Mexico’s 1,972,550 square kilometers in size and has an estimated population of 111 million people. It is bordered on the north by the United States, on the South by Belize and Guatemala, on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Caribbean Sea. Mexico has an incredibly rich history, particularly in regards to the remarkably advanced indigenous people groups. It is believed that the original humans migrated from Siberia (it is believed there used to be a land formation that sank in what is now the Bering Strait) in migratory waves started in 60,000 BC. Somewhere between 7000 and 3000 BC, the people in central Mexico began cultivating agriculture. They went from being nomadic hunters and gatherers to settling into permanent villages. Throughout what is today Mexico, there were dozens and dozens of different ethnic tribes that influenced one another, and at various points in time sometimes conquered one another, too.

Mexico’s “mother culture” is considered to be the Olmec people, who originated near the Gulf Coast. They seemed to have a high degree of social organization and were involved in trade over vast regions. Their settlements were destroyed around 400 BC, but the Olmec art, religion and social structure was adopted by many of the other tribes and had a profound impact on the later Mexican civilizations.

The first “great civilization” was the Teotihuacan people, who lived in central Mexico, near what is today Mexico City. Right around zero AD, they built a master planned city on a grid system that included temples, mansions and avenues. It also included two pyramids, one of which stands 70 meters (210 feet) tall and is the third largest pyramid in the world (they also later built the second largest pyramid in the world in another part of Mexico. The biggest pyramid in the world is Cheops in Egypt ). The Teotihuacan people had adopted the Olmec culture and profoundly expanded on it, developing writing, books, a numeral system, and a calendar. They also added a few more gods to the religion. Their domain was the biggest of all the pre-colonial empires, spreading all the way south to what is now Honduras and El Salvador. Like the early days of the Roman Empire, the Teotihuacan managed to entice other indigenous groups to join their empire by providing a mutually beneficial alliance where the local peoples were mostly autonomous. In the 8th century, the city of Teotihuacan was burned down and abandoned, and the empire rapidly declined.

The next great civilization was the Mayans, based in what is now southeast Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. The Mayans expanded upon the Teotihuacan culture with significant educational advancements in the fields of astronomy, astrology, and mathematics. They also attained new pinnacles of artistic expression and architecture. The culture that evolved is strikingly similar to the Egyptians in a few ways. Rulers were believed to be deities, direct descendants from the gods, and were buried in pyramids filled with treasures for the afterlife. The pyramids had attached temples in which the people could worship the particular god-man. Tall stones and altars were carved with dates, histories and elaborate human and divine figures. The writing system was partly phonetic, partly pictorial. Architecture had a celestial plan, carefully aligned with the sun, moon, planets, and certain stars. Religion permeated every facet of life, and they carried out elaborate rituals to win favor in the eyes of the assorted gods. Rituals included dancing, feasting, bloodletting from the ears, tongue and penis, and some small scale human sacrifices. They refined the calendar into a tool for the exact recording and forecasting of earthly and heavenly events, and many claim it is one of the most accurate calendars ever implemented by man. The Mayans believed that nature was cyclical and that the future could be predicted by looking at the past. Interestingly, they believed that each world cycle last for 1,872,000 days (exactly 5,125 years). Each cycle ends as a result of cataclysmic event, and is replaced by a new world cycle. The current world cycle is scheduled to end on December 21, 2012. Unfortunately, the assorted Mayan city-states were always at war with one another. The Mayan civilization declined around 900 AD, probably because of prolonged severe droughts.

Meanwhile, back in central Mexico there was a power vacuum when the Teotihuacan fell. Around 900 AD, the Toltec people emerged as the leading power. They added a new god to the array, the god of warriors and sorcery, who demanded a regular diet of the hearts of sacrificed warriors. They even had special carvings with plates to put the hearts on. This new god became more important than some of the other gods. There was a legend that this new god ran off a human king, named Topiltzin, who was closely identified with one of the gods bumped down in importance. The king promised to return in 1519 to seek revenge. Anyway, the Toltecs seemed to be very militaristic, and to feed this god, human sacrifice became massive. The Toltecs were apparently destroyed by barbarian invaders from the north in the late 1200’s.

The Aztecs (also called the Mexica) were a nomadic people that settled in Central Mexico, building their capital city of Tenochtitlan where Mexico City stands today in 1325. The Aztecs incorporated the Mayan and Toltec cultures into their own and tweaked them. All the previous cultures had a Sun god, and the Aztecs believed that the only way to stop the sun from dying was to feed it warrior hearts. To inaugurate their new Great Temple, 20,000 people were sacrificed. And that was just opening day! They went on to build hundreds of temple complexes for the assorted gods. By the 1400’s, the Aztecs were the most powerful groups in the area, ruling over about 5 million people. They were able to support such a large population with intensive farming methods using stone and wooden tools, irrigation, terracing, and swamp reclamation. The Aztecs ruled by fear and demanded all the most valuable resources for the elite. The various tribes under their dominion despised them.

In 1517, Spanish explorers based out of Cuba landed on the Gulf Coast, led by Hernan Cortez. They were driven off by hostile locals. In 1519, the Spaniards landed again, this time with 550 men and 16 horses. They conquered the inhospitable people, who fled in fear. The other native groups gave them a friendlier reception. The Spaniards made their way to Tenochtitlan, making friends with the locals as they progressed. By the time they arrived in November 1519, the Spanish had 6000 Indian allies with them. The Aztec leader, Moctezuma, believed Cortes was really the ousted Toltec king, Topiltzin, coming back to seek revenge as prophesized. Since Moctezuma believed Cortes to be a god, he treated the Spaniards accordingly, lavishing them with luxuries. The Spanish were devout and zealous Catholics who were offended by the Aztec’s religion. They took Moctezuma hostage and started destroying the Aztec’s idols. Moctezuma told his people to just go along with it. Six or seven months later, the Spaniards believed the Aztecs were finally going to fight back, and in a pre-emptive strike, killed 200 Aztec noblemen. Moctzeuma was killed shortly thereafter, though it isn’t clear if the Spaniards did it. With Moctezuma no longer holding them back, the Aztecs attacked. The Spanish and their Indian allies fled from Tenochtitlan, and thousands of those trying to flee were killed.

In 1521, 900 Spaniards accompanied by 100,000 Indians allies returned to Tenochtitlan, conquering it in only three months. The city was destroyed, but the Spaniards rebuilt it, re-naming it Mexico. The country was named New Spain. From there, the Spaniards conquered the surrounding lands. Like the rest of their colonies, the Spaniards exploited the resources and Spanish settlers grew rich. The natives died en-masse, mostly of European diseases, going from 25 million at the time of Spaniard arrival to only a million in 1605. The surviving natives were enslaved, oppressed and otherwise mistreated. The only allies the natives had were the Catholic monks that protected the locals from the most excessive of abuses. In 1537, the monks got Pope Paul III to declare that the indigenous Mexicans were officially human beings. Indigenous slavery was abolished in the 1550’s, partly replaced by black slavery. The natives were paid miniscule wages and taxed by both local conquerors and the crown. Spain set up a government system.

As time passed, those of Spanish descent who were born and bred in New Spain, called criollos, developed an identity separate from the mother country. Social status in New Spain was determined heritage. Anyone who was born in Spain was automatically considered nobility, even if they were peons back home. Next were the criollos, who tended to be quite wealthy and resented that the Spanish immigrants had authority over them. Third were mestizos, people of mixed ancestry, and at the bottom were the African slaves and indigenous peoples. Over the years, New Spain’s borders slowly extended northwards by settlers and missionaries. By the early 1800’s, New Spain encompassed what is today Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah and Colorado.

In 1767, the Spanish royalty banned the Jesuit Catholics from the Spanish empire. Many of the banned were criollos, which didn’t sit well with the rest of the criollos in New Spain. In 1804, the crown confiscated church assets, forcing the church to demand many debts owed to them, which created hardship for the criollos. In 1804, France invaded Spain and the criollos realized that Spain was severely weakened, making independence finally possible. The rebellion began in 1810, led by a priest, and the fighting went on for 11 years. In 1821, Mexico finally won independence for itself and the Spanish colonies in Central America. They established themselves as a constitutional monarchy, and the leader of the rebellion’s army took the throne as the first emperor. In 1823 he was deposed, and in 1824 Mexico became a republic.

The first 90 years were politically tumultuous, with constantly changing leadership. The economy was perpetually weak. During that time, they went through many wars. First, they unsuccessfully tried to conquer Central America. Second, by 1830, 20,000 Americans had moved to Texas, then part of Mexico. Slavery had already been outlawed in Mexico, but some brought slaves anyway. In 1836, wanting slavery to be legal, Texas declared itself an independent nation. Only two battles were fought before the Mexicans gave up. Third, France invaded Mexico in 1838 over defaulted debts, which ended in less than a year thanks to England intervening. Fourth, in 1845, greedy for more land in which to expand, the US added Texas as a state and picked a war with Mexico. Ulysses S. Grant, then a soldier fighting in the war, said the war “was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.” The Mexicans were defeated in 21 months, losing tremendous amounts of territory. Fifth, in 1847, the Mayans on the Yucatan peninsula revolted, which Mexico narrowly won. Sixth, from 1858 1860 a civil war raged between the liberals and conservatives. Seventh, 10 months after the civil war ended, the economy was in shambles and they still weren’t paying their foreign debts, so France invaded Mexico again. France occupied Mexico until 1867. At that point, Napoleon III (https://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/2009/01/02/history-of-the-republic-of-france/), was embroiled in a war with Prussia and had pulled most of his troops out of Mexico, making a revolt viable. Mexico regained its independence.

In 1866, Benito Juarez was elected president and finally brought desperately needed political stability. His successor, Porfirio Diaz came to power in 1876. He brought Mexico into the industrial age, building things like telephone lines, railways, and other public works projects. He also improved the economy somewhat. But, he also banned political opposition, free press and free elections. Peasants were cheated out of their lands, workers suffered appalling conditions, and the army ruthlessly kept people quiet. Land and wealth became concentrated into the hands of a few. In 1910, people finally decided they had enough and a revolt began, which spread quickly across the country. Bowing to pressure, Diaz resigned in 1911. But there was no clear leader to take Diaz’s place, and over the next 10 years several factions fought against one another for power. One in eight Mexicans died during the civil war.

In 1920, an organization that later came to be known as PRI rose to power and brought stability. Just like under Diaz’s regime, the stability came with a price and Mexico was again back to being a single party “democracy”. The PRI rebuilt the infrastructure, built more schools so kids could be educated, severely limited church activities and power, and enacted land reform policies. By the 60’s, they had given land to about half the population. At first the party held radical social reform policies, but as time wore on, grew steadily more conservative, corrupt and repressive. They stayed in power until 2000, and as time went on, they relied more and more on strong-arm tactics and election fraud to keep the power.

Discontent with the government also grew over time. A brief civil war ensued from 1924 1929 over Catholic’s right to worship, but rights weren’t reinstated until 1936. In 1968, 400 government protestors were massacred outside Mexico City. From 1940 1980, the population more than tripled, and many were living in extreme poverty. Mexico had nationalized its oil fields and relied heavily on them for revenue. They were hit hard when oil prices collapsed in the early 80’s, and experienced a deep recession. In 1985, Mexico City was hit with a devastating 8.1 magnitude earthquake. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, illegal drug trafficking became a huge industry, and many believed the President and his cabinet were heavily involved. In 1994, Mexico entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the US. NAFTA was beneficial to Mexican big business, but financially devastated small farmers and businesses. Their currency, the peso, collapsed in 1994, setting off another painful recession, which, along with NAFTA, was a double whammy for small business and small farmers.

Of course, with each negative event, anti-government sentiment and protesting grew. By the late 90’s, it was a voice that could no longer be ignored. The president in power in the late 90’s finally agreed to overhaul the electoral system, making elections fair. In the next presidential election, 2000, the PRI was voted out of power and the transition of power was peaceful and smooth. It was the first time in all of Mexican history that there was a peaceful regime change.

In the 2006 election, there were some allegations of voter fraud, but the controversy died down with no violence. The new president, Calderon, went on the offensive with the drug cartels, getting rid of some of the most powerful players. This has created a power vacuum and an all out drug war that is plaguing the cities that are drug trafficking centers, particularly Tijuana, which borders San Diego, and Nuevo Laredo, which borders Texas.