Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/39

 

The exaltation of Mexico tended to eclipse the other native towns in the valley even more than her rise under Aztec supremacy. There was no longer a series of capitals, to be sustained by kings and minor lords, all prepared to rival one another in pomp and embellishments. The only capital now was Tenochtitlan, which the Spaniards felt obliged, for the safety and interest of themselves and the crown, to make the main stronghold and point of concentration. The revenues of the native rulers could no longer be employed according to the dictates of their fancy for palaces and similar works, since the greater part passed into the hands of the encomenderos and the treasury officials. New diseases, enslavement, and different methods for employing the natives, all added to the causes for decline among their lately flourishing towns, only too many of which have entirely disappeared from the maps or dwindled to petty hamlets. Mexico also declined, for that matter, in extent and population, according to the admission of

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