Anales de Tlatelolco

The Anales de Tlatelolco (Annals of Tlatelolco) is a codex manuscript written in Nahuatl, using Latin characters, by anonymous Aztec authors in 1528 in Tlatelolco, only seven years after the fall of the Aztec Empire. The manuscript provides an authentic insight into the thoughts and outlook of the newly-conquered Aztec culture.

Its authors preferred to remain anonymous, probably to protect them from the Spanish authorities. It is supected these authors later became the sources for Bernardino de Sahagún's works. The priest Angel Maria Garibay has provided one translation of the manuscript into Spanish in 1956.

It is also variously known as "Unos Annales Históricos de la Nación Mexicana" ("Some Historical Annals of the Mexican Nation"), "La relación anónima de Tlatelolco", “Manuscript 22”, and the "Tlatelolco Codex" (also a true codex called thus exists). The manuscript is presently held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The most important publications in Spanish are: the published one by Antigua Libreria de Robredo, Mexico 1948, introduction of Robert Barlow, translation and notes of Henrich Berlin; the most recent by Conaculta, Mexico 2002, translation of Rafael Tena, Col. Cien de México, 207pp. (ISBN 9703505074). Background on the text and a translation to English can be found in The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel León Portilla and Lysander Kemp.