Description
The enigmatic and powerful Tlacaelel (1398-1487), wrote annalist Chimalpahin, was ""the beginning and origin"" of the Mexica monarchy in fifteenth-century Mesoamerica. Brother of the first Moteuczoma, Tlacaelel would become ""the most powerful, feared, and esteemed man of all that the world had seen up to that time."" But this outsize figure of Aztec history has also long been shrouded in mystery. In Tlacaelel Remembered, the first biography of the Mexica nobleman, Susan Schroeder searches out the truth about his life and legacy.
A century after Tlacaelel's death, in the wake of the conquistadors, Spaniards and natives recorded the customs, histories, and language of the Nahua, or Aztec, people. Three of these chroniclers - fray Diego Duran, don Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and especially don Domingo de San Anton Munon Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin - wrote of Tlacaelel. But the inaccessibility of Chimalpahin's annals has meant that for centuries of Aztec history, Tlacaelel has appeared, if at all, as a myth.
Working from Chimalpahin's newly available writings and exploring connections and variances in other source materials, Schroeder draws the clearest possible portrait of Tlacaelel, revealing him as the architect of the Aztec empire's political power and its military might - a politician on par with Machiavelli. As the advisor to five Mexica rulers, Tlacaelel shaped the organization of the Mexica state and broadened the reach of its empire - feats typically accomplished with the spread of warfare, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. In the annals, he is considered the ""second king"" to the rulers who built the empire, and is given the title ""Cihuacoatl,"" used for the office of president and judge.
As Schroeder traces Tlacaelel through the annals, she also examines how his story was transmitted and transformed in later histories. The resulting work is the most complete and comprehensive account ever given of this significant figure in Mesoamerican history.
About the Author
Susan Schroeder is France Vinton Scholes Professor of Colonial Latin American History Emerita at Tulane University and coeditor of Indian Women of Early Mexico and Chimalpahin's Conquest: A Nahua Historian's Rewriting of Francisco Lopez de Gomara's ""La Conquista de Mexico.
Reviews
Susan Schroeder's exhilarating, highly engaging book provides an authoritative account of the mighty Mexica nobleman Tlacaelel, proving not only that such a figure did exist, but that his fingerprints on military alliances, political strategies, and even novel forms of human sacrifice can be found everywhere in the momentous rise of the Mexica capital in the fifteenth century. A scholarly tour de force."" - David Tavarez, author of The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico
Book Information
ISBN 9780806154343
Author Susan Schroeder
Format Hardback
Page Count 232
Imprint University of Oklahoma Press
Publisher University of Oklahoma Press
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 20mm
A century after Tlacaelel's death, in the wake of the conquistadors, Spaniards and natives recorded the customs, histories, and language of the Nahua, or Aztec, people. Three of these chroniclers - fray Diego Duran, don Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and especially don Domingo de San Anton Munon Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin - wrote of Tlacaelel. But the inaccessibility of Chimalpahin's annals has meant that for centuries of Aztec history, Tlacaelel has appeared, if at all, as a myth.
Working from Chimalpahin's newly available writings and exploring connections and variances in other source materials, Schroeder draws the clearest possible portrait of Tlacaelel, revealing him as the architect of the Aztec empire's political power and its military might - a politician on par with Machiavelli. As the advisor to five Mexica rulers, Tlacaelel shaped the organization of the Mexica state and broadened the reach of its empire - feats typically accomplished with the spread of warfare, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. In the annals, he is considered the ""second king"" to the rulers who built the empire, and is given the title ""Cihuacoatl,"" used for the office of president and judge.
As Schroeder traces Tlacaelel through the annals, she also examines how his story was transmitted and transformed in later histories. The resulting work is the most complete and comprehensive account ever given of this significant figure in Mesoamerican history.
About the Author
Susan Schroeder is France Vinton Scholes Professor of Colonial Latin American History Emerita at Tulane University and coeditor of Indian Women of Early Mexico and Chimalpahin's Conquest: A Nahua Historian's Rewriting of Francisco Lopez de Gomara's ""La Conquista de Mexico.
Reviews
Susan Schroeder's exhilarating, highly engaging book provides an authoritative account of the mighty Mexica nobleman Tlacaelel, proving not only that such a figure did exist, but that his fingerprints on military alliances, political strategies, and even novel forms of human sacrifice can be found everywhere in the momentous rise of the Mexica capital in the fifteenth century. A scholarly tour de force."" - David Tavarez, author of The Invisible War: Indigenous Devotions, Discipline, and Dissent in Colonial Mexico
Book Information
ISBN 9780806154343
Author Susan Schroeder
Format Hardback
Page Count 232
Imprint University of Oklahoma Press
Publisher University of Oklahoma Press
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 20mm
