Texcoco: Prehispanic and Colonial Perspectives

This book brings together the work of 12 scholars on the important central Mexican city-state (or altepetl) of Texcoco. It is well known to historians of pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexico as one of the three altepeme comprising the famed Aztec Triple Alliance. Beginning in the mid-fifteenth century, Texcoco, populated by the Acolhua ethnic group, joined with Tacubaya (ethnic Tepanec) and Tenochtitlan (ethnic Mexica). The Mexica eclipsed their partners from the outset and would have continued to do so in the historical record had it not been for two extraordinary Acolhua elites, don Antonio Pimentel Tlahuitoltzin (who ruled Texcoco from 1540 to 1545) and don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (ca. 1578–1650). Their contributions to the historical record were many and offer the most serious bulwark against total Mexica historiographical dominance. Don Antonio likely commissioned a spate of pictographic manuscripts (Codex Xolotl, Mapa Quinatzin, Mapa Tlotzin, and the Oztoticpac Lands Map),...