Tlaxcala (Nahua state)
Confederacy of Tlaxcala Tlahtōlōyān Tlaxcallan ( Classical Nahuatl ) | |||||||||||||||
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1348–1520 | |||||||||||||||
Battle vexilloid worn by Tlaxcalan warriors who fought alongside the Spanish (Lienzo de Tlaxcala)
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Tlaxcala | |||||||||||||||
Common languages | Nahuatl (Official) | ||||||||||||||
Religion | Tlaxcaltecan religion | ||||||||||||||
Government | Confederation | ||||||||||||||
Tlatoani of Tlaxcala | |||||||||||||||
• 1348 | Culhuatecuhtli | ||||||||||||||
Historical era | Early Modern | ||||||||||||||
• The Tlaxcalla People Migrate to Central Mexico | 1348 | ||||||||||||||
1520 | |||||||||||||||
Population | |||||||||||||||
• 1348 | ? | ||||||||||||||
• early 15th century | 650,000 | ||||||||||||||
• 1519 | 300,000 | ||||||||||||||
Currency | Quachtli, Cacao | ||||||||||||||
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Today part of | Tlaxcala, Mexico |
Tlaxcala (
During the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Tlaxcaltecs allied with the Spanish Empire against their hated enemies, the Aztecs, supplying a large contingent for and sometimes most of the Spanish-led army that eventually destroyed the Aztec Empire.
Tlaxcala was completely surrounded by Aztec lands, leading to the intermittent so called "flower war" between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalans, fighting for their independence, as the Aztecs wanted to absorb them into the empire.
History
The Tlaxcalans arrived in Central Mexico during the
Over the subsequent years, the Tlaxcallan state expanded with the foundations of Ocotelulco and Tizatlán. The fourth major settlement, Quiahuiztlan, was founded by members of the Tlaxcallan group that had initially remained in the valley of Mexico.[1]
Tepeticpac | Ocotelolco | Tizatlan | Quiahuiztlan |
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Señor de Aztahua de Tizatlan | |||
Cuitlixcatl | Xayacamach | ||
Tlahuexolotzin | Maxixcatl | Xicotencatl I | Citlapopocaizin |
Lorenzo Maxixcatl |
Government
Ancient Tlaxcala was a republic ruled by a council of between 50 and 200 chief political officials (teuctli [sg.], teteuctin [pl.]).[2][3][4] These officials gained their positions through service to the state, usually in warfare, and as a result came from both the noble (pilli) and commoner (macehualli) classes.
Contact with conquistadors
Tlaxcala was never conquered by the Aztec empire, but was engaged in a state of perpetual war, the so-called flower wars or garland wars.
Xicohtencatl the Younger was later condemned by the Tlaxcaltecan ruling council and hanged by
Due to protracted warfare between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcala, the Tlaxcala were eager to exact revenge, and soon became loyal allies of the Spanish. Even after the Spanish were expelled from Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcala continued to support their conquest. Tlaxcala also assisted the Spanish in the conquest of Guatemala.[6]
As a result of their alliance with the Spaniards, Tlaxcala had hidalgo privileged status within Spanish colonial Mexico as confirmed in the Royal Writ of the Foundation of the City of Tlaxcala, Mexico. After the Spanish conquered Tenochtitlan and the rest of Mexico, Tlaxcala was allowed to survive and preserve its pre-Columbian culture. In addition, as a reward to the Tlaxcalans unyielding loyalty to the Spanish, the city and its inhabitants largely escaped the pillaging and destruction following the Spanish conquest. The Tlaxcalans gave further assistance in the Mixtón War.
Following the Spanish Conquest, Tlaxcala was divided into four fiefdoms (señoríos) by the Spanish corregidor Gómez de Santillán in 1545 (26 years after the Conquest). These fiefdoms were Ocotelolco, Quiahuiztlan, Tepeticpac, and Tizatlan. At this time, four great houses or lineages emerged and claimed hereditary rights to each fiefdom and created fictitious genealogies extending back into the pre-Columbian era to justify their claims.[7]
During the colonial period, Tlaxcala's "part in the conquest of the Aztec 'empire,' her favored treatment by the Spanish crown, her unique talent for propaganda and litigation, her astonishing enterprise" gave the small state an important place in Mexican history.[8]
In the 16th and 17th centuries Tlaxcala settlers went to live in new northern colonies to protect Mexico from the Chichimecas.[9]
See also
- Tlaxcaltec – Nahuatl for inhabitants of Tlaxcala
- Mexican state
- Tlaxcala, Tlaxcala– the present day capital of the state of Tlaxcala
References
- ^ a b Aurelio López Corral; et al. (2016). "La República de Tlaxcallan". Arqueología Mexicana. 139: 42–53.
- JSTOR 25766992.
- ^ Graeber, David and Wengrow, David "The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity" (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), pp. 346–358
- .
- ISBN 0140441239
- ^ Restall and Asselbergs 2007, pp. 79–81.
- ^ Gibson, 1952.
- JSTOR 4491989. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
- ^ Schmal, John P. (2019-09-12). "Indigenous Tlaxcala: The Allies of the Spaniards". Indigenous Mexico. Retrieved 2022-12-28.
Sources
- codexdescribing the conquest of Mexico. It was painted by Tlaxcalteca artists under Spanish supervision.
- Fernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, in Nahuatl and Spanish, in the last decades of the 16th century.
Bibliography
- Alvarado Tezozomoc, Fernando (1944). Crónica Mexicana. Mexico: Manuel Orozco y Berra, Leyenda.
- Fargher, Lane F., Richard E. Blanton and Verenice Y. Heredia Espinoza (2010). Egalitarian Ideology and Political Power in Prehispanic Central Mexico: The Case of Tlaxcallan. "Latin American Antiquity," 21(3):227–251.
- Gibson, Charles (1952). Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Hassig, Ross (2001). "Xicotencatl: rethinking an indigenous Mexican hero", Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, UNAM.
- Hicks, Frederic (2009). Land and Succession in the Indigenous Noble Houses of Sixteenth-Century Tlaxcala. Ethnohistory, 56:4, 569–588.
- Muñoz Camargo, Diego (1982) [1892]. Historia de Tlaxcala. Alfredo Chavero. México.
- OCLC 165478850.
- Our lady of assumption ex convent. Bienvenidos al INAH. (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.inah.gob.mx/en/english/4181-our-lady-of-assumption-ex-convent.