Did Aztec civilisation really ‘collapse’? The reality isn’t as simple as you might think
The Spanish conquest might have toppled the Aztec imperial state with startling speed, but unpicking precisely what ‘collapse’ really means reveals a far more complicated story
At a glance, the fall of the Aztec empire in the early 16th century seems like one of history’s clearest before-and-after moments: a powerful empire crushed almost instantly by a handful of Spanish conquistadors.
But that picture, vivid as it is, has long obscured the more complicated reality of what was destroyed, and what endured.
Speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast, historian Caroline Dodds Pennock and scholar of civilisational collapse Luke Kemp examine why the Aztec imperial system fell so quickly, why ‘collapse’ is a loaded term, and what lessons it leaves behind.
The destruction of Aztec knowledge
One of the biggest obstacles to retrospectively understanding Aztec society is that we lack writing from the period, explains Dodds Pennock. Most Aztec records were deliberately destroyed almost immediately after the conquest that began in 1519.
Pennock stresses the scale of that loss. After taking Tenochtitlán, Spanish authorities oversaw the burning of vast quantities of Aztec pictorial texts and administrative documents, instigating “a huge destruction of this vast pictographic culture,” that included the loss of “incredible legal records, religious records, political records.” The devastation, she notes, has been likened to “the conflagration of the Library of Alexandria.”
What survives, both in terms of written sources and archaeological material, reveals a sophisticated society, but one viewed largely through Spanish lenses.
Acknowledging that bias, suggests Pennock, and looking beyond it, can reveal the immense sophistication of the Aztec empire before its fall.
What the Aztec empire looked like in 1519
Far from a civilisation teetering on the edge of collapse, at the moment of Spanish arrival, the Aztec state was expansive, wealthy and tightly organised.
Pennock describes an empire that “stretched across about 80,000 square miles … ruling over 5 to 6 million peoples in over 500 allied and subject cities.”
At its heart stood Tenochtitlán (in modern-day Mexico), an island city of perhaps 200,000 inhabitants – larger, in fact, than many contemporary European capitals. Elevated roads and aqueducts linked it to the mainland. Vast markets drew traders from across swathes of Mesoamerica, while ritual and political life revolved around a monumental sacred precinct.
The city was a centre of poetry, philosophy and art, and a hub of what Pennock describes as, “relative gender egalitarianism, compared to most societies of that period.”
In 1519, the same year that the Spanish arrived, the Aztec empire had its challenges, namely internal tensions and external political rivalries. But it didn’t look like a society on a precipice. It was complex, functioning, expansionist and confident.
Why did such a powerful empire fall so quickly?
The Spanish conquest, from first contact with the conquistadores in 1519 to the fall of Tenochtitlán in 1521, was extraordinarily rapid. Pennock calls it “one of the fastest collapses of an enormous empire that exists in history.”
The speed of the Spanish advance was the result of several converging pressures. The most devastating was disease. Smallpox reached central Mexico early in the conquest, spreading far ahead of Spanish armies. With no previous exposure, communities suffered catastrophic losses. Entire households died within days, leaders were struck down, and the resulting instability weakened political and military resistance at a critical juncture.
At the same time, long-standing resentments within the empire proved decisive. Dozens of subject and rival city-states chose to ally with the newcomers, calculating that Spanish support offered a route to independence from Tenochtitlán's tribute demands. These alliances provided the Spanish with tens of thousands of indigenous soldiers, without whom the conquest would have been impossible.
The Aztec leadership also misjudged the nature of the threat. Early encounters were shaped by diplomatic norms and forms of warfare that were very different from those practiced by Europeans. Misinterpretations in these crucial first months helped amplify the danger the empire faced, giving the Spanish and their allies further advantages. And, within just two years, the mighty Aztec empire had crumbled.
Yet even after accounting for disease, alliances and miscalculations, the story of the Aztec ‘collapse’ isn’t quite complete, says Pennock. What happened after 1521 raises a much more difficult question that Pennock argues is essential to understanding both the Aztecs and the broader study of how societies change.
If an imperial system can fall apart so swiftly, what happens to the people it governed? And what does ‘collapse’ actually mean?
Did the Aztec really collapse?
The notion of collapse risks implying that, after 1521, the Aztec culture was made extinct. As Pennock notes, that’s not true.
“A million people still speak the Aztec language of Nahuatl in Mexico today,” she says, emphasising that “much of their culture continues”.
“Their society remains vibrant, even in the face of devastating disease, warfare, and enslavement.”
The Aztec empire as a structure might have come to an end. But the survivors adapted and kept crucial elements of their culture alive.
- Read more | How many people did the Aztecs sacrifice?
This distinction, between political collapse and cultural endurance, is central to how scholars interpret the end of complex societies. Luke Kemp, whose research surveys cases of collapse across world history, argues that failure rarely comes from a single cause.
Fortunes, he explains, “can often turn very quickly, and very unforeseeably.” He says that most societies living through a decline “didn't foresee that they were going through a collapse”.
“Many of the challenges faced by these past collapsed societies are reflected in our own. Things like competition, warfare, climate change, internal rebellion, inequality, poor leadership. These are all things that have happened throughout history and different societies have had different ways of dealing with these – for better and for worse.”
Caroline Dodds Pennock and Luke Kemp were speaking to Matt Elton on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James Osborne is a digital content producer at HistoryExtra