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Magazine
CRICKET
May 2005, pp. 22-27
Reprinted by permission of CRICKET Magazine, May 2005, Vol. 32, No. 9, © 2005 by Carus Publishing Company.
Tenochtitlan: Island of the Aztecs
By Brigit Hartop
In the depths of the Mexican jungle, on an island in Lake Texcoco, the Aztecs built an amazing city called
Tenochtitlan. Although Tenochtitlan holds many mysteries to this day, historians believe it was founded in 1325. It was
on this island that the Aztecs began to cultivate crops and build great temples to their gods. To pay for their temples,
the Aztecs invaded neighboring lands and collected taxes from the inhabitants. Because of their unpredictable and fierce
sieges, the Aztecs were greatly feared even while their advanced transportation system, stunning architecture, and
organized form of government were admired by many, including the sixteenth-century Spanish invaders who eventually
destroyed all of it.
By the 1500s, Tenochtitlan was an amazing city, filled with temples, houses, palaces, and other buildings that were
covered with gold, silver, copper, and bronze adornments. Gardens, fountains, and even two zoos belonging to the
emperor, the huey tlatoani, or great speaker, were constructed over the swamps and marshes of the island. The name
Tenochtitlan means "Place of the High Priest Tenoch," and the Aztecs felt that their god Huitzilopochtli had guided
them to this place for the site of their new city. Because the water of Lake Texcoco was salty, a huge hydraulic system
hauled fresh water to Tenochtitlan, and a dike kept the salt water from reaching and spoiling the freshwater reservoirs on
the island.
Due to its unique position in the middle of a lake, Tenochtitlan was easy to defend against enemies. In the early days
of the city, villagers reached the main island by canoe, but causeways were later built to provide access to it. These
causeways, made out of mud and stones, had gaps in them that the Aztecs bridged temporarily with removable
structures. When enemies threatened to overtake the island, the bridges were removed, and the gaps in the causeways
reappeared, making it difficult for the enemy to reach the city.
Some aspects of the Aztec culture seem extremely cruel and difficult to understand today. The Aztecs believed that
offering human sacrifices to their gods was essential for the well-being of their world. If they did not sacrifice a person,
they feared the displeasure of their gods. They believed that, without the nourishing blood of a human heart,
Huitzilopochtli, their sun god, would die, leaving the world dark forever, and Tlaloc, their rain god, would not provide rain
any longer and would bring a terrible drought to destroy their crops. The Aztecs had a number of gods for every aspect
of life: from Metztli, the moon god, to Mixcoatl, the god of the hunt and war, and the Aztecs sacrificed both their
enemies and their own people to ensure safety or good weather.
Even everyday life was rigidly controlled. Aztec priests dominated the peasants' lives by policing their behavior in the
streets and in their own homes. They persecuted offenders if their behavior fell outside the bounds that were considered
correct or appropriate.
Tenochtitlan was situated in a rain forest and boasted magnificent temples, glittering with gold upon their surfaces.
Ancient trees, such as the Montezuma cypress, or Ahuehuete, grew nearby. Canoes paddled beneath the extended
bridges, and small rafts, called chinampas, were built to be used as floating vegetable, vine, and fruit gardens so that
more crops could be planted when the main island grew too crowded for their cultivation. The Aztecs packed soil and
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mud into the bottoms of these rafts, sowed them with seeds and plants, and set them out to float in the water until
harvesttime.
Many of the foods we eat today were first cultivated in Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs. Turkeys, yams, tomatoes,
potatoes--even chewing gum--originated in the forests of Central America and were brought to the Aztecs living on
Tenochtitlan. The Aztec diet also included fare such as grasshoppers, water snakes, ants, and grubs.
Winds of change soon began to blow through Tenochtitlan. The emperor of the kingdom was Montezuma II, whose
reign lasted from 1502 to 1520. He was a harsh ruler who taxed his people to their limits and treated them cruelly. At
one point, rumors spread that the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl was returning to reclaim his throne because of displeasure with
his people, and the Aztecs became nervous.
In 1519, the Aztec emperor was informed that strangers were advancing on Tenochtitlan. The strangers were
Spaniards, led by Hernando Cortes. Montezuma feared the newcomers, yet hoped they might prove to be valuable
allies.
(See picture, "Montezuma II Meeting Hernando Cortes.")
Attired in royal robes of green, turquoise, and gold, the emperor greeted Cortes. He
presented a necklace made of golden crabs to Cortes as a gift and was, in return, given
a necklace of Venetian glass beads strung on a delicate gold chain. Montezuma ordered
the gates to be opened and, not knowing that this stranger would be his future captor,
led Cortes into the heart of Tenochtitlan.
Several visits later, Montezuma took Cortes into his private chamber and showed him
his own beautiful royal quarters. Once alone with him, Cortes seized Montezuma. Proud
and arrogant, Montezuma could not let his people know that he had been taken hostage
in his own city. Fearing for his life if he rebelled, Montezuma pretended that Cortes was
his guest when they walked among his people.
For months the emperor lived and ruled as if nothing had happened, but under the
calm hum of daily life, there was an undercurrent of steadily growing fear and disquiet.
Something was amiss, and the peasants knew it. They began to distrust their violent and
conniving leader, for in the Aztec world there was a warrior code of honor, not altogether
different from the code of chivalry and knighthood in Europe. This code required a good
warrior to always put his own life in danger before endangering the lives of his people.
Fearing a general rebellion, Cortes took the emperor out onto the balcony of
Montezuma's estate and showed him to the Aztecs, instructing him to calm his people.
Instead, the angry peasants began to stone Montezuma, their mad cries sounding in his
ears. Montezuma was struck in the head and taken to his chambers, where he later died.
The Spanish declared that his death was the result of the concussion he suffered from
the stoning, but other accounts in Central American history indicate that he was secretly
strangled by the Spaniards.
Montezuma II Meeting
Hernando Cortes
Montezuma II (14661520), last Aztec
emperor (right) who
succeeded to the title in
1502, meeting with
Hernando Cortez, (14851547), Spanish
conquistador and
conqueror of Mexico,
circa 1519. (Photo by
Hulton Archive/Getty
Images)
Once Montezuma was dead, the Aztec world began to convulse. Cortes's men attacked with their guns, which proved
more efficient at distances than the Aztecs' weapons. With the peasants in a panic and chaos raging in the street,
Cortes began to burn and pillage the beautiful city. Many Aztecs were killed; others were taken as slaves. The island
became a center of chaos and rage.
As Cortes and his men were looting and burning sacred temples and other important buildings, they still had the
problem of getting out of Tenochtitlan. Several of the bridges in the causeways had been destroyed, so Cortes instructed
his soldiers to put up portable bridges as quickly as possible in order to make an escape at night. The soldiers in Cortes's
band improvised the first bridge to fill the gap, and the army began to file across it, but the soldiers reached the second
gap before the first one had been completely cleared, and panic ensued.
Caught between the first and second gap, the Spanish soldiers were still panicking and pressing to get through as
thousands of Aztec warriors began to swim and sail across the lake to attack them. A fierce battle followed. Many of
Cortes's soldiers drowned with the weight of the treasure they had been stealing; others were killed by a barrage of
arrows and stones. One Spanish captain saved himself by plunging a lance into the debris in the water and vaulting
across the gap to safety. Dawn arrived, and finally the majority of the Spanish army had crossed. The Aztecs then
turned their attention to taking victims left behind on the bridges as prisoners for sacrificial purposes and rescuing the
treasures.
But Cortes was intent upon capturing Tenochtitlan, and in 1521 he returned, bringing an army of Spaniards and
native allies. He divided them into three groups at the heads of the causeways. At first they were greatly outnumbered
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by the Aztec warriors who were still defending the island, but then Cortes began to capture bridges and the Aztecs who
commanded them, and his army advanced to the heart of the city. The new Aztec commander, Prince Cuauhtemoc, was
captured along with his family as they tried to escape. The prince was taken to Cortes, and his honorable surrender was
accepted. After ninety-three days of siege, the battle of the Aztecs and the Spaniards ended.
The fall of the Aztec empire also meant the political fall of all the great native nations surrounding Tenochtitlan. The
Spanish began to colonize the area, and in the autumn of 1521, the old Aztec world ended. A new chapter in history had
begun.
***
Tenochtitlan: say it: Tuh-NOTCH-Tee-TLAHN.
Causeways are raised roads.
Pillage means to plunder, take everything of value.
Citation :
You can copy and paste this information into your own documents.
Hartop, Brigit. "Tenochtitlan: Island of the Aztecs." Cricket (Vol. 32, No. 9). May 2005: 22-27. SIRS
Discoverer. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
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