History

Mexico's fundation goes back to 900 a.c. with the migracion of the Mexica tribe from Aztlan to the center of Mexico. When they arrived Mexico's center they found an eagle with a snake in his paws over a nopal (a plant with spines). Mexicas thought it was a message from Huizilopochtli (the sun god) indicating that they found their holly land. Now this image is in mexican flag center.

The Prehispanic Cultures

Before Mexicas in mexican center territory and central america the prehispanic cultures developed that shared traditions and culture. Mesoamerica referes to the cultures that existed before the european conquest as to the territory of Mexico, guatemala, Belice, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Mesoamerica limits as their traditions changed many times as many cultures boarned and estinguish. Some of the most important cultures were the Olmecas, Zapotecas, Mayas and Aztecs.

This cultures has their own art, arquitecture and religion. the mayority of the cultures developed over the conquest of anotherone and adopted their traditions, they also adopted same traditions because they comerce betwewn them. The division of periods in which this cultures lives were the preclasic, clasic and postclasic periods, some of the cultures endured many periods and others last for a short time.

The Conquest of Mexico and the Creation of New Spain

In 1492 Cristobal Colon arrived to Cuba and thought he was in India. Almost 30 years after that, Hernan Cortes invaded and conquest the prehispanic cultures taking Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital).

For the next 300 years Mexico was under the control of the Spanish monarchy. During this time indigenous and spanish mixed, spanish also implanted their religion and maked indgenous biuld churches over many of their sacred buildings. Many indigenous whent to churches to pray to their antique gods, making spanish think they were practicing catholicism, that is because when they builded the churches they hided their gods symbols in the them. You can still find many prehispanic symbols hided in mexican churches. Spanish also implanted their art and arqitecture in Mexico and biulded faboulous towns such as San Cristobal and San Miguel de Allende that are now declared human patrimony by UNESCO.

It was until 1810 when Miguel Hidalgo starded the independence movement and till 1821 Mexico finally was declared an independent country.

The XIX Century

For the next 100 years Mexico had many problems with invations from the French and United States and internal wars in the search of power.

In 1847 under the rule of Carlos de Santa Anna Mexico gave up more than half of its territory to the United States. The territory that Mexico lost is now California, Nuevo México, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and a big part of Colorado.

In 1861 Mexico stopped paying England, Spain and France his dept because of insufficient funds and in this same year under the rule of Napoleon III France invaded Mexico. France implanted in Mexico "The Second Mexican Empire" till 1867 when Benito Juares (with the help of United States arms) won the war and maked the French retire. After Benito Juares, Porfirio Dias implanted a dictatorship that lasted 33 years (1876-1910). During this period Mexico had good growth but a lot of inequality.

The XX Century and The Revolution

The revolution of Mexico against Porfirio Dias started in 1910 and ended in 1917. Many people disagree about the end of the revolution and dictatorship because after Porfirio Dias Mexico was under the PRI party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) dictatorship hided in democracy, it was until 2000 when another party won the elections.

This is a brief summary of Mexican history for more information we recommend buying a book. You can see many colonial buildings and arquitecture in Mexico City and nearby towns. You can also see some prehispanic ruins such as Tenochtitlan and Tula but we strongly recommend you travelling south Mexico to see Bonampak, Chichen Itza, Palenque, Tonina, Tulum, Uxmal, Tula and Yaxchilan.