Mexico and Spain on the Eve of Encounter

4 Mexico and Spain on the Eve of Encounter In comparative history, the challenge is to identify significant factors and the ways in which they are related to observed outcomes. A willingness to draw on historical data from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean will be essen- tial in meeting this challenge. — Walter Scheidel (2016)1 uring the decade before Spain’s 1492 dynastic merger and launching of Dtrans- Atlantic expeditions, both the Aztec Triple Alliance and the joint kingdoms of Castile and Aragón were expanding their domains through conquest. During the 1480s, the Aztec Empire gained its farthest flung province in the Soconusco region, located over 500 miles (800 km) from the Basin of Mexico near the current border between Mexico and Guatemala. It was brought into the imperial domain of the Triple Alliance by the Great Speaker Ahuitzotl, who ruled from Tenochtitlan, and his younger ally and son- in- law Nezahualpilli, of Texcoco. At the same time in Spain, the allied Catholic Monarchs Isabela of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragón were busy with military campaigns against the southern emirate of Granada, situated nearly the same distance from the Castilian heartland as was the Soconusco from the Aztec heartland. The unification of the kingdoms ruled by Isabela and Ferdinand was in some sense akin to the reunifi- cation of Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior of the early Roman period.2 The conquest states of Aztec period Mexico and early modern Spain were the product of myriad, layered cultural and historical processes and exchanges. Both were, of course, ignorant of one another, but the preceding millennia of societal developments in Mesoamerica and Iberia set the stage for their momentous encounter of the sixteenth century. 96 Collision of Worlds There were some striking parallels between Aztec Mexico and the merged kingdoms of Spain in how ethnogenesis and imperial prerogative were framed, the centrality of urban centers with noble and priestly classes, and the inspiration derived from conquering religious figures. But there was also major variability in national and ethnic affiliations, the financing and administration of political institutions, religious tolerance and proselytizing, military and transportation technologies, and other aspects of culture and society. Differential technologies explain how the Spanish crossed the Atlantic to Mexico instead of the Aztecs doing the same in the other direction, but provide only part of the story for how invasions led to ultimately suc- cessful conquests and the new cultural and political order of colonial New Spain. For that, we need to look at cultural, societal, and historical variables. In both Spain and Mexico, people drew on historical memory of earlier cultures to frame their contemporary identity. Affiliation was most often to kingdoms, but in Spain religious zeal turned to intolerance. Castilian expan- sion and language homogenization undergirded nation building, whereas in Mesoamerica religious divisions did not define society, and the indirect governance of the Aztec Empire fostered micro- patriotism and primary alle- giance to ethnic city-states. Major rivals to the Aztec Triple Alliance included the collectively organized state of Tlaxcala, to the east, and the hierarchi- cally organized empire of the Tarascans, to the west. Cleavages existed within the Triple Alliance itself, where Tenochtitlan had assumed greater power than its previously equal partner, Texcoco. We will look at these and other dimensions of Aztec Mexico and Spain of the Catholic Monarchs as a type of intensive comparison, between two cases and along multiple variables,3 to understand how they impacted the wars of Mesoamerican conquest and the forging of a new colonial order. Aztecs and Spaniards: Ethnic and National Identities It is a puzzling fact of Aztec-period Mexico that so many people saw it as deeply meaningful to claim ancestry from someplace else, particularly from somewhere to the northwest named Aztlan— the source of the ethnonym.4 Narratives dealing with ethnic origins recorded in sixteenth- century Mexico are full of people on the move. Elements of these narratives are also evi- dent in pre- Hispanic art, indicating that they were not simply a post- contact Mexico and Spain on the Eve of Encounter 97 fabrication. These statements of migrant ancestry are an interesting phenom- enon because they are, in some sense, counterintuitive. An obvious way to make claims to a certain territory is to assert that your people have always been there or, as many groups do, that the first of their “real” people emerged or were created in the area. What did Aztec peoples gain by claiming they were relative newcomers? Outsized attention has gone to the Aztec (here meaning Nahuatl speaking) migrations, particularly the Mexica narrative, whose omen of an eagle perched on a cactus is emblazoned on the Mexican flag and on national currency today. It is important to emphasize that other groups of the period, such as the Otomi and speakers of Otomanguean or Otopamean languages, who linguists would note had deep ancestry in central Mexico, also chronicle their migrations from elsewhere. The Codex Huamantla shows Otomis from that particular altepetl (city- state) passing the ruined pyramids of Teotihuacan on their migration eastward (Figure 4.1).5 New methods of bioarchaeological analysis, including the study of bone isotopes and ancient DNA, are revealing just how mobile groups were in the past, but much of the archaeological record exhibits great continuity between periods. Archaeological excavations at the Otomi city- state of Xaltocan show continual occupation through the early Aztec period of proto-historic migration narratives, indicating that immigrants settled among an existing Figure 4.1. First folio of Codex Huamantla, depicting the migration of Otomis from Chiapan, in today’s state of Mexico, past Teotihuacan (depicted at center by two stepped pyramids with the Fifth Sun above them) and on to Cuauhmantla (Huamantla, Tlaxcala). Biblioteca Nacional de México (http:// www.codices.inah. gob.mx/ pc/ index.php). Reproduction authorized by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico. 98 Collision of Worlds population.6 Accordingly, a critical read of these narratives suggests that migrations did indeed occur, but their historical memory was exaggerated because of the cultural salience that narratives of journeys, divine omens, and some conquering kings had to sixteenth- century Mexicans. Some of the names given to migrating groups by later peoples who claimed ancestry from them capture the tensions inherent in the projection of an ethnic identity that was simultaneously new or foreign and ancient or local.7 A prominent example is the dual affiliation of Tolteca-Chichimeca referenced by various Aztec peoples from the Basin of Mexico and Valley of Puebla- Tlaxcala. The term “Tolteca” captures the glorious, civilized past of the agriculturally based, urban artisans who built places such as Teotihuacan, Tula, and Classic- period Cholula’s Great Pyramid. This part of the identity is ancient, settled, and noble. However, when balanced by Chichimeca, the identification presents a dichotomous couplet that in Aztec thought was fused and dualistic, as the Chichimeca were the barbaric nomads from the northwestern deserts. This part of the identity is recent, unsettled, and humble. A similar term is for the Teochichimeca, named as a founding community in Tlaxcala. Here the Chichimeca identity is balanced by teotl, meaning “sacred.” Another proto-historic group of migrants we have already encountered are the Olmeca-Xicalanca, with likely ties to the Gulf of Mexico trading communities at the interface of Aztec and Maya culture. They are said to have already been settled in Puebla-Tlaxcala, at places such as Cholula and Cacaxtla, when the Teochichimeca arrived in the area and took over. Regardless of the historical accuracy of these migration narratives, the framing of apparently disparate origins projected both the trappings of civilized people and the conquering spirit of barbarians. Framing ethnic identity as Toltec and Chichimec could simultaneously appeal to a sense of legiti- mate authority grounded in the past and a sense of restless energy of hard- scrabble newcomers. It is a rags-to- riches story and would be effective for projecting political authority based on both ancient grandeur and a people not to be messed with. Similar origin narratives are familiar to us from states and empires of the West. The Roman version combined the heroic Trojan War of the Aeneid with the half- wild Remus and Romulus suckling from the she- wolf; the version in the United States combines Greco- Roman ideals of governance, rendered in neoclassical styles on the National Mall in Washington, with the humble origins of the Pilgrims and western Pioneers. We will examine Spanish national mythos later in this section. Mexico and Spain on the Eve of Encounter 99 In addition to these more general appeals to the Tolteca-Chichimeca are origin narratives connecting specific tribes of people to Chicomoztoc, meaning the place of seven caves, each of which birthed a tribe. These narratives have a general order to them with non- Nahuatl speaking groups like the Michoaque emphasized as Chichimec and migrating first, Nahuatl- speaking groups from Aztlan migrating next, and, among these, the Mexica being the last.8 Textual accounts and figurative depictions equate Chichimec identity with simpler dress and the use of the bow and arrow, whereas Toltec identity was associated with more elaborate attire and use of the more ancient atlatl spear- thrower. The introduction of the bow and arrow into the Americas is a much debated topic, with some consensus that it did not arrive to Mesoamerica until the late first millenniumce and may have not been pervasive until the early second millennium.9 A major component of this debate revolves around the size of projectile points and whether they are consistent with having been attached to larger spears, in- termediate darts (spears thrown by atlatl), or smaller arrows.

Load more