since their ships (reported as towers or small mountains on the eastern sea) arrived in the Yucatán then Veracruz. First-hand accounts indicate that the Aztec were under some impression that Cortés was the god Quetzalcoatl. According to these reports, the direction of the ships' arrival and because of the Spaniards light skin, long beards and short hair fit a prophecy about this god's return. This motivated Moctezuma to send gifts to the Spaniards when they arrived in Veracruz.
History of Mexico City | Conquest of Tenochtitlan
It has been estimated that over 1.86 million Spaniards emigrated to Latin America in the period between 1492 and 1824, with millions more continuing to immigrate following independence. Native populations declined significantly during the period of Spanish expansion. In Hispaniola, the indigenous Taíno pre-contact population before the arrival of Columbus of several hundred thousand had declined to sixty thousand by 1509. The population of the Native American population in Mexico declined by an estimated 90% (reduced to 1–2.5 million people) by the early 17th century. In Peru, the indigenous Amerindian pre-contact population of around 6.5 million declined to 1 million by the early 17th century.
Spanish colonization of the Americas | Demographic impact of colonization
The social composition of late sixteenth century Spanish immigration included both common people, illiterates, and aristocrats with titles of counts and marquises, all of which quickly dispersed over the territory. The enslavement of native populations and Africans, along with the discovery of new deposits of various minerals in the central and northern areas (from Sonora to the southern provinces of Mexico) created enormous wealth for the metropole, especially in the extraction of silver. The exploitation of mining wealth from the indigenous populations through the mechanism of colonialism allowed the Spanish to develop manufacturing and agriculture that turned the Bajío regions and the valleys of Mexico and Puebla into prosperous agricultural areas with incipient industrial activity for the colonists, but indigenous populations were decimated by European diseases and mistreatment from the Spanish as a direct result of this.
Spaniards in Mexico | Arrival of the Spanish
When the Spaniards arrived, the ruler of the Aztec empire was Moctezuma II, who after a delay allowed the Spanish to proceed inland to Tenochtitlan. The Spanish captured him, holding him hostage. He died while in their custody and the Spanish retreated from Tenochtitlan in great disarray. His successor and brother Cuitláhuac took control of the Aztec empire, but was among the first to fall from the first smallpox epidemic in the area a short time later. Unintentionally introduced by Spanish conquerors, among whom smallpox, measles, and other contagious diseases were endemic, epidemics of Old World infectious diseases ravaged Mesoamerica starting in the 1520s.
Mexico | Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521)
Population figures for the city are inexact for Spaniards, mixed-race castas, and indigenous. Some idea of the indigenous can be discerned from tribute records. In 1525, the city had perhaps 22,000 indigenous inhabitants, dropping precipitously starting around 1550. A figure for Tenochtitlan tributaries in 1562 is 12,971. The estimates of the European population in Mexico City is also imprecise, with figures coming from a variety of sources. In 1525 there were 150 households occupied by Spaniards, with the European population increasing steadily during the entire colonial period. The highest estimate for the colonial era is by Alexander von Humboldt, who estimated ca.
History of Mexico City | Size
The Spanish conquest of Aztec territories decreased much of the indigenous population, through warfare and by bringing new diseases, such as smallpox, for which the Aztecs had no immunities. The population that did survive these threats was confronted by profound attacks upon their culture in the form of Spanish institutions such as the Roman Catholic religion. As early as 1529, the Spanish began coercively converting Aztecs to Catholicism. They focused on the Aztec nobility initially, to create an example for the other Aztecs to follow. Nobles such as Quetzalmacatzin, King of Amaquemecan (Chalco), were forced to choose one wife and abandon the others, to comply with the current Christian institution of marriage, which meant monogamy.
Women in Aztec civilization | Spanish rule
In the ten years after the fall of Zaculeu, various Spanish expeditions crossed into the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes and engaged in the gradual and complex conquest of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al peoples. The Spanish hoped to extract gold, silver and other riches from the mountains, but their remoteness, the difficult terrain, and relatively low population made the conquest and exploitation of this aea extremely difficult. The population of the Cuchumatanes is estimated to have been 260,000 before European contact. By the time the Spanish arrived in the region, the Mayans had already suffered high mortality from the Old World infectious diseases brought by colonists and spread by traders.
Santa Maria Nebaj | Spanish conquest
From around 1495 the Aztec empire which was then at its height in central Mexico began asserting influence on the Pacific coast and into the Guatemalan highlands. Under the Aztec Tlatoani Ahuitzotl the Soconusco province which was then paying tribute to the Kʼicheʼ was conquered by the Aztecs, and when Aztec "pochteca" (long distance traders) later arrived at Qʼumarkaj the Kʼicheʼ ruler 7 Noj was so embittered that he ordered them to leave his kingdom, not to return. However, in 1510 when Aztec emissaries from Moctezuma II arrived in Qʼumarkaj to request tribute from the Kʼiche they saw themselves forced to accept vassalage to the Aztecs.
Kʼicheʼ kingdom of Qʼumarkaj | Decline and conquest
Las Casas has also often been accused of exaggerating the atrocities he described in the Indies, some scholars holding that the initial population figures given by him were too high, which would make the population decline look worse than it actually was, and that epidemics of European disease were the prime cause of the population decline, not violence and exploitation. Demographic studies such as those of colonial Mexico by Sherburne F. Cook in the mid-20th century suggested that the decline in the first years of the conquest was indeed drastic, ranging between 80 and 90%, due of course to many different causes but all ultimately traceable to the arrival of the Europeans.
Bartolomé de las Casas | Critiques
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, disease, war and overwork killed part of the native population. In a number of areas, the Spanish brought in African slaves to replace the lost labor. Juan Garrido, one of numerous African conquistadors, accompanied Hernán Cortés in Mexico in 1519. During the colonial period, there was a significant African slave population. Large quantities of slaves were imported starting in the mid-1500s and by 16th and 17th centuries. The first Africans brought to the Pacific coast arrived to Acapulco brought by Spanish galleons. Many later arrivals included escaped black slaves, called “"cimarrones"” who found refuge in the area.
Costa Chica of Guerrero | Afro-Mexican community
In Xochistlahuaca alone, the indigenous population fell from about 20,000 in 1522 to only 200 in 1582. Spanish domination pushed them further into the mountains of the Sierra Madre del Sur, a process which had begun under Mixtec domination. Evangelization did reach them and in 1563, Xochistlahuaca was named an administrative and religious center, much as it was in the pre-Hispanic period. The evangelization and colonialization process gave rise to a number of traditional dances such as El Diablo, Los Chareos, Los Tlamaques, Los Apaches, Danza del Tigre, El Toro, La Tortuga, Los Gachupines, Los Moros, La Conquista, Los Doce Pares de Francis and Los Tecuanes.
Amuzgos | History
The epidemic, and those that followed during 1545–1548 and 1576–1581, eventually killed more than half of the native population. Most of the Spanish were immune; with his army of fewer than 900 men it would not have been possible for Cortés to defeat the Aztecs and conquer Mexico without the help of smallpox. Many Native American populations were devastated later by the inadvertent spread of diseases introduced by Europeans. In the 150 years that followed Columbus's arrival in 1492, the Native American population of North America was reduced by 80 per cent from diseases, including measles, smallpox and influenza. The damage done by these viruses significantly aided European attempts to displace and conquer the native population.
Social history of viruses | Early to late modern period
It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of whites and mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%-17% per century. The authors assert that rather than whites and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies on them suffering of higher mortality rates, due living in remote locations rather than on cities and towns founded by the Spanish colonists or being at war with them. It is also for these reasons that the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greater variation range between publications, as in cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others.
Mexicans | 1793 census
In striking contrast to this long period of decline, in 1601 and 1602 alone, 14 friars had arrived from Spain destined for Nueva Galicia and 32 more for Zacatecas. Between 1610 and 1618 these numbers were augmented by another 40 arrivals.
Fray Juan de Torquemada | Administrator
In the Valley of Mexico (c. 1250 AD), there existed numerous city-states, including Chalco, Xochimilco, Tlacopan, Culhuacan, and Atzcapotzalco. The most powerful were Culhuacan on the south shore of Lake Texcoco and Azcapotzalco on the west shore. As a result, when the Mexica arrived in the Valley of Mexico as a semi-nomadic tribe, they found most of the area already occupied. In roughly 1248, they first settled on Chapultepec, a hill on the west shore of Lake Texcoco, the site of numerous springs. In time, the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco ousted the Mexica from Chapultepec and the ruler of Barbara, Cocoxtli, gave the Mexicah permission to settle in the empty barrens of Tizaapan in 1299.
History of the Aztecs | Arrival in the Valley of Mexico
It is concluded then, that across nearly three centuries of colonization, the population growth trends of whites and mestizos were even, while the total percentage of the indigenous population decreased at a rate of 13%-17% per century. The authors assert that rather than whites and mestizos having higher birthrates, the reason for the indigenous population's numbers decreasing lies on them suffering of higher mortality rates, due living in remote locations rather than on cities and towns founded by the Spanish colonists or being at war with them. It is also for these reasons that the number of Indigenous Mexicans presents the greater variation range between publications, as in cases their numbers in a given location were estimated rather than counted, leading to possible overestimations in some provinces and possible underestimations in others.
White Mexicans | 1793 census
On November 8, 1519 the Spanish Conqueror Hernando Cortés and his small army rode into the Aztec capital of the vast Aztec Empire, where they were welcomed by the Emperor Moctezuma. Within two years, the Aztec civilization was in a state of collapse, the survivors having lost their families, homes, language, temples, and traditional religion. "The Other Conquest" opens in May 1520 when Topiltzin (Damián Delgado), a skillful Aztec scribe who is one of Moctezuma's illegitimate sons, survives the Massacre of the Great Temple by hiding under a corpse. After the Spaniards leave the sacred site, he finds his people dead, including his mother.
The Other Conquest | Plot
They left pictorial art in various places. They traveled long distances to find good hunting areas. When the Spanish conquerors arrived, they ran out of freedom, their economic and geopolitical interests incorporated this territory into the agro-livestock market. When the Conquest of the Desert began, they were forced to live in unfavorable places. Tehuelches and Mapuches merged, mutually absorbing cultural aspects.
Pico Truncado | Indigenous people
In 1521, the Spanish arrived in México, and soon conquered indigenous populations all over the country. Cristobal de Olid entered the Querétaro region the following year. Although the arrival of Spaniards was generally met with resistance by the indigenous cultures, the Otomí people aligned themselves with the Spaniards and fought beside them to defeat the Aztecs living in the Querétaro region. As a demonstration of loyalty, the Otomi leader Conin converted to Roman Catholicism between the years 1522 and 1526 and changed his name to Fernando de Tapia. In 1531 the city of Santiago de Querétaro was planned by Juan Sánchez de Alaniz and Conin.
Conín | History
The Nahua peoples began to enter central Mexico in the 6th century AD. By the 12th century, they had established their center at Azcapotzalco, the city of the Tepanecs. The Mexica people arrived in the Valley of Mexico in 1248 AD. They had migrated from the deserts north of the Rio Grande over a period traditionally said to have been 100 years. They may have thought of themselves as the heirs to the prestigious civilizations that had preceded them. What the Aztec initially lacked in political power, they made up for with ambition and military skill. In 1325, they established the biggest city in the world at that time, Tenochtitlan.
History of Mexico | Aztec Empire (1325–1521 AD)
After Spain completed the conquest of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, the first marriages between the daughters of the Emperor Moctezuma Ilhuilcamina and the Spanish soldiers of Extremadura were carried out. The first Spanish-born Mexicans to arrive on their native soil were the children of soldiers in Hernán Cortés's army who returned to Seville and Extremadura and the descendants of Aztec royalty which included the titled Duke of Moctezuma de Tultengo and in Granada, the Counts of Miravalle. At the end of the sixteenth century, after Mariana de Carvajal married Juan de Toledo Toledo-Moctezuma, who was a descendant of Juan Cano de Saavedra and Isabel Moctezuma, daughter of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, who built his palace in Cáceres with a coats of arms incorporating those of the families of Toledo Carvajal as well as Moctezuma.
Mexican immigration to Spain | History
Their population had declined to 150,000, with accompanying social disruption to many communities from the epidemics of disease. After the western portion of the Cuchumatanes fell to the Spanish, the Ixil and Uspantek Maya were sufficiently isolated to evade immediate Spanish attention. The Uspantek and the Ixil were allies. In 1529, four years after the Spanish conquest of Huehuetenango, Uspantek warriors were harassing Spanish forces, and Uspantán was trying to foment rebellion among the K'iche'. Uspantek activity became sufficiently troublesome that the Spanish decided that military action was necessary.
Santa Maria Nebaj | Spanish conquest
The population of Mexico was overwhelmingly indigenous and rural during the entire colonial period and beyond, despite the massive decrease in their numbers due to epidemic diseases. Diseases such as smallpox, measles, and others were introduced by Europeans and African slaves, especially in the sixteenth century. The indigenous population stabilized around one to one and a half million individuals in the 17th century from the most commonly accepted five to thirty million pre-contact population. During the three hundred years of the colonial era, Mexico received between 400,000 and 500,000 Europeans, between 200,000 and 250,000 African slaves. and between 40,000 and 120,000 Asians.
Mexico | Viceroyalty of New Spain (1521–1821)
Reproduction and population growth declined since people of child-bearing age either had to fight off the Spanish invasion or died due to famine, malnutrition or other diseases. Diseases like smallpox could travel great distances and spread throughout large populations, which was the case with the Aztecs having lost approximately 50% of its population from smallpox and other diseases. The disease killed an estimated forty percent of the native population in the area within a year. The Aztecs codices give ample depictions of the disease's progression. It was known to them as the "huey ahuizotl" (great rash).
Fall of Tenochtitlan | Smallpox reduces the local population
After landing in Veracruz, Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés advanced upon Tenochtitlan with the aid of many of the other native peoples, arriving there on 8 November 1519. Cortés and his men marched along the causeway leading into the city from Iztapalapa, and the city's ruler, Moctezuma II, greeted the Spaniards; they exchanged gifts, but the camaraderie did not last long. Cortés put Moctezuma under house arrest, hoping to rule through him. Tensions increased until, on the night of 30 June 1520 – during a struggle known as "La Noche Triste" – the Aztecs rose up against the Spanish intrusion and managed to capture or drive out the Europeans and their Tlaxcalan allies.
Mexico City | Spanish conquest
The entire family then removed to the capital, where, in the year 1590, while in the midst of prosperity, and seemingly leading Christian lives, they were seized by the Inquisition.
Francisca Nuñez de Carabajal | Arrival in Mexico
Many of these immigrants were not really immigrants at all, but rather "trade conquistadors" who remained in Mexico only long enough to make their fortunes to return to their home countries to retire. This led Diaz to nationalize industries dominated by foreigners such as trains, which would cause many trade conquistadors to leave. In January 1883, the Government signed a law to promote the Irish, German and French immigration to Mexico, this time there were less restrictions, resulting in the arrival of relatively more conventional immigrants and their families. Up to 1914, 10 000 French settled in Mexico, alongside other 100,000 Europeans.
White Mexicans | European immigration to Mexico
Africans were brought to Mexico by Spanish conquerors and were auxiliaries in the conquest. One is shown in Codex Azcatitlan as part of the entourage of conqueror Hernán Cortés. In the account of the conquest of Mexico compiled by Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún, Nahua informants noted the presence of Africans with kinky, curly hair in contrast to the straight "yellow" and black hair of the Spaniards. Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán counted six blacks who took part in the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Notable among them was Juan Garrido, a free black soldier born in Africa, Christianized in Portugal, who participated in the conquest of Tenochtitlan and Western Mexico.
Afro-Mexicans | Conquest and early colonial eras
Spanish settlers brought to the American continent smallpox, measles, typhoid fever, and other infectious diseases. Most of the Spanish settlers had developed an immunity to these diseases from childhood, but the indigenous peoples lacked the needed antibodies since these diseases were totally alien to the native population at the time. There were at least three separate, major epidemics that decimated the population: smallpox (1520 to 1521), measles (1545 to 1548) and typhus (1576 to 1581). In the course of the 16th century, the native population in Mexico went from an estimated pre-Columbian population of 8 to 20 million to less than two million.
New Spain | The role of epidemics
European Mexicans are Mexican citizens of full or majority European descent. Europeans began arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and continued immigrating to the country during colonial and independent Mexico. According to 20th and 21st century academics, large scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native Indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of the Mexican revolution. However, according to church registers from the colonial times, the majority (73%) of Spanish men married with Spanish women. Said registers also put in question other narratives held by contemporary academics, such as European immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities as there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin.
Demographics of Mexico | Mexicans of European descent
1802 that there were 67,500 whites in Mexico City. The size of Mexico City's population and its demographic contours have been enduring questions for crown officials as well as modern scholars. There were major epidemics that affected the population, starting with the smallpox epidemic of 1520 that was a factor in the Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire, but there were other major epidemics throughout the colonial period. There were estimates taken in the late seventeenth century, with the largest and most detailed census mandated by Viceroy Revillagigedo in 1790. In 1689, there was an estimate of 57,000 residents. An estimate for 1753 based on a partial census mandated by the Audiencia put the population at 70,000.
History of Mexico City | Size
In 1376 the Mexica elected their first tlatoani, Acamapichtli, following customs learned from the Culhuacan. These customs required cleaning daily nonstop as a ritual.
History of the Aztecs | Arrival in the Valley of Mexico
The first to arrive to the area were the Matlatzinca, who settled mostly in the present-day communities of Santa Maria Ahuacatlán, La Peña and Otumba. Between 1474 and 1479, the Aztec chief Axayacatl conquered the region, establishing what it would be the last addition to the Aztec Empire. After the destruction of Tenochtitlan by the Spanish, campaigns to subdue this area were carried out by Andrés de Tapia and Gonzalo de Sandoval, followed by evangelization by the Dominicans and the Augustinians. Around 1530, the Franciscan friar Gregorio Jiménez de la Cuenca founded the town as a congregation called "El Pino".
Valle de Bravo | History
Based on linguistic and archaeological data, scholars believe that the common ancestors of the contemporary Tzotzil and Tzeltal peoples entered Chiapas between 100 BCE and 300 CE. According to Spanish chronicles, just before the Spanish Conquest the Tzotzil exported quetzal feathers and amber to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. They also produced salt from wells near Ixtapa and traded it throughout the Chiapas highlands, and continued to do so after the Conquest. The Spanish conquerors met comparatively little resistance in Chiapas. In 1522, the Zinacantán lord Cuzcácuatl sought the Spaniards with an offer of allegiance, and his subjects afterwards helped Spanish commander Luis Marín to subdue neighboring tribes.
Tzotzil | History
They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Since the conquest of Mexico, this region became the principal destination of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. The first Spaniards who arrived in Mexico were soldiers and sailors from Extremadura, Andalusia and La Mancha after the conquest of the Americas. At the end of the 16th century both commoner and aristocrat from Spain were migrating to Mexico.
Spanish diaspora | Mexico
In 1520 another group of Spanish arrived in Mexico from Hispaniola, bringing with them the smallpox which had already been ravaging that island for two years. When Cortés heard about the other group, he went and defeated them. In this contact, one of Cortés's men contracted the disease. When Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan, he brought the disease with him. Soon, the Aztecs rose up in rebellion against Cortés and his men. Outnumbered, the Spanish were forced to flee. In the fighting, the Spanish soldier carrying smallpox died. Cortés would not return to the capital until August 1521. In the meantime smallpox devastated the Aztec population.
History of smallpox | Epidemics in the Americas
By the time of the arrival of the Spanish in central Mexico, many of the diverse ethnic civilizations (with the notable exception of the Tlaxcaltecs and the Purépecha Kingdom of Michoacán) were loosely joined under the Aztec Empire, the last Nahua civilization to flourish in Central Mexico. The capital of the empire, Tenochtitlan, became one of the largest urban centers in the world, with an estimated population of 350,000 inhabitants. During the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish conquistadors, vastly outnumbered by indigenous peoples, made alliance with other ethnic groups in the Aztec Empire, including the Tlaxcaltecs. This strategy was found to be very effective as the Aztecs had a very bad reputation in the region for cannibalism and other inhumane practices.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico | Colonial era
Evangelization efforts were undertaken by the Augustinians in the Central Valleys, La Montaña and Tierra Caliente regions while the Franciscans took the northern areas, the Costa Grande and Acapulco. Much of the population decline occurred in the first half of the 16th century when diseases brought by the Europeans, as well as brutal exploitation, killed many natives. This was particularly true in the Costa Chica region, which would lead to the importation of African slaves to the area. During this time indigenous political bodies called "pueblos" or "Indian Republics" arose, which were local entities that represented the Indians of that area before Spanish authorities.
Guerrero | Colonial period
Researchers point to the Olmecs as the indigenous group who arrived in Zacualpan de Amilpas, considered the first inhabitants in the pre-Classic period between the years 1000 and 900 BCE. The second group to arrive were the Toltecs. Shortly after that, groups of "Chichimecas" and "Chalcas" arrived, founding new communities in Totolapan, Tepoztlán, Tlayacapan, and Zacualpan.
Zacualpan de Amilpas | Prehispanic History
In Mexico alone, it has been estimated that the pre-conquest population of around 25 million people was reduced within 80 years to about 1.3 million.
History of Spain | Spanish empire
The first Europeans to arrive in what is modern day Mexico were the survivors of a Spanish shipwreck in 1511. Only two managed to survive Gerónimo de Aguilar and Gonzalo Guerrero until further contact was made with Spanish explorers years later. On 8 February 1517 an expedition led by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba left the harbor of Santiago de Cuba to explore the shores of southern Mexico.
History of Mexico | Mesoamerica on the eve of the Spanish conquest
Moctezuma II was, although many sources depict him otherwise, a notable warrior who extended the tributary system, and consolidated the conquests made by his predecessors as well as conquering new territories. His campaigns reached as far south as Tapachula in the Soconusco region and the Chontal Maya states of Xicallanco in Tabasco. Only the Aztec archenemies of Tlaxcala, Huexotzinco and the Purépecha remained undefeated, as well as the Mixtec kingdoms of Tututepec and Yopitzinco which didn't interest the Aztecs. Thus the Aztec Empire had its largest geographical extent when the Spaniards arrived in 1519. In some sources, it claims that Moctezuma II, and the Aztecs, believed the arriving Spanish to linked to the supposed return of an exiled god, Quetzlcoatl, who was supposed to return pale and bearded.
History of the Aztecs | The reign of Moctezuma II Xocoyotzin
In the 16th century, following the colonization of most of the new continents, perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered ports in the Americas. They were joined by 450,000 in the next century. Since the conquest of Mexico, this region became the principal destination of Spanish colonial settlers in the 16th century. The first Spaniards who arrived in Mexico were soldiers and sailors from Extremadura, Andalucía and La Mancha after the conquest of the Americas. At the end of the 16th century both commoner and aristocrat from Spain were migrating to Mexico. Also, a few Canarian families colonized parts of Mexico in the 17th century (as in the case of the Azuaje families) and when the Spanish crown encouraged Canarian colonization of the Americas through the "Tributo de sangre" (Blood Tribute) in the 18th century, many of them settled in Yucatán, where by the 18th century they controlled the trade network that distributed goods throughout the peninsula; their descendants are still counted among the most influential families of direct Spanish descent in Mexico.
Spaniards in Mexico | Arrival of the Spanish
The Spanish and Tlaxcaltec forces marched upon several cities that were under Aztec dominion and "liberated" them, before they arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. There they were welcomed as guests by Motecuhzoma II, but after a while they took the ruler prisoner. When the Aztec nobility realized that their ruler had been turned into a Spanish puppet they attacked the Spaniards and chased them out of the city. The Spaniards sought refuge in Tlaxcala where they regrouped and awaited reinforcements. During the next year they cooperated with large Tlaxcaltec armies and undertook a siege campaign resulting in the final fall of Tenochtitlan.
Nahuas | Conquest period (1519–1523)
The Aztec Empire ceased to exist with the Spanish final conquest of Tenochtitlan in August 1521. The empire had been composed of separate city-states that had either allied with or been conquered by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, and rendered tribute to the Mexica while maintaining their internal ruling structures. Those polities now came under Spanish rule, also retaining their internal structures of ruling elites, tribute paying commoners, and land holding and other economic structures largely intact. Two key works by historian Charles Gibson, "Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century" (1952) and his monograph "The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810" (1964) were central in reshaping the historiography of the indigenous and their communities from the Spanish Conquest to the 1810 Mexican independence era.
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire | The Aztecs under Spanish rule
Cempoala was a prosperous city, in which the Spaniards under Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico and established alliances with some groups to go towards the capture of Tenochtitlan. The city of Cempoala then numbered approximately 20,000 inhabitants was the most important ceremonial and commercial center of the Aztec empire, more so than Tlatelolco. The Spaniards called it in Villa Viciosa, meaning fertile village by the many festivals and vast orchards and gardens available and festive and joyful inhabitants character. It was later known as new Seville for its resemblance, as per the spaniards, with the Iberian town. Between 1575 and 1577 a smallpox (matlazahuatl) epidemic decimated the population, it is estimated that two million people lost their lives in Mesoamerica, the city was totally abandoned, and the few survivors moved to the city of Xalapa, eventually fell into oblivion, until archeologist Francisco del Paso and Troncoso rediscovered it.
Cempoala | History after 1519
In 1494, the Zoque were invaded and defeated by the Aztecs, during the reign of Āhuitzotl, and forced to pay tribute. The Spanish conquest of the Zoque lands commenced in 1523, under the leadership of Luis Marin. The Zoque were parceled out amongst the settlers, where they endured forced labor and were obliged to pay high tribute. Diseases, exploitation and the miserable conditions under which they lived contributed to a significant decrease in their numbers.
Zoque people | Colonial period
The social and physical environment of Colonial Mexico was likely key in allowing the Outbreak of 1545–1548 to reach the heights that it did. Already weakened by war and earlier disease outbreaks, the Aztecs were forced into easily governable " reducciones" (congregations) that focused on agricultural production and conversion to Christianity. The "reducciones" would have not only brought people in much closer contact to one another, but with animals, as well. Whether it is rats, chickens, pigs, or cattle, animals imported from the Old World were potentially disease vectors for illnesses of New and Old World origins. At the same time, droughts plagued Central America, with tree-ring data showing that the outbreak occurred in the midst of a megadrought.
Cocoliztli epidemics | Sources and vectors
The first inhabitants are known as "San Dieguito people", they were hunter-gatherer who lived off the land, moving from the mountains to the sea of Gulf of California looking for food. The early stages of occupation seem to have ended at the beginning of ice age about 20 thousand years ago, when drought forced people to leave the mountain range. A second stage of occupation by "San Dieguito people" began in the late glacial period. This group returned to the mountains and lived as their ancestors had. Tinajas must have been a reliable source of water during this time. The second stage of occupation ended with the arrival of an antipyretic period 9000 years ago, which again forced the people to leave the territory.
El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar Biosphere Reserve | Pre-Columbian era
In the 10 years after the fall of Zaculeu, commencing in 1525, various Spanish expeditions crossed into the Sierra de Los Cuchumatanes and engaged in the gradual and complex conquest of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al. The Spanish were attracted to the region in the hope of extracting gold, silver and other riches from the mountains but their remoteness, the difficult terrain, and relatively low population made their conquest and exploitation extremely difficult. The population of the Cuchumatanes is estimated to have been 260,000 before European contact. By the time the Spanish physically arrived in the region, this had collapsed to 150,000 due to Old World diseases that had run ahead of them.
San Juan Cotzal | Campaigns in the Cuchumatanes
Although the Spanish had established colonies in the Caribbean starting in 1493, it was not until the second decade of the sixteenth century that they began exploring the coast of Mexico. The Spanish first learned of Mexico during the Juan de Grijalva expedition of 1518. The natives kept "repeating: "Colua, Colua", and "Mexico, Mexico", but we [explorers] did not know what "Colua" or "Mexico" meant", until encountering Montezuma's governor at the mouth of the Rio de las Banderas. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire began in February 1519 when Hernán Cortés landed on the Gulf Coast and founded the Spanish city of Veracruz.
Mexico | Conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521)
It is May 1520 in the vast Aztec Empire, one year after the Spanish Conqueror Hernán Cortés arrived in Mexico. "The Other Conquest" opens with the infamous massacre of the Aztecs at the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan (what is now called Mexico City). The sacred grounds are covered with the countless bodies of priests and nobility slaughtered by the Spanish armies under Cortés' command. The lone Aztec survivor of the massacre is a young Indian scribe named Topiltzin (Damián Delgado). Topiltzin, who is the illegitimate son of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma, survives the onslaught by burying himself under a stack of bodies.
The Other Conquest | Synopsis
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire in 1521, the Spanish rebuilt and renamed Tenochtitlan as Mexico City. They started with essentially the same size and layout as the Aztec city but as the centuries progressed, the city grew as the lakes shrank. Just after the conquest, disease and violence had decreased the population in the valley, especially of the native peoples, but after that, the population grew all through the colonial period and in the century after independence. By the early 20th century, the population of Mexico City alone had risen to over one million people. A population explosion began early in the 20th century, with the population of the city itself doubling approximately every 15 years since 1900, partly attributed to the fact that the federal government has favored development of the metropolitan area over other areas of the country.
Valley of Mexico | Spanish colonial rule and the Mexico City metropolitan area
Although heavily populated prior to the conquest, the impact of Old World diseases was one of the factors that resulted in the depopulation of the hot, moist lands of the Depresión Central, which remain sparsely populated to this day. Likewise, Soconusco was rapidly depopulated as a result of disease soon after contact with the Spanish. Among the most deadly diseases were smallpox, influenza, measles and a number of pulmonary diseases, including tuberculosis.
Spanish conquest of Chiapas | Impact of Old World diseases
At the time of European conquest in the late 15th century, the indigenous population of Mexico has been estimated at about 25 million, and has therefore only reached this figure again over 500 years later."" These modern figures however are language based, making numbers under reported, as it discounts Indigenous people who can only speak Spanish.
Indigenous peoples of Mexico | Introduction
From 1510 to 1521 Aztec influence at Qʼumarkaj increased and the Kʼiche lord 7 Noj also married two daughters of the Aztec ruler, further cementing the Aztec lordship, by becoming his son in-law. During this period Qʼumarkaj also became known as "Utatlán", the Nahuatl translation of the placename. When the Aztecs were defeated by the Spanish in 1521 they sent messengers to the Kʼicheʼ ruler that he should prepare for battle. Before the arrival of the Spanish led army, the Kʼicheʼ were struck by the diseases the Europeans had brought to the Americas. The Kaqchikels allied themselves to the Spaniards in 1520, before they had even arrived in Guatemala, and they also told of their enemies the Kʼiche and asked for assistance against them.
Kʼicheʼ kingdom of Qʼumarkaj | Decline and conquest
Nauhuatl-speaking people arrived in the state of Morelos in the 12th and 13th centuries, where they formed large, important domains such as "Xiutépetl." In A.D. 1389, Xiutépetl fought a war against Cuauhanauhuac, Tetlama, and Yautepec. In 1425, Aztec emperor Ixcóatl conquered Jiutepec.
Jiutepec | Prehispanic history
Although Mexico never received massive European immigration after its independence, over 1 million Europeans immigrated to Spanish America during the colonial period, which relative to the population of the time, could be said to have been massive European immigration. Although they were in their majority from Spain, other Europeans immigrated illegally. They migrated to Mexico and Peru. They were called "inmigrantes clandestinos", of which 100,000 were Spanish. Towards the end of the Porfiriato, there were an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 foreigners in the country. The three largest groups were the Spanish, Americans and Chinese. From 1911 to 1931, 226,000 immigrants arrived in Mexico, the majority of which were from Europe.
Immigration to Mexico | European
By the time the Spanish arrived, Cholula was a major religious and mercantile center, with the Quetzalcoatl Temple one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the central Mexican highlands. Hernán Cortés estimated that the city had 430 temples and about 20,000 homes in the center of the city with another 20,000 on the periphery. Cortés was attracted to the pastureland of the valley area, but while there was a great deal of irrigated farms, the city had a population of about 100,000 and overpopulation meant that many poor people often lacked food. Cortés had arrived to Cholula after the Spanish victory of the Tlaxcalans, and he was supposed to meet Moctezuma II here.
Cholula, Puebla | Colonial period
Most groups disappeared before 1825, with their survivors absorbed by other indigenous and mestizo populations of Texas or Mexico.
Coahuiltecan | Population
Most of the existing settlements had been established by other indigenous peoples before the Mexica migration. These early city-states fought various small-scale wars with each other, but due to shifting alliances, no individual city gained dominance. The Mexica were the last of the Nahua migrants to arrive in Central Mexico. They entered the Basin of Mexico around the year 1250, and by then most of the good agricultural land had already been claimed. The Mexica persuaded the king of Culhuacan, a small city-state but important historically as a refuge of the Toltecs, to allow them to settle in a relatively infertile patch of land called Chapultepec ("Chapoltepēc," "in the hill of grasshoppers").
Aztec Empire | Before the Aztec Empire
The people in this village, mayorly is Mestizo, mixed between Indigenous people with Iberic people; the first group was ocupated this lands was by Otomis, the second group who stayed here was the Aztecs or Mexicas until the conquest of Mexico Tenochtitlan. The first European people who establesed in this town was Hernán Cortés's soldiers from Spain and Portugal, man who given the "encomiendas" in Coyoacán, some was Marranos or New Christians (Sephardic settlement converted to Roman Catholic religion). After of Mexico's independence; arrived here English miners from Cornwall from Pachuca, Necaxa and Real del Monte for to built the Grand Channel of Mexico City Waters, arrived also many people from other states of Mexico as Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla and Hidalgo for working, this engineering work was important by Mexico City, in this period them mixed many families, grew up the population until the Mexican Revolution when died many people by the war.
Santiago Tequixquiac | Demography
The slave of another conquistador, Pánfilo de Narváez, has been blamed for the transmission of smallpox to Nahuas in 1520. Early slaves were likely personal servants or concubines of their Spanish masters, who had been brought to Spain first and came with the conquistadors. While a number of indigenous people were enslaved during the conquest period, indigenous slavery as an institution was forbidden by the crown except in the cases of rebellion. Indigenous labor was coerced in the early period, mobilized by the encomienda, private grants to individual Spaniards, was the initial workforce, with black overseers often supervising indigenous laborers.
Afro-Mexicans | Conquest and early colonial eras
In the period between 1689 and 1753, there were at least nine epidemics. The Revillagigedo census of 1790 counts 112,926 residents, a significant increase. This might be due to migration to the city accelerating. An 1811 census done by the ‘'Juzgado de Policía'’ put the number even higher, at 168,811, which might well reflect displacement from the countryside from the insurgency of Miguel Hidalgo and his successors. The census of 1813 done by the city government ("Ayuntamiento") shows a significant decrease to 123,907, perhaps showing the return of short-term migrants to their home communities following the waning of the insurgency, but also possibly "fevers" that affected the population.
History of Mexico City | Size
According to Humboldt, Spanish and Criollo people comprised the majority of the inhabitants in the Provincias Internas by 1810. This was caused by the arrival of more waves of new Spanish settlers, racial segregation among castes and especially by a catastrophic decrease in numbers of the indigenous peoples.
Provincias Internas | Demographics
At the moment of the Spanish arrival in 1536, the Yariguies are estimated to have comprised a population of some 50,000 persons. Three centuries later 15,000 still survived. Until that date, the woodland and rainforest that made up their landbase was for the most part intact. By 1880, the Yariguies numbered 10,000, then 5,000 in 1900, 1,000 in 1910, 500 in 1920, and none in 1940. The blame for the final extinction of this community is due to the new mestizo colonists who invaded their territory in search of pastureland, quinine, tagua, wood, and, ultimately, petroleum. Additionally, the construction of a road from Socorro, then capital of Santander, to the Magdalena River, brought further incursions into the region and authorized "hunting parties" against the indigenous peoples, destroying whole villages.
Yarigui people | Population decline
Before the colonial period, the area had always been sparsely populated with widely dispersed settlements. The arrival of the Aztecs caused many to flee and the later arrival of the Spanish had the same effect. For this reason, there are few archeological remains; however, recent work especially at La Soledad de Maciel has indicated that the cultures here are more important than previously thought. Today, the area economically is heavily dependent on agriculture, livestock, fishing and forestry, with only Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa with significantly developed infrastructure for tourism. The rest of the coast has been developed spottily, despite some government efforts to promote the area.
Costa Grande of Guerrero | Introduction
On Christmas 1531 the city's population was conquered by the Spanish conquistador Cristóbal de Oñate who was sent by Nuno de Guzman.
Mexticacan | 7th century
The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous indigenous civilizations prior to the arrival of the Spanish "conquistadores": The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico; the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Maya in the Yucatán (and into neighbouring areas of contemporary Central America); the Purépecha in present-day Michoacán and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs/Mexica, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the centre and south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas) when Hernán Cortés first landed at Veracruz.
Indigenous peoples of the Americas | Mexico
Very soon after the fall of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), Spaniards arrived in Oaxaca. Moctezuma II had informed Hernando Cortes that the area had gold. In addition, when Zapotec leaders heard about the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, they sent an offer of an alliance. Several captains and representatives were sent to the area to explore the area, looking for gold, and routes to the Pacific to establish trade routes to Asian spice markets. The most prominent of Cortés' captains to arrive here were Gonzalo de Sandoval, Francisco de Orozco and Pedro de Alvarado. They overcame the main Aztec military stronghold only four months after the fall of Tenochtitlan.
Oaxaca | Spanish colonization
During the 20th century, another group of Canarians settled in Mexico in the early 1930s, and as with Galician and other Spanish immigrants of the time, there were high rates of illiteracy and impoverishment among them, but they adapted relatively quickly.
Spaniards in Mexico | Arrival of the Spanish
In 1519 an expedition of Spaniards sailing from Cuba under the leadership of Hernán Cortés arrived on the Mexican gulf coast near the Totonac city of Quiyahuiztlan. The Totonacs were one of the peoples that were politically subjugated by the Aztecs and word was immediately sent to the Aztec Emperor (in Nahuatl, Tlatoani) of Tenochtitlan Motecuhzoma II. Going inland the Spaniards encountered and fought with Totonac forces and Nahua forces from the independent Altepetl of Tlaxcallan. The Tlaxcaltecs were a Nahua group who had avoided being subjugated by the Aztecs. After being defeated in battle by the Spaniards, the Tlaxcalans entered into an alliance with Cortes that would be invaluable in the struggle against the Aztecs.
Nahuas | Conquest period (1519–1523)
The last battle between the Aztecs and the Zapotecs occurred between 1497 and 1502, under the Aztec ruler Ahuizotl. At the time of Spanish conquest of Mexico, when news arrived that the Aztecs were defeated by the Spaniards, King Cosijoeza ordered his people not to confront the Spaniards so they would avoid the same fate. They were defeated by the Spaniards only after several campaigns between 1522 and 1527. However, uprisings against colonial authorities occurred in 1550, 1560 and 1715.
Zapotec civilization | Warfare and resistance
White Mexicans are Mexican citizens who trace all or most of their ancestry to Europe. Europeans began arriving in Mexico during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire; and while during the colonial period most European immigration was Spanish, in the 19th and 20th centuries European and European-derived populations from North and South America did immigrate to the country. According to 20th and 21st century academics, large scale intermixing between the European immigrants and the native Indigenous peoples would produce a Mestizo group which would become the overwhelming majority of Mexico's population by the time of Independence. However, according to church registers from the colonial times, the majority (73%) of Spanish men married with Spanish women.
Mexicans | White Mexicans