Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc

Don Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc (died after 1609) was the son of Don Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin and Doña Francisca de Montezuma , a daughter of Moctezuma II. He was therefore grandson of Moctezuma II and great-grandson of Axayacatl on both his mother and father's side, as his father and his Mother were cousin and cousin. He became one of the most important chroniclers of New Spain , his main works are the Crónica Mexicana in Spanish and the Crónica Mexicayotl in Aztec .

Life

Little is known about Tezozomoc, neither his year of birth nor his place of birth can be determined. Several of his numerous siblings (he is referred to as the fourth or seventh child of Huanitzin) were important figures in early-colonial Mexican society, for example his older brother, Don Cristóbal de Guzmán Cecetzin, was the Indian gobernador of Tenochtitlan for several years.

He wrote about himself:

And in 1609, I, Don Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc, who am a grandson of him who was the great King Moteuczoma (Montezuma) the younger, and a descendant of his noble daughter, sprang from the bosom of the princess, my dearly beloved mother, Dona Francisca de Moteuczoma, whose husband was Don Diege de Alvarado Hunaitzin, my esteemed father, a man of noble birth, it is these who have begotten me, and in all truth I am their son ... all that they (the Noble old times) written down and testified in their chronicles is true and contains no lie. They recorded it without adding anything or thinking about delusions.

And for this reason too I, Don Hernando de Alvarado Tezozómoc, testify and confirm the history of these ancestors, for what I am now writing does not come from just a few oral reports; what I tell I know from those already named, from the same ancestors who recorded it; I firmly trust what I heard from her beloved lips about the revered kings and nobles who lived then and of whose deeds I tell and to whom our Lord and God be gracious.

literature

• Ursula Dyckerhoff : The "Cronica Mexicana" by Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, a source-critical investigation . Hamburg 1970.
• Berthold Riese : Crónica Mexicayotl: The Chronicle of Mexicanism by Alonso Franco, Hernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc and Domingo Francisco de San Antón Munón Chimalpahin ; Academia Richarz Publishing House; Sankt Augustin, 1st edition 2004; ISBN 3896652710 .