Tarascan empire: A Visual History

The Tarascan or Purepecha Empire was the second largest state in Mesoamerica at the Spanish arrival, ruling about 75,000 km2 of western Mexico from Tzintzuntzan on Lake Patzcuaro. Founded by Tariacuri around 1350 and consolidated under his nephews, it was governed by a hereditary cazonci through a centralised administration, unusual in Mesoamerica. Its army, uniquely equipped with copper and bronze weapons, defeated the Aztec Axayacatl's invasion around 1478 and held a fortified frontier against Tenochtitlan for 40 years. In 1522, after smallpox and the fall of the Aztecs, the last cazonci Tangaxuan II submitted to Spain; Nuno de Guzman had him burned in 1530.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Tarascan Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Tarascan territory

Timeline of the Tarascan Empire

1. 1350
   Tariacuri unites the lake towns
2. 1450
   Tzintzuntzan supreme
3. 1478
   Aztec invasion defeated at Taximaroa
4. 1519
   Peak extent
5. 1520
   Smallpox kills Zuangua
6. 1522
   Tangaxuan II submits to Spain
7. 1530
   Tangaxuan executed by Nuno de Guzman

Tariacuri

The Purepecha, whose language is unrelated to any other in Mesoamerica, settled around Lake Patzcuaro. According to the Relacion de Michoacan compiled by a Franciscan in 1541, the culture hero Tariacuri united the lake towns around 1350; after his death his son Hiquingaje and nephews Hiripan and Tangaxuan divided and then consolidated the realm, with Tzintzuntzan supreme by about 1450.

A different kind of state

Unlike the Aztec tribute web, the Tarascans ruled directly through governors and a court hierarchy, with the cazonci as high priest of the sun god Curicaueri. Their round-and-rectangular yacata pyramids, feather mosaics and metallurgy were distinctive: they mined copper and made bronze axes, needles, tweezers and bells. Their frontier with the Aztecs was a line of fortresses and garrison towns.

Aztec wars and Spanish conquest

Axayacatl invaded around 1478 with perhaps 24,000 men and was routed at Taximaroa; later Aztec attacks fared no better, and the Tarascans refused Moctezuma II's appeal for alliance against Cortes in 1520. Smallpox killed the cazonci Zuangua in 1520; his son Tangaxuan II submitted to Cortes's envoys in 1522 and kept his throne under Spanish overlordship until the brutal Nuno de Guzman tortured and executed him in 1530. Bishop Vasco de Quiroga's later hospital-villages gave Michoacan its craft traditions.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Aztec Empire (1428 to 1521)
• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Inca Empire (1438 to 1533)

Wars of the same era and region

• Spanish conquest of Mexico (1519 to 1521)

8 surprising things about the Tarascan Empire

1. The Tarascans were the only Mesoamerican people to use bronze for tools and weapons on a large scale.
2. The Purepecha language is an isolate, unrelated to Nahuatl, Maya or any other; some link it distantly to Quechua.
3. The Aztecs never conquered the Tarascans, and the two empires shared a fortified frontier like a Cold War border.
4. The name 'Tarascan' may come from a Purepecha word for 'in-law', misapplied by the Spanish.
5. Tzintzuntzan means 'place of hummingbirds'; its five yacata pyramids stand above Lake Patzcuaro.
6. The Relacion de Michoacan of 1541 is one of the best surviving accounts of a pre-Hispanic state written from native testimony.
7. Nuno de Guzman's execution of the cazonci was so notorious that even the Spanish authorities imprisoned him.
8. Michoacan's Day of the Dead celebrations at Patzcuaro are among the most famous in Mexico and draw on Purepecha traditions.

Sources

• Tarasco Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Purepecha Empire Wikipedia
• Tarascan Civilization World History Encyclopedia
• Helen Perlstein Pollard, Tariacuri's Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State (1993) University of Oklahoma Press

Back to all empires and wars