User:AmberBhimani/Aztec Empire

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The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance (Classical Nahuatl: Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, [ˈjéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥]) was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexico from 1428 until the combined forces of the Spanish conquistadores and their native allies who ruled under Hernán Cortés defeated them in 1521.

The alliance was formed from the victorious factions of a civil war fought between the city of Azcapotzalco and its former tributary provinces. Despite the initial conception of the empire as an alliance of three self-governed city-states, the capital Tenochtitlan became dominant militarily. By the time the Spanish arrived in 1519, the lands of the alliance were effectively ruled from Tenochtitlan, while other partners of the alliance had taken subsidiary roles.

The alliance waged wars of conquest and expanded after its formation. The alliance controlled most of central Mexico at its height, as well as some more distant territories within Mesoamerica, such as the Xoconochco province, an Aztec exclave near the present-day Guatemalan border. Aztec rule has been described by scholars as "hegemonic" or "indirect". The Aztecs left rulers of conquered cities in power so long as they agreed to pay semi-annual tribute to the alliance, as well as supply military forces when needed for the Aztec war efforts. In return, the imperial authority offered protection and political stability and facilitated an integrated economic network of diverse lands and peoples who had significant local autonomy.

Aztec religion was a monistic pantheism in which the Nahua concept of teotl was construed as the supreme god Ometeotl, as well as a diverse pantheon of lesser gods and manifestations of nature. The popular religion tended to embrace the mythological and polytheistic aspects, and the empire's state religion sponsored both the monism of the upper classes and the popular heterodoxies. The empire even officially recognized the largest cults such that the deity was represented in the central temple precinct of the capital Tenochtitlan. The imperial cult was specifically that of the distinctive warlike patron god of the Mexica Huitzilopochtli. Peoples were allowed to retain and freely continue their own religious traditions in conquered provinces so long as they added the imperial god Huitzilopochtli to their local pantheons.

Article body (from "Spanish conquest" section; underlined sentences are my edits)
Cortés used boats constructed in Texcoco from parts salvaged from the scuttled ships to blockade and lay siege to Tenochtitlan for a period of several months. Eventually, the Spanish-led army assaulted the city both by boat and using the elevated causeways connecting it to the mainland. The attackers took heavy casualties, although the Aztecs were ultimately defeated. The city of Tenochtitlan was thoroughly destroyed in the process. Cuauhtémoc was captured as he attempted to flee the city. Cortés kept him prisoner and tortured him for a period of several years before finally executing him in 1525.

Monogamy was imposed by Franciscan friars and other church officials in the decades following the Spanish capture of Tenochtitlan in 1521. Polygyny amongst the royalty could strengthen alliances and territorial expansions, allowing the Aztec empire to rise and expand. Polygyny was also used to explain Tenochtitlan's class mobility, which may be upward for women marrying into nobility or downward for nobles who fall back into the middle class. To maintain local authority, Nahua nobles adapted to the new regime, but they gradually lost access to alliance formation and political power at the imperial level. Simultaneously, forced conversion to Christianity established a new Catholic Nahua culture. As a result, Spaniards brought forced societal change and political repression rather than freedom of expression and independence. Hernán Cortés and other Spanish conquistadors felt morally justified in conquering and enslaving 'Indians' by labeling them as 'idolaters' and 'cannibals,' as such labels were legal loopholes in Spanish law that allowed such actions to take place. Spaniards had spent a quarter-century among native Caribbean islanders committing atrocities and developing laws to justify their actions before arriving in Yucatán in 1519. Conquistadors, friars, and other Spaniards arriving in Mexico were therefore expecting to meet uncultured and unholy cannibals, and they were motivated to assume they had saved their souls through conversion and colonization. Over the next few centuries, pre-Conquest Aztec culture began to be viewed as more exotic and unusual, and despite the rise of a growing global community of Aztec scholars, the prevalent perspective of the Aztecs remains rooted in the deeply prejudicial opinions of the Spanish conquistadors and, eventually, of the West.