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The Aztec empire presents us with an enigmatic combination of beauty and ugliness. The formal language of Moctezuma's imperial court was as delicate as a flower, yet the Aztec class structure was entirely as degrading and hierarchical as anything in medieval Europe. Aztec sculpture demonstrates a highly refined aesthetic sense, yet the sculptures accompanied habitual, systematic human sacrifice on a massive scale. And the most famous sacrifice, the excision of the still beating hearts of captured enemy warriors atop pyramids, was not the only kind. There was an entire sacred calendar involving various kinds of human sacrifice, including the sacrifice of young women chosen as a special honor to delight the bloodthirsty Aztec gods. In addition, many sacrificial victims were eaten. A paper on the Aztec empire will naturally touch on this horrifying but indubitably fascinating facet, yet it should in addition give some account of the complex social order of Tenochtitlan, its unusual construction in the middle of a lake, and its ingenious agricultural system. It should also describe the rapid growth of Aztec imperial power in the century before the arrival of Cortés, giving some sense of how Tenochtitlan fit in a larger context of Nahuatl-speaking city states.
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- How did the Aztecs manage to develop an empire in such a short period of time, and what means were employed to hold the empire together?
- What was the Aztec social hierarchy like, and how did this social order play into the process of colonization? How did the encounter in Mesoamerica compare with the meeting of Spaniards and indigenous populations in South America and the Caribbean?
- Like the Inca Empire, the Aztec empire was young and on the rise when it was abruptly ended by the arrival of the Spaniards. How might world history have developed differently had the Spaniards not arrived when they did?
Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
Carrasco, Davíd, with Scott Sessions. Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth.
The Greenwood Press "Daily Life Through History" Series. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Carrasco, Davíd, and Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, eds. Moctezuma's Mexico: Visions of the Aztec World, rev. ed. With a foreword by James N. Corbridge, Jr. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2003.
This edition of essays contains beautiful color illustrations of sculptures, jewelry, architecture, and so on that, as the title suggests, give readers a view of the Aztec world.
** Clendinnen, Inga. Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
A fascinating and provocative book that examines the riddle of human sacrifice as few recent studies have done.
** Smith, Michael E. The Aztecs. The Peoples of America. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.
A clearly written, well-organized, and thorough account.
Townsend, Richard F. The Aztecs, rev. ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
This narrative is complemented by more than a hundred illustrations of Aztec artistic productions and architecture.
Other Resources:
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