Page:Notes of the Mexican war 1846-47-48.djvu/569

563 Mexico. They, of course, like all other tribes who followed after them, had no form of government until 610, others have it 667, when they adopted a monarchial government, and elected their first king, after living under different rulers.

Their country, and in fact nearly their whole nation, was destroyed by a famine and other pestilence—destroying all their crops for the want of rain and by heavy frost. The destruction of life and property caused the monarchial government to end in 800. Some have it 959.

About this unfortunate time the Toltecs and their country (according to the accounts I could gather from their Mexican annals) were invaded by a nation called Cbicbimecos or Chichimecos. They came from the province of New Gallicia and parts of New Biscaya or Amaguemecan, a savage, barbarous tribe, and were, for their fierce, wicked, and wild nature, called Chichimecos.

The Chichimecos were tired of living in their wild, lonesome forest, in deep caves and underground, and moved, in about 960, out into the open air, and fell in large numbers into these southern parts of America now called Mexico—not all at once, but at different times, and under several names of tribes, viz., Suclimilica, Chalco, Tepejancan, Tezcocans, Tlascallinis, Otumtes, and other tribes that I can't just now think of. They had at that distressing time but little trouble to subdue the people and get possession of the desolated country of the ancient Toltecan they found in this land, and seated themselves in their places; and though at first every nation or tribe of them, as they came into this country, seized upon some province apart by themselves and held it, as it were, in sovereignty to themselves, without acknowledgment of any dependence or subjection to their neighbor or those that were there before them.

They were mostly divided into tribes or large families, going under the above names. Each tribe was governed by a chief of their own selection. They had no law or manner of government to guide themselves with, and, by reason thereof, were