Mexican Navy From that year until 1939 it existed jointly with the Mexican Army in the organic ministry. Since its declaration of independence from Spain in September 1810, through the mid decades of the 19th century, Mexico found itself in a constant state of war, mostly against Spain which had not recognized its independence. Therefore, its priority was to purchase its first fleet from the U.S. in order to displace the last remaining Spanish forces from its coasts. The Mexican Navy has participated in many naval battles to protect and defend Mexico's interests. Some of the most important battles were: The first
Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire "The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley of Mexico, 1519–1810" (1964) were central in reshaping the historiography of the indigenous and their communities from the Spanish Conquest to the 1810 Mexican independence era. 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