David A. Clary - Eagles and Empire

So in the ancient fable it is told
That once an eagle, stricken with a dart,
Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,
With our own feathers, not by others hands,
Are we now smitten.

Aeschylus

T HE LAST OF THE M XIC INVADERS ENTERED the Great Valley in the thirteenth century, far from their homeland, Aztatln (Place of Cranes, also rendered Aztln). They had been told to march south by their chief god, Huitzilipochtli (Hummingbird Wizard). They were a dirty, savage, bloodthirsty people with a bad habit of stealing women and a disgusting one of sacrificing humans wholesale. They introduced into the valley a new weaponthe bow and arrow. As allies on the battlefield, the Mxica were invaluable; as neighbors, they were frightening, dangerous. These Mxica called themselves Tenochca (People of the Sun).

The Mxica were falconers, so their war eagles flew over them. Huitzilipochtli had taken on the additional identity of War Eagle, the dominant spirit that had arisen over all other gods in the valley. The old gods

The Mxica called the island Mxico Tenochtitln (Place of the Mxica-Tenochca), and proceeded to extend their control over the valley. By the fifteenth century they held sway over an empire extending to the seas both east and west.

Early in the sixteenth century the Mxica faced a new tribe of barbarians, strangers who came over the sea, men with light skin, hairy faces, and peculiar clothing. They did as the Mxica had when they arrived from the norththey wielded new weapons, these spitting balls and fire, with which they invaded the Great Valley. These newcomers also imported terrible diseases, which slaughtered people by the millions. Within a few years, the Mexican empire was no more. What remained were villages of farmers tending their lands in common. Indios, the newcomers called them.

The conquerors called themselves Spaniards. The old Mexican empire became Nueva Espaa (New Spain), and the chief memory of the recent past was in a new name for the Great Valley, el Valle de Mxico (Valley of Mexico). In the center of it stood Ciudad Mxico (Mexico City), rising from the ruins of Mxico Tenochtitln.

The Spaniards expanded their reach south into the jungles and north into the lands of desert wild men, Indios brbaros (barbaric Indians) to the Spaniards. The king of Spain had introduced a new kind of empire, one that tried to dominate the landscape rather than just civilized nations. He did this in competition with kings of France and Britain. The three great kings sent soldiers, priests, and settlers to see how much of America they could claim, asserting power over Indios brbaros who recognized no such authority.

So it went, until the British and French fought their Great War for Empire. The French king lost, and in 1763 his American territories were divided between Britain in the far north and Spain in the west, the latter a land called Louisiana. Then the British Americans rebelled against their king. The idea that people could govern themselves without royal supervision sent a shock wave through Europe and America.

Next France took back Louisiana and sold it to the Anglo-Americans, then invaded Spain. The French king of Spain decided to extend his power to America. The ruling classes of New Spain did not like that idea, so they took up arms. Out of their rebellion was born a new country, Mxico, which had a totem, a flag bearing a cactus surmounted by an eagle, which now held a snake in its beak. War Eagle had returned.

Meanwhile, the Anglo-Americans crowded against the borders of Mexico. Their totem also was an eaglethe American bald eagle. Truly, it seemed, they worshiped this bird god. They displayed it everywhereeven on the buttons and belt buckles and cap devices of their soldiers, who carried flags on staffs tipped with eagles.

This time there was not just one War Eagle in the air but two, and they were about to wage their own struggle for empire.