ix The Aztec empire was one of the most powerful empires to emerge in ancient Mesoamerica. The empire was led by a group of people who called themselves Mexica. Their capital was a city called Tenochtitlan, or “Place of the Prickly Pear Cactus,” which was a city built on an island in Lake Texcoco. Modern-day Mexico City is built directly on top of the ruins of Tenochtitlan. The Mexica were latecomers to the Valley of Mexico, having traveled from a place in the north that they called Aztlan. When they arrived in the Valley in the fourteenth century, most of the prime lands were already taken by other groups, so the Mexica were forced to settle on a misera- ble, unoccupied island. As poor immigrants, the early Mexica settlers had to become subjects of other, more powerful cities. However, they slowly amassed power, allies, and military strength. A major victory in 1428, or 1 Flint in the Aztec calendar, transformed the Mexica into imperial leaders. Over the next decades, they conquered more and more territories, making their empire the most extensive in ancient Mesoamerican history. By the time the Spaniards arrived, less than a hundred years later, Tenochtitlan’s population was as high as 250,000 people, and the Aztec empire had up to five million subjects. These subjects were united through shared political, economic, and religious systems, and most spoke the same language, called Nahuatl. Though scholars often use the word “Aztec” to refer to the larger empire and its cultural traditions, it is a problematic term. The Mexica, leaders of the empire, never called themselves “Aztecs,” nor did the subjects of the empire see themselves as a unified group called “Aztecs.” In fact, the term seems to have come into use after the conquest to refer to the Mexica as the “People from Aztlan,” which is how one would translate the word “Azteca.” The word is obviously well known today, and most scholars still use the term to refer generally to the larger Aztec empire, its subject peoples, and its cultural traditions, as is done throughout this book. However, schol- ars also use ethnic qualifiers to refer to specific groups and polities within the empire. Accordingly, “Mexica” refers to the leaders of the empire and INTRODUCTION
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