section_path: Colonial period, 1521–1821
section_name: Colonial period, 1521–1821
paragraph_text: Colonial period, 1521–1821
  
  Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, gradually replacing and covering the lake, the island and the architecture of Aztec Tenochtitlan. After the fall of Tenochtitlan, Aztec warriors were enlisted as auxiliary troops alongside the Spanish Tlaxcalteca allies, and Aztec forces participated in all of the subsequent campaigns of conquest in northern and southern Mesoamerica. This meant that aspects of Aztec culture and the Nahuatl language continued to expand during the early colonial period as Aztec auxiliary forces made permanent settlements in many of the areas that were put under the Spanish crown.
  
  The Aztec ruling dynasty continued to govern the indigenous polity of San Juan Tenochtitlan, a division of the Spanish capital of Mexico City, but the subsequent indigenous rulers were mostly puppets installed by the Spanish. One was Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuh, who was appointed by the Spanish. Other former Aztec city states likewise were established as colonial indigenous towns, governed by a local indigenous gobernador. This office was often initially held by the hereditary indigenous ruling line, with the gobernador being the tlatoani, but the two positions in many Nahua towns became separated over time. Indigenous governors were in charge of the colonial political organization of the Indians. In particular, they enabled the continued functioning of the tax and enslavement of indigenous commoners to benefit the Spanish encomenderos. Encomenderos owned encomiendas, large tracts of agricultural land on which the encomenderos and their slaves lived. The Spanish coerced the tribes into granting them private ownership of indigenous people and land for enslavement and encomiendas. Occasionally, an Indigenous individual benefited from this system and grew into substantial wealth and power come the colonial period.