Itzcóatl

King of the Aztecs (r. 1427?-1440)

• Born: c. 1382
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: 1440
• Place of death: Probably Tenochtitlán (Mexico City, Mexico)

As the founder of the Mexican state, Itzcóatl was largely responsible both for the strengths that enabled it to survive until the Spanish conquest of 1519 and for the weaknesses that contributed to its destruction.

The early struggle of the Mexica to establish themselves in the Valley of Mexico and to achieve hegemony over its various tribes must not be understood as a war among nations but as a conflict of city-states that fought each other in loose alliances. The arena of this struggle was a relatively small area in the vicinity of what is now called Mexico City, the heart of which is the site of Tenochtitlán.

The various chronicles of early Mexican history, all written from memory after the Spanish conquest, do not agree as to dates. The Mexica entered the Valley of Mexico from the north in the latter half of the thirteenth century, the last Náhuatl-speaking tribe to make this migration. They were in their beginnings a poor tribe of nomads, without the complex social and political structure or the elaborate system of religious ritual that they developed later. When they arrived, the valley was dominated by Azcapotzalco, the premier Tepenecan city on the west shore of Lake Texcoco; Tlacopán, on the mainland due west of Tenochtitlán; Coyoacán, on the southwest shore; Xochimilco and Chalco, in the south; and Texcoco, the intellectual center of the valley and the dominant power east of the lake. The Mexica, possessing no lands, indeed no resources but the prowess of their warriors, enlisted as mercenaries in the employ of other cities. In the early fourteenth century, one faction of the Mexica, defeated by the enemies of their employers, fled to a swampy area in the lake and began the slow process of building up the land on which they established the town of Tlatilulco. Later in 1369, according to one account another faction, also forced to flee from their mainland enemies, established a second town nearby: Tenochtitlán.

In their wanderings and their early years in central Mexico, the basic organs of civil and military management of the Mexica were the clans, each of which was governed by its own council of elders, a headman, and a “speaker” who represented it in the council of the Mexica. After the founding of Tenochtitlán, who became king in 1404, married the daughter of Tezozómoc, the king of Azcapotzalco, and was succeeded in 1416 by his ten-year-old son Chimalpopoca, during whose reign the inevitable conflict with Azcapotzalco came to a head.

Life’s Work

Itzcóatl may have been speaker under Huitzilhuitl, and he certainly filled this post during the reign of Chimalpopoca. In that role, he astutely and cautiously extended the trade and influence of the Mexica to the shore towns while avoiding an open clash with Azcapotzalco. In 1426, Tezozómoc of Azcapotzalco died and was succeeded by his son Maxtla, who was determined to end the rivalry of the upstart Mexica and, according to one account, arranged the murder of Chimalpopoca in 1427. , however, a steady process of centralization began, and by 1375, when Acamapichtli was chosen the first king of Tenochtitlán, this process was virtually complete, so that a great gulf had opened between the council and the commoners, with real power concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy composed of a few great families who dominated the council and monopolized all administrative and religious power.

Acamapichtli’s successor was his son, Huitzilhuitl

Early Life

Itzcóatl (EETZ-coh-waht-uhl) meaning “obsidian serpent” was the illegitimate son of Acamapichtli, the first king of the Mexica, the Aztec tribe that founded Tenochtitlán and came in time to dominate central Mexico. His mother was a seller of herbs or vegetables and apparently a slave, but Itzcóatl distinguished himself as a military commander and statesman before he himself became king of the Mexica about 1427. Except for the remarkable fact of his parentage, nothing is known of his personal life, and his public life can be understood only in relation to the political development of Mexico in his lifetime.

Another account, however, suggests that Chimalpopoca was murdered by the war faction in the Mexican council. According to this story, the Mexica demanded materials from Tezozómoc for building a causeway to bring water from Chapultepec, on the west shore of the lake. The allies of Azcapotzalco, realizing that such a causeway would strengthen Tenochtitlán, resisted this demand and determined to destroy the Mexica. They cut off all trade and other contact with Tenochtitlán, and when Tezozómoc died, Chimalpopoca, no longer able to count on his grandfather’s protection, was murdered. In any case, the council of the Mexica elected Itzcóatl as his successor.

Itzcóatl was recognized for both his bravery and his prudence; in fact, one source gives credit to him as a military leader and an important administrator as early as 1407. Another says that he had commanded armies for three decades. These achievements probably account for his election in spite of his illegitimacy. He was at that time about forty-five years old.

Itzcóatl’s situation when he became king was precarious because of the forces arrayed against the Mexica, but he had strong allies in Tlacopán and in the king of Texcoco, his nephew Nezahualcóyotl, who was putting together an alliance of all the cities east of the lake. It was also at this time that Itzcóatl succeeded, perhaps by marriage to a princess of the other Mexican city in the lake, Tlatilulco, in achieving an alliance that led eventually to the merger of the two cities. Itzcóatl’s further achievement of a triple alliance of Tenochtitlán-Tlatilulco with Texcoco and Tlacopán was perhaps his greatest political achievement, and it survived, with Tenochtitlán the dominant force in the alliance, until the Spanish conquest.

In 1428, Itzcóatl gathered the council in Tenochtitlán and demanded war against Azcapotzalco and its west-shore allies. Strong arguments were made in the council for peace, but the military party had everything to gain from a war. The power of the state, in the hands of the oligarchy, had been partially thwarted by certain elements in Tenochtitlán society that would be rendered powerless by a major victory against the city’s enemies. In fact, the accounts that blame the Tepanecs for the death of Chimalpopoca may have been written to justify the war with them. In any case, Itzcóatl, encouraged by his nephew Tlacaelel, who shared his sense of the destiny of the Mexica to rule all the Valley of Mexico, prevailed in the council. A peace proposal was sent to Azcapotzalco, combined with a threat of war if it were not accepted. Its rejection was followed by a Tepanecan attack across the causeway from the mainland. Nezahualcóyotl had brought his Texcoco warriors to Tenochtitlán, and the Mexica of Tenochtitlán and Tlatilulco were united. As a result, the Tepanecs, completely routed, fled to Azcapotzalco, which fell to the allies after a siege of four months. It was completely destroyed, and the few of its population who did not escape were exterminated or enslaved.

In 1429-1430, the Mexica repaid Nezahualcóyotl for his support by helping him recover control of those cities east of the lake that had rebelled with the encouragement of Azcapotzalco. In 1430, Tenochtitlán asked or demanded that Xochimilco provide stone and logs for the expansion of the temple of Huitzilopochtli. When these materials were denied, Xochimilco was blockaded and eventually conquered. Its lands were distributed among Itzcóatl’s closest supporters, and Xochimilco agreed to provide the materials and the slave labor to build a great causeway to join Tenochtitlán to the mainland from the south. A year later, Coyoacán broke off trading relations with Tenochtitlán, in effect declaring war, and was subsequently conquered. In all, according to one account (the Codex Mendoza), Itzcóatl is credited with the conquest of twenty-four towns.

In 1431, Nezahualcóyotl was crowned emperor of the three-city league, but events had already set in motion the process by which Tenochtitlán and its kings would be the dominant power in Mexico. For a period of five or six years after the war, the slave laborers and the tribute won in the war were used to erect palaces, expand Tenochtitlán-Tlatilulco, build canals within the city, and erect greater shrines to the gods. In the center of Tenochtitlán was built the monumental shrine to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli.

The primary result of the war was the total reorganization of Mexican society. Itzcóatl created twenty-one titles for the greatest families and established a system of succession that endured until the Spanish conquest: When a king was chosen, four brothers or other close relatives were elevated to special titles, and one of them was named to be his successor. The conquered agricultural lands were distributed to a relatively small number of Mexican leaders, thus magnifying the power of the oligarchy; political power was concentrated in the hands of the king, the speaker, and the council; and the power of the military class was considerably enhanced. Above all, the cult of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war whose demands for sacrificial victims, as interpreted by the priests, were virtually insatiable, was greatly augmented. The result, in other words, was profoundly ideological the dictatorship of the oligarchy supported by the warrior elite was justified by a constant state of war, and warfare was required by the constant need for sacrificial victims. Political, military, and religious concerns were supportive of one another.

Several accounts maintain that before the attack on Azcapotzalco the commoners were fearful of the consequences of a possible defeat. According to one account, Itzcóatl is supposed to have offered a wager to them: If the warriors failed, the king and his council would permit themselves to be killed and eaten. The commoners, in turn, agreed that if the warriors were victorious, they would accept a state of virtual slavery. This strange wager would seem, however, to be pure propaganda written after the event. In fact, most accounts agree that after the Mexica had won the Tepanec War, Itzcóatl ordered the destruction of existing accounts of the Mexican past and their rewriting to emphasize the grandeur and the justice of Tenochtitlán’s rise to power. Apparently, the reforms also included a manipulation of education and of art and literature in the service of the state: Itzcóatl was the first king of Tenochtitlán to have his likeness carved in stone. Clearly, the most appalling aspect of the ideological reforms of Itzcóatl’s reign was the sharp increase in the magnitude of human sacrifice.

Most accounts agree that Itzcóatl died in 1440 and was succeeded by Moctezuma I (also known as Montezuma I; r. 1440-1469), who expanded the Aztec Empire by using the methods and the ideology that his predecessor had developed.

Significance

Itzcóatl must be credited with the foundation of the Mexican monarchy, which became the dominant power in central Mexico under the rule of his successors, and he established the political and military institutions, including the political alliance with Texcoco and Tlacopán, that made possible the Aztec Empire, which endured until the arrival of the Spanish in 1519. The human cost of this achievement, however, was by modern standards outrageously high.

The state that Itzcóatl was primarily responsible for creating existed for its own glorification. Even European monarchies of the time were less powerful in their control of their people if only because they were subject to the disapproval of the Church than was the oligarchy to which Itzcóatl gave power. Indeed, Itzcóatl, with the aid of like-minded individuals, created the kind of absolute totalitarian state that Europe did not suffer until the twentieth century. The oligarchy controlled the education of young nobles, who were taught to serve the state, and literary and artistic culture was dedicated to the glorification of the state. Furthermore, the destruction of historical chronicles and rewriting of history to make the state and its keepers the absolute political reality was something unknown in Europe until modern times.

Itzcóatl’s use of the cult of Huitzilopochtli for political ends, considering that it was a cult that demanded human sacrifice, is the most extraordinary aspect of the totalitarian system he created. Admittedly, the numbers of sacrificial victims were inflated by Spanish chroniclers, but even when those numbers are reduced, the hard kernel of historical fact still horrifies. This religion of blood was put to the service of the state, and the state engaged in warfare to serve the religion. This inevitably vicious circle produced slaughter too appalling to condone, whatever the numbers. Certainly, Itzcóatl, though he had the encouragement of his colleagues, must receive the largest share of the blame. After the conquest of Azcapotzalco, he issued an edict proclaiming Huitzilopochtli the supreme god of the Mexica, and after the conquest of Coyoacán, he issued another that defined the divine mission of the Mexica as bringing all the nations of the world to the worship of that god by force of arms. The “flower wars” that provided victims for the priest-executioners of Tenochtitlán during the eighty years after Itzcóatl’s death were the terrible legacy of his reign, and they contributed more than anything else to the destruction of the state he created, for the Spanish were welcomed by the enemies those wars produced.

Considering all this, it is an error to condemn Hernán Cortés and the Spanish conquest without taking account of the fact that, in spite of the excesses of that conquest, it did not introduce to the Mexican people any violence, exploitation, or infringement of liberty that was new to them. If the priests who accompanied Cortés burned Aztec libraries, Itzcóatl had done the same before them; if they enslaved the Aztecs, the enemies of the Aztecs also had been enslaved; if they enforced conversion to Christianity, the Aztecs had sought the same ends on behalf of Huitzilopochtli, whose demands on the common people of Mexico were infinitely bloodier.

Bibliography

Brundage, Burr Cartwright. A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972. A thorough one-volume history of the Aztecs, from their obscure origins to the destruction of Tenochtitlán in 1521. Carefully weighs all the evidence of the codices and provides the most likely dates for the events of Aztec history. Maps, bibliography.

Carrasco, Pedro. The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlán, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. Presents a history of the politics and government of the tripartite Aztec alliance. Maps, bibliography, and index.

Conrad, Geoffrey W., and Arthur A. Demarest. Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984. A comparative study that thoroughly examines the political and social factors that led to Aztec expansion and evaluates the theories modern scholars have proposed to account for it. Illustrations and extensive bibliography.

Durán, Diego. The Aztecs: The History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated by Doris Heyden and Fernando Horcasitas. New York: Orion, 1964. The author was a contemporary Dominican friar who was in Mexico only twenty years after the Spanish conquest and based his account on the codices and the memory of informants. The text was written to help Christian missionaries understand Aztec paganism, but it reveals considerable sympathy for the Indians.

Gillmor, Frances. The King Danced in the Marketplace. 1964. Reprint. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1977. The king of the title is Moctezuma I, but this book deals also with the events of Itzcóatl’s reign. Based on solid research and thoroughly documented, but written in a novelistic style. Map, genealogical table, bibliography, and index.

Kimmel, Eric A. Montezuma and the Fall of the Aztecs. New York: Holiday House, 2000. Briefly traces the life and reign of Moctezuma II and the fall of the Aztec Empire after the Spanish conquest. Written for young readers. Colored map, bibliography.

Meyer, Michael C., William L. Sherman, and Susan M. Deeds. The Course of Mexican History. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. A 732-page history of Mexico prior to, during, and after the reign of Itzcóatl and the time of the Aztecs. Maps, bibliography, and index.

Padden, R. C. The Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503-1541. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967. A thoroughly researched study of the conflict of Aztec and Spanish religious beliefs during the reign of Moctezuma II, the conquest, and its aftermath, this account offers many insights into the rise of the Mexica during the reign of Itzcóatl. Maps, bibliography.

Radin, Paul. “The Sources and Authenticity of the History of the Ancient Mexicans.” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 17 (1920-1926): 1-150. Provides translations of various Aztec codices, including the lengthy Codex Ramírez, which deals more fully than most of the primary documents with the events of the reigns of Itzcóatl and his predecessors.