Tlaxcala

The small republic that refused to submit to the Aztecs and then helped destroy them. Tlaxcala was a confederation of four altepetl in the highlands east of the valley of Mexico, governed by a council of lords rather than a single ruler, which is unusual enough that Spanish writers reached for the word republic. Surrounded by the Triple Alliance, it was kept unconquered but blockaded, cut off from salt and cotton, and used as a permanent opponent in the flower wars fought partly to obtain captives for sacrifice. When Cortes arrived in 1519 the Tlaxcalans fought him first, then allied with him - and the tens of thousands of Tlaxcalan warriors who joined the campaign are the reason a few hundred Spaniards could take Tenochtitlan. They were not auxiliaries in their own understanding but principal partners. The Spanish crown granted Tlaxcala privileges no other indigenous polity received: exemption from tribute, the right to bear arms and ride horses, and its own governance, which it kept for centuries. Tlaxcalan settlers were sent north to colonise the frontier. The Lienzo de Tlaxcala records their version. Tlaxcala is now the smallest state in Mexico. Its people spoke Nahuatl, the same language as the Mexica they fought. The Lienzo de Tlaxcala is a pictorial manuscript showing the conquest from the Tlaxcalan side. Franciscans built one of the earliest churches in the Americas there. The confederation's four lordships each kept their own lord and territory, and their council decided war and peace jointly rather than by one voice.

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