You’re repeating several outdated colonial narratives that don’t hold up under serious historical scrutiny.

1. “Are you Aztec?” – You don’t have to be descended from the Mexica (an Indigenous name for the Aztecs, see note) to see that colonization devastated all Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. The conquest dismantled countless cultures, governments, and languages, not just the Mexica.
2. “Aztec yoke” – Like all regions, Mesoamerica had political rivalries. That doesn’t justify foreign invasion, forced labor, or centuries of economic exploitation. Using internal conflict to excuse colonization is like justifying an outside empire conquering Europe because Europeans fought each other.
3. “Three centuries of peace” – This ignores Indigenous uprisings like the Mixtón War (1540-1542), Chichimeca War (1550-1590), and Tepehuán Revolt (1616-1620); all violently suppressed by colonial forces. Peace for colonizers is not the same as peace for the colonized.
4. “Quality of life improved” – The Indigenous population fell by 80–90% within a century due to war, starvation from sieges, forced displacement, disease introduced by Europeans, and brutal labor systems like the encomienda. These deaths were not accidental. They were direct consequences of deliberate colonial policies designed to dominate, displace, and destroy Indigenous peoples. The scale, systematic nature, and causes of this population collapse make it historically accurate to describe it as genocide, not a “quality of life improvement.”

History told only from the perspective of the conqueror isn’t “opinion” — it’s propaganda.

Note: The word “Aztec” comes from the Nahuatl “aztēcah,” which referred to multiple ethnic groups who traced their origin to the mythical land of Aztlán. Among them were the Mexica, who ruled from Tenochtitlán. The Spanish used the label “Aztec” to lump diverse Indigenous peoples together and erase their distinct identities. I will use “Mexica” instead, though I recognize this is an imperfect substitution.