The Acolhua are a

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. Wit ...

n people who arrived in the

Valley of Mexico The Valley of Mexico ( es, Valle de México) is a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with present-day Mexico City and the eastern half of the State of Mexico. Surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, the Valley of Mexico w ...

in or around the year 1200 CE. The Acolhua were a sister culture of the

Aztecs The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

(or Mexica) as well as the

Tepanec The Tepanecs or Tepaneca are a Mesoamerican people who arrived in the Valley of Mexico in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.The dates vary by source, including 1152 CE in Anales de Tlatelolco, 1210 from Chimalpahin, and 1226 from Ixtlilxochi ...

, Chalca, Xochimilca and others. The most important political entity in ancient Mesoamerica was the Triple Alliance (Nahuatl, ''excan tlatoloyan''), founded in 1428 when the rulers of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan formed an alliance that replaced the Tepanec Empire of Azcapotzalco and eventually integrated into a single polity the most developed regions of western Mesoamerica. Because of the predominance of Tenochtitlan, it has also been called the Mexica, Aztec, or Tenochca Empire. It came to an end with the Spanish conquest of 1521. Each of the three allied kings led a group of lesser kingdoms that coincided with the three major ethnic components and political powers of previous times: the Colhuas, the Acolhua-Chichimecs, and the Tepanecs. The domain of Tenochtitlan was the southern part of the Basin, with the Colhua towns of Xochimilco, and Cuitlahuac. Tetzcoco's domain comprised the Acolhua kingdoms in the eastern Basin and beyond to Tollantzinco and Cuauhchinanco. Tlacopan ruled the Tepanec towns of the western Basin, including Azcapotzalco and Coyoacán, and towns farther north to the Otomí center of Xilotepec. These three allied groups of kingdoms constituted the core area of the empire, which as a unit then expanded its power over more distant areas. The Acolhua became the allies of the Aztecs against Tepanec. The Acolhua settled most of the eastern Basin of Mexico,

Acolhuacan Acolhuacan or Aculhuacan (Nahuatl: ''ācōlhuahcān''; ) was a pre-Columbian province in the east of the Valley of Mexico, inhabited by the Acolhua. Its capital was initially Coatlichan, but this settlement was eventually eclipsed in importance b ...

. Their capital was Texcoco. It is likely that the ruling family of the Acolhua were descended from Otomi speakers and did not speak

Nahuatl Nahuatl (; ), Aztec, or Mexicano is a language or, by some definitions, a group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by about Nahua peoples, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have small ...

until decreed by their ruler (''

tlatoani ''Tlatoani'' ( , "one who speaks, ruler"; plural ' or tlatoque) is the Classical Nahuatl term for the ruler of an , a pre-Hispanic state. It is the noun form of the verb "tlahtoa" meaning "speak, command, rule". As a result, it has been variousl ...

'') Techotlalatzin.Davies (1980, p.129); Smith (1984, p.170).

References

{{authority control Mesoamerican cultures Nahua people Indigenous peoples in Mexico