The Entire History of Mexico

#mexico #history #documentary

The history of Mexico spans more than three millennia, beginning with the early settlement over 13,000 years ago. Central and southern Mexico, known as Mesoamerica, saw the rise of complex civilizations that developed glyphic writing systems, recording political histories and conquests. The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the early 16th century established New Spain, bringing Spanish rule, Christianity, and European influences.

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, after a prolonged struggle marked by the Mexican War of Independence. The country faced numerous challenges in the 19th century, including regional conflicts, caudillo power struggles, the Mexican–American War, and foreign interventions like the French invasion. Efforts at modernization during La Reforma included promoting civil liberties and the separation of church and state, but the country was still beset by internal strife and external threats, including the Second Mexican Empire.

The late 19th-century Porfiriato era brought economic growth but also authoritarianism and social inequality, which eventually fuelled the Mexican Revolution in 1910. The revolution led to significant social and political changes, with the emergence of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) as the dominant force. Throughout the 20th century, Mexico implemented land reforms, nationalized key industries, and expanded social welfare, but these achievements were marred by corruption, violence, and economic crises.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico shifted towards privatization and trade liberalization, culminating in the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The turn of the century marked a significant shift in Mexico's political landscape, with the opposition National Action Party (PAN) winning the presidency in 2000, ending the PRI's long-standing dominance and ushering in a new era of Mexican politics. The 21st century has seen economic disparities, drug-related violence, and corruption. Administrations have focused on addressing these issues, with mixed success. The election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in 2018 marked another significant shift, as his government has aimed to combat corruption, reduce inequality, and address the violence that has plagued the country for decades.

[nz]

Mexican brothers! ¡Hola from Kazakhstan!🇰🇿✊ Wish u peace and prosperous future 🕊️

[zvgdjlq]

Mexicans are the kindest and hospitable people on earth !

Luv & respect from Afghanistan 🇦🇫

[kanita]

Mexico had a huge part on WWII, it fed the American people through the Bracero program. Both my grandparents were part of it.

[Chuck]

The guy with a British accent calls Colonization an “exchange of ideas” 😂 not sure it went quite that way

[gilbertllamas]

Proud born in Mexico 🇲🇽 but Raised in California the old Mexico

[LuizfTri]

Abraços do Brasil, admiração e prosperidade para nossas nações 🇧🇷🇲🇽 os dois gigantes da america latina

[sandragonzales]

GOD BLESS QUE SIEMPRE VIVA GREETINGS FROM A U.S. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[sweetsciencecoach]

Badass! Just moved to Spain from the US & I'm headed down a rabbit hole of Spanish, Mexican History. This page is my new guilty pleasure.

[ammohamed]

Absolutely loved this! The way this history documentary captured the rich and complex history of Mexico was truly fascinating. So many layers of culture and heritage brought to life!

[imlost]

That commercial placement at 6 minutes has got to be the best ever on YouTube haha

[mvg]

Born and raised, Mexican American in Texas and all my parents and Grandparents as well… growing up white kids would say go back to Mexico… we would say… “ we didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us”

[lolitadiaz]

I’m a proud 🇲🇽🇺🇸❣️Mexican American thanks for this very important documentary 😊

[el_malvibroso]

10:28 Is actually backwards, Zacatecas is above Guanajuato, By the way they are two of the most beautiful cities in Mexico

[GodsandRage]

It is no wonder why Mexico has some of the best fighters in the world. Never forget we come from literal warriors.

[Alec_Zander]

That ad read was so smooth I thought it was actually part of the history lesson for a second 😂

[MajoraZ]

As someone who follows Mesoamerican history and archeology, I really wish more time was spent on Prehispanic history here, there's a lot of civilizations you didn't cover and some errors (the Toltec Empire may not have actually existed, and if it did, it certainly didn't cover that wide an area, for example; and the Olmec did have the region's earliest monuments and cities, but other areas, were still developing somewhat on their own as well, it was more multiple groups developing and contributing together at the time; and there's quite a bit of corrections I have for the Spanish Conquest). I'll give a summarized timeline of Mesoamerica below, so hit "Read More" to see the rest!

The Preclassic Period
In 1400 BC, in Southern Veracruz, the Olmec site of San Lorezno becomes the region's first urban center in 1400 BC, and becomes abandoned by 900 BC, where the more properly urban and socially complex city of La Venta rises to prominence, which is also when our sole example of Olmec writing dates back to. In the following centuries, urban, state societies continue to pop up, notable ones being the early Maya cities such as El Mirador and Kaminaljuyu; the Zapotec city of Monte Alban in Oaxaca, and the rise of the Epi-Olmec culture out of the ashes of the Olmec; and all 3 develop writing; with many other independent towns and some cities popping up all over. In Western Mexico, during the same period as the Olmec the Capacha are a culture that developed independently from them, with far reaching examples of pottery and likely trade, but we don't know much about them or Western Mexican cultures in general

The Early Classic Period
By around 0-200AD, urban cities with state governments and writing (for the elite, anyways) had become widespread, marking the transition to the Classical Period. The Maya are at their height here, with many dozens of large, notable city-states & kingdoms, and thousands of smaller towns all over the Yucatan. Down in Oaxcaca, The Zapotec too have formed many city-states, with Monte Alban in particular rising as the most politically powerful. In Central Mexico, in the Valley of Mexico, a volcanic eruption displaces much of the population, including the city of Cuicuilco, the most powerful city in the area. These displaced people immigrate into the city of Teotihuacan, which grows into a huge influential political and religious center, and with a population of up to 150, 000, and eclipsing Rome in physical area, while also having a sewage system and housing even their commoners in lavish palace complexes. Teotihuacan's influence reaches far across the region, establishing many far reaching architectural, artistic, and religious trends, perhaps even conquering and installing rulers in Maya cities 1000 kilometers away. In western mexico, around the end of the preclassic and start of the classic, the Teuchitlan tradition, the first of Western Mexico's complex societies, emerges (maybe, again, Western Mexico's cultures are very understudied)

The Late Classic Period
In the latter half of the classic period, you see the rise of El Tajin as a notable influential center among the cities around the Gulf Coast in what's now Central State of Veracruz, and Cholula as a notable city in Central Mexico; Monte Alban begins to fall in esteem, with the Zapotec city of Mitla becoming the most prominent city in Oaxaca instead. Teotihuacan begins to decline as well, and in the Yucatan, the cities of Tikal and Calakmul become essentially two super-power city-states among the Maya, centralizing Maya geopolitics around them. Eventually Tikal and it's allies are able to put down Calakmul, shortly thereafter, you have the classical Maya collapse, where due to a combination of political instability following this massive war, climate issues, and other factors, nearly all of the large powerful Maya urban centers in the southern Yucatan decline between 700 and 800 AD, with many other key centers around Mesoamerica also doing so. Throughout the Late Classic and Early-Postclassic, West Mexico develops many different city-states with increasing influence from the rest of Mesoamerica

The Early Post-Classic Period
Moving into the Early-postclassic, yet many other cities still thrive and survive, such as El Tajin and Cholula, as do Maya city-states in the Northern Yucatan, such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal. You begin to see the Mixtec in the Oaxaca and Guerrero regions begin to overtake the Zapotec in prominence, in particular a warlord by the name of 8-Deer-Jaguar-Claw conquered and unified nearly the entire southern Oaxaca/Guerrero region into an empire. 8-deer had the blessings and support of the Toltec in Central Mexico (namely the Lord of Cholula), which were apparently, like Teotihuacan before them, a massively influential and far reaching power in the region, maybe operating out of the city of Tula, though most of our accounts of Toltec history and key rulers (such as Ce Acatl Topiltzin) are from Aztec accounts and are heavily mythologized. As a result, it's hard to separate history from myth (or from Aztec and latter Spanish attempts to twist Toltec accounts to justify their rule). Around 1100 AD, the Toltecs fall, and 8-deer is overthrown and killed in an ironic twist of fate where the one member of his enemies family who he left alive rallied a bunch of subject cities against him; though Tututepec, one of his cities, would grow into a major state of it's own

The Late Post-Classic Period
In the 1200's, The Maya city of Mayapan forms a giant political alliance of many of the city-states in the northern Yucatan. Due to droughts in northern Mexico, you begin to see some groups of Chichimeca (nomadic tribes of Northern Mexico), the Nahuas, move further south into Central and Southern Mexico, and transition into urban societies. Notably many settling around the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding areas, led by the legendary King Xototl, displacing local Otomi cities/towns. In particular, the city of Azcapotzalco, which claims heredity from Xolotl, eventually dominates the valley. During the same time as all this in western Mexico, a Nahua group moved down into the Lake Pátzcuaro region, and takes over and becomes the ruling class of Purepecha city of of Pátzcuaro, which conquers many other cities in the area

In the 1420's, due to a succession crisis in Azcapotzalco, one of it's two heirs assassinates the other, as well as the then king of Tenochtitlan, which was one of Azcapotzalco's vassal, tributary cities; as he also had had genealogical links to the Azcapotzalco royal line and also represented a succession threat. War breaks out, and Tenochtitlan, along with the city-states of Texcoco, and Tlacopan join forces and overthrow them, forming the Aztec triple alliance. Over the next 100 years, they rapidly expand and conquer almost all of Central and Southern Mexico, including Otomi cities/towns in Central Mexico, Totonac and Huastec ones along the Gulf Coast (who now inhabit that area), Mixtec, Zapotec, and Tlapanec ones in Oaxaca and Guerrero, and many others

Back to West Mexico, in the 1450's, Pátzcuaro is overthrown by the fellow Purepecha city of Tzintzuntzan, who rapidly expands to form the Purepecha/Tarascan empire, who would be the Aztec empire's only real competition and repel numerous invasions from them, preventing their expansion and conquest over the city-states and kingdoms further West such as Colmia and Jalisco; With the Aztec and Purepecha unable to make each other budge, the Aztec, as the Spanish arrive, are in the process of expanding to the east, and starting to make inroads at Maya towns, as well as trying to besiege and blockade Tlaxcala, a unified republic of 4 Nahua city-states (complete with senate) in an adjacent valley from the Valley of Mexico (alongside Cholula, Huextozinco, and some other cities/towns) who had been able to escape conquest due to their defensible position (other notable unconquered enclaves being the Mixtec kingdom of Tututepec, the Tlapenec kingdom of Yopitzinco, and the Otomi kingdom of Metztitlan

Spanish Conquest:
Just gonna correct what the video says here. Firstly, Cortes's expedition was also explicitly NOT a military expedition, he was under strict orders to only scout and report back, as Diego Velazquez wanted the glory/land grants that came with establishing towns and conquest himself: He actually knew that Cortes was untrustworthy and revoked the expedition charter, but Cortes went anyways and he was charged with treason as a result. Next, the Aztec did not conquer other "tribes", as stated above, these were city-states and kingdoms, nor were oppressed and wanting to be free of Aztec rule, nessacarily: the Aztec political system was quite hands off and left existing kings in power, didn't impose many laws or customs, etc. Conquered subjects were still effectively independent and retained their own interests, and it is precisely that hands off system (which other kingdoms and empires in Mesoamerica also shared, not just the Aztec) which encouraged opportunistic side switching where subjects would pledge themselves to other states to work together to topple their existing rivals and capitals, so they would get status within the new regime they helped prop up, especially if their current capital was already vulnerable

That's what was going on with Cortes: Tlaxcala allied with Cortes from early on, but Tlaxcala wasn't a subject, it was an enemy state the Mexica were actively at war with, as noted above. Texcoco, Chalco, Xochimilco, etc only switch sides later on after Moctezuma II died and Tenochtitlan was devastated by smallpox, at which they had more to gain and less to lose by turning on it. Cortes also had more then 500 Conquistadors: He started with that many, but he convinced other expeditions who were sent to arrest him to join him and such, so over the course of the whole expedition had around 3000 conquistadors

[franciscotorres]

California was Mexico one time it always will be in my heart

[Texas_Hawk]

I like that he said "force labor" 😅. Also, if you have ever listened to mexican music, whether it's old or new, the resolution spirit is very much alive.

[rosalikestomakemusic]

my smile faded so quick at the sponsor

[mindhistorydocumentary]

Mexico is home to one of the world’s most ancient civilizations—the Olmec, which thrived around 1200 BCE. They are credited with creating colossal stone heads and are considered the "mother culture" of Mesoamerica, influencing later civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, making their mark in world history documentaries!