Where Did Mexicans Come From?

The first Mexicans, like the first Americans, were the indigenous people who had been there for thousands of years by the time the second group of people, the Europeans, arrived.

Mexicans are descendants of the indigenous people of the area that is now Mexico and the Spanish conquistadors, who colonized the area from 1519 until 1821, when Mexico finally gained her independence after 11 years of fighting with Spain.

Indigenous People of Mexico

The largest of the indigenous groups in the land which became Mexico were the Olmecs, the Mayans, and the Aztecs.

Olmecs

The Olmecs occupied the swampy lowlands now known as Veracruz and Tabasco. If you look at a map of Mexico, you’ll see that the east coast curves into a U-shape that ends at the Yucatan Peninsula. Veracruz and Tabasco are right in the bottom of the U. The Olmecs lived there from around 1400 BC until around 350 BC, when they mysteriously declined and fizzled out as a society. Their influence remained, however, along with their unique art, which included beautiful jade masks and enormous head sculptures.

Mayans

The Mayan civilization was huge, both in occupied area and length of existence. They were also the only group in the Americas to have their own fully developed written language before the Europeans arrived. It is possible that Mayans lived in parts of modern-day Belize as early as 2600 BC, although the earliest historically accepted Mayan settlements were in modern-day Mexico around 1800 BC. The Maya occupied all of the Yucatan Peninsula and some of the lowlands where the Olmecs were, as well as much of Central America, including Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras.

For several centuries, the Maya based their civilization around urban centers, building huge cities with enormous stepped pyramids, which still exist in Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and throughout the Yucatan Peninsula.

Although the Mayan population dropped dramatically in the 8th and 9th centuries, several cities continued to flourish even up to the time of Spanish colonization. In fact, although they lost their cities and were eventually subdued by the Spanish, the Mayan people never died out entirely; they still make up a portion of Mexico’s population today.

Aztecs

The Aztecs were a group of several tribes that all spoke the Nahuatl language. Their empire was based in the city of Tenochtitlan, which sat where Mexico City is now, and they ruled most of what is now central Mexico down to Veracruz, where the Mayan people were.

The Aztecs fought against Spanish colonization of the area, but then they caught smallpox from the Spaniards, and many of them died, making easy work for the conquistadors.