Tlaxcala (Nahua state)

History

The Tlaxcalteca arrived in Central Mexico during the Late Postclassic. They first settled near Texcoco in the valley of Mexico, between the settlement of Cohuatlinchan and the shore of Lake Texcoco. After some years the Tlaxcalteca were driven out of the valley of Mexico and moved to the east, splitting into three groups along the way. While one group continued north towards the modern state of Hidalgo, and another remained in the vicinity of Texcoco, a third group arrived in the modern valley of Tlaxcala, where they established the city of Tepetícpac Texcallan under the leadership of Culhuatecuhtli Quanex.

Over the subsequent years, the Tlaxcalan state expanded with the foundations of Ocotelulco and Tizatlán. The fourth major settlement, Quiahuiztlan, was founded by members of the Tlaxcalan group that had initially remained in the valley of Mexico.

Government

Ancient Tlaxcala was a republic ruled by a council of between 50 and 200 chief political officials (pl. teteuctin; sg. teuctli). 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.

Culture

Three languages were spoken in Tlaxcala: Nahuatl, Otomi by a large minority, and "Pinome" (likely Popoloca) by a smaller minority. Later, Aztec conquests resulted in further waves of Otomi migration to Tlaxcala, such as from Xaltocan. A dialect of Otomi is still spoken in Tlaxcala today.

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".

Conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo describes the first battle between the Spanish force and the Tlaxcalteca as surprisingly difficult; he writes that they—the Spanish—would probably have not survived, had not Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin persuaded Xicotencatl the Younger, the Tlaxcalan warleader, that it would be better to ally with the newcomers than to kill them. Xicohtencatl the Younger was later—in April 1521—condemned by the Tlaxcalan ruling council and hanged by Cortés, for desertion during the siege of Tenochtitlan.

Due to protracted warfare between the Aztecs and the Tlaxcalteca, the latter were eager to exact revenge, and soon became loyal allies of the Spanish. Even after the Spanish were expelled from Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalteca continued their support. Tlaxcala also assisted the Spanish in the conquest of Guatemala.

As a result of the alliance with the Spaniards, Tlaxcala had hidalgo privileged status within "New Spain", 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 for the unyielding loyalty the Tlaxcalan federation had shown the Spanish, the city and its inhabitants largely escaped the pillaging and destruction following the Spanish conquest. The Tlaxcalteca 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.

During the colonial period, Tlaxcala's "part in the conquest of the Aztec 'empire,' its favored treatment by the Spanish crown, unique talent for propaganda and litigation and astonishing enterprise" gave the small state an important place in Mexican history.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Tlaxcalan settlers went to live in new northern colonies to protect Mexico from the Chichimeca.

References

Sources

• Diego Muñoz Camargo's History of Tlaxcala (Lienzo de Tlaxcala), written in or before 1585, is an illustrated codex describing the conquest of Mexico. It was painted by Tlaxcalteca artists under Spanish supervision.
• Crónica Mexicayotl was written by 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.
• 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.

References

1. (2015). "Handbook of Middle American Indians, Volumes 10 And 11: Archaeology of Northern Mesoamerica". University of Texas Press.
2. Lastra García, Y. (2011). Topónimos otomíes. Estudios De Cultura Otopame, 6(1). Accessed from https://www.revistas.unam.mx/index.php/eco/article/view/23995
3. Gentil, Bianca L.. (December 2021). "Aztec and Tlaxcalan Economic Interaction: Blockade or Interregional Exchange?". Latin American Antiquity.
4. Aurelio López Corral. (2016). "La República de Tlaxcallan". Arqueología Mexicana.
5. (2010). "Egalitarian Ideology and Political Power in Prehispanic Central Mexico: The Case of Tlaxcallan". Latin American Antiquity.
6. Graeber, David and Wengrow, David "The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity" (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), pp. 346–358
7. (2011). "Tlaxcallan: The archaeology of an ancient republic in the New World". Antiquity.
8. (1993). "A guide to the historical geography of New Spain". University of Oklahoma Press.
9. (1952). "Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century". Yale University Press.
10. "Nahuas de Tlaxcala - Etnografía - Atlas de los Pueblos Indígenas de México. INPI".
11. Diaz, B., 1963, The Conquest of New Spain, London: Penguin Books, {{ISBN. 0140441239
12. Restall and Asselbergs 2007, pp. 79–81.
13. Gibson, 1952.
14. "Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century by Charles Gibson". Pacific Historical Review.
15. Schmal, John P.. (2019-09-12). "Indigenous Tlaxcala: The Allies of the Spaniards".