Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
The first Montezuma died in 1469, and the choice for succession fell
on his grandson, the commander of the Mexican army, Axayacatl, who at
once followed the usual custom of raiding the country to the south
to get the thousands of prisoners whose sacrifice should grace his
coronation. Nezahualcoyotl, the other principal allied chieftain,
survived his associate but two years, dying in 1472, leaving among
his hundred children but one legitimate son, Nezahualpilli, a minor,
who succeeded. This gave the new Mexican ruler the opportunity to
increase his power. He made Tlatelulco tributary, and a Mexican
governor took the place there of an independent sovereign. He annexed
the Matlaltzinca provinces on the west. So Axayacatl, dying in 1481,
bequeathed an enlarged kingdom to his brother and successor, Tizoc,
who has not left so warlike a record. According to some authorities,
however, he is to be credited with the completion of the great Mexican
temple of Huitzilopochtli. This did not save him from assassination,
and his brother Ahuitzotl in 1486 succeeded, and to him fell the lot
of dedicating that great temple. He conducted fresh wars vigorously
enough to be able within a year, if we may believe the native records,
to secure sixty or seventy thousand captives for the sacrificial
stone, so essential a part of all such dedicatory exercises. It would
be tedious to enumerate all the succeeding conquests, though varied
by some defeats, like that which they experienced in the Tehuantepec
region. Some differences grew up, too, between the Mexican chieftain
and Nezahualpilli, notwithstanding or because of the virtues of the
latter, among which doubtless, according to the prevailing standard, we
must count his taking at once three Mexican princesses for wives, and
his keeping a harem of over two thousand women, if we may believe his
descendant, the historian Ixtlilxochitl. His justice as an arbitrary
monarch is mentioned as exemplary, and his putting to death a guilty
son is recounted as proof of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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