Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T01:40:44.535Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Reevaluation of the Role of War Captives in the Aztec Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Robert William Martin Open the ORCID record for Robert William Martin [Opens in a new window]
Robert William Martin*
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher, Melbourne, Australia
*
(rob.martin1989@gmail.com, corresponding author)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Traditionally, historians believed that taking captives was a major goal in Mexica warfare, and this tendency has even been given as a reason why the Spanish conquistadors defeated the Mexica. Although historians have largely revised these conclusions, the perception that captives were important to Aztec strategy and warfare persists. In this article I argue that the need for captives was not great enough to affect Aztec military strategy or battlefield conduct. First, rituals only needed a small number of victims, which could easily be acquired through the normal course of battle, and thus did not constitute a specific objective. Second, Mexica strategy focused on economic objectives, rather than captive taking. Finally, individual warriors were not well equipped to take prisoners. Although captives played a vital role in Mexica society, the practice should be thought of as opportunistic, rather than strategic.

Tradicionalmente, los historiadores creían que la toma de cautivos era un objetivo importante en la guerra azteca, y esta tendencia se ha dado incluso como una razón para que los conquistadores españoles derrotaran a los aztecas. Aunque los historiadores han revisado en gran medida estas conclusiones, persiste la percepción de que los cautivos eran importantes para la estrategia y la guerra aztecas. En este artículo sostengo que la necesidad de cautivos no era lo suficientemente grande como para afectar a la estrategia militar azteca o a la conducta en el campo de batalla. En primer lugar, los rituales sólo necesitaban un pequeño número de víctimas que podían adquirirse fácilmente a través del curso normal de la batalla, por lo que no constituían un objetivo específico. En segundo lugar, la estrategia azteca se centraba en objetivos económicos, más que en la toma de cautivos. Por último, los guerreros individuales no estaban bien equipados para tomar prisioneros. Aunque los cautivos desempeñaban un papel vital en la sociedad mexica, la práctica debe considerarse oportunista, más que estratégica.

Keywords

AztecMexicansacrificereligionwarfareSpanish-Mexica WarAztecMexicasacrificioreligiónguerraEspañol-Mexica Guerra
Type
Article
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , June 2023 , pp. 423 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for American Archaeology

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Anonymous Conqueror 1917 Narrative of Some Things of New Spain and of the Great City of Temestitan, Mexico, edited by Alec Christensen. http://www.famsi.org/research/christensen/anon_con/, accessed March 5, 2012.Google Scholar
Asselbergs, Florine 2008 Conquered Conquistadors: The Lienzo de Quauhquechollan, A Nahua Vision of the Conquest of Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances F., and Anawalt, Patricia Rieff 1992a The Codex Mendoza: II, Description of the Codex. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances F., and Anawalt, Patricia Rieff 1992b The Codex Mendoza: III, A Facsimile Reproduction of Codex Mendoza. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances F., Blanton, Richard E., Boone, Elizabeth Hill, Hodge, Mary G., Smith, Michael E., and Umberger, Emily (editors) 1996 Aztec Imperial Strategies. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Berdan, Frances F., and de Durand Forest, Jacqueline 1980 Matricula de Tributos (Códice de Moctezuma). Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, Austria.Google Scholar
Bierhorst, John 1992 History and Mythology of the Aztecs: The Codex Chimalpopoca. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bueno Bravo, Isabel 2007 La guerra en el imperio azteca: Expansión, ideología y arte. Editorial Complutense, Madrid.Google Scholar
Butler, William B. 1975 The Atlatl: The Physics of Function and Performance. Plains Anthropologist 68:105–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrasco, Pedro 1999 The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Cervera Obregón, Marco Antonio 2006 The Macuahuitl: An Innovative Weapon of the Late Post-Classic in Mesoamerica. Arms and Armour 3:127–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cervera Obregón, Marco Antonio 2011 Guerreros aztecas. Ediciones Nowtilis, Madrid.Google Scholar
Cervera Obregón, Marco Antonio 2017 Mexica Warfare: New Research Perspectives. In The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, edited by Nichols, Deborah L. and Rodríguez-Alegría, Enrique, pp. 451–462. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Chávez Balderas, Ximena 2014 Sacrifice at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan and Its Role in regard to Warfare. In Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Scherer, Andrew K. and Verano, John W. pp. 171–197. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Chávez Balderas, Ximena 2018 Effigies of Death: Representation, Use, and Reuse of Human Skulls at the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. In Social Skins of the Head: Body Beliefs and Ritual in Ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Tiesler, Vera and Lozada, María Cecelia, pp. 141–159. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Chávez Balderas, Ximena, Cortés, Erika Robles, Molina, Alejandra Aguirre, and de Anda, Michelle 2015 Efigies de la muerte: Decapitación ritual y modificación de cráneos de la Ofrenda 141 del Templo Mayor de Tenochtitlan. Estudios de Antropología Biológica 17(1):53–75.Google Scholar
Quauhtlehuanitzin, Chimalpahin, de San Antón Muñón, Domingo 1997 Codex Chimalpahin: Society and Politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco, Culhuacan, and Other Nahua Altepetl in Central Mexico, Vol. 1. Translated by Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Schroeder, Susan. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Clendinnen, Inga 1985 The Cost of Courage in Aztec Society. Past & Present 107:44–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clendinnen, Inga 1991 Aztecs: An Interpretation. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Conrad, Geoffrey W., and Demarest, Arthur A. 1984 Religion and Empire: The Dynamics of Aztec and Inca Expansionism. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Cortés, Hernán 1986 Letters from Mexico. Translated by Pagden, Anthony. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.Google Scholar
Davies, Nigel 1987 The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 1963 The Conquest of New Spain. Translated by Cohen, J. M.. Penguin, London.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 1994 History of the Indies of New Spain. Translated by Heyden, Doris. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Durán, Diego 1971 Book of Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Translated and edited by Horcasitas, Fernando and Heyden, Doris. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Fuentes, Patricia de 1963 The Conquistadors: First-Person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico. Orion Press, New York.Google Scholar
García Quintana, Josefina, Marín, Carlos Martínez, and de la Torre, Mario 1983 Lienzo de Tlaxcala. Cartón y Papel de México, Mexico City.Google Scholar
González González, Carlos Javier 2011 Xipe Tótec: Guerra y regeneración del maíz en la religión mexica. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia/Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Gutiérrez, Gerardo 2014 Aztec Battlefields of Eastern Guerrero: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Analysis of the Operational Theater of the Tlapanec War. In Embattled Bodies, Embattled Places: War in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and the Andes, edited by Scherer, Andrew K. and Verano, John W., pp. 143–170. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.Google Scholar
Harner, Michael: 1977 The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice. American Ethnologist 4:117–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassig, Ross 1981 The Famine of One Rabbit: Ecological Causes and Social Consequences of a Pre-Columbian Calamity. Journal of Anthropological Research 37:172–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassig, Ross 1988 Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Hassig, Ross 1992 War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassig, Ross 2006 Mexico and the Spanish Conquest. 2nd ed. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Heath, Ian 1999 Armies of the Sixteenth Century: 2. The Armies of the Aztec and Inca Empires and Other Native Peoples of the Americas, and the Conquistadors 1450–1680. Foundry Books, Guernsey, England.Google Scholar
Hicks, Frederick 1979 “Flowery War” in Aztec History. American Ethnologist 6:87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 1983a Aztec Warfare: Goals and Battlefield Comportment. Ethnology 22:121–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 1983b The Aztec “Flowery Wars”: A Geopolitical Explanation. Journal of Anthropological Research 39:415–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Barry L. 2005 Aztec Cannibalism: Nahua versus Spanish and Mestizo Accounts in the Valley of Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 16:1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de Alva Cortés 2012 Historia de la Nación Chichimeca. Memoria Linkgua, Barcelona.Google Scholar
León-Portilla, Miguel 1992 The Aztec Image of Self and Society: An Introduction to Nahua Culture. Translated by Brown, Charles E. and Jorge Klor de Alva, J.. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
López Luján, Leonardo 1994 The Offerings of the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. Translated by de Montellano, Bernard Ortiz. University Press of Colorado, Niwot.Google Scholar
López Luján, Leonardo, and Olivier, Guilhem 2010 El sacrificio humano en Mesoamérica: Ayer, hoy y mañana. En El sacrificio humano en latradición religiosa mesoamericana, edited by Luján, Leonardo López and Olivier, Guilhem, pp. 19–42. INAH, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Matos Montezuma, Eduardo, Rodríguez, Raúl Barrera, and Vallín, Lorena Vázquez 2017 El Huei Tzompantli de Tenochtitlan. Arqueología Mexicana 25(148):52–57.Google Scholar
Moreiras Reynaga, Diana K., Millaire, Jean-François, Balderas, Ximena Chávez, Román Berrelleza, Juan A., Luján, Leonardo López, and Longstaffe, Fred J. 2021 Residential Patterns of Mexica Human Sacrifices at Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico-Tlatelolco: Evidence from Phosphate Oxygen Isotopes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 62:101296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Motolinía, Toribio de Benavente 1950 Motolinía's History of the Indians of New Spain. Translated by Foster, Elizabeth Andros. Cortés Society, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Muñoz y Camargo, Diego 2012 Historia de Tlaxcala. Memoria Linkgua, Barcelona.Google Scholar
Olivier, Guilhem 2015 Cacería, sacrificio y poder en Mesoamérica. Fondo de Cultura Económica/Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico/Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, Mexico City.Google Scholar
Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. 1978 Cannibalism: An Ecological Necessity? The Aztec Diet Was Adequate in Protein and Cannibalism Would Not Have Contributed Greatly. Science 200:611–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. 1983 Counting Skulls: Comment on the Aztec Cannibalism Theory of Harner-Harris. American Anthropologist 85:403–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennock, Caroline Dodds 2011 Bonds of Blood: Gender, Lifecycle and Sacrifice in Aztec Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, England.Google Scholar
Pennock, Caroline Dodds 2012 Mass Murder or Religious Homicide? Rethinking Human Sacrifice and Interpersonal Violence in Aztec Society. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozalforschung 37:276–302.Google Scholar
Phelan, John Leddy 1970 The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prescott, William H. 1972 The Conquest of Mexico, Vol. 1. J. M. Dent & Sons, London.Google Scholar
Price, Barbara J. 1978 Demystification, Enriddlement, and Aztec Cannibalism: A Materialist Rejoinder to Harner. American Ethnologist 5:98–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Restall, Mathew 2003 Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Restall, Mathew 2018 When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History. Ecco, New York.Google Scholar
Restall, Matthew, and Solari, Amara 2011 2012 and the End of the World: The Western Roots of the Maya Apocalypse. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 1959 General History of the Things of New Spain Book 9: The Merchants. Translated by Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Dibble, Charles E.. School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 1975 General History of the Things of New Spain Book 12: The Conquest of Mexico. Translated by Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Dibble, Charles E.. School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 1979 General History of the Things of New Spain Book 8: Kings and Lords. Translated by Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Dibble, Charles E.. School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Sahagún, Bernardino de 1981 General History of the Things of New Spain Book 2: The Ceremonies. Translated by Anderson, Arthur J. O. and Dibble, Charles E.. School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Schroeder, Susan 2016 Tlacaelel Remembered: Mastermind of the Aztec Empire. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Sigal, Pete 2011 The Flower and the Scorpion: Sexuality and Ritual in Early Nahua Culture. Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael E. 1986 The Role of Social Stratification in the Aztec Empire: A View from the Provinces. American Anthropologist 88:70–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soustelle, Jacques 2002 Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest. Translated by O'Brian, Patrick. Phoenix Press, London.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Saburo 1993 Worldview Materialized at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 4:103–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Hugh 1993 Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico. Simon & Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Todorov, Tzvetan 1982 The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Translated by Howard, Richard. Harper & Row, New York.Google Scholar
Townsend, Camilla 2003 Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico. American Historical Review 108:659–687.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townsend, Camilla 2019 The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Townsend, Richard F. 2009 The Aztecs. 3rd ed. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Vail, Gabrielle, and Hernández, Christine 2007 Human Sacrifice in Late Postclassic Maya Iconography and Texts. In New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society, edited by Tiesler, Vera and Cucina, Andrea, pp. 120–164. Springer, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaillant, George C. 1978 The Aztecs of Mexico. 2nd ed. Penguin, Harmondsworth, England.Google Scholar