When Hernán Cortés first landed in Mesoamerica in 1519, he represented a European colonial tradition hallmarked by ambition, violence, and exploitation. Yet he and his fellow conquistadors also represented the legalism and Catholicism of their native Spain–two traditions that sat uneasily with colonial atrocities. As they explored, conquered, and killed, the Spaniards penned extensive notes, letters, and memoirs detailing their exploits and the new cultures they met.[2] As one might expect, these Spanish sources reframe their exploitative imperial project as a just war; they exoticize and infantilize the native population in order to legitimize their own barbarity. One early European account, for example, describes the Tenochca as “idolaters” who “sacrifice people to their idols” and “eat people.”[3] Unfortunately, many modern scholars reliant on Spanish sources have uncritically echoed their perspectives. Historian Davíd Carrasco’s 1999 City of Sacrifice, for example, opens with the author’s visit to the Aztec Templo Mayor in present-day Mexico City, where he visited the skeletal remains of victims of ritual killings. Carrasco emphasizes his “visceral response” to the violence and exoticizes the site, stressing the “giant grinning serpent heads, stone warriors leaning against stairways, stone skulls strewn around the site, and the monumental disk sculpture of a dismembered warrior goddess” and concluding that “violence against humans was a profound human necessity and practice for the Aztecs in their capital city.”[4] Similarly, Inga Clendinnen’s 1991 study stresses “the massive carnality of the killings and dismemberings” and struggles to understand the coexistence of “social grace and monstrous ritual” in the Aztec world.[5] Focusing on and exaggerating aspects of the Aztec world that Western observers find alien, especially human sacrifice, has driven scholars to mistakenly characterize the Aztecs as bloodthirsty, irrational, and self-defeating.[6] Five centuries later, the Spaniards’ efforts to justify their genocidal campaign remain disturbingly effective.
In recent decades, however, a growing number of scholars have challenged these narratives by prioritizing indigenous sources. Matthew Restall, for example, has read across an impressive range of sources to reject the conquest narrative altogether.[7] Camilla Townsend has used Nahuatl annals to reimagine Aztec history from the perspective of the Aztecs themselves.[8] I intend this study as a contribution to this new body of revisionist literature. I use the Florentine Codex, an ethnographic study co-authored by Nahuatl writers, to reevaluate Aztec grand strategy (GS) and contest established narratives that dismiss of Aztec skill in statecraft. The Florentine Codex demonstrates that Aztec GS was neither irrational nor self-defeating, but rather exceptionally well-suited to the Aztec strategic environment and strikingly successful.
Despite its growing popularity in international relations literature, GS has proved difficult to define. Military historian and strategist Basil Liddell Hart, who popularized the term, characterized GS as the “coordination and direction of all the resources of a nation towards the attainment of the political object of a war.”[9] More recent scholars like Paul Kennedy explicitly stress that GS includes “wartime and peacetime” policy[10]; Barry Posen widens the term even further, defining GS as “a state’s theory about how it can best ‘cause’ security for itself.”[11] This calculation, for most authors, falls within a means-ends paradigm; Hal Brands, for example, finds that “grand strategy requires ruthless prioritization” in the allocation of resources,[12] while historian Williamson Murray holds that GS realigns the state’s “resources, will, and interests, [which] inevitably find themselves out of balance in some areas.”[13] However, I argue that the simple apportionment of means to ends falls within the realm of strategy. I define grand strategy as directing means to secure necessary ends while securing future means. GS does not simply direct means towards pre-set ends but selects ends that strengthen the state’s future capabilities–the grand strategist weaves together the state’s political, economic, military, and cultural capabilities to develop a model that reinforces and strengthens itself over time.
The Aztecs’ imperial model reflected a coherent grand strategy. The empire effectively exploited the resources available in its specific geographic, economic, and geopolitical environment while choosing reasonable strategic goals. The Aztecs magnified their natural advantages by developing complementary capabilities geared towards those goals. Geographically, the Aztec stronghold in Tenochtitlán and the Basin of Mexico benefited from a central location and natural protection from the lake and surrounding mountains. Economically, the lake facilitated easy transit of goods, but provided Tenochtitlán with limited production capacity. Geopolitically, the Aztecs had few major competitors that could challenge their territory. Their strategic model reflected these three realities. Firstly, they focused on a commercialized economy, profiting from control over trade rather than domestic production. To protect this economy, they maintained a fearsome military garrison in the empire’s center, optimized for high-intensity warfare in political and economic centres. Compared to direct military occupation of the provinces, this approach was cost-effective, securing the flow of resources into Tenochtitlán with a smaller standing force. When necessary, however, tribute and trade facilitated mass mobilization. Gifts of luxury goods the Mexica had plundered from conquered territories motivated nearby city-states to support future conquests, generating further revenues, while prospering private markets fed and supplied the burgeoning Aztec army.
This model was startlingly successful–the Aztecs built the largest empire in Mesoamerican history, their hegemony stretching from the Pacific to the Gulf. However, the Aztecs’ eventual defeat by the Spanish conquistadors often overshadows the overwhelming success of this GS in the pre-contact period. Many earlier analyses, overreliant on Catholic Spanish sources, attribute Aztec behavior to a single-minded pursuit of captives to sacrifice; the Aztec decline is thus explained by the cruelty and irrationality of their system, an implied contrast with Cortés’ supposedly superior strategic wiles.[14] Instead, I argue that the destabilizing psychological effects of Spanish weaponry and Western disease were uniquely suited to undermine Aztec GS. The Aztecs protected expansive networks of trade and tribute with massive displays of force, while delegating local control to existing local governments; their GS relied heavily on psychological domination over their subjects. This loose hegemonic structure worked well without major geopolitical rivals, but it failed to win subject peoples to the imperial cause. This lack of cohesion doomed the empire when Spanish technology and disease dissolved the perception that Aztec power was unassailable.
Methods
My analysis will focus on textual evidence from a semi-indigenous source, Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún’s Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, more commonly known by the name of its best-preserved manuscript: The Florentine Codex (hereafter the FC). TheFC is a remarkable document, often cited as the first ethnographic study in world history;[15] it remains among the most comprehensive studies of a non-Western culture ever written.[16] The FC exists in both Nahuatl and Spanish manuscripts, between which there are a few trivial differences; here, I use the Nahuatl version, assuming it better represents the Aztec perspective.
Explicitly, the FC’s goal was to help Catholic missionaries convert the Nahuatl people. As an agent of the Church and of Spain, Sahagún justified the project to his readers as a tool to undermine Nahuatl religion. Sahagún hoped that describing the Nahuatl way of life would be “useful for the indoctrination, the propagation, and perpetuation of the Christianization of these natives of New Spain,” for “the physician cannot advisedly administer medicines to the patient without first knowing of which humour or from which source the ailment derives.”[17]
The text’s construction, however, reveals a more complex story. The FC was primarily written by a large group of Nahuatl scholars in the Nahuatl language; many historians argue that Sahagún’s primary role was just to recruit and “supervise” these indigenous authors.[18] As a result, the FC provides one of only a few windows into the Aztec perspective on their former empire.[19] Many of the text’s authors had known the Aztec empire for decades before the conquistadors arrived, and had lived through the conquest; many passages in the FC, especially those describing the Spanish invasion, are written in first person.[20] Authors contributed from across the former empire. Over the decades Sahagún spent working on the manuscript (~1529-1590), he traveled widely to visit indigenous students, scholars, and elders, who translated pictorial records and shared their experiences.[21] Although Sahagún’s Spanish Catholic mission certainly shaped the FC, the manuscript stems from the perspective of a lingering Aztec elite.
We must also note that Sahagún was not a typical Spanish commentator. In the FC, the friar often shows a paternalistic sympathy for the native plight, arguing that, while “considered barbarians,” the Nahuatl “surpass many other nations” in “matters of good conduct”[22]; indeed, he considers them “our brothers, stemming from the stock of Adam,” and “our neighbors, whom we are obliged to love even as we love ourselves.”[23] In contrast, he refers to Cortés and the other conquistadors as “monkeys” and “pigs.”[24] In keeping with this attitude, Sahagún recruited no Spanish coauthors, favoring his army of Nahuatl collaborators.[25] He prioritized the indigenous perspective over that of his conquistador contemporaries, making the FC the best available source to understand the rationale behind Aztec GS.
Still, the text has limits. Firstly, because Sahagún was based in the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, some scholars worry that it biases the viewpoint of Sahagún’s current and former Tlatelolcan students; Matthew Restall, for example, cites the FC’s “highly critical Tlatelolca view” and dismissively refers to the text as “a late-sixteenth-century Tlatelolca-Franciscan narrative… misleadingly read for most of the twentieth century as an authentic Aztec or even ‘Indian’ view of the conquest.”[26] Restall’s concern that Tlatelolcan bitterness towards the dominant Tenochca may tarnish the FC’s description of Moctezuma and his war effort. However, this concern ignores that (1) the Tlatelolcans were indeed both Aztec and Indian, and their insight into the Aztec system and Spanish-Aztec War is no less insightful for their not being Tenochca, and (2) Sahagún traveled widely over the decades he spent composing the manuscript, collecting viewpoints from across the fallen empire. Furthermore, any special influence on the FC by Tlatelolco, the commercial hub of the empire, contributes valuable detail and credibility to the economic analyses that follow.
I also acknowledge that, in some ways, the FC is not a natural choice for grand strategic analysis. Due to Sahagún’s conversionary mission, the text consistently emphasizes Nahuatl religion and ritual. These topics, of marginal importance to Aztec GS, occupy seven of the thirteen volumes; here, I use just three of the others, Books 8 (“The King”), 9 (“Merchants”), and 10 (“The Conquest of Mexico”), to unpack the political, economic, and military spheres. However, even these accounts, which provide incredible structural and procedural details, are limited. Sahagún’s ethnographic purpose–“to put the ancient customs of these Native Indians… in a book”[27]–focuses on characterizing institutions and practices, rather than cataloging historical events. As a result, this study evaluates the overall coherence of the imperial apparatus rather than scrutinizing individual actions. It is a macrostudy of the Aztec grand strategic model, not a microstudy of variation in Aztec behavior.
The Aztec Grand Strategic Context
Figure 1. The Aztec Empire and its neighbors at Cortés’ arrival in 1519, with locations mentioned in the text marked. Map created by the author using ArcGIS Pro.
Geography
The Aztec Empire was led by the Mexica people, who migrated into the Basin of Mexico in the early fourteenth century and settled on two large islands in the center of Lake Texcoco, founding the interconnecting cities of Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco.[28] Protected by a ring of mountains, the valley provided a rare region of agricultural productivity–Sahagún described “the mildness and abundance of this land,” while Cortés would later note that the Basin offered “plenty to eat for all.”[29] Despite low annual rainfall, agricultural developmentin the early Aztec period produced astonishing crop yields.[30] The expansion of the chinampas, especially, proved crucial; these artificial islands, raised from the lake bed, were naturally irrigated and fertilized by lake water and sustainably produced three harvests every year.[31] As a result of this land- and water-borne agriculture, both Tenochtitlán and the valley writ large became densely populated, with population estimates ranging from 150,000-200,000 people in the city and from 1,000,000 to 2,600,000 in the valley by 1519.[32] Most of this population was concentrated around Lake Texcoco and the interconnected lakes of Zumpango, Xaltocan, Xochimilco, and Chalco; Tenochtitlán lay at the center of the lakes and surrounding city-states.
Ruling from the middle of the lake provided certain strategic advantages. First, the lake provided a robust natural defense. The city could only be reached on foot by four major causeways or by water on large dugout canoes.[33] As a result, the city could cheaply and effectively protect itself by fortifying the causeways and developing naval capabilities.[34] In addition, Tenochtitlán’s central position made it a natural commercial center. Canoes cheaply and rapidly ferried goods across the interconnected lakes, connecting city-states around the valley to each other and the imperial hub. Sitting in the center of this economic network, the Mexica were well-positioned to regulate trade and serve as a marketplace.
However, life on a small island also made Tenochtitlán vulnerable. Although the chinampa complex around the city grew with the empire, the Mexica always relied heavily on food and grain imports from elsewhere, collected either as tribute or through trade.[35] Even more dangerously, the water in the lake was unsafe to drink; Lake Texcoco’s waters were saline and laced with dangerous minerals, and the Mexica had to import drinking water into the city by boat.[36] If Tenochtitlán lost control over its causeways and naval dominance, its people would soon be starved of food and water. This inherent weakness would prove deadly during the Spanish conquest.
On the wider Mesoamerican stage, Tenochtitlán also occupied a key strategic position. Firstly, the Basin of Mexico is easily defensible, protected by the Sierra de las Cruces mountains to the west, the Sierra Nevada to the east, and the Sierra Chichinautzin to the south. The Basin was also highly fertile agriculturally, and provided easy access to three crucial strategic resources of the period: oak, obsidian, and agave/maguey fibre.[37] Oak, required to make weapons and shields, grew in abundance along the sides of the valley and in the mountains.[38] Obsidian, providing the sharp cutting edges of handheld weaponry and projectiles, was abundant among the basin’s volcanic topography; four of the five largest Mesoamerican quarries lay within the central highlands.[39] Maguey was woven into a tough yet flexible armor, and prospered even in the high elevations of the Basin; cotton, a substitute, could also be cheaply imported from the lowlands near present-day Veracruz.[40] The Basin protected the Aztecs from harm, fed them handsomely, and provided materials key strategic resources with which to wage war.
Due to these abundant resources and its position in the middle of Mesoamerica, the Basin was a natural seat of power. Indeed, the region had already generated two great hegemons: the Teotihuacan and Toltec empires, which prospered in the sixth and tenth to twelfth centuries, respectively. Similarly, the city-state of Azcapotzalco was already expanding from Lake Texcoco’s western shores before the Aztec Triple Alliance (Tenochtitlán, Tlacopan, and Texcoco) seized control in 1428.[41] Moving beyond the basin, however, was difficult; mountain ranges and dense jungles hampered progress, while road systems were narrow and undeveloped. This posed an enormous logistical challenge: armies could travel only two abreast, and supply chains relied on humans (rather than animals or carts) to carry supplies.[42]Despite these obstacles, however, the Aztecs would surpass their Teotihuacano and Toltec predecessors, building an empire on a scale unrivaled in Mesoamerican history.
Geopolitics
Mesoamerican geopolitics in the Aztec period was built around the fundamental unit of the altepetl, usually translated as “city-state.” Altepetls had their own rulers, internal political systems, and strong cultural and ethnic identities; inhabitants of Tenochtitlán, for example, defined themselves as Tenochca, not Mexica or Aztec, in much the same way that ancient Athenians, Spartans, or Corinthians identified themselves by their cities, not as Greek. These peoples would not easily assimilate within the Aztec imperial complex. As a result, the Aztec system relied on relatively loose control over the political leadership of the altepetls under their influence.
Within the Basin of Mexico, Tenochtitlán took the lead within what scholars have termed the “Triple Alliance,” between three of the largest altepetls in the valley: the Mexica of Tenochtitlán/Tlatelolco,[43] the Tepenecs of Tlacopan in the western half of the basin, and the Acolhuans of Texcoco in the eastern half of the basin. These three city-states were the nucleus of a political coalition across the Basin of Mexico, whose members historians have termed the “core states.”[44] Despite considerable political tensions and ethnic distinctions, the altepetls of the Basin held themselves apart from the rest of the empire, enjoying closer diplomatic ties and often going to war together against foreign enemies or rebellious territories. Beyond the Basin, the Aztecs controlled an impressive collection of tributary provinces from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico. These altepetls did not assimilate into the Aztec way of life, largely maintaining their local governments and customs. However, their trade and tribute provided crucial sustenance for the growing population and bureaucratic apparatus in the imperial core.
The Aztecs faced a relatively benign security environment. Along several flanks, they bordered small, decentralized states or nomadic groups. In the northeast, these were the nomadic Chichimeca, in the southwest there were the Yopes, and to the south, divided Mixtec and Maya city-states posed little real threat to Aztec power.[45] The military forces of these groups were typically lightly armored and highly mobile,[46] ill-equipped to confront the Aztec military machine head-on but highly effective in blunting potential Aztec expansion through guerrilla-style warfare. While they (at least temporarily) blocked Aztec expansion and proved themselves a nuisance on the frontier, they were not great power rivals to the Aztecs.
While three larger states posed a greater challenge to Aztec supremacy, none proved an existential threat. The first, and least consequential, of these states was Metztitlan, which lay in the northeast. Metztitlan, occupied by formidable warriors of the Otomí culture, lay high in the mountains of present-day Hidalgo and held few valuable resources.[47] It was thus both expensive and unrewarding to conquer. At the same time, it could not sustain a large enough population to seriously threaten Aztec lands, despite the prowess and organization of their military. The second was the Tarascan Empire, whose territory lay along the northwestern border. The Tarascans controlled a hegemonic empire, exacting tribute from surrounding city-states, policed by a formidable military full of skilled archers.[48] This made their territory difficult to penetrate, as these large, long-range forces could garrison themselves in fortified cities, outlasting Aztec armies unable to maintain long supply lines away outside their empire.[49] However, the Tarascan emphasis on archery left them weak in shock infantry, severely limiting their offensive capabilities. This, combined with their small population (the Tarascan capital city of Tzintzuntzan only ever supported ~25,000-30,000 inhabitants), mitigated the threat posed to the Aztecs by this northern neighbor.[50]
The Aztecs’ final enemy was worryingly close to home. About 100 km east of Tenochtitlan lay an enemy coalition of three powerful city-states: Tlaxcala, Cholula, and Huexotzinco. Despite multiple attempts (from the 1480s through the Spanish), the Aztecs never conquered or subjugated these territories, which had advanced armies well-equipped to confront the Aztec threat.[51] Instead, the Triple Alliance was plagued by recurring conflicts with these city-states, characterized by some historians as “Flowery Wars,” which they argue consisted largely of low-level ritual combat.[52] However, historian Barry Isaac, who considers Nahuatl alongside Spanish sources, has convincingly shown that these wars often represented real attempts by the Triple Alliance to annex Tlaxcala and its allies, employing massive force; battles in 1503, 1506, and 1517 all have reported casualties high among the thousands.[53] This struggle was the closest the Aztecs came to a great-power conflict with an external enemy until Cortés arrived in 1519.
Before the Spanish appeared, however, the Tlaxcalans and their allies posed little offensive threat to the Triple Alliance and their partners. The Tlaxcalans were severely outnumbered,[54] and did not train commoners to serve in their army.[55] In addition, any invasion of Aztec territory would have required them to leave behind their defensive fortifications and cope with the logistical challenges of foreign wars. These disadvantages had already proved decisive in Aztec invasions of Tlaxcala–with fewer warriors, the Tlaxcalans could not have expected to overcome the defensive advantage to make significant inroads into a unified Aztec Empire.[56] Only by breaking the Mexica’s ties with surrounding altepetls could the Tlaxcala pose a real threat. This kind of mass defection would require intense psychological and geopolitical stress. To achieve this instability, the Tlaxcala had to await the arrival of Spanish disease and technology.
The most worrisome danger to Mexica hegemony was defection. With vast territories stretching over diverse, multinational groups, internal unrest was a constant menace. Especially as economic inequality intensified throughout the empire,[57] the threat of class wars and provincial rebellions must have become a serious security concern. Internecine conflict also threatened. The other two members of the Triple Alliance–the Tepenecs of Tlacopan and Acolhuans of Texcoco–had been promised an equal share of imperial power and spoils when the three states first allied against the previous hegemon, Azcapotzalco, in 1428.[58] After the coalition overthrew Azcapotzalco, Tenochtitlán quickly assumed leadership. This no doubt irked its partners, who retained robust independent political systems and collected revenues directly from their assigned tributaries—without routing them through Tenochtitlán.[59] Tenochtitlán’s priority had to be maintaining these core altepetls’ tenuous allegiance, while simultaneously preventing rebellion in the empire’s far-flung provinces. The Aztec model was designed to meet these twin threats, prioritizing robust commercial markets to attract allies and concentrated military force to deter defection.
Aztec Grand Strategy
The FCdeals largely with institutions and practices. As a result, my analysis proceeds along the same lines, assuming that the structures of these institutions and the outcomes of these practices provide valid insight into grand strategic intent. Without extensive documentation of the empire’s decision-making process, I give the Aztecs the benefit of the doubt. I interpret the effective coordination of resources, the development of complementary capabilities, and the direction of these resources and capabilities towards self-reinforcing ends as reasoned planning, not blind luck.
There is good reason to think the Aztec government operated in this cohesive way. First of all, the empire operated unilaterally under one emperor, the tlatoani. The tlatoani held wide-ranging powers as head of state, enabling him to effectively maneuver the imperial apparatus on a grand strategic course. His main role was as commander-in-chief, but he also served as the supreme arbiter of justice, rising above the two-tiered tlaxitlan/teccali court system, led religious ceremonies, and directed the marketplace.[60] Many tlatoani also stayed in power for many years; of the nine tlatoani listed in the FC, eight reigned for more than a decade, and five for more than twenty years.[61] As a result, they could direct GS across long time horizons.
The consistent goal of Aztec GS was to get resources flowing into the capital. The islands on which Tenochtitlan/Tlatelolco sat were resource-poor, and thus the Mexica had to look outward for food and supplies. At the same time, the islands were easily defensible, with the lake’s waters providing a natural barrier and with no large swaths of farmland that had to be protected. Every element of Mexica GS focused on these two realities–they projected power outside the city only to maintain trade and tribute, while sacrificing close political control in the territories.
The FC provides insight into how the economic gears of the empire turned; indeed, economic institutions (Book Nine, “On Merchants”) occupy as much space in the text as political ones (Book Eight, “On Kings”). These institutions were hierarchical and complex, extending down from the emperor to local regulators. “The ruler,” the FC reveals, “took care of the directing of the marketplace and all things sold”; each good was “placed separately–in its own place or station. They were not spread around in confusion.”[62] The ruler appointed agents to direct this trade, foremost among which were five “principal merchants” (puchtecatlatoque), who came to power alongside each new emperor.[63] The principal merchants held a wide array of powers and responsibilities, chief among which was protecting trade. They “sponsored the common folk, so that none might suffer, might be deceived, tricked, cheated.”[64] This end justified a powerful, independent institutional apparatus known as the pochteca, which had its own offices and even a separate court system. The principal merchants could prosecute thieves, as well as vendors selling stolen goods, and likewise held the authority to discipline dishonest merchants; they “alone pronounced judgement, exacted the death penalty” on these violators.[65]
This tight regulation and harsh enforcement provided reliable security for trade in the capital, making it the largest commercial hub in the empire. The marketplace in Tlatelolco, especially, was renowned for its size and energy; it supported a thriving local trade in foodstuffs, lucrative exchanges in luxury goods from the provinces and abroad, and robust urban artisanal production.[66] We hear, for example, of “the gold- and silver-smiths, the copper-smiths, the feather workers, painters, cutters of stone, workers in green stone mosaic, [and] carvers of wood” employed in the capital.[67] This prosperous trade economy must have both reinforced and destabilized Mexica rule. On one hand, it would have incentivized cooperation with the empire, as open access to the imperial market was a major economic asset. On the other hand, these markets fostered significant socioeconomic inequality, which may have heightened social tensions, stressing central institutions and control.[68] In net, however, Mexica rulers must have benefited enormously from this flood of trade flowing through their seat of power. Tlatelolcan markets were the heartbeat of Mexica hegemony.
The principal merchants accumulated outsized wealth and political influence from this prospering trade, perhaps outstripping even hereditary nobles and warriors. We get some idea of this imbalance in the FC’s description of the tlatoani’s banquets and festivals. High-ranking military officers often appear as show-pieces at such events: the FCdescribes “those who were to dance: the commanding general and indeed all the Shorn Ones, the Otomí [warriors], the seasoned warriors, the masters of the youths.”[69] In contrast, the “principal merchants did not dance; they only sat; they remained watching, because it was they who gave the banquet.” Indeed, elsewhere we see the principal merchants purchasing supplies for such festivals, demonstrating their opulent wealth and the emperor’s reliance upon their economic means to sustain important sociopolitical events.[70] While the warrior nobility had the honor of dancing, the principal merchants were the sponsors, sitting at places of honor–their wealth conferred real power. Indeed, in other contexts, the principal merchants were treated with the honors normally afforded to nobility; they wore the same maguey fiber capes, for example, when going around their business in the city.[71]
The influence of the merchant class extended to foreign affairs, ensuring that market interests would always be involved in foreign policy decisions. Most prominently, this was due to the foreign intelligence roles played by the “disguised merchants” (naoaloztomecatl), “spying merchants,” and “vanguard merchants” (oztomecatl).[72] These three classes of merchants were responsible for trade outside of imperial territory. The disguised merchants would learn foreign languages, cut their hair, and even anoint themselves with ochre to blend in within hostile territories, facilitating lucrative private trade.[73] However, the emperor also tasked them with collecting intelligence, which they reported upwards when they returned. The spying merchants had a similar role, but infiltrated enemy territory during wartime, gathering urgent military intelligence in “warlike places” and “regions of battle.”[74] The vanguard merchants took on still greater responsibility, leading large diplomatic delegations and even going to war against foreign polities in the emperor’s name. The diplomatic angle of these responsibilities is clear in the FC’s description of how they are trained: for example, the boys were advised to “watch thy words [and] greet others well” at foreign banquets.[75] These were not simple trading expeditions, but important (and dangerous) political missions: the vanguard merchants went “girt for war… through the enemy’s land, where they might die and where they took captives”[76]; these were “places of glory, of renown.”[77] When they returned, they were honored in kind–the emperor “made them like his sons.”[78]
Importantly, this entire intelligence apparatus remained housed within the institutional hierarchy of the merchants, not the military. The disguised, spying, and vanguard merchants all reported to the principal merchants first: “When they came to reach their homes, thereupon the disguised merchants sought out the principal merchants; they discussed with them the nature of the places they had gone to see.”[79] Only after this briefing did they go to the emperor. As a result, the principal merchants’ perspectives and interests filtered the foreign intelligence the emperor received.
Perhaps in part due to the outsize influence of these merchants, the primary objectives of most Aztec military campaigns seem to have been economic. First of all, military victories nearly always came with tribute payments. After conquering a city, Aztec rulers collected spoils of war to pay their troops and allies, then set up a recurring payment system. “At once was set the tribute, the impost,” the FC relates, and “forthwith a steward was placed in office who would watch over and levy the tribute.”[80] Even the goal of imperial governance is clear: the steward’s job was to ensure tribute was paid, not to interfere with local affairs. They carefully regulated these payments, keeping meticulous records across the 38 provinces in a pictorial ledger known today as the Codex Mendoza.[81] The Aztecs prioritized this flow of resources over political control, extracting the resources necessary to support the imperial core without stretching themselves too thin.
Further from home, the Aztecs focused on maintaining trade rights in regions with valuable resources. A detailed account of one of these wars, a protracted conflict in the Mixtec and Maya city-states to the empire’s south, is given in the FC. These regions, known among the Aztecs as Anauac and Ayotlan, held large supplies of feathers–lightweight luxury goods that the Aztecs used to fund their military coalition and adorn ritual attire. To gain access to these resources, the tlatoani Auitzotzin assembled a large contingent of vanguard merchants and explicitly tasked them with “penetrating” the land; Anauac was to be “reconnoitered” by the party, with whom he sent 1600 valuable maguey fiber capes.[82] This was not merely an economic mission, but a political one: the merchants “went girt for war” and passed through such “warlike lands” that they “journeyed not by day… but by night.”[83] When the merchants arrived in Anauac, they handed over the capes, and the “rulers of Anauac gave in return [feathers].”[84] The projection of the Aztec military might have facilitated a lucrative exchange.
Soon, however, the FC recounts that another group of merchants “had been besieged” by a coalition of “large” city-states in Anauac.[85] This siege lasted four years. After this lengthy period, a broad coalition of Basin city-states came to relieve them, and “in that place war was waged.”[86] The cycle was repeated a few years later; again, Aztec merchants were besieged in Anauac, and again Auitzotzin sent aid, dispatching an army under then-general Moctezuma, before learning that the merchants themselves had broken the siege and defeated the enemy.[87] “At that time,” at last, “all the land of Anauac was opened up,” and their goods, such as quetzal feathers, made their way to Tlatelolcan markets.[88] This open trade continued to be enforced under Moctezuma when the Basin city-states “Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, Uexlota, Coatlichan, Chalco, Uitzilopochco, Azcapotzalco, Quautitlan, and Otampan” went to war to avenge a group of vanguard merchants slain abroad in Anauac.[89]
These military campaigns in Anauac served a clear economic purpose: securing valuable feathers. These feathers were used to pay allies in the imperial coalition, and also powered local artisanal economies and religious ceremonies, legitimizing Mexica rule. The campaigns seem to have successfully secured this crucial resource: the FC reveals that after these conquests, Auitzotzin’s vanguard merchants “had become trading merchants when first they penetrated the land of the Anauac,”[90] and it was during his reign that “the precious feathers came to appear,” “commerce flourished” and featherworking prospered in the capital.[91] Indeed, during this period “the feather artisans of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelulco mingled with each other,”[92] rising in “glory… renown… [and] wealth” to “almost equal” the vanguard merchants.[93]
The Aztecs designed their military capabilities to facilitate these large, seasonal expeditions to extract tribute and protect trade. Firstly, they developed and maintained a devastating army, capable of crushing any Mesoamerican competitor in high-intensity warfare. They staffed this army with well-trained soldiers, whom they indoctrinated from an early age into a robust military culture. The state, the FCnotes, “reared the boys and girls with great sternness… not in the house of their parents.”[94] For a young nobleman, this training would follow a set path. At age ten, he went to the priests’ house to learn obedience and the state religion.[95] At age fifteen, he took up arms, joining other noble youth in formal military training at local facilities; at twenty, he went to war, following an assigned veteran mentor.[96] This education of “fear and submission” and “austerity and rigor” created a highly skilled warrior class, while at the same time it “taught them the adoration of their gods and submission to the state.”[97] These loyal, expert warriors were supported by a trained commoner army: the Mexica “occupied people under fifty in many exercises, by night and by day.”[98] This allowed them to mobilize in greater numbers than any of their geopolitical rivals, magnifying their military advantage. Their large population, so trained, served as a formidable military garrison in the center of the empire.
Yet while noble, elite warriors were always on call, the majority of the Aztec army remained dispersed throughout the year, rallying itself only for seasonal campaigns.[99] During the year, Mexica commoners had other economic roles to fill, and military men from allied states likewise returned to their homes. Without a large standing army, the Aztecs could not maintain close imperial control over the provinces, and at times even failed to effectively police the Basin itself. In a startling admission of the weakness of Aztec territorial control, the FCnotes that “the ruler was especially concerned with the keeping of watch against enemies and the guarding of the city, all day and all night… For at times, suddenly, the City of Mexico was circled by foes; perchance somewhere for this they were gathered together, and were laying a snare.”[100] Direct Mexica control outside of Tenochtitlán/Tlatelolco was limited, with firm security only extending to the borders of the city itself; beyond the causeways of Tenochtitlán, regional security remained the responsibility of local altepetls. As a result, allied and subjugated altepetls maintained sizable independent institutions and militaries, tied to the Aztec yoke only by the empire’s lucrative trade opportunities and the threat of massive retaliation against defectors.
When the need arose, this retaliation was indeed formidable, drawing upon Mexica commoners, professional warriors, and allies alike. The FC describes the mass-mobilization process behind retaliatory campaigns in detail:
The ruler first… summoned the general and the commanding general, and the brave warriors… And the ruler forthwith called upon the rulers of Texcoco and Tlacopan and the rulers in all the swamp lands, and notified them to proclaim war in order to destroy a city… then he also ordered the common folk to rise to go forth, to war.[101]
As the passage makes clear, this step was usually taken against a specific target–to “destroy a city.” And, as this language suggests, the Aztecs often practiced a terrifyingly brutal way of war. After marching to the city that was to be their victim, the Aztec army waited “until the moment that Yacauitztli, [god of] the night, would descend–that darkness would fall. And when they already were to rise against the city to destroy it… war cries were raised; there was fighting. They shot fiery arrows into the temple.”[102] The attack of this massive, well-trained force, spewing war cries and lighting blazing fires in the middle of the night, must have carried real psychological weight. It sent a clear message: resisting Aztec hegemony came with consequences.
These campaigns flexed the empire’s military might abroad, bringing new territories within the domain of Aztec trade and tribute, and punished internal defectors. However, they were also enormously disruptive, requiring thousands upon thousands of troops to uproot themselves from their daily lives and local economies. In part, the risks of this mobilization must have been mitigated by the large Mexica contingent in these armies; their large population and mobilization of commoners made them the strongest force within the coalition army. In addition, allied and subject states were well-paid for the disruption. After deciding to go to war, “the ruler then consulted with all the majordomos” to obtain “costly articles” in storage.[103] He gifted these luxury goods, including “costly capes” and “insignia of great price,” to both Mexican and allied warriors in return for their service.[104] Though expensive, this strategy preserved political goodwill and ensured dependable military support.
The Aztec military could afford these hefty payments because they did not pay for supplies. Instead, private markets and tributaries fed the itinerant army. It was, the FC tells us, “the duty of the marketplace folk to make the war provisions–biscuits, and finely ground dried maize and chia seeds, and dried maize dough, and dried, lime-treated maize dough.”[105] The “marketplace directors,” who operated under the principal merchants, assigned this tribute to private vendors, directly harnessing Tlatelolcan economic might for imperial conquest.[106] According to a modern estimate, these original supplies could sustain soldiers for only eight days, as (without beasts of burden) they were carried on each soldier’s back.[107] Tributary provinces resupplied the army on longer campaigns, allowing rapid movement within Aztec territory; however, lengthy military campaigns beyond imperial borders remained logistically taxing.
Military campaigns were only called after substantial consideration and planning. “First,” the FC tells us, the emperor “commanded masters of the youths and seasoned warriors to scan the [enemy] city and to study all the roads.”[108] From this reconnaissance, the emperor and the tecpilcalli, the council chamber of the brave warriors devoted to war,”[109] devised a strategy. They noted “all the roads–where [they were] difficult, and in what places entry could be made” and generated a “painted plan” of “how they were to take the road, what places the warriors were to enter, for how many days they would march, and how they would arrange the battle.”[110] This slow, measured approach was highly effective against stationary enemies, but poorly suited for the small, fast operations required to maintain close territorial control. Whole altepetls could be pummeled into submission, but most commoners would continue to live their lives relatively unaffected by Aztec rule. This system cheaply secured trade and tribute, but spent few resources culturally assimilating subjugated peoples; there was no real Aztec common identity or allegiance to the imperial core. As one historian put it, “this was no Rome.”[111]
Thus, we have come full circle. We have seen how the Aztec Empire’s environment necessitated an economic regime built around lively commercial markets and tribute payments, and how the Aztecs created just that system. They sacrificed close territorial control, preferring a loose hegemonic system intended to protect trade and tribute, and made few efforts to engineer a unified national identity. Their purpose-built military cut costs by staying out of the regional affairs, but punished any who threatened the economic order. The system was a success, maintaining a solid foundation upon which the Aztecs constructed the largest empire in Mesoamerican history. That well-balanced system was undermined, however, by the arrival of Spanish technology and disease.
The Spanish Conquest: Aztec Grand Strategy Undermined
The Spanish-Aztec War of 1519–1521 marked the collapse of Aztec hegemony in Mesoamerica and initiated a prolonged process of European colonization. This encounter between the Old World and the New, and the decisive victory of Europeans, has prompted a range of interpretations in an expansive scholarly literature. One early school of thought centers on Spanish heroism, portraying Cortés and his men as daring adventurers—what Restall terms a “drama in three acts.”[112] A later wave of scholarship emphasizes the decisive influence of Old World biology and technology: smallpox, horses, dogs, ships, swords, crossbows, guns, and metal armor.[113] Another camp challenges the “conquest” narrative altogether, emphasizing the agency of Cortés’ various indigenous allies and questioning how dramatic the transition of power really was.[114] The evidence I provide here aligns most closely with this last interpretation. Spanish disease and technology were powerful advantages, but insufficient to secure victory against a unified Mesoamerican state. Their most significant contribution was not in battlefield tactics, but at the grand strategic level: they disrupted the imperial order, giving discontented subjects a new power to align with. To understand Spanish victory, then, is to understand how the Spanish broke the Mexica-led Aztec coalition–and how they built their own in its place.
The Spanish relied on a cascading series of military victories to win over new allies, each of which built on the previous. The first of these crucial triumphs came soon after their February landing in Veracruz. Cortés and his men, armed with metal swords and armor, crossbows, and horses, overcame the larger force of the coastal Chontal people in a pitched battle, receiving in return critical supplies and twenty slave women.[115] Among them was a young Nahuatl woman who came to be known as Marina, Malintzin, and most famously, Malinche. Her translations from Nahuatl to Mayan, and eventually to Spanish, were crucial to enable the alliances between Spaniards and Mesoamericans that decided the conflict.[116] Striking northwest, the Spaniards attacked the more numerous Totonacs at Cempoala, and again their technological advantages proved decisive. After defeating the Totonacs in a pitched battle, the Spanish persuaded their former enemies to become allies—providing Cortés with critical reinforcements for his campaign westward toward the Aztec heartland.[117]
It was on this journey that the Spanish, their forces bolstered by their new Totonac allies (as well as Taíno and African slaves that have, until recently, been left out of the narrative),[118] won perhaps the most crucial victory of the entire war. Nearing the Basin of Mexico, the coalition entered the lands of the Otomí, whose military capabilities were so revered that they carried special status in Tenochtitlán.[119] At Tecoac, a small city southeast of Tenochtitlán, the Otomí–or, as some scholars argue, soldiers from the larger state of Tlaxcala, posing as Otomí–amassed an army to confront the foreign menace.[120] The battle, according to Spanish narrator Francisco de Aguilar, lasted fourteen or fifteen days; it must have been a mighty struggle.[121] However, in the end “the Otomís, the men of Tecoac, [were] completely annihilated… there was trampling of them. They shot them with their guns; they shot them with iron bolts; they shot them with crossbows.”[122] The Spanish weapons allowed them to break the enemy formation, blasting through traditional oak shields and cotton armor. This allowed their Totonac allies to split Otomí/Tlaxcalan forces, delivering a stunning victory. Spanish technology had defeated one of the most feared militaries in Mesoamerica. The conquistadors had announced their presence on the New World’s geopolitical stage.
The repercussions of this victory were primarily geopolitical, not strategic. Certainly, the Spanish had proven their military prowess, but they sustained serious casualties. The Tlaxcalans, whether they had been combatants in the first battle or not, still held considerable forces in reserve, while Aztec Triple Alliance forces had still not entered the fray. Any unified attempt to annihilate the Spanish would surely have succeeded. But the Tlaxcalans, impressed by the Spaniard’s military technology, saw an opportunity. “The [Tlaxcalan] lords took counsel among themselves,” the FCtells us; “they said: ‘How shall we be? Shall we, perchance, meet with them? For the Otomí is a great man of war, a brave warrior. [The Spaniards] thought nothing of them… now let us only submit… befriend… reconcile ourselves to him.”[123] They found the Spaniards quite willing to accept the extra arms. Soon, the Tlaxcalans began reaping the benefits of the alliance, directing Spanish power against the Cholulans, with whom relations had recently soured. The Tlaxcalan-Spanish alliance surprised Cholulan forces and massacred them, alongside many Cholulan civilians.[124] This atrocity provided an extra boost to the Spaniards’ military credentials. Having defeated some of Mesoamerica’s fiercest warriors, they had now also toppled one of the region’s strongest city-states.
The repercussions were seismic. The FC describes widespread upheaval: “Indeed everyone among the commoners went about overwrought; often they rose in revolt. It was just as if the earth moved, just as if the earth rebelled, just as if all revolved before one’s eyes.”[125] The authors of the FC attribute this chaos to “terror,” especially emphasizing the frightening novelty of Spanish iron.[126] Indeed, these unfamiliar items may have provoked fear, especially after devastating the Otomí and Cholulan armies, but fear does not necessarily produce uprisings. A feeling of opportunity, however, can drive subjugated peoples to violence. The Spaniards were starting to undermine the unassailability of Aztec rule.
A Holding Pattern
Messengers kept Moctezuma II, emperor of the Aztecs, well-informed of these developments. After careful consideration, Moctezuma decided on a course of action. He declared that “no one was to contend against [the Spanish] in battle,”[127] and instead welcomed them to the capital. On November 8, 1519, Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlán, where he finally met Moctezuma on the main causeway into the city amidst a vibrant display of pomp and ceremony.
Academics have long scorned this attempt at conciliation, but the strategy seems less radical in the unstable domestic environment the FC describes. If Moctezuma were managing the risk of large-scale domestic rebellion, then perhaps it would have been unwise to openly confront Cortés’ force–the psychological effect of a tactical defeat, or even an embarrassingly costly victory, could have been disastrous.[128] Furthermore, allowing Cortés to enter the capital may not have been understood as a show of weakness. Restall argues that Moctezuma essentially detained the Spaniards during this first period, what he calls the “Phoney Captivity”; he has even suggested that the emperor sought to “collect” the Spaniards like the animals he kept in Tenochtitlán’s extensive zoo.[129] Less radically, Moctezuma may have simply been treating Cortés like he would treat any other less powerful leader within the empire. In the FC, we hear that both the emperor traditionally required both “friendly and unfriendly lords” to attend his feasts.[130]Following this practice allowed Moctezuma a moment to pause, calm things down, and size up the Spaniards as enemies or potential allies. Indeed, he seems to have achieved this effect. The Spaniards remained peacefully in the Aztec capital for 237 days, during which time Cortés claims to have held Moctezuma captive; most scholars, however, agree that this period instead represented a break in hostilities, a stilling of the Spanish threat.[131] In short, Moctezuma’s strategy was working.
War Begins
Movement began again in May 1520, when Cortés left the city to confront a new Spanish force sent by the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar. Over the past year, Cortés had severely overstepped his mandate, and Velázquez dispatched an expedition to reign him in. Cortés managed to defeat the force in battle and recruited the survivors to his ranks, significantly bolstering his force.[132] As Restall points out, these troops and their equipment–along with more supply ships sent in 1521–bolstered the overall Spanish force into the thousands, representing a significant military asset.[133] This was well for Cortés, as the situation in the capital escalated during his absence. His deputy, Pedro de Alvarado, took advantage of the June festival of Huitzilopochtli to seize more Aztec gold, systematically massacring hundreds of worshipers in the process.[134] The Mexica responded en masse. The quickly marshaled forces “shot at [the invaders] with arrows with barbed points, with spears, and with tridents, and they cast at them barb-pointed arrows with broad obsidian points… It was as if a mass of deep yellow reeds spread over the Spanish,” the FCtells us.[135] This assault forced the Spanish and their allies to take the defensive, barricading themselves in the imperial palace. As part of this move, they took many captives–including Moctezuma himself.
When Cortés returned, the Mexica allowed him to rejoin Alvarado in the palace, but the situation seemed dire. The Spaniards were surrounded, besieged by enraged Mexica warriors with few avenues for escape. Outside Tenochtitlán, however, the twin humiliations of the Huitzilopochtli massacre and Moctezuma’s captivity had seismic psychological effects. Support for the Mexica began to crumble. “When Moctezuma was made captive,” the FC recounts, the leaders who had accompanied him to meet Cortés–the rulers of Tenochtitlan’s Triple Alliance partners, Texcoco and Tlacopan–“not only hid themselves, took refuge, [but] they abandoned him in anger.”[136] Suddenly, the Aztec war machine shrunk dramatically. According to modern estimates, the empire’s emergency reserves declined by an order of magnitude, from ~250,000-500,000 to ~43,000.[137] The Mexica had lost the ability to mobilize the strategic resources of an empire. From now on, Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco would contend with the Spanish largely alone.
War in Earnest: 1521
Still, the Mexica were formidable opponents. Spanish forces withered within the palace, unable to secure sufficient supplies. Eventually, they were forced to gamble. On the night of June 30-July 1, Cortés and his followers fled the city on the so-called Noche Triste.[138] It was a disaster. The Mexica trapped the fleeing Spanish on the causeways out of the city, attacking them from behind and catching them in the crossfire with bows and arrows from canoes on either side.[139] The carnage was immense.
In this moment, the Spaniards were completely vulnerable. A unified, vengeful Aztec polity could have easily demolished them. Instead, Texcoco harbored Cortés and his shattered army; one of their lords “was guiding” the Spanish after they retreated from the city; he “went pointing out [the way] to them, making them avoid [the wrong way], undertaking things for them, cautioning them.”[140] The Texcocan defection was devastating for the Mexica. Texcoco was one of the three altepetls of the Triple Alliance alongside Tenochtitlán and Tlacopan, and the second strongest altepetl in the Basin. Tlaxcala and Texcoco probably represented the two greatest threats to the Mexica, and now they were united against them. Nor were these forces alone. Altepetls around the Basin were switching sides; the Teocalhueyacans of the northern basin, for example, “came to meet [the Spanish], to guide them” after their loss, receiving them at the Teocalheuyacan capital of Otoncalpulco.[141] The Mexica’s weakness had been exposed, and the centrifugal forces of the empire were unleashed.
In 1521, the Spaniards renewed their attack, and altepetls continued to defect. Former allies around the Basin threw their weight behind the Spanish. Most damaging was the defection of the “people of the floating gardens,” the chinampa-based city-states on Lake Xochimilco and Lake Chalco to Tenochtitlán’s south. These altepetls had been key to the Triple Alliance’s success since it began in 1430, providing huge agricultural surpluses from their expansive chinampa complexes and assisting in many foreign campaigns.[142] Their large population and lacustrine lifestyle also made these city-states formidable naval powers, well-accustomed to waging war from canoes. This allowed them to strike directly at Tenochtitlán/Tlatelolco itself. The FC describes how “the Xochimilchans, the Cuitlauacans, those of Itztapalapan, and still others… came assembled in boats… so they might help the Mexicans.”[143] The Mexicans welcomed eagerly, providing weapons, shields, and valuable chocolate, but “the Xochimilcans thereupon roared, hurled themselves upon the boats. They by no means helped us; they only thereupon robbed the people.”[144] Although the Mexicans routed the rebels in the subsequent battle, the defection of such powerful, closely allied city-states shows the extent to which the Mexica imperial structure was crumbling around them.
The war canoes of Xochimilco, Cuitlauaca, and Itztapalapan also helped facilitate the ultimately deadly strategy of the Spanish: laying siege to the capital. The Spanish alliance had already blocked every causeway leading to the city to prevent supplies from entering, and built European ships for a blockade.[145] European ship-building technology is often credited with winning mastery over the lake, but in truth control of the lake remained contested until Xochimilco, Cuitlauaca, and Itztapalapan joined the Spanish. Previously, “the brave [Mexica] warriors waged war in boats; the shield-boatmen shot arrows at them,” the FC relates; “many times they fought.”[146] Afterward, however, the FCrelates that “everywhere the Xochimilchans went surrounding us with boats,” and the naval battle was won.[147] It was a pivotal moment. With Xochimilchan war canoes blocking supply lines into Tenochtitlán, “all the common folk suffered much” from the siege; “in large numbers they died of hunger” as the Spanish and their allies “pressed us back as if with a wall… [and] herded us.”[148] Unable to import food or fresh water, the FC specifies that many Tenochcas and Tlatelolcans died from starvation and disease–“a bloody flux”–or from drinking the noxious nitrous waters of the lake.[149] Without access to trade, Tenochtitlán’s worst weakness was exposed: alone, it could not sustain its people.
Naval assistance from defecting city-states also enabled the Spanish death blow. Where previously Mexica “shield boats from two sides [had] pressed upon”[150] Spanish attackers on the causeways, mutilating invading forces in a savage crossfire, Tlatelolcan boatmen and archers now had to engage Xochimilcan, Cuitlauacan, and Mizquican war canoes.[151] Enemy ground forces were free to advance towards the city. The Mexicans’ great defensive advantage–the lake itself–was neutralized. Now, a great army, bolstered by “all of the various people” of formerly allied city-states–now including both Texcoco and Tlacopan[152] –could fight the Mexica man to man, backed by Spanish fire.[153] Facing superior numbers and Spanish weapons, Mexica resistance eventually broke.
The FC ended there, in a crushing scene, as Tenochtitlán surrendered at last to Cortés and his allies. Yet the FC’s final message does not laud the Spanish conquerors. Indeed, it does not mention them at all. Instead, a Mexica crier articulates a profound sense of lost unity: “When there was yet Moctezuma, when there was a conquest,” he cries, “the Mexicans, the Tlatilulcans, the Tepanecans, the Acolhuans, and those of the floating gardens–all of us moved together when we conquered.” Yet over treasure, that coalition was lost, and the Aztec house fell to ruin. “The green stone, the gold, the precious feathers, and still other precious stones, the fine turquoise, the lovely cotinga, the roseate spoonbill,” he laments, “they gave it to Moctezuma. It arrived there together. All the tribute, the gold was together there in Tenochtitlán.”[154]
Conclusion
Edward Luttwak, author of classic studies of Roman and Byzantine grand strategy, insists that a state’s explicit intentions are nearly worthless in the study of grand strategy.[155] Instead, he argues, scholars must glean evidence of strategy from state behavior, assuming that a state’s actions speak louder than its words.
Here, I have applied this same approach to the Aztecs, rather than Rome or Byzantium, using a source shaped by Nahuatl voices: the Florentine Codex. Together, a behavior-based approach and the Nahuatl perspective within the FC pierce through the distortions and biases introduced by colonial Spanish observers to reveal a clear, rational, cohesive Aztec grand strategy. The Mexica, limited by the scarce resources on the island of Tenochtitlán, took advantage of their central position to develop a thriving trade economy, which they regulated carefully and protected with a formidable itinerant military. Trade incentives and military deterrence enabled them to form a coalition of city-states in the Basin of Mexico and project power beyond the Basin, generating still greater revenues. Their system remained deliberately lean. To avoid overextension, the Aztecs left local governments intact and refrained from challenging existing regional identities with a program of cultural assimilation. As a result, the empire lacked a widespread common identity, and the provinces’ allegiance to the imperial core remained instrumental. Without any great power rivals to offer an alternative order, the lack of cohesion was not critically dangerous, but the arrival of the Spanish fundamentally changed the strategic landscape. Eurasian disease created chaos and discontent, while Spanish weapons lent the newcomers the credibility they needed to provoke a widespread uprising. The collapse of the Aztec order under these shocks should not be mistaken for evidence of inherent weakness or irrationality. Their careful grand strategy was undone only by threats they could not have foreseen.
Glossary
Acolhuan: the people of the eastern Basin of Mexico. Their capital was Texcoco.
Altepetl: the fundamental Mesoamerican political unit, often likened to the Greek “city-state.”
Aztec: a collective term encompassing the peoples of the Triple Alliance.
Nahuatl: refers to both the Aztec language and the empire’s predominant ethnic group, a broad designation that includes Acolhuans, Tepenecs, Tlaxcalans, and Mexicans, among others.
Pochteca: the Aztec merchant class. The term can refer to both individual merchants and their institutions collectively.
Tenochca: the people of Tenochtitlán.
Tepenecs: the people of the western Basin of Mexico. Originally, their capital lay at Azcapotzalco, but the Tepenec city of Tlacopan rebelled, joining the Triple Alliance and overthrowing Azcapotzalco.
Tlatelolcans: the people of Tlatelolco. The FC refers to these people as the “Tlatilulcans” of “Tlatilulco”; here, I follow the conventional spelling.
Totonacs: a coastal Mesoamerican people near Veracruz. The Totonacs initially resisted Cortés at the town of Cempoalla, but eventually allied with him against the Aztecs.
Triple Alliance: a political coalition of the Mexica/Tenochtitlán/Tlatelolco, Acolhua/Texcoco, and Tepeneca/Tlacopan, which overthrew Azcapotzalco’s hegemony and led the Aztec Empire.
Mexica: an ethnic group said to descend from the people of mystical Aztlan in the north. Includes the Tenochca and Tlatelolcans.
[1] Matt Gardiner is a rising senior at Georgetown University studying History and Biology. He is interested in the ways environmental degradation often leads to social unrest, and wants to use historical case studies to inform resource management that mitigates the chances of scapegoating and violence.
[2] Most influential are Hernán Cortés, Letters from Mexico (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain, trans. Janet Burke and Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2012), and Diego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain, trans. Doris Heyden (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009). Durán’s account, composed in Texcoco after the conquest, is based in part on Nahuatl testimony and codices (especially a lost codex now known to scholars as “Codex X”) and therefore would provide rich material for further study. However, it also relies heavily on the first-hand testimony of conquistador Francisco de Aguilar; for this reason, I chose here to prioritize the Florentine Codex.
[3] Venetian ambassador Gasparo Contarini in Matthew Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History (New York: Ecco, 2018), p. 6.
[4] Davíd Carrasco, City of Sacrifice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999), pp. 1-2.
[5] Inga Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 2.
[6] See George C. Vaillant, The Aztecs of Mexico, 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1978); Hugh Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993); and Tzvetan Todorov, The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other,trans. Richard Howard (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), who all give irrational captive-taking significant weight in explaining the Aztec fall.
[7] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés.
[8] Camilla Townsend, Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
[9] Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1967), p. 335.
[10] Paul M. Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 5. Emphasis original.
[11] Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany Between the World Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 13.
[12] Hal Brands. What Good Is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (Cornell University Press, 2014), p. 4.
[13] Williamson Murray, “Thoughts on Grand Strategy,” in The Shaping of Grand Strategy, ed. Williamson Murray, Richard Hart Sinnreich, and James Lacey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 2.
[14] Again, see Vaillant, The Aztecs of Mexico; Thomas, Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico; and Todorov, The Conquest of America.
[15] See, for example, Miguel León-Portilla, Bernadino de Sahagún: First Anthropologist (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002).
[16] Ángel María Garibay, Historia de la Literatura Nahuatl, vol. 2 (Mexico City: Ed. Porrua, 1954), pp. 69–74.
[17] Arthur J. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, introduction to General History of the Things of New Spain: The Florentine Codex, trans. Arthur J. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble (Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research, 1950-1982), introductory volume, p. 45.
[18] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, pp. 11; Rebecca Dufendach, “Threefold Manuscripts: the Nine Texts of the Florentine Codex,” Colonial Latin American Review 32, no. 4 (2023): pp. 508-544.
[19] For an impressive study of the indigenous sources left by the Aztecs, see Townsend, Fifth Sun.
[20] For a striking example of the use of first person, see Book 12’s description of the Spanish conquest, written, it seems, by scholars present during the fall of Tenochtitlán/Tlatelolco only a few decades earlier. Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12.
[21] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, pp. 12, 40-41. Matthew Restall argues that the FC represents a “late-sixteenth-century Tlatelolcan-Spanish narrative” and shares a “highly critical Tlatelolca view” of the conquest, and thus the source does not provide a useful Aztec perspective. However, the range of Sahagún’s travels and the diversity of the FC’s authors still make the text uniquely insightful, if used with appropriate caution. See Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortes 48, p. 68.
[22] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 47.
[23] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 49.
[24] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 31.
[25] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, pp. 35-36. There was one exception to this rule: in 1570, Sahagún circulated a draft manuscript among other Franciscans in New Spain for feedback. However, Sahagún and Nahuatl scholars composed the entire text.
[26] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, pp. 48, 68.
[27] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 11.
[28] Susan Toby Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), p. 444.
[29] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 75; Cortés in Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, p. 11.
[30] Sara Rosales-Torres, Laura E. Beramendi-Orosco, Emily McClung de Tapia, and Guillermo Acosta-Ochoa, “Palynological analysis of an archaeological chinampa in Xochimilco (Basin of Mexico). Construction technology and agricultural production,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 44 (2022): 103532.
[31] Susan Toby Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), p. 444.
[32] Ross Hassig, War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 141.
[33] Alexandra Biar, “Navigation Paths and Urbanism in the Basin of Mexico Before the Conquest,” Ancient Mesoamerica 34, no. 1 (2023): pp. 104–23.
[34] Hassig, War and Society, 144; Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 67.
[35] Biar, “Navigation Paths,” p. 112.
[36] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 104; Eugenia López-López, Volker Heck, Jacinto Elías Sedeño-Díaz, Martin Gröger, and Alexis Joseph Rodríguez-Romero, “A Comparing Vision of the Lakes of the Basin of Mexico: From the First Physicochemical Evaluation of Alexander von Humboldt to the Current Condition,” Frontiers in Environmental Science 11, no. 5 (2023).
[37] Hassig, War and Society, pp. 138-39.
[38] Emily de Tapia, “Prehispanic Agricultural Systems in the Basin of Mexico,” in Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Pre-Columbian Americas, ed. David Lentz (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 128.
[39] Alejandro Pastrana et al., “Aztec Obsidian Industries.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, edited by Deborah L. Nichols and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, pp. 329-341. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
[40] Frances F. Berdan, The Aztec Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), p. 20.
[41] Hassig, War and Society, p. 136.
[42] Hassig, War and Society, p. 144.
[43] Tenochtitlán and Tlatelolco shared Mexica ancestry and identity, and moved together on most policy issues. However, the two had separate powers, and there were occasional conflicts until Tenochtitlán gained a decisive upper hand in an internecine war in 1473. See Burr Cartwright Brundage, A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972), Ch. 9.
[44] Hassig, War and Society, p. 139.
[45] Hassig, War and Society, p. 151.
[46] Hassig, War and Society, p. 155.
[47] Hassig, War and Society, p. 152.
[48] Hassig, War and Society, p. 153.
[49] Hassig, War and Society, p. 145.
[50] J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacán: The Spanish Domination of the Tarascan Kingdom in Western Mexico, 1521–1530 (Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1985), p. 6.
[51] Hassig, War and Society, p. 152.
[52] Camilla Townsend, for example, describes the Flower Wars as “ceremonial,” a “kind of Olympic games” (Fifth Sun, p. 53). See also William H. Prescott, The Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 1 (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1972), p. 34.
[53] Barry L. Isaac, “The Aztec ‘Flowery War’: A Geopolitical Explanation,” Journal of Anthropological Research. p. 39, no. 4 (1983): pp. 415–32.
[54] Robert A. Halberstein, Michael H. Crawford, and Hugo G. Nutini, “Historical‐demographic analysis of Indian populations in Tlaxcala, Mexico,” Social Biology 20, no. 1 (1973): p. 41.
[55] Hassig, War and Society, p. 152.
[56] Hassig, War and Society, p. 152.
[57] Guido Alfani and Alfonso Carballo, “Income and Inequality in the Aztec Empire on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest,” Nature Human Behavior 7, no. 8 (2023): pp. 1265-1274.
[58] Burr Cartwright Brundage. A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1972.
[59] Townsend, Fifth Sun, p. 47.
[60] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 41, 51, 54-55, 67.
[61] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 1-3.
[62] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 67.
[63] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 1-3.
[64] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 24.
[65] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 69; Book 9, p. 23.
[66] For a lively description of the Tlatelolcan market, see Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 67.
[67] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 46.
[68] Alfani and Carballo, “Income and Inequality,” pp. 1265-1274.
[69] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 38.
[70] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 38, 48.
[71] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 7.
[72] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 13
[73] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 21.
[74] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 5-6.
[75] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 14. Interestingly, the Codex specifies that even small boys came along, carrying nothing, presumably to build up practical experience seeing skilled diplomacy from a young age.
[76] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 17.
[77] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 14.
[78] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 19.
[79] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 22.
[80] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 53-54.
[81] Frances F. Berdan and Patricia Rieff Anawalt, The Essential Codex Mendoza (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
[82] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 7-8.
[83] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 12, 17-18.
[84] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book9, p. 17.
[85] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 3.
[86] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 3.
[87] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, pp. 3-6.
[88] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 6.
[89] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 24.
[90] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 90.
[91] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 91.
[92] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 90.
[93] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 9, p. 88.
[94] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 74.
[95] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 71.
[96] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 72.
[97] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 77.
[98] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, introductory volume, p. 74.
[99] Hassig, War and Society, p. 144.
[100] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 56.
[101] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 56.
[102] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, pp. 52-53.
[103] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 51.
[104] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 52.
[105] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 69.
[106] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 69.
[107] Hassig, War and Society, p. 145.
[108] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 51.
[109] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 42.
[110] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 51.
[111] Clendinnen, Aztecs: An Interpretation, p. 25.
[112] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, p. 29.
[113] Camilla Townsend, for example, argues that the conflict “was almost as if Renaissance Europe had come face to face with the ancient Sumerians” (Fifth Sun, 98). For a broader view of the biological and technological disparities between the Old and New Worlds, see Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), ch. 18.
[114] See especially Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortes, pp. 208, 212, 341-42.
[115] Townsend, Fifth Sun, p. 90.
[116] For a gripping and rigorous telling of Malinche’s story, see Camilla Townsend, Malintzin’s Choices (Albuquerque, New Mexico: University of New Mexico Press, 2006).
[117] Townsend, Fifth Sun, p. 100.
[118] See Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, p. 194.
[119] Hassig, War and Society, p. 142.
[120] Whether the army was Otomí or Tlaxcalan, the Spanish-Totonac victory was impressive; they defeated either the region’s fiercest warriors or its largest military power. See Townsend, Fifth Sun, pp. 101-102.
[121] Francisco de Aguilar, Relación Breve de la Conquista de la Nueva España, 1559-1571, in Ross Hassig, “Xicotencatl: Rethinking an Indigenous Mexican Hero,” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 32, no. 1: 30.
[122] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 27.
[123] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 28.
[124] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 29.
[125] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 30.
[126] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 28. European dogs, which were much larger and often trained as attack dogs, are also mentioned.
[127] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 37.
[128] Townsend shares this concern. See Townsend, Fifth Sun, p. 104.
[129] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, p. 212.
[130] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 65.
[131] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, p. 212.
[132] See Thomas, Conquest, p. 22.
[133] Restall, When Montezuma Met Cortés, xxxi.
[134] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 56.
[135] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 56.
[136] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 45.
[137] Hassig, War and Society, p. 141.
[138] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 67.
[139] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 67.
[140] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 8.
[141] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 69.
[142] See Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 8, p. 52, which describes Tenochtitlan calling upon “the rulers of Texcoco and Tlacopan, and the rulers in all the swamp lands” to go to war.
[143] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 96.
[144] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 97.
[145] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, pp. 3-85.
[146] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 84.
[147] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 104.
[148] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 104.
[149] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 105. It is unclear exactly what disease this “bloody flux” was–today, the term often refers to dysentery.
[150] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 67.
[151] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 109. Indeed, the Codex stresses the enormous numbers of this coalition: there were “very many Tlaxcallans and Cempoallans–very many; indeed a great number; in great numbers; an abundance; a superabundance (61).
[152] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 87.
[153] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 103.
[154] Sahagún, Florentine Codex, Book 12, p. 126.
[155] Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), introduction.