Under Tlacaelel’s direction, the Aztecs created a new history for themselves. The defeat of the Tepanecs had left the Aztecs with no serious rivals for regional domination, and it was Tlacaelel’s belief that existing accounts of Aztec history did not do enough to explain and justify the new Aztec imperial order. Discarding older versions of their past, the Aztecs retold their story in a way that placed warfare at the heart of their society and culture and that required an unending series of future conquests. Tlacaelel’s vision of an imperial Aztec nation was, however, short lived. Less than twenty-five years after Tlacaelel’s death, the Aztec Empire fell to a combined force of Spanish conquistadors and native rebels.

In the aftermath of the Spanish conquest, large numbers of missionaries arrived from Spain to aid in the process of converting local populations to Christianity. The most insightful missionaries realized that they could never achieve their aim if they did not understand the history and beliefs of the newly conquered peoples. Without such understanding, they would never be able to dislodge the old belief systems or inspire the genuine embrace of Christian teachings. With this in mind, they learned the indigenous languages and tried to learn the stories, traditions, and history of the peoples of the Aztec Empire. The material they collected would become the basis of a new history of the Aztecs, a history that pointed not to future military glory but to religious conversion and integration into the emerging Spanish Empire. As you read the documents included in this activity, think about the role history plays in explaining and justifying the present. Why did Tlacaelel believe the Aztec Empire needed a new history? How was the meaning of Aztec history debated and contested in the decades following the conquest of the Aztecs by the Spanish?