WI: The Nahua don't leave Aztlan.

In OTL, the Nahua arrived to central Mexico after leaving Aztlan, what if they don't?

Let's assume Aztlan is north of the Colorado River as some theories say, would we see a large civilization like the one that developed in central Mexico develop, Aztecs in California? Would they go extnict (they left for something right) ? What happens when the Conquistadors arrive?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
In OTL, the Nahua arrived to central Mexico after leaving Aztlan, what if they don't?

Let's assume Aztlan is north of the Colorado River as some theories say, would we see a large civilization like the one that developed in central Mexico develop, Aztecs in California? Would they go extnict (they left for something right) ? What happens when the Conquistadors arrive?

The Nahua took over preexisting mesoamerican civilizations; they'd likely just end up being one more pueblo peoples (oy) of the grand basin.
 
Mexican Spanish would be very, very different than OTL. There were tonal languages in the Mesoamerican language area, so perhaps they would end up emphasizing accents almost to the point where it sounds like they're using tones.
Mexico itself would have a different name, and many of the places and peoples in Central America would have different names (ex: 'Zapotec' and 'Mixtec' are Nahua words. The Zapotec and Mixtec peoples call themselves by different names.)
Other than that, yeah, not much changes. However, the Nahua peoples might become more than a footnote in history if they acquire horses and guns like the Lakota or the Comanche to resist European encroachment (and European encroachment could drive disparate Nahua tribes to unite, forming a post-Columbian 'Aztec' identity). Eventually, they will pretty much inevitably lose out to Western military, but they may force the government to give them a relatively good deal vis a vis their reservation.
 
The absence of Aztecs in Mexico (which, as has been said, would not be called that) would mean a different political situation there. That would change the process of European (still probably Spanish) conquest. I think the Spanish would end up waging several wars over a period of some years. If Pizarro is involved there, the conquest of Peru would occur later (if at all).

I wonder if any of Mexico's national conciousness derives from having had a centralized state before Spanish conquest, and if "Mexico" had been a patchwork of smaller independent states it might be different.
 

NothingNow

Banned
The absence of Aztecs in Mexico (which, as has been said, would not be called that) would mean a different political situation there. That would change the process of European (still probably Spanish) conquest. I think the Spanish would end up waging several wars over a period of some years. If Pizarro is involved there, the conquest of Peru would occur later (if at all).

I wonder if any of Mexico's national conciousness derives from having had a centralized state before Spanish conquest, and if "Mexico" had been a patchwork of smaller independent states it might be different.
Mexican national Mythology is almost entirely based around the Aztecs. Part of why the Yucatan is such a volatile place is because the people there are a Fundamentally different Nation, with a different history.
 
Things would be different in a very unpredictable way. I expect something like the Triple Alliance to appear, Mesoamerica was definately in a period where a hegemonic style Empire could appear, but I'm not sure what it would be exactly. It would really depend on the maker of the TL.
 
Things would be different in a very unpredictable way. I expect something like the Triple Alliance to appear, Mesoamerica was definately in a period where a hegemonic style Empire could appear, but I'm not sure what it would be exactly. It would really depend on the maker of the TL.
Hegemonic empires seem to be the only kind that could (and did) appear in Mesoamerica. The Aztecs were simply the latest in a trend. But yeah, it is possible an empire dominated by the Zapotecs or Mixtecs could appear.
 
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