- Prehistoric time
- Indigenous population
- The arrival of the Spaniards
- The fall of the Aztecs
- Today’s Mexico City is formed
- Viceroy of New Spain
- Viceroys of South America
- The Spanish Empire began to collapse
- Mexico achieves independence
- The borders of modern Mexico are shaped
Prehistoric time
The southern part of the American continent is believed to have been inhabited as early as 50,000 years ago by a people whose origins were with the Australian Aborigines. In connection with the migrations that took place across the Bering Strait in between 10-20,000 years ago, the new peoples displaced the indigenous population.
Indigenous population
Before the white man arrived, today’s Mexican territory was inhabited by many different peoples such as Yuman and Piman in the north, Aztecs in the central part, Olmecs in the southern Gulf of Mexico, Zapotecs and Mixtecs in the southern mountains, and Maya out on the Yucatan Peninsula. The Spaniards quickly learned to take advantage of the people with whom they could ally in order to carry out the initial invasion of the new continent.
The arrival of the Spaniards
Spanish conquerors, ie conquistadores, led by Hernán Cortés, carried out in 1519 the first major expedition into today’s central parts of Mexico in order to defeat the Aztecs. The Spaniards were only a few thousand soldiers and had not been able to defeat more than 300,000 Aztecs and Tarascans on their own. They had allied themselves with perhaps 200,000 warriors from the Tlaxcala people and others who were the sworn enemies of the Aztecs. By 1520, the Spaniards had taken the Aztec ruler Moctezuma, or Montezuma as the name is also spelled, hostage and even murdered him.
The fall of the Aztecs
The Aztecs had built their capital Tenochtitlan on an artificial island in a lake in central Mexico. The lake had only brackish water, so the Aztecs had built aqueducts that carried drinking water from the mountains across the lake to the capital. However, the city’s isolated location made it easy for the Spaniards and their allies to besiege the city in the early summer of 1521. The inhabitants were weakened by hunger and thirst, and the Spaniards were also helped by an invisible ally in the form of smallpox ravaging the Aztecs. A few months later, the Spaniards had captured the capital of the Aztecs which was looted and large number of inhabitants were killed.
Today’s Mexico City is formed
After that, they also began to demolish the Aztec buildings and instead build the Ciudad de Mexico, which became the capital of New Spain. The conquest of Mexico gave the Spaniards a solid place to begin the hunt for what they came to find – GOLD. It also became the basis for the takeover of large parts of the American continent which was divided between four viceroys.
Viceroy of New Spain
In the late 18th century, the Viceroy of New Spain controlled land from southwest Alaska, the entire Canadian Pacific coast, the United States west of the Mississippi River, as well as the coast along the Gulf of Mexico and Florida. In addition, it included the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the eastern part of Hispaniola, as well as Mexico and all of Central America except Panama.
Viceroys of South America
In South America, the boundaries that the Viceroys controlled changed over time from the mid-1550s to the early 1800s. The Viceroy of New Granada mostly controlled present-day Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador. The Viceroy of Peru controlled of course Peru, but also Bolivia and the northern half of Chile. Finally, the Viceroy of La Plata controlled large parts of present-day Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and occasionally Bolivia and Peru.
The Spanish Empire began to collapse
Various historical events during the early 19th century came to reduce the Spanish influence on the American continent extremely rapidly. In 1800, the Spaniards were forced to exchange Louisiana, ie the entire area west of the Mississippi River, to the French, while Spain received Tuscany in Italy. A few years later, France sold Louisiana to the United States, and the disputed border between New Spain and the United States, which had also been questioned by the British, was established in 1819. That agreement meant that Spain lost Florida and all land north of 42 degrees latitude or land north of California.
Mexico achieves independence
During the 1810s rebels, led by for example Simón Bolívar, had begun to attack Spanish interests in South America, and by the mid-1820s, the entire southern continent was out of Spanish control. The Liberation Revolution also spread to New Spain, except for the Spanish territories in the Caribbean islands, and declared independence in 1821. After 11 years of fighting with the Spaniards, the Kingdom of the Mexican Empire was formed with Augustine of Mexico as its first king. Two years later, the Central American countries broke away from that empire in a peaceful process.
The borders of modern Mexico are shaped
In 1824, the United States of Mexico was formed instead, which for the next 150 years suffered from internal strife over the will of different states for more or less full independence. The biggest loss is when Texas declares independence in 1836 and is taken by the United States in December 1845. This led to a war that lasted until 1848 and which Mexico lost and had to relinquish land north of Rio Grande and California. On October 8, 1974, Quintana Roo and the southern half of Baja California become full-fledged Mexican states and the borders that Mexico has today are established.
