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is believed that groups of hunter-gatherers, known as the Native Americans,
while hunting, crossed a land bridge where the Bearing Strait is, and arrived
in North America. Once in the Americas these people migrated throughout
the Southern and Northern continents.
The Aztecs are thought
to have originated in the four corners area of the U.S. and started a migration
southward in 1168 A.D. Aztec records supply this information. In addition
to this, studies of language have shown that the Aztec language Nahuatl
and that of the Pueblo Indian are related. After the Aztecs began their
migration from their native land, which the Aztecs called Aztlan, they traveled
in search of a new home because Huitzilopochtli their sun and war god ordered
them to make a pilgrimage to a new land. He stated that they were to settle
in the first place in which they saw an eagle with a snake in its beak,
sitting on a cactus.
In 1248 A.D. they where
allowed to settle on an island in the middle of Lake Chapultepec, where
they saw the eagle. Lake Chapultepec is located in the middle of the Central
Mexican Valley. The Aztecs lived peacefully for about a century. Eventually
conflict arose between the Aztec and the neighboring tribes. Three of the
neighboring tribes, the Tepanec the Culhua and the Xochimilca, allied themselves
against the Aztecs and defeated them. They enslaved the majority of the
Aztecs but a small group managed to escape to an island on the nearby salt
water lake of Texcoco. Later the Culhua declared war on the Xochimilca,
the Aztec allied themselves with the Culhua and through this alliance the
Culhua won.
After this brief alliance
the Aztecs' leaders refused permanent friendship with other tribes due
to the fact that they believed they were the chosen people of their god
Huitzilopochtli and that Huitzilopochtli had forbidden alliance. This
commitment to war played a large part in the rise of the Aztec Empire.
It caused many tribes to declare war on the Aztecs creating an opening
for the Aztecs to start their era of conquest.
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