Political and territorial structure in central pre-Hispanic Mexico: a preliminary synthesis for the study of Novo-Hispanic society

This paper presents a synthesis of the political-territorial structure of the pre-Hispanic culture of the central Mesoamerican area commonly known as Aztecs on the eve of the Spanish conquest, in order to study the early colonial society. We Hispanic culture did not settle in a desert territory nor implanted its dominion destroying the indigenous societies, rather it allowed a wide continuity of the preexisting structures, which, with no doubt, constitutes the deep reason of the success of the colonial society. We present a series of sociopolitical terms typical of the Aztec society (altepetl, calpulli, tlatocayotl), as well as the concepts of hegemonic domination and double mistaken identity, which have allowed a deeper understanding of the indigenous society, before and after the Spanish conquest. Finally, we apply our perspective of analysis to the case of Azcapotzalco during the early colonial period.