In 1519 Hernando Cortes and the Spanish

army landed on the east coast of Mexico.

From that moment the Aztecs I~ecame a part

of European history. This book is an attempt

to reconstruct Mexican life on the eve of the

Conquest, using both archaeological evi-

dence and early documentary sources. It

draws on the writings of the men who took

part in the Conquest, and saw with their own

eyes the city of Tenochtitlan before its

destruction: Cortes letters to Emperor

Oaaraes q, ~f~er~d~ ~D~at ~ C~titk~, b,~t~t~

de Tapia, Francisco de Aguilar, and an anony-

mous soldier. Warwick Bray has created an

intimate portrait of the Aztec peoples and civ-

ilization, a rich culture which lacked the arch,

the wheel, iron tools, and alphabetic writing,

and had a strange religion rife with idolatry

and human sacrifice.

Aztec history falls naturally into three

phases: the period of wandering, 1168-1325;

consolidation in the Valley of Mexico,

1325-1440; expansion and conquest,

1440-1521. The period of wandering ended

by the founding of Tenochtitlan. For this per-

iod the only documentation is the form of leg-

ends. The second phase was a period of con-

fusion when the new states in the Valley had

not yet achieved a balance of power. Petty

kingdoms, consisting sometimes of only one

city and rarely of more than three or four

important towns, squabbled among them-

selves to extend political influence, to

squeeze even heavier taxes from tributary

towns, or to gain a little more territory here or

there. The victors could now dictate terms to

the other states of the Valley, and the situation

was formalized in the Triple Alliance, a treaty

between Tenochtitlan, Texcoco and Tlaco-

pan, which provided for mutual defense an~ a