Mexico and Peru were the most civilized parts of the continent when the Spaniards arrived. If it had not been for the bigoted zeal of the Spanish priests, and most signally that of Zumarraga, the abundant and astonishing national picture-writings which were the historical records of the Aztecs might still be in existence, and serve to reveal the successive links in the mighty chain of migrations of the early peoples, so that much of the mystery that still lingers in regard to their settlement and civilization could be removed. But these priests looked upon those writings as the memorials of pagan idolatry, and, having collected them together, committed them to the flames, thus extinguishing in a day, as it were, the history of a once powerful empire. The historian is consequently forced to rely upon whatever fugitive pieces escaped the hands of those infamous ravagers, the study of the monumental remains, and the broken and scattered remnants of this people, scarcely recognizable, found on the Mexican plateau and in the various parts of the American territories.
According to the most authentic records which remain, the Aztecs came from the regions of the North, "the populous hive of nations in the New World, as it has been in the Old."
Clavigero, the patient and voluminous historian of New Spain, assigns the following dates to some of the most important events in the early history of Mexico:
| A.D. | |
| The Toltecs arrived in Anahuac | 648 |
| They abandoned their country | 1051 |
| The Chichemecs arrived | 1170 |
| The Acolhuans arrived about | 1200 |
| The Aztecs or Mexicans reached Tula | 1196 |
| They founded the Mexican Empire | 1325 |
| Conquest by Cortez | 1521 |
Zurita, a celebrated jurist, whose personal experience and observation among the Aztecs extended over a period of nineteen years, and who returned to Spain in 1560, was indignant at the epithet barbarian as applied to the Aztecs,—an epithet, he says, "which could come from no one who had personal knowledge of the capacity of the people or their institutions, and which in some respects is quite as well merited by the European nations."
Their high degree of civilization, their remarkable advance in the knowledge and practice of the arts and sciences, so wondrously displayed in their architecture, their causeways, their temples, their homes and their adornments, their agriculture and systems of irrigation, their floating gardens and beautiful feather-work, their strange religion and military displays, must have produced an impression upon the Spaniards which they never forgot. The vast wealth of the Aztecs so excited the spirit of avarice in them, however, that, for a time, each one planned how best to enrich himself.
In complexion they were much lighter than the common American Indians. Their style of dress, which was often the most elaborate, and made from the finest materials of their own weaving, more nearly approached that of Europeans,—trousers, jacket, surtout, cloak, and cap or hat ornamented with fine feather-work. The same dress is worn by their descendants in Mexico at the present time. Their treatment of their women was not Asiatic, but resembled more that which is accorded to them by the civilized nations of the world. Their duties were domestic, and they were not degraded by servile bondage. Throughout the different cities were barber-shops, where the men assembled to have their beards shaved. No such thing was known among the American Indians.
"Quetzalcoatl, god of the air," says Prescott, "instructed them in the use of the metals, in agriculture, and the arts of government. It was the golden age. For some cause he was compelled to abandon the country. On his way he stopped at the city of Cholula, where a temple was dedicated to his worship, the massy ruins of which still form one of the most interesting relics of antiquity in Mexico. When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he took leave of his followers, promising that he and his descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his wizard skiff made of serpents' skins, embarked on the great ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan [are there not here the Welsh words lla, place, softened into tla, and pell, distant, meaning "distant place"?] He was said to have been tall in stature, with a white skin, long dark hair, and a flowing beard. The Mexicans looked confidently to the return of this benevolent deity; and this remarkable tradition, deeply cherished in their hearts, prepared the way for the success of the Spaniards."
Their religion was a compound of Christianity and mythology, of spiritual refinement and ferocity. Indeed, so much was this the case that the most intelligent and judicious historians of the Aztecs could not resist the conviction that one part of their religion emanated from a comparatively refined people, while the other sprang from barbarians. Everything pointed to the doctrine that their religion had two distinct sources.