What were the neighbors (enemies and allies alike) of the Aztecs like?

>>2631872
generally speaking, most surrounding peoples were settled in city states and heavily reliant on maize cultivation, they belong to the nahua linguistic family with several language variations. they aslo shared a large pantheon of gods which had certain relation with mayan deities, while the aztec (the atual name for that pople is mexica btw) mayor deity, Huitzilopochtli was a remnant of their warlike nomad days whose blood cult was spreading from Tenochtitlan, and the other major god was Tlaloc, who commanded the rain and shit
Most were tributaries to the mexica, either on goods, slaves pr blood sacrifices.
There is a ity state worth mentioning, Tlaxcala, which was oppenly hostile to the mexica and was in the process of a long loosing war against them when the spaniards arrived, thats why after a few battles they joined Cortés, making a deal with them that left the tlaxcalan nobility converted to christianism and swearing loyalty to Charles th V, in exchange to conserving their titles and lands on top of spanish help in overtaking the aztec empire. Tlaxcalans ended up being the bulk of Cortés' army

>>2631872

Mesoamerica developed a Sprachbund: an area where the languages, regardless on whether or not they're related or not, develop similar features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oXwlvjld_o

Many of the states were engaged in perpetual, low-level war known as "flower wars" or "garland wars".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_war

>>2631872 Most of them had contempt towards Aztecs because of the forced dieties (Huitzilopochtli, god of war) and domination. Most of their enemies were their allies or subordinates at some point in the past. Such examples are tlaxcaltecas and cholultecas.

File: aztec pepe.png (408KB, 459x425px) Image search: [Google]

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>that one dude on /v/ who talks about how greats the Purépecha were every time the aztecs gets mentioned

>>2633376
What happened to the Tlaxcalans afterwards? Did they get treated well or dicked over? If they were dicked over, was it an intentional dicking through laws and military action, or just because the spanish didn't give a fuck about them?

>>2635511
The Spaniards treated them well, but I think they still fell to disease.

>>2635523
That's correct. Tlaxcala remained basically autonomous for a long time (centuries) but their formerly very large population fell to just a few thousands thanks to the usual epidemics.

>>2635511
Askhistorians on plebbit has a pretty good answer to that

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3fiecx/what_was_life_like_for_the_tlaxcalans_after_the/?st=j1arws59&sh=52c3240c

It (askhistorians) is one of the few good things to come out of the site

File: Spaniards and Tlaxcalans wreck Aztec soldiers.jpg (1MB, 3056x2292px) Image search: [Google]

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>>2635553
The Spanish also used the Tlaxcalans to "show" the less-civilized tribes like the Chichimeca how to farm and be more of an agricultural society. Decent sized groups were sent, not by force but by compensation, far north to form farming communities. It had limited if any success in changing the neighbors. Again, like the other anons mention, disease really set havoc to native societies.

>>2633661
When was Tlaxcala allied to the Mexica?

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>>2635600
This really

>>2635596
>The Tlaxcala received some special rights under Spanish rule that other peoples did not enjoy. They were promised not to have their lands seized, nor to be taxed by Cortez, both of which were at first respected. The Tlaxcalans also aided the Spanish in their conquest of other states, including in the Mixtec Rebellion (1540-41) and the Chichimeca War (1550-90), which they afterwards helped settle.

>These rights were extended after 1585, when Diego Munoz Camargo's Historia de Tlaxcala was shown to the Spanish king Philip II. The book detailed the history of Tlaxcala with rich illustrations, especially focusing on post-colonial history. The purpose was at least in part to make the Tlaxcalans appear better in the eyes of the Spanish - Spanish-Tlaxcala conflicts were downplayed or ignored, Spanish conflicts with other states were overstated and the Tlaxcalans were portrayed as being more enthusiastic about Christianity than they were when they first encountered it. It is also a valuable historical document that portrays Tlaxcalan history, customs and culture though.
>In 1591, Tlaxcala settlers were granted further rights, so they could be used to peacefully colonize other tribes, by having them settle among them, thus allowing them to be introduced to a peaceful, agricultural, Christian lifestyle. These settlers gained some special rights, such as being exempted from Spanish taxes, getting control of various Chichimeca resources, property rights of the land seized from the Chichimeca and being allowed to ride on horseback and use guns. These Tlaxcalan settlers settled among other places along the Rio Grande.

>>2635645
>It worked, at least for a while, though later the Spanish Crown extended control over the New World in an effort to squeeze more profit out of it. The Tlaxcalan special rights were gradually eroded.
>The Tlaxcalans were not immune to smallpox and other epidemics either. Combined with emigrations and the construction of a canal to drain the valley of Mexico, the city state of Tlaxcala was almost wiped out - according to a 1625 document the population had declined from 300.000 in the sixteenth century to a mere 700 then.

Sources:
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/jan2003.html
http://www.houstonculture.org/mexico/tlaxcala.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14747c.htm

While not about the Tlaxcala, thats how the Spanish "conquering" system worked, they allied themselves to a tribe and subjugated others. You had the "pueblo de indios", indian towns, made up of Amerindians caught after battles and what not, who here used under the repartition system, and the "cabildos de indios", where the Amerindian allies lived, who at least on paper where equal to the Spaniards.

They were basically simple absorbed in to the Spanish bureaucratic system, converted to Christianity, got land titles and what not, this, of course, was not necessary respected and the Amerindian allies still had to fight for their rights.

In my country the biggest "encomendero" was an Amerindian "prince", who helped the Spanish people a lot, even more than the rest of the Amerindian leaders who joined the Spaniards. Anyway, this guy had a lot of land and kept his Slaves, now technically not Slaves but Amerindians under his care who were supposed to be taught the Christian faith and Spanish. After his died his son, also a full Amerindian, got his titles and what not, and then some Spaniards attacked. They argued that a "new Christian" couldn't have so many Amerindians under his care, he argued that he was born a Christian and have never even followed the local myths, that he had to much power for an Amerindian, that his land had to be divided, yada yada yada.

Anyway, that was just and example. People usually forget that under Spanish rule there were no "racial" laws and that technically everybody was a "Spanish", the different racial conflicts and situations were caused by literal racism and mistrust between the different groups. The closest there was to a racial laws were the borbonic laws which made high ranking titles only available for Spain born Spaniards.