30 May 2025 / 10 House
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Find out moreDid the Aztecs use canoes for war?
Aztec war canoes in battle; Lienzo de Tlaxcala fol. 45
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Daniel: Did the Aztecs use canoes for war? I was wondering if the Aztecs ever had anything resembling a fleet to defend their city or attack others, and if these war canoes were any different from the normal ones. (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
Yes, most definitely! Ross Hassig (member of our Panel of Experts) has written ‘The Aztecs pioneered the unprecedented reliance on naval capacity, which enabled them to wage extensive warfare within the Basin of Mexico...’ (1988: 94). They had a specific term in Nahuatl for an armoured canoe: chimalacalli*, a word incorporating ‘shield’, ‘water’ and ‘house’. Their role in fighting the Spanish brigantines in the siege of Tenochtitlan has been well documented, including illustrations in such chronicles as the Florentine Codex and the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (main picture). ‘Canoe transport could dispatch and resupply troops, greatly reducing the logistical problems within the basin of Mexico and opening both lakeshore and island cities to easier attack’ (ibid: 133).
Leading scholars of Aztec warfare such as Marco Antonio Cervera Obregón and Ross Hassig have documented the mass use of canoes by Mexica armies in several important battles prior to the war with the Spaniards. In some cases a thousand or more canoes were employed - with double or triple that number carrying warriors in the battle for Tenochtitlan, the warriors hurling missiles of different kinds from the boats.
Since the Aztecs had long been employing canoes of different sizes for transporting goods and people - the largest up to 50 feet in length and capable of carrying up to 60 passengers - these boats required little by way of modification for use in war.
* We’re left with one doubt: whilst the illustrations of canoes in post-invasion codices clearly show shields, were these attached to the sides of the vessels as ‘armour’, or might they simply have been the defensive weapons held by the warriors themselves?
Sources/references:-
• Cervera Obregón, Marco Antonio (2011) Guerreros Aztecas, Ediciones Nowtilus, Madrid
• Hassig, Ross (1988) Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Picture sources:-
• Main and final: images scanned from our own copy of ‘Lienzo de Tlaxcala’ (Alfredo Chavero edition, 1892), Artes de México no. 51/52, Vol XI, 1964
• Miguel Covarrubias illustration scanned from our own copy of The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517-1521 by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, trans. A.P. Maudslay, Limited Editions Club, Mexico City, 1942
• Durán image scanned from our own copy of Códice Durán - Historia de las Indias de Nueva España e Islas de Tierra Firme, Arrendedora Internacional, Mexico City, 1990.
Comments (1)
Daniel
12th Dec 2023
Thanks for the reply as always. Just a few last questions, how well were they able to defend themselves with their canoes against the Spanish brigantines and enemy canoes? And why weren’t boats with sails invented in Mesoamerica?
Mexicolore
Cortés himself admitted that the use of the brigantines on Lake Texcoco was ‘key to the war’ and at the end of the day they were able to wreak havoc on the Aztec canoes, even though the latter were far more numerous. Apparently the Spaniards were lucky that a strong breeze sprang up over the lake just when they were on the point of being attacked by a mass of advancing canoes, enabling them to move steadily amongst the canoes, smashing them into pieces and blasting others with cannons and harquebuses. Perhaps the unreliability of the wind discouraged native Mexicans from employing sails on boats, especially on lakes.
Aztec war canoes in battle; Lienzo de Tlaxcala fol. 45
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