Tlacopan, also called Tacuba, was a

Tepanec The Tepanecs or Tepaneca are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.The dates vary by source, including 1152 CE in Anales de Tlatelolco, 1210 from Chimalpahin, and 1226 from Ixtlilxoch ...

Mexica The Mexica (Nahuatl: , ;''Nahuatl Dictionary.'' (1990). Wired Humanities Project. University of Oregon. Retrieved August 29, 2012, frolink/ref> singular ) were a Nahuatl-speaking indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico who were the rulers of ...

altepetl The (, plural ''altepeme'' or ''altepemeh'') was the local, ethnically-based political entity, usually translated into English as "city-state," of pre-Columbian Nahuatl-speaking societiesSmith 1997 p. 37 in the Americas. The ''altepetl'' was co ...

on the western shore of

Lake Texcoco Lake Texcoco ( es, Lago de Texcoco) was a natural lake within the "Anahuac" or Valley of Mexico. Lake Texcoco is best known as where the Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan, which was located on an island within the lake. After the Spanish con ...

. The site is today the neighborhood of

Tacuba Tacuba is a municipality in the Ahuachapán department of El Salvador. Church Of Tacuba It is located in Villa of Tacuba. It is head of the municipality of the same name in the department of Ahuachapán, at about 14 Kilometers of the city of Ahu ...

, in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

Etymology

The name comes from

Classical Nahuatl Classical Nahuatl (also known simply as Aztec or Nahuatl) is any of the variants of Nahuatl spoken in the Valley of Mexico and central Mexico as a ''lingua franca'' at the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. During the s ...

''tlacōtl'', "stem" or "rod" and ''-pan'', "place in or on" and roughly translates to "place on the rods"),

History

Tlacopan was a

subordinate city-state to nearby altepetl,

Azcapotzalco Azcapotzalco ( nci, Āzcapōtzalco , , from ''wikt:azcapotzalli, āzcapōtzalli'' “anthill” + ''wikt:-co, -co'' “place”; literally, “In the place of the anthills”) is a Boroughs of Mexico City, borough (''demarcación territorial'') i ...

. In 1428, after its successful conquest of Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan allied with the neighbouring city-states of

Tenochtitlan , ; es, Tenochtitlan also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, ; es, México-Tenochtitlan was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear. The date 13 March 1325 was ...

and Texcoco, thus becoming a member of the

Aztec Triple Alliance The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance ( nci, Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, �jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ was an alliance of three Nahua city-states: , , and . These three city-states ruled that area in and around the Valley of Mexico ...

and resulting in the subsequent birth of the

Aztec Empire The Aztec Empire or the Triple Alliance ( nci, Ēxcān Tlahtōlōyān, Help:IPA/Nahuatl, �jéːʃkaːn̥ t͡ɬaʔtoːˈlóːjaːn̥ was an alliance of three Nahua peoples, Nahua altepetl, city-states: , , and . These three city-states ruled ...

.León-Portilla, M. 1992, 'The

Broken Spears ''The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico'' (Spanish title: ''Visión de los vencidos: Relaciones indígenas de la conquista''; lit. "Vision of the Defeated: Indigenous relations of the conquest") is a book by Mexican histo ...

: The Aztec Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.'' Boston: Beacon Press,

Aculnahuacatl Tzaqualcatl Aculnahuacatl Tzaqualcatl (ruled c. 1400–c. 1430) was the first ''tlatoani'' (ruler) of the pre-Columbian Tepanec ''altepetl'' (ethnic state) of TlacopanDiego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain, translated, annotated and with introd ...

, the son of the Tepanec ruler, Tezozomoc, was installed as

tlatoani ''Tlatoani'' ( , "one who speaks, ruler"; plural ' or tlatoque) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an , a pre-Hispanic state. It is the noun form of the verb "tlahtoa" meaning "speak, command, rule". As a result, it has been various ...

of Tlacopan until his death in c.1430. Throughout its existence, Tlacopan was to remain a minor polity within the Triple Alliance. It received only a fifth of

tribute A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conqu ...

earned from joint campaigns with its more powerful allies. In 1521, The Aztec Empire collapsed as a result of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, led by

Hernán Cortés Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca (; ; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish ''conquistador'' who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of w ...

and his native

Tlaxcallan Tlaxcala ( 'place of maize tortillas') was a pre-Columbian city and state in central Mexico. During the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, Tlaxcala allied with the Spanish Empire against the Aztecs, supplying a large contingent for and somet ...

allies. Over the next few centuries, Tlacopan has been assimilated into the sprawling mega-metropolis of

. The archæological site of Tlacopan is located in

, within the present-day municipality of

Miguel Hidalgo Don Miguel Gregorio Antonio Ignacio Hidalgo y Costilla y Gallaga Mandarte Villaseñor (8 May 1753 – 30 July 1811), more commonly known as Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or Miguel Hidalgo (), was a Catholic priest, leader of the Mexican Wa ...

Rulers of Tlacopan

(c. 1427) *

Totoquihuaztli I Totoquihuatzli I was a ''tlatoani'' (ruler) of the pre-Columbian Tepanec ''altepetl'' (ethnic state) of Tlacopan in the Valley of Mexico.Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxichotl, History of the Chichimeca Nation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.D ...

(c. 1428), often considered the first ''tlatoani'' of Tlacopan; co-founder of the Aztec Triple Alliance. *

Chimalpopoca Chimalpopoca ( nci-IPA, Chīmalpopōca, t͡ʃiːmaɬpoˈpoːka for "smoking shield," ) or Chīmalpopōcatzin (1397–1427) was the third Emperor of Tenochtitlan (1417–1427). Biography Chimalpopoca was born to the Emperor Huitzilihuitl and Q ...

(?–?) * Totoquihuatzin (?–1519) *

Tetlepanquetzal Tetlepanquetzal (died 1525) was the fourth Tepanec (ruler) of Tlacopan, and reigned after 1503 as a tributary of the Mexican emperor Moctezuma II, whom he assisted in the first defence of Mexico. Afterward he was one of the principal auxiliaries ...

(1519–1525),Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxichotl, History of the Chichimeca Nation. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019. son of Totoquihuatzin. Tlacopan was mostly leaderless from 1526 to 1550; the ''de facto'' ruler was

Isabel Moctezuma Doña Isabel Moctezuma (born Tecuichpoch Ichcaxochitzin; 1509/1510 – 1550/1551) was a daughter of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II. She was the consort of Atlixcatzin, a tlacateccatl, and of the Aztec emperors Cuitlahuac, and Cuauhtemoc and as such ...

since the city was part of her ''

encomienda The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...

''. Business in the city were handled by various appointed governors and nobles unrelated to the previous dynasty. * Don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli the Elder (c. 1550–1574), descendant of the pre-colonial ''tlatoani''. Made ''tlatoani'' after Isabel Moctezuma's death.

References

{{reflist Aztec sites Former populated places in Mexico Altepetl Valley of Mexico Aztec Empire