Tlaxcala was a pre-Columbian city state of central Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

.

Tlaxcala was a confederation of four altepetl

Altepetl

The altepetl, in Pre-Columbian and Spanish conquest-era Aztec society, was the local, ethnically based political entity. The word is a combination of the Nahuatl words ā-tl, meaning water, and tepē-tl, meaning mountain....

 — Ocotelolco

Ocotelolco

Ocotelolco , in pre-Columbian Mexico, was one of the four independent polities that constituted the confederation of Tlaxcallan. It was the second of the four altepetl to be founded, but at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico it was, along with Tizatlan, the most powerful of the four allied...

, Quiahuiztlan

Quiahuiztlan

Quiahuiztlan was one of the four altepetl that made up the confederation of Tlaxcala.Located on the lower slopes of a volcanic mountain on the gulf coast of Veracruz state, Mexico, it was occupied in the 16th century AD as part of the Totonac culture...

, Tepeticpac

Tepeticpac

Tepeticpac was one of the four altepetl that made up the confederation of Tlaxcala. It was the northwest-most altepetl, located west of the river Atzompa and north of Quiahuiztlan in present-day Mexico.-References:...

 and Tizatlan

Tizatlan

Tizatlan, in precolumbian Mexico, was one of the four independent polities that constituted the confederation of Tlaxcallan. It was the third of the four altepetl to be founded, but at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico it was, along with Ocotelolco, the most powerful of the four allied...

 — which each took turns providing a ruler for Tlaxcala as a whole.
Tlaxcala was never conquered by the Aztec

Aztec

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...

 empire, but was engaged in a state of perpetual war, or so-called flower war

Flower war

A flower war or flowery war is the name given to the battles fought between the Aztec Triple Alliance and some of their enemies: most notably the city-states of Tlaxcala, Huejotzingo, Atlixco and Cholula.-Sources:...

s. During the Spanish conquest of Mexico

Spanish conquest of Mexico

The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The invasion began in February 1519 and was acclaimed victorious on August 13, 1521, by a coalition army of Spanish conquistadors and Tlaxcalan warriors led by Hernán Cortés...

, Tlaxcala allied with the Spaniards against the Aztecs, supplying a large contingent for – and at times the majority of – the Spanish-led army that eventually destroyed the Aztec empire.

As a result of their alliance with the Spaniards, Tlaxcala had a somewhat privileged status within Spanish colonial Mexico.

Conquistador Bernal Diaz del Castillo

Bernal Díaz del Castillo

Bernal Díaz del Castillo was a conquistador, who wrote an eyewitness account of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards for Hernán Cortés, himself serving as a rodelero under Cortés.-Early life:...

 describes the first battle between the Spanish force and the Tlaxcalteca as surprisingly difficult.