The Aztecs

The people we call the Aztecs called themselves the Mexica. Long ago, they were a poor tribe with no home. They walked from place to place for many years. Their god told them to build their city in one special place: where they saw an eagle on a cactus.

Around the year 1325, they saw the eagle. It was on a small island in the middle of a lake, called Lake Texcoco. Today this place is Mexico City. The Mexica built their city there and called it Tenochtitlan.

It was a difficult place to live, but the Mexica were clever. They built long roads of stone across the water to reach the land. They dug canals for their boats. They made floating gardens on the lake to grow maize (corn) and other food. The city grew bigger and bigger. After two hundred years, it was one of the biggest cities in the world — bigger than London or Paris at that time. In the centre stood a great temple, where the priests prayed to their gods.

At first, the Mexica were not strong. They worked for other, more powerful cities. But in 1428, they joined with two other cities and became strong. Their armies went out to fight, and they began to conquer the lands around them. Soon they ruled hundreds of towns and millions of people. They had a big empire.

But the Mexica did not stay in the towns they conquered. They let the local leaders stay. Instead, they made the towns pay tribute. Every year, each town had to send gifts to Tenochtitlan: cotton, gold, feathers, maize and more. If a town did not pay, the army came back. And the Mexica also took prisoners from war. They brought these prisoners to the great temple for sacrifice.

The Mexica believed the sun needed human blood to rise each morning. The priests said the gods must be fed, or the world would end. So there were many sacrifices. But this made the Mexica strong and weak at the same time. The conquered towns paid tribute because they were afraid, not because they loved their rulers. Many of them hated the Mexica. They were waiting for a chance to fight back.

In 1519, strange ships came to the coast. On them were a few hundred Spanish soldiers, led by a man called Hernán Cortés. They had horses, metal armour and guns — things the Mexica had never seen. The Mexica leader was the emperor Moctezuma II. People say he saw strange signs and did not know what to do. He did not attack the small group of strangers. Instead, he let them walk towards his city.

This was a big mistake. As Cortés walked inland, the people who hated the Mexica joined him. Soon, tens of thousands of local warriors marched with the Spanish. Cortés came into the city as a guest, but then he took Moctezuma prisoner. When the Mexica fought back, they pushed the Spanish out of the city in one night of fighting. But Moctezuma was dead, and the Spanish came back.

Then came an enemy the Mexica could not fight: a terrible illness called smallpox. The Spanish brought it from across the sea. The Mexica had never had this illness, and it killed huge numbers of them. In 1521, Cortés returned and put the city under siege. For about eighty days, the hungry, sick city held on. Then, on 13 August 1521, it fell. The Spanish broke down the great city and built a new city on its ruins. The Aztec empire was gone — but its language, its food and its people are still part of Mexico today.