Newcomers later envisioned Teotihuacan as the birthplace of their world. Cultures inspired by the Olmecs spread and prospered throughout western Mexico. For instance, the civilization of Monte Alban, which was located close to modern-day Oaxaca, governed over a vast valley, …

Shield Flower’s ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers in the Americas across the sea for at least five millennia after agriculture made a significant comeback in the Old World. They had no interest in farming. There were just no plants like wheat …

Shield Flower faced her own mortality and mustered the bravery to go from this world with the grace and elegance worthy of a queen. At least that’s what her folks said in the legends they passed down to succeeding generations. …

More dramatic information about Moctezuma’s response to the signs of his impending loss may be found in Diego Durán’s History of the Indies of New Spain than in any other sixteenth-century source. Because it was not published until the late …

The majority of readers and students nowadays view the conquest of Mexico as a dramatic clash between two highly developed and strong civilizations that were drastically different from one another and had not been aware of one another until the …

According to Sahagun’s description of the Mexican response to the Spanish, Moctezuma gave a speech that was similar to Cortés’. It’s probable that the Tlatelolcan informants of the friar mimicked Cortés’s words, “Thou hast come to arrive on earth,” after …

The confrontation between Moctezuma II, the tlatoani of Tenochtitlan since 1502, and Cortés, a subject of King Charles V, brought together two autocratic rulers of far-flung and sophisticated empires whose legitimacy depended on a vast but brittle superstructure. These empires …

Because they could openly attack the Spanish conquistadors without disparaging the intentions of the English colonists, the fall of Tenochtitlan and its king, Moctezuma, made for an even more alluring subject for these writers. During the Mexican War in the …

The “liberty, property, and religion” of Russian subjects who wished to stay in Alaska were guaranteed by the Treaty of Cession, which transferred Alaska from Russia to the United States in 1867. This guarantee applied to many established indigenous, mostly …

Naturally the Canadian tribes were not subjugated by Great Britain; rather, they were occupying land that had been partially seized by military means. However, the tribes were subjected to this legal doctrine and never contested it. It is noteworthy that …