Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

Camilla Townsend's Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs is not exactly what we were looking for. Our own interests are mainly in the preconquest period, but that comprises less than half of the book. Instead, Townsend, partly due to her use of Nahuatl annals and sources penned by Nahua or part-Nahua authors of the 1500s and 1600s, extends her history of the Mexica into the 1600s. This is admirable since the Mexica and other Nahuas did not disappear overnight with the Spanish conquest. Instead, their culture survived in many ways, despite the destruction, epidemics, and loss of political power in a highly unequal colonial society. Some, like Chimalpahin, became historians adept with adapting the Roman script for writing detailed annals or histories of the central valley of Mexico in Nahuatl. 

Townsend also tries to emphasize the voices of women, elucidate the experience of Malinche, and humanize the Aztec state (Triple Alliance and empire are problematic labels for reasons we shall not delve into here). Indeed, their complex civilization was often reduced to ugly caricatures of obscene human sacrifice or even belittled as irrational cowards (Moctezuma) in the face of the Spaniards, mistakenly believed to have been perceived as gods by the Mexica in bad, questionable histories first produced by Spaniards. In truth, relying as much as possible on Nahua sources to highlight their own memories, experiences, language, and worldview.

However, Townsend believes the Nahuatl annals and sources of the colonial era are most useful for only a century of the region's history before the colonial conquest. Thus, a reader eager for a more detailed examination of Aztec history before the conquest may be somewhat disappointed. Nonetheless, the narrative does encompass the shadowy origins of the Mexica from the distant north, as well as an outline of the history of Mesoamerica and the context in which the early Mexica entered as newcomers to the central valley. Townsend even draws on Diamond and others to help readers understand why, despite the advances made by the Aztecs and other indigenous cultures before 1492, they were "behind" when it came to metallurgy, writing, firearms, domesticated animals, and exposure to deadly diseases. The consequences of these aforementioned factors gave the Spanish a tremendous edge in their colonial expansion. 

What was most interesting for us, however, is the degree of similarity with the Incas. Like their famous Andean counterparts, the Aztecs appear to have only been one of many players in their region in the 1200s and 1300s. Only in the 1400s did their rapid expansion into an imperial power take place, often relying on both military expansion and marriage alliances with other altepetls in the central valley. Moreover, like Pachacuti, whose reign appears to have included a standardization of historical narratives on the Inca past, the Mexica under Itzcoatl had books burned when he took power, presumably leading to him being able to reshape what was later produced under his reign and that of his successors. Moreover, like Pachacuti, Itzcoatl's rise to the throne was not uncontested due him being the son of a slave woman. Pachacuti, of course, had to contend with a brother and their father who favored his sibling, according to the standard narrative of Inca imperial expansion in the 1400s. Furthermore, like the successors of Pachacuti, the Aztec rulers after Itzcoatl continued the expansion of the state (Moctezuma I, Axyacatl) and created a more centralized administration (Moctezuma II). The Aztecs, who did not use khipu to record information, must have relied on their pictures and glyph system to record information on borders, gather tribute information, and standardize calendars across the region, and use the labor and goods from tribute for public works and monuments. Nonetheless, the Inca state appears to have been far more bureaucratic and invested in infrastructure across a huge swathe of land. Intriguingly, like the Incas, the Aztecs appear to have also been unsure how to respond to the Spanish threat, although Townsend is emphatic on the Spaniards NOT being perceived as gods by the Aztecs.

The tale of Mexica expansion here is one in which the Mexica went from underdogs who had to lend their warriors to more powerful altepetls to being the dominant, hegemonic one in the 1400s and early 1500s. In addition, this entailed the growth of their capital, Tenochtitlan, into a metropolis with causeways, canals, chinampas for agriculture, and tribute imposed on conquered people to fully supply the capital and its elite. Through the practice of polygyny, the Mexica elites used their marriages to women from multiple altepetls and lineages to cement alliances and intervene in the affairs of other altepetls. Since primogeniture was not the principle on which royal succession was based, marriages to multiple women were usual within the large royal Mexican clan to determine succession, often alternating it between different branches. Most of the book focuses on the cataclysmic shock of Spanish conquest and the Mexica under colonial rule.