The enigmatic and powerful Tlacaelel (1398-1487), 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 Tlacaelel's 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 chroniclers - fray Diego Duran, don Hernando Alvarado
Tezozomoc, and especially don Domingo de San Anton Munon
Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin - wrote of Tlacaelel. But the
inaccessibility of Chimalpahin's annals has meant that for
centuries of Aztec history, Tlacaelel has appeared, if at all, as a
myth. Working from Chimalpahin's 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 empire's political
power and its military might - a 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
empire - feats 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.
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