Tlacaelel Remembered

The enigmatic and powerful Tlacaelel (13981487), wrote annalist Chimalpahin, was the beginning and origin of the Mexica monarchy in fifteenth-century Mesoamerica. Brother of the first Moteuczoma, Tlacaelel would become the most powerful, feared, and esteemed man of all that the world had seen up to that time. But this outsize figure of Aztec history has also long been shrouded in mystery. In Tlacaelel Remembered, the first biography of the Mexica nobleman, Susan Schroeder searches out the truth about his life and legacy. A century after Tlacaelels death, in the wake of the conquistadors, Spaniards and natives recorded the customs, histories, and language of the Nahua, or Aztec, people. Three of these chroniclersfray Diego Durn, don Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and especially don Domingo de San Antn Mun Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzinwrote of Tlacaelel. But the inaccessibility of Chimalpahins annals has meant that for centuries of Aztec history, Tlacaelel has appeared, if at all, as a myth. Working from Chimalpahins newly available writings and exploring connections and variances in other source materials, Schroeder draws the clearest possible portrait of Tlacaelel, revealing him as the architect of the Aztec empires political power and its military mighta politician on par with Machiavelli. As the advisor to five Mexica rulers, Tlacaelel shaped the organization of the Mexica state and broadened the reach of its empirefeats typically accomplished with the spread of warfare, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. In the annals, he is considered the second king to the rulers who built the empire, and is given the title Cihuacoatl, used for the office of president and judge. As Schroeder traces Tlacaelel through the annals, she also examines how his story was transmitted and transformed in later histories. The resulting work is the most complete and comprehensive account ever given of this significant figure in Mesoamerican history.