Xaltocan was a

pre-Columbian In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

and island in the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico wa ...

, located in the center of

Lake Xaltocan A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larg ...

, part of an interconnected shallow lake system which included

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 ...

; this place is now inside the village of

San Miguel Jaltocan San Miguel Jaltocan is a town of Nextlalpan, in the state of Mexico State, north of Mexico Valley. Instituto Nacional de Estadística y GeografíaPrincipales resultados por localidad 2010 (ITER). See also *Xaltocan Xaltocan was a pre-Colu ...

in Nextlalpan,

State of Mexico The State of Mexico ( es, Estado de México; ), officially just Mexico ( es, México), is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Commonly known as Edomex (from ) to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is ...

. The site was originally settled by the

Otomi people The Otomi (; es, Otomí ) are an indigenous people of Mexico inhabiting the central Mexican Plateau (Altiplano) region. The Otomi are an indigenous people of Mexico who inhabit a discontinuous territory in central Mexico. They are linguisticall ...

but following a war in the late fourteenth century where the Otomi were defeated by an alliance of

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 ...

s and

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 ...

the Otomi were driven off the island and relocated to Otumba, Metztitlan and

Tlaxcala Tlaxcala (; , ; from nah, Tlaxcallān ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tlaxcala ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tlaxcala), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 60 municipaliti ...

. The island of Xaltocan was then resettled by

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller ...

speakers. The name can mean either of two things in the

Nahuatl language Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan languages, Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahuas, Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in ...

: either 'sandy ground of spiders' or 'where it is planted on the sand'.

Overview

Xaltocan is known to have been inhabited in the

Postclassic In Human history, world history, post-classical history refers to the period from about 500 AD to 1500, roughly corresponding to the European Middle Ages. The period is characterized by the expansion of civilizations geographically and develop ...

period. Ceramics and other archaeological remains dating to this period have been recovered in excavations at the site. It is thought to have been a local center of power capable of exacting tribute from other city-states in the area. The founding of Xaltocan is described in the mytho-historical documents, the ''

Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca The ''Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca'' is a 16th-century Nahuatl-language manuscript, dealing with the history of Cuauhtinchan. It is currently located in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. The text describes the history of the Toltecs and the C ...

'' and '' Anales de Cuauhtitlan''. According to the ''Anales'' the Xaltocameca (people of Xaltocan) were among the

Chichimec Chichimeca () is the name that the Nahua peoples of Mexico generically applied to nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples who were established in present-day Bajio region of Mexico. Chichimeca carried the meaning as the Roman term "barbarian" that des ...

tribes that left the mythical place of origin,

Aztlán Aztlán (from nah, Astlan, ) is the ancestral home of the Aztec peoples. '' Astekah'' is the Nahuatl word for "people from Aztlan". Aztlan is mentioned in several ethnohistorical sources dating from the colonial period, and while they each cite ...

, under a leader named ''Quauhtliztac'' ("White Eagle"). The ''Historia'' also identifies the Xaltocameca as belong to the Otomi ethnic group.Davies, 1980 p. 91-93 In this document, written by Ixtlilxochitl, the first leader of the Xaltocameca is named ''Iztacquauhtli'', which also means "White Eagle" in

. In the 13th century Xaltocan were involved in a prolonged war with the

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

city-state of Cuauhtitlan. Xaltocan was initially the strongest but around 1395 the ruler of Cuauhtitlan, Xaltemoctzin, allied himself with Tezozomoc of

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 ...

and his subjects the

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 finally managed to conquer Xaltocan. The Otomi inhabitants fled north to the Otomian city-state of Metztitlan and to

, while others were allowed to resettle on the lands of Texcoco in the place that was henceforth called Otumba - "Place of the Otomies". During the next 100 years the site was resettled by Nahua peoples. After 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 ...

defeated the Tepanecs of Azcapotzalco, Xaltocan became an Aztec subject city and paid tribute to Tenochtitlan, mainly in the form of woven blankets. In 1521 during the

Spanish conquest of Mexico The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the eve ...

the army of

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 ...

razed Xaltocan and burned it to the ground.Diaz, B., 1963, The Conquest of New Spain, London: Penguin Books,

Notes

References

* Brumfiel, E.M. & M.G. Hodge, 1996, ''Interaction in the basin of Mexico: The case of Postclassic Xaltocan''- Arqueología mesoamericana: homenaje a William T. Sanders * Brumfiel, Elizabeth M., Ed. 2005, "Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan" ''Arqueología de México'', No. 6, published by University of Pittsburgh Latin American Archaeology Publications and Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (México, D.F.)389 pp. . * Brumfiel, Elizabeth M., 1996, "The Quality of Tribute Cloth: The Place of Evidence in Archaeological Argument" in ''American Antiquity, Vol. 61'' * Davies, Nigel, 1980, ''The Toltec Heritage - from the fall of Tula to the rise of Tenochtitlan'', University of Oklahoma Press. * Hodge, Mary G., and Hector Neff 2005 Xaltocan in the Economy of the Basin of Mexico: A View from Ceramic Tradewares. In Production and Power at Postclassic Xaltocan. Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, ed. Pp. 319–348. Mexico City : Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. * Morehart, C. T. (2012), What If the Aztec Empire Never Existed? The Prerequisites of Empire and the Politics of Plausible Alternative Histories. American Anthropologist, 114: 267–281. *Morehart, Christopher T. and Dan T.A. Eisenberg 2010 Prosperity, Power, and Change: Modeling Maize at Postclassic Xaltocan, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29(1):94–112. *Romero Navarrete Omar 2007 La gloria de Xaltocan: los guerreros del sol. Mexico, D.F. : Talleres de Luis Gonzalez Obregon {{coord missing, State of Mexico Archaeological sites in Mexico Mesoamerican sites Aztec sites Former populated places in Mexico Otomi sites Lake islands of Mexico Altepetl Nextlalpan