TRIBUTE
UNDER THE AZTECS
OBSERVATIONS OF GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE OVIEDO Y VALDOS
Historical Background
to the Document:
Aztec warriors, extending their rule outward from Tenochtitlán
(Mexico City), conquered the other city-states of Central Mexico between
C.E. 1420 and 1480. When the Spaniards arrived in 1519, the Aztecs governed
an area inhabited by about 18 million people. Despite their recent military
success, the Aztecs, when they first appeared on the historical scene
about 1250, were barbarian invaders from the north as of yet unfamiliar
with urban life. They were not responsible for creating in Central Mexico
civilization but were its inheritors.
Before the Aztec appearance, the rulers of Teotihuacan (C.E. 1-900)
and the subsequent Toltec Empire (C.E. 1000- 1200) established the essential
features of civilization. Cultivation of maize was highly developed,
particularly through the use of irrigation channels. Surplus production
was obtained from local villages through a tribute system that funneled
grain, and other products, to central government warehouses. This surplus
supported a hierarchy of officials, who not only ran the government,
but also devised calendars, built monumental shrines, created a religious
literature, and led ritual observances that bound society together.
Although these societies succumbed to barbarian invasions, civilization
itself did not disappear.
After the demise of the Toltec Empire, civilization in Central Mexico
consisted of competing city-states scattered around Lake Texcoco in
the Central Valley. When the Aztecs conquered these city-states, they
repeated the experience of pervious intruders. Specifically, the Aztecs
took control of a centuries-old tribute system. Spanish observer Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo y Valdos (1478-1 557) described that system
and the poverty it caused.
Document
OBSERVATIONS OF GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE OVIEDO Y VALDOS
The Indians of New Spain, I have been told by reliable persons who gained
their information from Spaniards who fought with Hernando Cortes in
the conquest of that land, are the poorest of the many nations that
live in the Indies at the present time. In their homes they have no
furnishings or clothing other than the poor garments which they wear
on their persons, one or two stones for grinding maize, some pots in
which to cook the maize, and a sleeping mat. Their meals consist chiefly
of vegetables cooked with chili, and bread. They eat little -- not that
they would not eat more if they could get it, for the soil is very fertile
and yields bountiful harvests, but the common people and plebeians suffer
under the tyranny of their Indian lords, who tax away the greater part
of their produce in a manner that I shall describe. Only the lords and
their relatives, and some principal men and merchants, have estates
and lands of their own; they sell and gamble with their lands as they
please, and they sow and harvest them but pay no tribute. Nor is any
tribute paid by artisans, such as masons, carpenters, feather-workers
or silver--smiths, or by singers and kettle-drummers (for every Indian
lord has musicians in his household, each according to his station).
But such persons render personal service when it is required, and none
of them is paid for his labor.
Each Indian lord assigns to the common folk who come from other parts
of the country to settle on his land (and to those who are already settled
there) specific fields, that each may know the land that he is to sow.
And the majority of them have their homes on their land; and between
twenty and thirty or forty and fifty houses, have over them an Indian
head who is called tiquitlato, which in the Castilian tongue
means "the finder (or seeker) of tribute." At harvest time
this tiquitlato, inspects the cornfield and observes what each
one reaps, and when the reaping is done they show him the harvest, and
he counts the ears of corn that each has reaped, and the number of wives
and children that each of the vassals in his charge possesses. And with
the harvest before him he calculates how many ears of corn each person
in that household will require till the next harvest, and these he gives
to the Indian head of that house; and he does the same with the other
produce, namely kidney beans, which are a kind of small beans, and chili,
which is their pepper; and chia, which is as fine as mustard seed, and
which in warm weather they drink, ground and made into a solution in
water and used for medicine, roasted and ground; and cocoa. which is
a kind of almond that they use as money and which they grind, make into
a solution, and drink; and cotton, in those places where it is raised,
which is in the hot lands and not the cold; and pulque, which is their
wine; and all the various products obtained from the maguey plant, from
which they obtain food and drink and footwear and clothing. This plant
grows in cold regions, and the leaves resemble those of the cinnamon
tree, but are much larger. Of all these and other products they leave
the vassal [that is, the common Indian under the authority of the tiquitlato]
only enough to sustain him for a year. And in addition the vassal must
earn enough to pay the tribute of mantles, gold, silver, honey wax,
lime, wood. or whatever products it is customary to pay as tribute in
that country. They pay this tribute every forty, sixty, seventy, or
ninety days according to the terms of the agreement. This tribute also
the tiquitlato receives and carries to his Indian lord.
Ten days before the close of the sixty or hundred days, or whatever
is the period appointed for the payment of the tribute, they take to
the house of the Indian lord the produce brought by tiquitlatos;
and if some poor Indian should prove unable to pay his tribute the tiquitlato
tells the lord that such-and-such will not pay the proportion of the
tribute that had been assigned to him; then the lord tells the tiquitlato
to take the recalcitrant vassal to
a market, which they hold every five days in all of the towns of the
land, and there sell him into slavery, applying the proceeds of the
sale to the payment of his tribute.