Tetzcoco

Tetzcoco, the great capital of the Acolhuaque and one of the leading cities in the Basin of Mexico in the late pre-Hispanic period. Located near the eastern edge of Lake Tetzcoco, it was also the head of a powerful confederation of neighboring towns. Founded by the Chichimecs in the twelfth century, it was conquered by the Tepanecs in the early fifteenth century. Following the overthrow of the Tepanec Empire, Mexico Teno-chtitlán, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopán (present-day Tacuba) established the succeeding Empire of the Triple Alliance by 1434. The mestizo chronicler Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl extolled his native city as the cultural and intellectual center of the basin, led by two outstanding rulers: the warrior, builder, seer, and poet Nezahualcoyotl and his son Nezahualpilli. Remains of Nezahualcoyotl's famed pleasure garden, Tetzcotzinco, survive on a hill outside the present-day city of Texcoco, although there has been little excavation of the ancient capital buried beneath the city.

See alsoAlva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando; Chichimecs; Nezahualcoyotl; Nezahualpilli.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nigel Davies, The Aztecs (1973).

Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Fernando de. Obras históricas: incluyen el texto completo de las llamadas Relaciones e Historia de la nación chichimeca en una nueva versión establecida con el cotejo de los manuscritos más antiguos que se conocen. Ed. Edmundo O'Gorman & Miguel León Portilla. 2 vols. Reprint of the 3rd edition. México: Instituto Mexiquense de Cultura/Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997.

Additional Bibliography

Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin, Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón, et al. Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahua Altepetl in Central Mexico: the Nahuatl and Spanish Annals and Accounts Collected and Recorded by Don Domingo De San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

Ward, Thomas. "From the 'People' to the 'Nation': An Emerging Notion in Sahagún, Ixtlilxóchitl and Muñoz Camargo." Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 32 (2001): 223-234 and especially 227-229.

                                 Eloise QuiÑones Keber