Page from the Aztec codex Matrícula de Tributos(History and Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo) Before the Spanish arrived in 1519, the highest officials of the Aztec Empire could count on the provinces ...

Ruins of Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City. Clockwise from top left: ear flare, Tlaloc mask (2), lightning bolt scepter(Mirsa Islas Orozco/Courtesy of ...

Was the 1521 surrender of the great Indigenous empire to the Spanish crown a triumphant conquest, an existential tragedy—or even a genocide? Generations of Mexican schoolchildren were taught the story ...