mesoameriaboo on /v/ talks about aztec geopolitcs

I mentioned before how Mesoamerican empires were largerly hands off, potentially as a result of the lack of horses and the logistical hurdles of projecting long distance force and adminstration: Installing rulers from your own royal line, strategic political marriages, citing prior genological connections to earlier respected states, civilizations, or mythological figures; establishing tributary relationships, the threat of military action/force if others did not submit, or just sheer prestiege, trying to influence states to be susberivent as to be able to associate yourself with them, have their protection, full trading network access, etc

I already talked a bit about how the Aztec empire would use tributary relationships, but I wanna give examples for how they would use the other methods/how they played into Mesoamerican politics.

Let's look at the year 1325. The Mexica, (the specific group people most associate with the "Aztec", which is really a nebulous label) who were the latest Nahua ethnic group to migrate into the Valley of Mexico and transition into urbanism following increasing aridification in Northern Mexico, found their city of Tenochtitlan in the middle of a shitty, swampy island: There's a whole legend/story about how they got there, involving having previously been allowed to settle at the site of Chapultepec/Tizapan by the city of Colhuacan, then being driven out, but it's not really important here, and accounts differ (as is the case with most accounts of Aztec history, so what i'm gonna say throughout this is going to be a amalagm of a bunch of different versions with mutially exclusive details, and in general, there';s a lot of minute, specific details regarding tons of wars and events i'm skipping over)

The Mexica/Tenochtitlan would fall under the dominion of the city-state of Azacapotzalco, who was one of the most powerful cities in the valley, speffically the "captial" of the cities along the western side of the valley which belonged to the Tepanec Nahua subgroup, and would aid Azacapotzalco in military counquests throughout the valley. You see, the Nahuas were allegedly led into the Valley by a particuylar leader named Xolotl. One of Xolotl's daughters, Cuetlaxochitzin, would marry the first king of Azacapotzalco, Acolnahuacatl, thereby giving Azacapotzalco a great deal of political clout.

The Mexica elect (Nahua city-states were oligarchical, with nobles electing leaders, though in practice they were almost all selected from a single royal line) their first king, or Tlatoani, Acamapichtli (Tenoch was the leader who founded Tenochtitlan, but he was not a formal Tlatoani). Now, Acamapichtli is important, because he was the son of both Mexica and Colhuaca (the specific nahua subgroup in Colhuacan) descent: His father was a Mexica noble, and his mother was a Colhuaca princess. The Colhuaca claimed that they were descended from the Toltecs, which were seen by the Nahuas/many late-postclassic Mesoamerican cultures as the originators of the arts, goverment, and complex society in general ( as per the timeline in >>461848539, this isn't really true, civilization is much older). By electing Acampichtli as king, they now themselves can claim Toltec ancestry

Azacaptotzalco uses the Mexica to help them in their conquests, expanding across the valley, with the Mexica being particularly lauded for their military skill and being associated with military might and savagery by other Nahua groups, reflecting their Nomadic Chichimeca origins. For their efforts, the then king of Azacaptotzalco, Tezozomoc, gifts the then king of Tenochtitlan, Huitzilihuitl, one of his daughters, Ayauhcihuatl. Once Tezozomoc dies, one of his heirs, Maxlta, assassinates the other, as well as the then king of Tenochtitlan, Chimalpopoca, who was the son of Huitzilihuitl and Ayauhcihuatl, since he also represented a successon threat given his mother was Maxtla's sister. Eventually, of course, Tenochtitlan would ally with the cities of Texcoco (there was also some political marriages between them, see https://desuarchive.org/his/thread/5285820/#5290147 for more info, where I also talk about this war in more detail) and Tlacopan, war with Maxtla, and found the Aztec Triple alliance

With the Mexica also now using their dual fierce, savage chichimec origins (both in the sterotype they themselves got, and also by having ancestry in Xolotl by way of the wife Tezozomoc gave the Mexica, with Tezozomoc/the Azacapototzalco having ancestry in xolotl themselves, mirrored ith their cultured, refined toltec ancestry they arranged via marriage, to also now justify/empower their rule.

So that's an example of the whole political marriage and genealogical connection thing. Let's talk about the whole presitege and threat of military force part.

For example, an oft-cited reason for various city-states allying with Cortes is that they were wanting out of Aztec oppression or whatever (something that should be obviously wrong given that, as mentioned, the Aztec did not directly govern or controlled their tributaries, who retained their own local customs, laws, etc). In reality, though, only 1 state that would particpate in the Siege on Tenochtitlan, the Republic of Tlaxcala, allied with Cortes against the Aztec initially, with Tlaxcala having been victims of decades of Aztec incursions and blockades.

It is only after Montezuma II died and smallpox broke out in the captial that Cortes and Tlaxcala were able to convince a variety of cities, some inside the empire, some outside of it, to join with them to siege the captial: as the larges geopolitical player on the block was now weakened and ripe to be strategically taken out to further their own geopolitical interests. As I mentioned, most Mesoamerican empires were hands off, so these sorts of political power plays and alliances and uprisings were common, since each city, even the ones inside a larger empire, viewed themselves as a discrete political unit/city-state.

Another example, virtually every time an Aztec emperor died, border provinces would cease paying tribute to see what they could get away with, given the presumably weakened position of Tenochtitlan. It was critical for the new emperor to be successful in re-conquering these, as to scare the other provinces and tributary states back into submission/prove their worth, In one case, the new emperor, Tizoc, did such a poor job re-conquering these border provinces and city-states, basically losing his whole armies while only capturing a few dozen enemy soldiers to sacrifice himself, that way more cities broke off and ceased paying tribute, and the entire empire was threatened by his incompetence, that the Mexica nobility at Tenochtitlan had Tizoc assassinated. and even thougn his successor Ahuitzotl, did a good job on his intial campaigns against the resulting rebelling cities during his ascension, the political damage to the Aztec empire was done, and upon sending out diplomatic invitations to other indepedent states in the area:

	"These foreign rulers were invited in order to impress them with Aztec grandeur and to instill them with the pomp and ostentation. The sovereign of Tlaxcala answered that he was unwilling to attend the feasts in Tenochtitlan and that he could make a festival in his city whenever he liked. The ruler of Tliliuhquitepec gave the same answer. The king of Huexotzinco promised to go but never appeared. The ruler of Cholula sent some of his lords and asked to be excused since he was busy and could not attend. The lord of Metztitlan angrily expelled the Aztec messengers and warned them to take care, for the people of his province might kill them if they recognized them"

I want to stress a bit how big a diplomatic faux pass doing that is: Diplomatic visits of rulers between states, even ones at war, was a HUGE deal. For examples, kings would go to other cities for specific ceremonies and festivals even when soldiers from their own city were being sacrificed: IE the king of Tlaxcala might attend a ceremoney in Tenochtitlan where Tlaxcallan soldiers were being sacrificed. As the excerpt I posted notes, a big part of these visits, be it indepedent states or enemy states, is to "impress them with... grandeur and to instill them with pomp and ostenation". The idea is that by showing off how fucking sick your city is, you were showing off your own power and the benefits your own city could obtain by submitting as a tributary, such as by better access to their trading network/as goods (the tribute the aztec collected would, to some extent, be distributed back to tributaries, though obviously the ruling triple alliance kept a great deal of it), receive in diplomatic gifts, or if you were able to arrange an alliance or political marriage with them

In fact, this is WHY Montezuma invited Cortes, his Conquistadors, and his Tlaxcallan allies into Tenochtitlan to begin with: Refusing entry to a foreign dignitary (Cortes claimed he was representing the Spanish crown) was a big no no, and would be seen as callous and even cowardly, given that the Mexica alone far outnumbered the Conquistadors and Tlaxcallans, who the Aztec had been beating up on for a while, and especially since the Conquistadors themselves got their asses kicked by the Tlaxcallans.

The cities that allied with Cortes did so primarily within this sort of framework: Working with other states to take out political rivals and further their own interests. You can even draw comparisons between Tlaxcala, the Conquistadors, and the other city-states they worked with to war that forged the Aztec Empire itself I talked about earlier: Tenochtitlan was able to court Texcoco and Tlacopan into taking out Azacapotzalco after the death of Tezozomoc and the politically radical actions of Maxtla, assassinating his heir and the kings of other cities: Maintaining your authority was a careful balancing act of being able to project political force and show off enough to be both feared and respected, but take it too far or don't take it far enough, and other people will conspire against you

You even see stuff like thhis earlier on, the city of Cempoala promising to help Cortes, but only after they take out a nearby Aztec fort in this city... except there was no fort, and the city was just the biggest rival Cempoala had, and then the Cempolans leading the Conquistadors into enemy Tlaxcallan territory "accidentally" to get the Conquistadors attacked to be rid of them, with the Tlaxcallans infamously BTFOing the Conquistadors only to spare them at the last minute to use them against the Aztecs, and then as the Tlaxcallans and Conquistadors were passing through the city of Cholula on the way, the Tlaxcallans told cortes they "Overheard" the cholulans planning a suprise attack, so Cortes massacres the population while the Tlaxcalans raze the city and prop up a pro Tlaxacala political faction and that totally doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the Cholulans recently switched from an ally to Tlaxcala to being allied with the Azetcs just before this

You see this sort of thing all the time, both during the campaign against the Aztec and in the following decades against the city-states in Western Mexico and the Yucatan: From the context of the more hands off political norms of Mesoamerica where cities were discrete entities that retained their status as a polity even when a part of a larger empire, Allying with or ceding authority to Spain made sense, and you even see them do stuff like giving key Conquistadors wives and daughters as an attempted political marriages, which ties into what I said in post 10 and 11

On the flip side, Spain was operating on their own imperialistic norms, and just saw the native states and kingdoms and swearing fealty to the crown and now as subjects, and the attempted political marriages as offerings of concubines; leading to situations where both Native states and Spain thought they were in charge of the same areas and those cities or towns paying tribute to both. Had Mesoamericans understood european political norms, they would have never allied with them to begin with