AZTEC By 1433 the Valley of Mexico had regained domination over much of Mexico as a result of an alliance of three neighboring kingdoms. This alliance secured the homeland from which Montezuma I of the Aztecs, began territorial conquests in the 1400s. The Aztec built the most powerful empire in Mesoamerica, famous for its wealth and rituals. Within less than one century, they gained control of a region extending from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the Pacific coast in the west and from central Mexico to Guatemala On the site of present-day Mexico City they built the capital Tenochtitlan on island in Lake Texcoco in ad 1325
century • human sacrifice prominent in religious and political rituals • by early 16th century controlled empire with 5 - 6 million inhabitants The empire flourished until 1519, when a Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, landed in eastern Mexico and advanced with Mexican allies upon the Aztec capital Internal strife and a smallpox epidemic weakened the Aztecs and helped Cortés conquer them in 1521 After the Spanish conquest—which took more than two centuries to reach throughout Mexico—most of the Native American peoples were forced to survive as peasants governed by the Spanish-Mexican upper class |