Old Mexico
Indigenous Days
No one knows when humans first arrived in what’s now Mexico, but scholars say ancient Mesoamerican farmers tilled the earth by roughly 8000 BC. Eventually, agricultural advances fed the growth of a variety of Mesoamerican civilizations – including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya, Toltec, and Aztec.
The Olmec are widely credited with establishing cultural and religious traditions that the Maya and Aztec built upon. Teotihuacan’s inhabitants built one of the largest cities in the world at the time. The Zapotec invented a hieroglyphic writing system, perhaps the earliest American script. The Maya made a calendar more accurate than anything Europeans could muster until after the Scientific Revolution. And the Toltec built a commanding capital, Tula, just 45 miles (75 km) from what’s now Mexico City.
Rise and Fall of the Aztecs
After the Toltec succumbed to drought and invasion in the 12th century, an alliance of tribes emerged that collectively came to be known as the Aztecs. Chief among the tribes was the Mexica, from whose name “Mexico” derives. By the time the Spanish arrived in the early 16th century, the Aztecs had built an empire that spanned most of modern Mexico.
Yet that empire crumbled quickly when the conquistador HernÃ?¡ndo CortÃ?©s invaded in 1519. He had just a few hundred men, but he cunningly exploited Aztec religious beliefs (notably, that the plumed serpent god Quetzalcoatl would one day return from the east), his superior military technology (notably, guns and horses), and the troops of Aztec enemies (notably, the Tlaxcalan) – not to mention a smallpox epidemic that ravaged the Aztec population.
The Spanish then exploited the indigenous Mesoamericans, too, or at least the ones who were left after more Spanish-borne diseases took hold. Some estimates say more than 90 percent of the indigenous population died during the first century of Spanish rule.
Colonial Culture
The Spanish razed the great Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, and built Mexico City in its place. While the government constructed colonial buildings and bureaucracy, the Catholic Church went to work winning converts. Soon the church delivered more social services than the government – from education, to medical care, to small business loans. It also delivered the Spanish Inquisition, which arrived in the New World in 1571.
From early on, colonial society was divided into castes. There were peninsulares, people born in Spain (who got all the best jobs); criollos, “pure-bred” Europeans born in Mexico; mestizos, people of mixed European and indigenous descent; and slaves and indigenous people, who were frequently exploited despite decrees that purported to protect them. If society was stratified, though, it was far from fully segregated. By the 19th century, mestizos were the majority.
Spain, Spain, Go Away
By then, Spain had pressing problems at home, and many Mexicans were itching for independence. In 1808, French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain – and inadvertently sparked a revolt 6,000 miles away in Mexico City. With mother Spain preoccupied, factions of peninsulares and criollos began struggling for control.
They weren’t the only ones who saw a chance for change. On September 16, 1810, a parish priest in the town of Dolores, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, issued his “Grito de Dolores,” calling for land redistribution, racial equality, and an end to Spanish rule. (“Grito de Dolores” is a pun that can mean both “call from Dolores” and “cry of pain.”) A popular insurrection ensued.
Hidalgo was captured and killed the following year, but the insurrection continued under another parish priest, JosÃ?© MarÃ?Âa Morelos y PayÃ?³n. Formal independence came in 1821. By then, conservative forces in Mexico had decided to align with the revolutionaries, compelling the Spanish viceroy to sign the Treaty of Cordoba. But to this day, Mexico celebrates its Independence Day every September 16, in remembrance of Father Hidalgo’s “grito.”
