The ''Anales de Tlatelolco'' (''Annals of Tlatelolco'') is a

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

manuscript written in

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 Nahuas, most of whom live mainly in Central Mexico and have smaller popul ...

, using

Latin characters The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

, by anonymous

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

authors. The text has no pictorial content. Although there is an assertion that the text was a copy of one written in 1528 in Tlatelolco, only seven years after the fall of the Aztec Empire, James Lockhart argues that there is no evidence for this early date of composition, based on internal evidence of the text. However, he supports the contention that this is an authentic conquest account, arguing that it was composed about 20 years after the conquest in the 1540s, and contemporaneous with the Cuernavaca censuses. Unlike the Florentine Codex and its account of the

conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was a pivotal event in the history of the Americas, marked by the collision of the Aztec Triple Alliance and the Spanish Empire. Taking place between 1519 and 1521, this event saw the Spanish conquistad ...

, the Annals of Tlatelolco remained in Nahua hands, providing authentic insight into the thoughts and outlook of the newly conquered Nahuas. The document is the only one that contains the day the

Aztecs The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization 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 ...

exited Aztlan-Colhuacan, as well as the day of the founding of

Mexico-Tenochtitlan , also known as Mexico-Tenochtitlan, was a large Mexican in what is now the historic center of Mexico City. The exact date of the founding of the city is unclear, but the date 13 March 1325 was chosen in 1925 to celebrate the 600th anniver ...

. Its authors preferred to remain anonymous, probably to protect them from the Spanish authorities. It is suspected these authors later became the sources for

Bernardino de Sahagún Bernardino de Sahagún ( – 5 February 1590) was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain (now Mexico). Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he jour ...

's works. The priest Ángel María Garibay K. provided one translation of the manuscript into Spanish in 1956, while James Lockhart published the Nahuatl text and a scholarly translation to English in 1991 in ''We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico.'' It is also variously known as ''Unos Annales Históricos de la Nación Mexicana'' ("Some Historical Annals of the Mexican Nation"), ''La relación anónima de Tlatelolco'', “Manuscript 22”, and the "Tlatelolco Codex" (also a true codex called thus exists). The manuscript is held at the

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

in Paris. The most important publications in Spanish are: the published one by Antigua Libreria de Robredo, Mexico 1948, introduction of Robert Barlow, translation and notes of Henrich Berlin; the most recent by Conaculta, Mexico 2002, translation of Rafael Tena, Col. Cien de México, 207pp. (). Background on the text and a popular translation to English for classroom use can be found in ''The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico'' by

Miguel León-Portilla Miguel León-Portilla (22 February 1926 – 1 October 2019) was a Mexican anthropologist and historian, specializing in Aztec culture and literature of the pre-Columbian and colonial eras. Many of his works were translated to English and he was ...

and Lysander Kemp.León Portilla, Miguel, and Lysander Kemp. 1962. ''The broken spears; the Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico''. Boston: Beacon Press.

References

Aztec codices 1530 books 16th-century history books History books about the 16th century Nahuatl literature 1540s in New Spain Bibliothèque nationale de France collections {{manuscript-stub