Jose Beltan Beltran 1
Dr. Karanovich
History 100
August 2007
Mesoamerica: The land that witnessed it all, the peoples, the culture, and the conquest. The land referred to as Mesoamerica runs west from a point on the Gulf coast of Mexico above what today is the port of Tampico, then expands south to the central desert of highland Mexico, meeting the Pacific coast. On the southeast, the land extends from northwestern Honduras on the Caribbean across to the Pacific shore in El Salvador. About half of Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and parts of Honduras and El Salvador are included in Meso-America. This land has great history to it, it is the land that fostered great civilizations and cultures, it is the land where great artifacts were built, where agriculture flourished to support thousands of civilians, and where a brutal and macabre conquest took place. This land witnessed it all. It is important that we understand the history of this land, because if we do, we can understand who founded its cities, who dominated this region, and what Gods influenced its peoples, and who explored it, invaded and colonized this land. It is very uncertain when we speak about the Mexica (people of Mesoamerica) people, because we know very little about them. Much of the information that has been gathered about them comes from large scale excavations, and archeological endeavors that have found ancient ruins, sculptures, temples and the like. But, the things that we do know

Beltran 2 about the Mexica come from discoveries that have been well preserved, and are ranked as reliable sources of information by historians, archeologists and anthropologists.
One ethnicity that has a tremendous impact in the history of Mesoamerica are the people referred to as the Aztecs, which were the Nahualt speaking people who founded and settled the