The Nahuatlaca or “Civilised People” (nahua = rule of life; tlacatl, pi. tlaca = man) appear to have originally dwelt at no great distance from the Iroquois and Algonquins, on the North American coast opposite Vancouver Island, where their peculiar advancement had its first development. With them the history, in the ordinary sense, of aboriginal America begins. The Nahuatlaca alone among American peoples possessed a true though inaccurate chronology, and kept painted records of contemporary and past events. Pinturas preserved at Tezcuco variously assigned the years 387 and 439 of the Christian era as the date of the earliest migration to the south from maritime lands far to the north of California. A more probable date—about a.d. 780—was furnished to the earliest Spanish enquirers as the time when the first swarm of the Aculhuaque, or “Strong Men,” arrived in Anahuac from Aculhuacan, their previous seat northward of Xalisco, founded the pueblos of Tollan and Tollantzinco, and entered the Mexican Valley, where they settled at Culhuacan and Cohuatlichan and built on an island in the Lake a few huts, which later grew into the pueblo of Mexico. By a long subsequent immigration were founded the Tecpanec pueblos in the South-Western corner of the Lake, to which Mexico was once tributary, and on whose subjugation by Mexico the dominion found by the Conquistadores was established about a century before the Conquest. The Tecpanec pueblos, five in number, the principal one being Azcapozalco, subjugated a rival confederacy, on the opposite shore, headed by Tezcuco, about 1406. In this conquest they were materially assisted by the people of two villages (Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco), founded on the island of Mexico nearly a century before by a wandering tribe of non-Nahuatlacan origin, to whom the Tecpanecs had given the name of Azteca, or “Crane-people.” Over these lake villages, after the Tezcucans had been subdued by their aid, the Tecpanecs maintained a relentless tyranny, which at length produced a revolt, in the course of which the Mexican villagers obtained a complete victory. The Tezcucans, who rose against their Tecpanec conquerors shortly afterwards (1431), regained their liberty; and the two Mexican pueblos entered into an alliance with Tezcuco, in which Tlacopan, a Tecpanec pueblo which had remained neutral during the struggle, was also included. This confederacy conquered and considerably enlarged the dominion acquired by the Tecpanec confederacy, and held in subjection a large and populous tract extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and containing all the best parts of the southern extremity of North America, where it narrows towards the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. One important district only was excluded from it. This was a highland tract held by Tlaxcallan, Huexotzinco, and Cholollan,—pueblos of the Nahuatlaca, founded in early times, and never subjugated either by the Tecpanecs, or by the confederated pueblos who succeeded to their dominion. At the Spanish Conquest Cholollan, the largest and most prosperous of the three, was in alliance with the Lake pueblos; and there is little doubt that Tlaxcallan and Huexotzinco would have been admitted to the same status but for the Mexican Rule of Life, which demanded war every twenty days, ostensibly as a means of procuring sacrifices for the sun and other gods, but really to provide the material for the cannibal feasts by which each sacrifice was terminated. Had peace been made between the pueblos of the Lake and those of the highlands, both groups must have had recourse to distant frontiers for the means of fulfilling what was universally regarded by the Nahuatlaca as an imperative obligation. Human sacrifice, indeed, was understood to be necessary to the cosmic order, for without it the sun, who was conceived as a god of animal nature, subsisting by food and drink, would not merely cease to yield his warmth, but would perish out of the heavens.
The importance of the New World to Europe, in the first century after the Discovery, chiefly rested on the fact that it was found to be a huge storehouse of gold and silver. To a large extent its resources in this respect had already been worked by the aborigines. Gold is the only metal which occurs in its native or unmixed state, and is largely found in the debris of those rocks which are most exposed to atmospheric action. It therefore early attracts the attention of savages, who easily apply it to purposes both of use and ornament; and more elaborate working in gold is one of the first arts of advanced life. Silver attracts attention and acquires value from its similarity, in most qualities, to gold; in Mexico both metals were regarded as of directly divine origin. The Toltecs, or people of Tollan, were reputed the earliest workers in gold and silver; and as this pueblo was understood to have been founded by a Nahuatlacan tribe at least as early as A.D. 780, these metals had been sought and wrought in the Mexican district for at least 700 years. There is no reason for concluding that after being manufactured they were largely, or indeed at all, exported; hence the immense accumulations of metallic wealth which were found in the Mexican district—accumulations greedily seized by the Conquistadores, and poured through Spanish channels into the mints of Europe, where the stock of gold had probably not been substantially increased since the fall of the Roman Empire. Still larger accessions to the mineral wealth of Europe followed the discovery and conquest of Peru—especially after the Spaniards became masters of the mines of Potosi—and of New Granada, where an almost savage people had laid up great quantities of the precious metals in the form of utensils and rude works of art: and from the discovery and conquest of these richly endowed countries, and the plunder of their stored-up wealth, date the serious efforts of European nations other than Spain and Portugal to acquire territory in the New World.
Twenty-five years passed between Colombo’s discovery and the first intelligence of Mexico. During this period Spanish America was limited to the four greater Antilles—Espanola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica. On the northern shore of the South American continent, in what is now Venezuela, attempts had been made to effect a lodgment, but in vain; this district, and indeed the continent generally, was long regarded as a mere field for slave-raiding, the captives being sold in Española and Cuba. The smaller islands, and the other adjacent continental coasts, remained unconquered and uncolonised; much as on the opposite side of the Atlantic the Canaries and the Madeira group were parcelled into feudal estates and parishes, while the neighbouring shore of Africa remained unattempted. The Spaniards, wholly new to their task, had to gain experience as colonists in a savage land. Often their settlements were founded on ill-chosen sites. When Isabella, Colombo’s first colony in Espanola, had to be abandoned, San Domingo was founded on the opposite side of the island (1494); the site of this, again, was changed by Ovando, the successor of Colombo after his removal from the administration (1502); and the same thing happened at Santiago de los Caballeros. Of the eighteen towns founded in the early years of colonisation a century later only ten survived. A few towns were founded in Puerto Rico by Ovando; Cuba was colonised by Diego Velasquez, and Jamaica by Juan de Esquivel. But the settlements in both were few and unprosperous, Santiago de Cuba having in the course of a few years become almost deserted. Sugar was the only crop yielding profits; gold was procured in the smallest quantities; the best investment was to take over horned cattle, turn them loose to breed, and hunt the savage herd for its hides and tallow, which were shipped for sale to Europe.
By such means, and by mercilessly tasking the Indians as labourers in field and mine, many emigrants in time became rich men, and looked eagerly round for new and wider fields of adventure. Slave-raiding on the continental coasts was a favourite employment, and a certain quantity of gold was readily bartered for trifles by the natives, wherever the Spaniards landed; and by these pursuits the Cuban colonists at length reached the coast pueblos of Yucatan, which were comparatively recent outposts of Nahuatlacan advancement. Velasquez, the governor of Cuba, in 1518 sent a squadron of vessels to reconnoitre this coast more fully; Grijalva, who commanded, traced the shore-line as far as the tierra caliente of Mexico, and reached Vera Cruz, then as now the port of Mexico. Here Carib seamen shipped the surplus tributes and manufactured products of the Lake pueblos for barter in the southern parts of their extensive field of navigation. From Vera Cruz Grijalva coasted northwards as far as the Panuco river. Many large pueblos were descried in the distance; the names of Mexico and of Motecuhzoma, its Tlatohuani (“Speaker,” in the sense of “Commander” or Supreme Chief), first fell on Spanish ears; and the description of the great Lake pueblo was listened to with more interest, because in these parts the exploring party obtained by barter an immense quantity of gold. Here, at length, signs of civilised life were found; large hopes of wealth, whether by commerce or plunder, were excited; and on the return of the expedition Velasquez ordered a new one to proceed thither without delay. His design was simply to prosecute the remunerative trade which Grijalva had begun. Others formed bolder schemes; and his secretary and treasurer, probably in collusion with the schemers, persuaded him to entrust