By Catherine Capel and Gabby Storey
Tlapalizquixochtzin was an Aztec queen regnant and empress in the sixteenth century before the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
She was the daughter of the ruler of Ecatepec Matlaccoatzin and she had an elder brother named Chimpalli, after her grandfather, and a younger sister Tlacuiloxotzin.
The Codex Chimalpahin stated that Tlapalizquixochtzin’s brother Chimpalli became the ruler of Ecatepec but then recognises her as the female ruler.
This suggests that her brother died and therefore she, as the second eldest child, became queen regnant. She married the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II and they had a daughter, Doña Francisca.
She was also queen consort of Tenochtitlan through her marriage to Moctezuma. Together their reign saw the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous civilisations of Mesoamerica.
Recommended Reading
Arthur J. O. Anderson and Susan Schroeder, eds. and trans., Codex Chimalpahin: Society and politics in Mexico Tenochtitlan, Tlateloloco, Texcoco, Culhuacan, and other Nahua Altepetl in Central Mexico : the Nahuatl and Spanish annals and accounts (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997).
Team Queens 