Where did Mexicans originate from?

Answer 1

Pre-Columbian Mexican civilizations

An image of one of the pyramids in the upper level of Yaxchilán
Toltec warrior columns at Tollan (Tula), HidalgoBetween 1800 and 300 BC, complex cultures began to form. Many matured into advanced Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the: Olmec, Izapa, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huaxtec, Purepecha,Toltec and Mexica (Aztecs), which flourished for nearly 4,000 years before first contact with Europeans.

Major Civilizations
While many city-states, kingdoms, and empires competed with one another for power and prestige, Mexico can be said to have had five major civilizations: The Olmec, Teotihuacan, the Toltec, the Mexica (a.k.a. Aztecs) and the Maya. These civilizations (with the exception of the politically-fragmented Maya) extended their reach across Mexico, and beyond, like no others. They consolidated power and distributed influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and theology. Other regional power players made economic and political alliances with these five civilizations over the span of nearly 4,000 years. Many made war with them. But almost all found themselves within these five spheres of influence.

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The Olmec Civilization
Main article: Olmec
The earliest known Mexican civilization is the Olmec. This civilization established the cultural blueprint which all succeeding indigenous civilizations would follow in Mexico and Central America. The roots of Olmec civilization began around 2300 B.C. (according to Arqueologia Mexicana, the Mexican archaeology journal) with the production of pottery in abundance, a major sign of urbanization. The first signs of Olmec civilization are in San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, near the coast in south-east Veracruz. Widely known today for their colossal heads, the Olmec influence extended across Mexico, into Central America, and along the Gulf of Mexico. They established new forms of government, pyramid-temples, writing, astronomy, art, mathematics, trade, and religion. Their achievements would pave the way for the later Maya civilization in the east, and the many civilizations to the west in central Mexico.


View of Avenue of the Dead from Pyramid of the Moon[edit]
The Teotihuacan Civilization
Main article: Teotihuacan
The decline of the Olmec resulted in a power vacuum in Mexico. Emerging from that vacuum was Teotihuacan, first settled in 300 B.C. By 150 A.D., it had grown to become the first true metropolis of what is now called North America. Teotihuacan established a new economic and political order never before seen in Mexico. Its influence stretched across Mexico into Central America, founding new dynasties in the Mayan cities of Tikal, Copan, and Kaminaljuyú. Teotihuacan's influence over the Maya civilization cannot be overstated: it transformed political power, artistic depictions, and the nature of economics. Within the city of Teotihuacan was a diverse and cosmopolitan population. Most of the regional ethnicities of Mexico were represented in the city, such as Zapotecs from the Oaxaca region. They lived in apartment communities where they worked their trades and contributed to the city's economic and cultural prowess. By 500 A.D., Teotihuacan had become the largest city in the world. Teotihuacan's economic pull impacted areas in northern Mexico as well. It was a city whose monumental architecture reflected a new era in Mexican civilization, declining in political power about 650 B.C., but lasting in cultural influence for the better part of a millennium, to around 950 A.D.

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The Maya Civilization
Main article: Maya

Mayan architecture at UxmalContemporary with Teotihuacan's greatness was the greatness of the Maya civilization. The period between 250 A.D. and 650 A.D. saw an intense flourishing of Maya civilized accomplishments. While the many Maya city-states never achieved political unity on the order of the central Mexican civilizations, they exerted a tremendous intellectual influence upon Mexico and Central America. The Maya built some of the most elaborate cities on the continent, and made innovations in mathematics, astronomy, and writing that became the pinnacle of Mexico's scientific achievements.

Their most famous cities that remain until our days are Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Palenque.

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The Toltec Civilization
Main article: Toltec
Just as Teotihuacan had emerged from a power vacuum, so too did the Toltec civilization, which took the reigns of cultural and political power in Mexico from about 700 A.D. Many of the Toltec peoples were comprised of northern desert peoples, often called Chichimeca in Mexico's Nahuatl language. They fused their proud desert heritage with the mighty civilized culture of Teotihuacan. This new heritage would give rise to a new empire in Mexico. The Toltec empire would reach as far south as Central America, and as far north as the Anasazi corn culture in the Southwestern United States. The Toltec established a prosperous turquoise trade route with the northern civilization of Pueblo Bonito, in modern-day New Mexico. Toltec traders would trade prized bird feathers with Pueblo Bonito, while circulating all the finest wares that Mexico had to offer with their immediate neighbors. In the Mayan area of Chichen Itza, the Toltec civilization spread and the Maya were once again powerfully influenced by central Mexicans. The Toltec political system was so influential, that any serious Maya dynasty would later claim to be of Toltec descent. In fact, it was this prized Toltec lineage that would set the stage for Mexico's last great indigenous civilization.

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The Mexica (Aztec) Civilization
Main article: Aztec
With the decline of the Toltec civilization came political fragmentation in the Valley of Mexico. Into this new game of political contenders to the Toltec throne stepped outsiders: the Mexica. They were a proud desert people, one of seven groups who formerly called themselves "Azteca," but changed their name after years of migrating. Newcomers to the Valley of Mexico, they were seen as crude and unrefined in the ways of the prestigious Nahua civilizations, such as the fallen Toltec empire.


Aztec warriors as shown in the Florentine Codex.Latecomers to Mexico's central plateau, the Mexica (or Aztecs as they were subsequently labeled by European anthropologists) never thought of themselves as heirs to the prestigious civilizations that had preceded them, much as Charlemagne of France did with respect to the fallen Roman Empire.

In 1428, the Mexica-Aztecs led a war of liberation against their rulers from the city of Azcapotzalco, which had subjugated most of the Valley of Mexico's peoples. The revolt was successful, and The Mexica, through cunning political maneuvers and ferocious fighting skills, managed to pull off a true "rags-to-riches" story: they became the rulers of central Mexico as the head of the Triple Alliance.

This Triple Alliance was composed of the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. At their peak, 300,000 Mexica (Aztecs) presided over a wealthy tribute-empire comprising approximately 10 million people (out of 24 million within the region). This empire stretched from ocean to ocean, and extended into Central America.

By 1519, the Mexica (Aztec) capital, Tenochtitlan, was the largest city in the world with a population of around 350,000 (although some estimates range as high as 500,000). By comparison, the population of London in 1519 was 80,000 people. Tenochtitlan is the site of modern-day Mexico City.

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Allies of the Mexica (Aztecs)
In the formation of the Triple Alliance empire, the Mexica established several ally states. Among them were Cholula (the site of an early massacre by Spaniards), Texcoco (the site of a major library, subsequently burned by the Spanish), Tlacopan, and Matatlan. Also, many of the kingdoms conquered by the Mexica provided soldiers for further campaigns such as: Culhuacan, Xochimilco, Tepeacac, Amecameca, Coaixtlahuacan, Cuetlachtlan, and Ahuilizipan. Mexica fighting forces would become multi-ethnic, comprising many soldiers from conquered areas, led by a core of Mexica warriors and officers. This same strategy would later be employed by the Spaniards.

Spanish conquest
Main article: Spanish Conquest of Mexico
In 1519, the native civilizations of Mexico were invaded by Spanish troops numbering about a mere 600 soldiers, who brought with them superior weaponry and other things not known in America at the time, like horses, basic objects like the wheel (without which the native civilizations had -against all odds- managed to build empires) and old world diseases which were not present in America whose effects in terms of native mortality were certainly important. The Spanish also took advantage of a widespread resentment of brutal Aztec rule, making allies of peoples who were dominated by the Aztecs. This tactic allowed them a conquest which otherwise would have been impossible with their small numbers. Two years later in 1521, the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was conquered. It is said that the dead from smallpox filled the streets and canals. Hundreds of thousands of Aztecs died of disease. Francisco Hernández de Córdoba explored the shores of southern Mexico in 1517, followed by Juan de Grijalva in 1518. The most important of the early Conquistadores was Hernán Cortés, who entered the country in 1519 from a native coastal town which he renamed "Puerto de la Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" (today's Veracruz).

Contrary to popular opinion, Spain did not conquer all of Mexico when Cortés conquered Tenochtitlan in 1521. It would take another two centuries after the Siege of Tenochtitlan before the Conquest of Mexico would be complete, as sporadic and ineffective rebellions, attacks, and wars continued against the Spanish by other native people. Disease ran rampant throughout Mexico, dropping the population from about eight million to two million by 1600.

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Colonial period
Main article: Colonial Mexico
The Spanish defeat of the Mexica in 1521 marked the beginning of the 300 year-long colonial period of Mexico. After the fall of Tenochtitlan Mexico City, it would take decades of sporadic warfare to pacify the rest of Mesoamerica. Particularly fierce were the "Chichimeca wars" in the north of Mexico (1576–1606).

During the colonial period, which lasted from 1521 to 1810, Mexico was known as "Nueva España" or "New Spain", whose territories included today's Mexico, Central America as far south as Costa Rica, and the area comprising today's southwestern United States. Also the Phillipines, coastal parts of Alaska, British Columbia, all Oregon and Louisiana was part of the New Spain.

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Mexican war of independence
Main article: Mexican War of Independence

Map of Mexico, 1847
Act of Independence of the Mexican Empire (1821) donated by Pedro Thomas Ruiz de Velasco to the citizens of Mexico.After Napoleon I invaded Spain and put his brother on the Spanish throne, Mexican Conservatives and rich land-owners who supported Spain's Bourbon royal family objected to the comparatively more liberal Napoleonic policies. Thus an unlikely alliance was formed in Mexico: liberales, or Liberals, who favored a republican Mexico, and conservadores, or Conservatives, who favored Mexico ruled by a Bourbon monarch who would restore the old status quo. These two elements agreed only that Mexico must achieve independence and determine her own destiny.

Taking advantage of the fact that Spain was severely handicapped under the occupation of Napoleon's army, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a Catholic priest of Spanish descent and progressive ideas, declared Mexico's independence from Spain in the small town of Dolores on September 16, 1810. This act started the long war that eventually led to the official recognition of independence from Spain in 1821. As with many early leaders in the movement for Mexican independence, Hidalgo was captured by opposing forces and executed. After no European monarch accepted its throne, the newly independent Mexico was ruled by Agustín de Iturbide. After his coronation as Emperor of Mexico he became known as Agustin I, and ruled until his overthrow by republican forces led by Guadalupe Victoria and Antonio López de Santa Anna.


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War with the United States

Antonio López de Santa Anna, Former President of MexicoMain article: Mexican-American War
A dominant figure of the second quarter of that century was the dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna who was president seven different times, many of his terms were unsuccessful.

During this period, many of the mostly unsettled territories in the north were lost to the United States. Santa Anna was Mexico's leader during the conflict with Texas, which declared itself independent from Mexico in 1836 by defeating Santa Anna and the Mexican army. As president, Santa Anna tried to rule during the disastrous Mexican-American War (1846–48). The U.S. government sent troops to Texas in order to secure the territory ignoring Mexican demands for U.S. withdrawal. Mexico saw this as a U.S. intervention in internal affairs by supporting a "rebel" province. In the war that ensued, the United States kept over half of Mexico's territory, including land comprising the present states of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. Mexico lost nearly 2,000,000 km² after the war and received $15 million for the lands from the U.S

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French intervention and Emperor Maximiliano I

Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
Benito Juárez, The only Indigenous President of MexicoMain article: French intervention in Mexico
In the 1860s, the country again suffered a military occupation, this time by France, seeking to establish the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico, with support from the Roman Catholic clergy and conservative elements of the upper class as well as some indigenous communities. The Second Mexican Empire was then overthrown by President Benito Juárez, with diplomatic and logistical support from the United States and the military expertise of General Porfirio Díaz. General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the largely unsupported French Army in Mexico at the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862, celebrated as Cinco de Mayo ever since. However, after his death, the city was lost in early 1863, following a renewed French attack which penetrated as far as Mexico City, forcing Juárez to organize a new itinerant government.

Answer 2

You'll have to define your question a little more precisely.
Do you mean modern day Mexicans living in Mexico?
Do you mean ancient peoples, living in the area we refer to today, as Mexico?
Do you mean where did the precursors of the inhabitants of Mexico originate?
Those are three different questions with three very different answers.
Today's Mexicans are the product of crosses between indigenous people, and Europeans. The initial meld was with Spaniards, which is why Spanish became the language of Mexico.
The Aztecs, Mayans and Incas were descended from previous tribes that inhabited what we know, today, as Mexico.
There are two thoughts about where the 'original' inhabitants of Mexico came from. One is that they followed the overland route from Mongolia, during a thawing of the polar cap, or followed a sea route down the coast of what is, today, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California.
The other theory is that they derived from Oceanic or Polynesians who came by sea and settled in what is today South America, and Mexico.
There are some interesting archaeological references to support each of these hypotheses, and they are not mutually exclusive, so both could be true.

Answer 3

Umm. Mexico , actually a "mexican" is a "mestizo" , which can be considered a "race", like white or black. The "mestizo" "race" was created with the sexual interaction between the Europeans and the natives when Mexico was conquered by the European colonizers.

Answer 4

Indigenous tribes mated with the Spaniards to create the Mexicans we see today.

Answer 5

The Aztecs

Answer 6

Mexico

Answer 7

when the spainards came to wht is now mexico they were confrontd by the native americans living there& so yea. mexicans originate from native americans and spainards.

Answer 8

Aztec Indians.

Answer 9

Native Americans Aztec and one group with m sorry i forgot And the language from spainards/Spain soldiers

Answer 10

Spainards come over and raped Mayan indians. Producing mexicans.

Answer 11

I think Mexico