mexico came under spanish colonial rule in 1521.
mexico came under spanish colonial rule in 1521.
when did mexico come under spanish colonial rule?
1521
the empire reached its maximal extent in 1519, just prior to the arrival of a small group of spanish conquistadors led by hernán cortés. cortés allied with city-states opposed to the mexica, particularly the nahuatl-speaking tlaxcalteca as well as other central mexican polities, including texcoco, its former ally in the triple alliance. after the fall of tenochtitlan on august 13, 1521 and the capture of the emperor cuauhtemoc, the spanish founded mexico city on the ruins of tenochtitlan. from there they proceeded with the process of conquest and incorporation of mesoamerican peoples into the spanish empire. with the destruction of the superstructure of the aztec empire in 1521, the spanish utilized the city-states on which the aztec empire had been built, to rule the indigenous populations via their local nobles. those nobles pledged loyalty to the spanish crown and converted, at least nominally, to christianity, and in return were recognized as nobles by the spanish crown. nobles acted as intermediaries to convey tribute and mobilize labor for their new overlords, facilitating the establishment of spanish colonial rule.
aztecs
scholars who were part of a branch of mesoamerican ethnohistory, more recently called the new philology have, using indigenous texts in the indigenous languages, been able to examine in considerable detail how the indigenous lived during the era of spanish colonial rule. a major work that utilizes colonial-era indigenous texts as its main source is james lockhart's "the nahuas after the conquest: postconquest central mexican history and philology." the key to understanding how considerable continuity of pre-conquest indigenous structures was possible was the spanish colonial utilization of the indigenous nobility. in the colonial era, the indigenous nobility were largely recognized as nobles by the spanish colonial regime, with privileges including the noble spanish title "don" for noblemen and "doña" for noblewomen. to this day, the title of duke of moctezuma is held by a spanish noble family. a few of the indigenous nobility learned spanish. spanish friars taught indigenous tribes to write their own languages in latin letters, which soon became a self-perpetuating tradition at the local level. their surviving writings are crucial in our knowledge of colonial era nahuas.
spanish conquest of the aztec empire