I've been lately reading the history of Mexico City. I just realized the city was much bigger back then. Much more bigger than any city in both North and South America. However one of my teachers says that the city was the second largest in the world, having Pekin of the Ming Dynasty as first place.
Is it true? How big was the population compared to other cities? Was Tenochtitlan as big as the spanish claimed?
"De la misma manera, no dudaron en reclamar de las autoridades sus prebendas y privilegios como nobles y como aliados necesarios en la culminación de la conquista. Obviamente, sin esta colaboración activa de decenas de pueblos deseosos de librarse de la tiranía de los mexicas, Hernán Cortés hubiese encontrado muchas más dificultades —no sabemos si insalvables— para consumar su conquista. "
Reading When Montezuma Met Cortés by Restall, and he posits the elaborate and extensive zoo developed over the reigns of several Triple Alliance tlahtoani ("speaker"/imperial leader) in Tenochtitlan was the inspiration for the emergence of a royal/elite European collection culture, and eventual development of zoos.
Traditionally, the I thought the narrative is European elites started accruing collections, mostly of religious artifacts, and the practice gradually morphed into secular items, and eventually living collections in zoos.
Is Restall on his own with this idea of the Old World copying the culture of New World empires? Do historians think the obsession with collections and curiosities emerged in Europe after contact?
Thanks in advance!
This is referenced in Cortés' Third Letter, late in the Siege of Tenochtitlan:
> Since our powder was running very short we had spoken over a fortnight before of making a catapult: and although we had no engineers really competent to undertake it, yet some carpenters offered to make a small one... The catapult took some four days to put into position even after it appeared in the square, Meanwhile our Indian allies were proclaiming to those in the city in what a marvelous manner we were going to kill them all... Both hopes however were doomed to disappointment, for neither did the carpenters succeed in working their engine, nor did the inhabitants though frightened make any move towards surrender, so that we were obliged to cover up the failure of the catapult by saying that moved by compassion we were unwilling to kill them all.1
Cortés tends to be understated, but we have another account from Díaz del Castillo with some more color:
> In Cortés; camp there was a soldier who said that he had been in Italy in the Company of the Great Captain and was in the skirmish of Garallano and in other great battles, and he talked much about engines of war and that he could make a catapult in Tlatelolco by which, if they only bombarded the houses and part of the city were Guatemoc had sought refuge, for two days, they would make them surrender peacefully... Cortés promptly set to work to make the catapult... When the catapult was made and set up in the way that the soldier ordered, and he said it was ready to be discharged, they placed a suitable stone in the sling which had been made and all this stone did was to rise no higher than the catapult and fall back upon where it had been set up... Cortés at once ordered the catapult to be taken to pieces.2
Finally, we also have an account of this instance from the Mexica side of things, in Book 12 of Sahagún's history:
> And then those Spaniards installed a catapult on top of an altar platform with which to hurl stones at the people. And when they had it ready and were about to shoot it off, they gathered around it, vigorously pointing their fingers, pointing at the people, pointing to where all the people were assembled at Amaxac, showing them to each other. The Spaniards spread out their arms, showing how they would shoot and hurl it at them, as if they were using a sling on them. Then they wound it up, then the arm of the catapult rose up. But the stone did not land on the people, but fell behind the market
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I saw the city (as it looks today) from a quick distant view and then I was walking down the stairs of on of the temples. I was cautious because it was so steep.
Anyone know what this means?
