Aztec Tribute System: The Foundation of Their Empire

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The Aztec people and their empire are one of the few really large civilizations
that arose in Pre-Columbian America. What makes the Aztecs and the other
civilizations of Mesoamerica so fascinating is that they developed without any
contact from the west. The first contact between a native of Mexico and a European
occurred in 1519, when Hernán Cortes’s expedition landed to claim the land for
Spain. Before then, the peoples of Mexico had no knowledge about European
civilization, religion, philosophy, or government. And yet, they managed to develop a
highly developed society in terms of their cities, religion, scientific knowledge, and
the arts. The Spaniards suspected they were conquering a simple, barbaric sort of
people, but the first sight of the capitol city of Tenochtitlan awed the
conquistadores. Says Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a conquistador: “…when we saw all
those cities and villages built in the water, and other great towns on dry land… we
were astounded… Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream.
It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of
things never heard of, seen or dreamed of before.”1 The Aztecs are a rare glimpse of
a civilization that developed in an area untainted by any “Western” thinking.
Studying any aspect of the “untainted” culture of the Aztecs is sure to yield insightful
information on how human society develops.
The population of the city of Tenochtitlan is estimated to have been around
200,000 people at the time of the Spanish conquest; the height of the empire. 2The
city was built on an island in a large lake. Causeways connected the island to the
shore. Pyramids towered over the main square. In order to be able to build a city as
grand as Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs had to be at a certain level of civilizational
maturity. How did they govern themselves? What were the inner workings of their
imperial structure that enabled them to progress to that level? As usual in the study
of history, the answer is not straightforward. Studying Aztec society and culture was
not the primary reason the Spanish came to Mexico; they mostly wanted to exploit
1 Castillo, Bernal Diaz del, The Conquest of New Spain, cited in Smith, Michael Ernest.
"The Aztecs of Mesoamerica." In The Aztecs, 1. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell
Publishers, 1996.
2 Levy, Buddy. Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of
the Aztecs. New York: Bantam Books, 2008. Page 106

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Mexico’s resources and convert the local populace to Christianity. The Aztec temples
were destroyed and the Spanish built over the razed city, eventually filling in the
lake surrounding it. The Aztecs had few “documents” or records as we know them,
and whatever they did have was burned for its “heretical” content. Luckily, there are
a few very valuable sources that survive into the present day that can be used to
answer our questions.
In this essay, it will be shown that the Aztecs’ main strategy on governing and
financing their empire was to obtain tribute from their subjects. In completely
different fashion from what a Western civilization like the Romans or even Spain
would do, that is, place a governor of their own choosing in charge of affairs, convert
them to the now dominant religious belief, and force them to learn the conqueror’s
language, the Aztecs would simply require a tax be sent to the capital and the local
authorities a few times a year, usually. In return, they would be treated as valued
subjects and given the protection of the state. They were allowed to keep their own
rulers and worship their gods. This “hands-off” strategy is a style of government that
stands out from all others in its uniqueness and its effectiveness in allowing the
Aztecs to expand their empire. The primary sources available to us on the Aztec
government, be they the few that remain from the Aztecs themselves or the
accounts of the conquering Spaniards, all show how the Aztec state was able
prosper due to this system. The codex and the handful of chronicles authored by
Spanish officials testify to the intricacy and effectiveness of this system.
Perhaps the most important source on the tribute, the Codex Mendoza is
painted on bark paper overlaid with plaster. The pages depict the material goods
delivered to Tenochtitlan by its subject provinces across central Mexico.
Commissioned by the Spanish viceroy to show the king something about Aztec
society, the codex today gives us an outline of what enabled the Aztecs to dominate
Mexico: their tribute system. Besides being and effort to know the organization of
Aztec society, it is, in effect, a government tax record. When the codex was written,
20 years after Mexico was conquered, Tenochtitlan was no more, and now, as
Mexico City, was the center of Spain’s government in Mexico, the Audiencia.
Commissioned for King Charles the V to show him something about his new

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subjects, it was written by native scribes and its writing supervised by Spanish
friars. It took the name of the Spanish viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, and he may
have commissioned it himself.
The most effective way to describe the ins and outs of Aztec government is to
start small. The most basic unit in the Aztec world was the city-state, or altepetl. An
altepetl had laws, boundaries, had a central town with an outlying area of farmland,
and was ruled by a king, the tlatoani. Every altepetl had a royal palace, a temple
pyramid, and a marketplace in the town center. The town was the hub of social and
economic activity for the population within its boundaries. The residential areas of
the town were divided into calpolli, which are similar to neighborhoods. Laborfor
public works projects and temple service was rotated among the calpolli. Sometimes
the people different calpolli spoke different languages or were from different ethnic
groups. For example, Nahuatl speaking Mexica Aztecs could inhabit one calpolli, and
the neighboring one could be full of Mixtecs, speaking a different language in the
same town. The tlatoani did not inherit his position directly from his father; he was
selected from a council of male relatives, so sometimes a brother, nephew or
grandson could be selected. He was the owner of all the land in the city-state and
received taxes from the commoners and his subordinate lords. He was the military
leader and presided over many religious rituals. He lived in the biggest palace, wore
the nicest clothes, and was waited upon by many servants. Despite all his finery, the
king’s rule was not absolute. The nobles could select anyone from the male family to
be king and could depose bad rulers. Judges dispensed justice and protected the
rights of commoners. The tlatoani had a responsibility to protect his subjects,
provide them with public works, and build temples and other religious buildings.
The city-states did not exist in isolation, however. They formed alliances and
trade partnerships, and fought battles against each other. Efficient roads meant
travel between provinces was swift, and goods could be distributed from where
they were produced to a distant market. This system could be potentially volatile
though, as states could one minute be making an alliance and another declaring war
on each other. A map of Aztec territory at the city-state level would be like looking
at a map of Germany in the time of the Holy Roman Empire or even the Yucatan

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when the Mayans were in control. Its bewildering array of crooked lines and colors
and enclaves and exclaves that switch sides from year to year is enough to slow
down all but experts in the field. This kind of government was around hundreds of
years before the Aztecs took control of central Mexico and it continued even after
they did.
Was this an autocratic or collective system? Historians Richard Blanton and
Lane Fargher applied an idea called collective action theory to ancient states. They
examined many ancient states and systems of government and made a scale based
on how autocratic or collective the government was. “They (found) wide variation in
the extent to which rulers were responsible to the needs of commoners. The
Classical Greek poleis, for example, lies at the more “collective” end of the spectrum,
whereas various indigenous African kingdoms are among the more “despotic” or
autocratic of states. In Blanton and Fargher’s analysis, the Aztecs are closer to the
Greek city-states than to the African kingdoms.”3 One feature of a collective state is a
transparent and efficient tax system. Despotic states like the African kingdoms
would demand taxes arbitrarily and in unreasonable amounts. A collective society
like the Aztecs has a well-organized tax system that is accepted by the people. Taxes
owed at the city-state level included a land tax, based on how much was owned.
Commoners owed labor taxes and were required to provide weapons and food for
military campaigns, and vendors in the market paid a tax to take up space. The
amounts were recorded and kept on bark paper codices similar to the Codex
Mendoza, which recorded imperial taxes. At the “lower” level, the landscape of the
Aztec empire resembles that of Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and medieval Italy in
that a city controlled a number of smaller villages surrounding it and their lands,
formed alliances and trade networks with neighboring cities, and made any map of
the area a patchwork of many different colors. Fighting amongst them was common
as was these other empires, but the Aztecs went about doing it in a different sort of
way. When two city-states went to war with one another, they did so in order to
subdue or demoralize their enemy and force them to pay tribute. Usually the leaders
3Smith, 1996, p. 156

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of the conquered city-state were left in place and were left alone as long as the taxes
continued to flow.
As the Aztecs expanded their empire across central Mexico and took control
of foreign city-states, they expanded on the previously existing system to bring the
new populations under control. The commoners of Tenochtitlan needed food, and
the nobles needed luxury goods in order to maintain their luxurious lifestyle and
social positions. In order to get the goods that were needed, a system of tax
provinces was set up separate from the city state government. The Aztecs organized
the lands beyond the valley of Mexico into 55 provinces, each consisting of a number
of city-states and usually named after the largest one.4 Each province was given a
quota on the amount of goods it was to deliver to the capital and a schedule of when
it was needed. The second part of the Codex Mendoza is a copy of an imperial tax
record, recording each one of the 32 tax provinces’ contributions when the time
came for them to pay. Looking at a map of the Aztec empire might be puzzling to the
uninitiated. The territory of the Aztec empire isn’t contiguous, but is full of holes
where the people are not under Aztec rule. The most notable of these “holes” is
Tlaxcalla, an area east of the Valley of Mexico that is very noticeable.
The official explanation given by the Aztecs to curious Spanish chroniclers
was that these territories were deliberately left unconquered so that when the gods
needed human sacrifices, they could easily invade the land to take captives. This is
probably just an attempt at saving face; the Aztecs were as good warriors as any
other empire’s, and would come up against enemies that were too strong. The
strategy was to simply go around them. There were numerous areas and peoples the
Aztecs weren’t strong enough to conquer, such as Tlaxcalla, Teotitlan, Yopitzinco,
Metztitlan, and the Tarascans who lived in Northern Mexico. In order to protect
their empire from their surrounding enemies, 23 of the provinces were designated
as client states. These were located on the borders of the empire or surrounding a
bypassed territorial hole. While these provinces periodically gave a few goods to the
capital, their main job was to serve as the outer protective “armor” for the empire.
4 See figure 1

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Fortifications were built in these provinces to deter any invading enemies or to
besiege any foe tenaciously clinging to their territory and sovereignty.
Looking at one of the pages of the codex, each province was given a page or
two. If we use the province of Coayxtlahuacan5 as an example, there is a column on
the left with the glyphs for each village. At the top is the head provincial village of
Coayxtlahuacan, “The Place of the Plain of Snakes”. Below is the village of Texopan,
“On the Blue Color”, and Tamaçolapan, “On the Water of the Frogs”, and so on. At the
top, the five squares represent cloth, each of a different design. A feather coming out
of the top represents the number 400, and the fingers coming out at the top
represent 2 units of length for the cloth’s measurement, meaning annually, 2000
lengths of cloth were delivered. Below can be seen 2 warrior costumes and warrior
shields. High-ranking members of the army used these specially made costumes.
Other various items are listed on the page, including bowls of gold dust (the flag
sticking out of the top represents the number 20). In total, every six months, the
province gave 400 rich mantas (cloaks), 400 red and white striped mantas, 400
black and white striped mantas, 400 loincloths, and 400 women’s tunics and skirts.
Every year, the province gave 2 yellow warrior costumes and shields, 2 strings of
green stone beads, 800 handfuls of quetzal feathers, 40 bags of cochineal, 20 bowls
of gold dust, and 1 feathered headpiece which served as a royal badge. An official
called the calpixqui assembled the goods and sent them to the capital. 6
When all the items given to the capital in a year are added up there are
massive results. The bounty of diverse goods from all over Mexico gives great
insight about what the Aztecs used most in their society and how their economy
worked. Some of the most massive numbers include 128,000 cotton or maguey
capes, 64,000 balls of copal incense, 48,000 canes, 32,000 canes for arrows and the
same number for sheets of paper, and nearly 30,000 feathers.7 A few things can be
said about these numbers. It is clear from them that the Aztecs had a great degree of
5 See figure 2
6 Berdan, Frances, and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. "The Province of Coayxtlahuacan." In
The Essential Codex Mendoza, 106-108. Berkeley, California: University of California
Press, 1997.
7 Codex Mendoza 1992:folio.18v-55r

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power in order to ask this much from their subjects, and that they had a well-
organized and efficient system of getting their tribute goods. If a province contained
a certain resource that the Aztecs needed, it was taxed more heavily on that
particular good. However, sometimes the provinces did not produce or contain
certain goods, which were required of them for the tribute. For example,
Coayxtlahuacan is located in the highlands of Western Oaxaca, where feathers, gold
dust and jade beads were not available. An active trade network was needed
between the provinces so the merchants could supply the goods needed to meet the
tribute demands. This was probably a strategy meant to stimulate trade throughout
the empire. By using this unique system, the Aztecs were not only collecting taxes
but also boosting their economy.
The Codex Mendoza is a document of very high value to scholars studying the
Aztecs, not only for its thorough examination of the tribute system, but a short
history of the empire as well. The first section of the codex is divided into chapters
detailing each ruler of the Aztec empire and the areas of central Mexico that they
conquered. From this, we can find more information, such as which areas were
conquered first, the organization of their empire as it expanded, and what the Aztecs
did when they inevitably ran into people who didn’t want to pay tribute. The
emperor Axayacatl, who ruled from around 1470 to 1481, faced a number of
rebellions and was unable to conquer hostile peoples like the Tarascans in the
north. Berdan and Anawalt note in their commentary, “it was customary for a newly
chosen ruler to go to war to verify his new rulership. It was also usual for conquered
subjects to take this opportunity to rebel against a throne in transition. On this
occasion Cuetlaxtlan on the east coast chose to defy Mexica rule, and Axayacatl
moved against Cuetlaxtlan and other towns in that area…Axayacatl’s most
noteworthy conquest lay close to home, in Tlatelolco. Under their ruler Moquihuix,
the Tlatelolcans rebelled against Tenochca rule. The futility of that rebellion is
graphically portrayed in Codex Mendoza folio 10r; Tlatelolco’s twin temple is in
flames, and a dead Moquihuix tumbles from the temple wearing the full regalia of

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his position”8 Once Axayacatl was finished quelling the rebellion, he moved to
conquer lands to the west and south, creating a buffer between the Aztecs and the
Tarascans to the northwest, Axayacatl eventually made the mistake of trying to
conquer the Tarascans but was outnumbered and lost thousands of warriors.
A successor, Ahuitzotl, conquered many territories throughout central
Mexico, bringing vast numbers of city-states and towns subject to the tribute.
However, Ahuitzotl was quite reckless in his spending: “As fierce and
uncompromising as Ahuitzotl was on the battlefield, he was kind and lavish to his
friends. He entertained them and was in turn feted, so that ‘the music never seized,
day or night’ (folio 12v). His pleasures and magnanimity, however, cost the state
coffers dearly; the emperor’s high expenditures could barely be met even by the
rapidly expanding tribute demands.”9 Ahuitzotl used the funds he received from the
tribute for lavish public ceremonies. The number of prisoners sacrificed at these
ceremonies reached staggering numbers. This was a true testament of their power
and a powerful propaganda tool. Word would certainly spread about Aztec
conquests and the fate of their prisoners. Most of the areas they conquered
understandably agreed to pay tribute rather than hold out and fight.
If the Aztecs went through all the trouble of bringing these foreign lands and
peoples under their sway, what they got out of it must be of some importance to
them, otherwise why take such a risk? Each type of tribute good had some sort of
value in Aztec life and was needed for the upkeep of the large population at
Tenochtitlan. Cotton was king for the Aztecs just as much as it was for Southern
Democrats. Cotton was one of the cornerstones of the Aztec economy. Quachtli
capes made of cotton were not only wearable, but could be used as currency, among
other things: Dr. Frances Berdan states that “cotton cloth was produced for a variety
of purposes, including religious offerings; awnings or decorative hangings for
temples, palaces and marketplaces; rich adornments for deities; marriage payments;
gifts for special ritual and social events, such as the dedication of a youth to the
calpulli school, the potlatch-like exchanges by merchants at their flamboyant feasts,
8 Berdan & Anawalt, 1997, p. 19
9 Berdan & Anawalt, 1997, p. 23

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or politically-inspired exchanges among powerful rulers; household utility items,
such as tortilla covers; a warrior's battle armor; and finally, wrappings for mummy
bundles prepared, usually, for cremation.”10
Rubber was another essential good for the Aztecs, who demanded 16,000
rubber balls annually. Rubber, like cotton, had many uses. Tarkanian & Hosler
illustrate some “archaeological evidence of latex being employed in ancient joining
applications, such as hafting and adhesives… Among the Late Phase (ca. 1224-1461
A.D.) rubber and latex artifacts dredged from the Cenote de Sacrificios at Chichen
Itzá is part of an effigy headdress composed of ceramic and wood. The wooden
portion is coated in rubber, with the ceramic pressed against the rubber layer and
fastened into place with a thick rubber band… The Florentine Codex contains
repeated references to rubber-soled sandals… (A) passage describes the Aztec dress
during a procession to a vigil on "feast day": "And there were their rubber sandals;
their rubber sandals went with them"11
Rubber and Cotton were only two of the goods the Aztecs demanded. The
inflow of tribute goods from the outer provinces included textiles and clothing,
military equipment, jewelry and luxury items, food, animal products, and building
materials; goods that could be used for the benefit of those in charge at Tenochtitlan
and their subjects. The fact that the Aztecs tried to stimulate trade by including
nonlocal goods into the tribute demands is telling in that it shows the Aztecs had a
vested interest in keeping trade active throughout the empire and in the
diversification and specialization of production. If trade was slowed down or halted,
the goods flowing into Tenochtitlan would stop, resources would quickly run out
due to its massive population (in the context of the time and place), and its position
would be vulnerable. The tribute system holds the empire together because their
control over the provinces is based on it. If a province refuses or is unable to pay,
10 Berdan, Frances F. "Cotton in Aztec Mexico: Production, Distribution and Uses."
Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 3, no. 2 (1987): 235-62.
11 Tarkanian, Michael, and Dorothy Hosler. "America's First Polymer Scientists:
Rubber Processing, Use and Transport in Mesoamerica." Latin American Antiquity
Latin Amer Antiquity 22, no. 4 (2011): 469-86.

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they are effectively not a part of the empire. By implementing this strategy, they
were maintaining the empire’s structure.
Another benefit the tribute system gave to the empire was the development
of economic specialization. Since certain goods were needed from certain areas,
citizens of villages and city-states in those areas specialized in the production of
those goods. Barbara L. Stark’s study of the lower Papaloapan region in modern-day
Veracruz uses pre and post-conquest records to show which villages specialized in
what. (Where there are inadequate pre-conquest records to explain certain
specializations, Spanish records from the colonial period are the next best sources
to use.) In the village of Tlacotalpan “the 1580 geographic relation cites maize as a
principle sustenance. Beans and chile are mentioned, along with camote or sweet
potato. Various tree fruits are listed, but other cultivated foods seem to be more
important. As noted previously, Tlacotalpan was said to have many mangroves.
Destructive floods commonly occurred, which suggests that farming there was not
as reliable as in Tuxtla and Cotaxtla.” In Cotaxtla “fishing is said to be important
because bobos, a highly valued fish, were taken in the river”, and in Tuxtla “the 1580
geographic relation again notes maize, beans, and chile as foods, along with jicama
and other roots. Pimienta is also cited, used as a spice in cacao drinks and
medicinally… Mollusks and fish were to be found in one lagoon, and many fish were
taken in Lake Catemaco.”12 Goods that the local populace needed to support
themselves would certainly be produced in these areas, but the production of
nonessential goods like pimiento spice and bobo fish suggest that they were
produced because money could be made off them at the market and/or they were
produced for the tribute.
Taking all this into account, it is easy to think that with the Aztecs providing
protection on the outskirts of their territory, the economic activity of the empire
was allowed to run free. But Elizabeth M. Brumfiel, in her archaeological study of the
city of Huexotla found that the expansion of the Aztec state and the intensity of
12Stark, Barbara L. "Geography and Economic Specialization in the Lower
Papaloapan, Veracruz, Mexico." Ethnohistory 21, no. 3 (1974).

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market activity are closely related. It should be noted that nobles from conquered
lands were required to live in Tenochtitlan for a good part of the year to confirm
their loyalty. In the words of Cortés: “There are in this great city many fine and large
houses, the cause being that all the rulers of the land, vassals of Montezuma, have
houses in the aforementioned city and reside there a certain portion of the year and,
in addition to this, there are many rich citizens that also have very fine houses”. As
the Aztecs conquered more and more territory, more nobles flooded into the capital,
in turn followed by large, bureaucratic staffs required to administer a growing
empire. With the influx of large amounts of people came a need for material goods to
support them, and huge numbers of craftsmen and domestic workers were
employed to support the population, resulting in the intensification of market
activity and specialization in the production of goods.
Tribute goods played a role in specialization. The data that Brumfiel collected
shows that the goods flowing into the cities from the tribute allowed them to pay for
food in the markets. She notes, “The passage of nonperishable tribute goods into the
market system seems to have had a noticeable impact upon rural production. By
lowering the value of most nonfood commodities in relation to foodstuffs, it induced
a reallocation of effort in favor of the production of food; by improving the ability of
the market to provide a steady supply of nonfood items to rural households at
reasonable prices, it created conditions in which peasants would sacrifice their
economic autonomy for greater dependence upon commercial activity.”13 With
these factors, Aztec markets flourished due to the stimulation of urban growth and
the influx of tribute goods into the markets.
The 55 provinces either defending or paying tribute were the most the
Aztecs ever had. They were at the height of their empire when the Spanish arrived.
The tribute system collapsed along with the empire not long after, but years later
during the colonial period, the Aztecs who weren’t already wiped out due to
smallpox were still around, including nobles, priests, and officials who served the
13 Brumfiel, Elizabeth M. "Specialization, Market Exchange, and the Aztec State: A
View From Huexotla." Current Anthropology 21, no. 4 (1980).

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empire before it collapsed. There are a few notable Spanish chroniclers who
recorded aspects of Aztec culture and government during the colonial period.
Among them is Alonso de Zorita, an oidor (royal magistrate) of New Spain from
1556-66. A long tima judicial authority, he was very familiar with aspects of Aztec
government and society. After his retirement, he wrote his most famous work, The
Brief and Summary Relation of the Lords of New Spain as a response to a
questionnaire ordered by the king “and addressed to the viceroys and Audiencias of
the Indies, (requesting) an exhaustive review of the elements of the tribute
problem… The Crown wished to know what tribute the Indians paid their rulers and
lords before the conquest… who were the tribute-payers; what was the method of
making assessments… The Crown… sought the information in order to evolve a
general solution to the Indian problem that would eliminate remaining abuses,
stabilize the Indian tribute and labor system, and halt the progressive decline of the
Indian population.”14 The officials were to use information from aged Indians from
the pre-conquest period in their research. Ordered on December 20, 1553, Zorita
did not write the relation until his retirement and return to Spain around 15 years
later, due to being swamped by work and the order being issued after leaving his
post in Guatemala and completed by the officials in Mexico City before he could take
office there. Nevertheless, with 19 years of service in the New World, Zorita was
well prepared to write his account. Today, the Relation presents a valuable
description of the Aztec tribute system through European eyes.
One of the principle questions in the relation asked what tribute the Aztec
subjects paid their lords, the quantity and value of the tribute, and its value in gold
pesos. Zorita responded that each town or province that gave tribute gave according
to its climate, its people, and its location. The tribute was most commonly paid in
corn, peppers, beans, and cotton. Each town had fields set aside for producing the
tribute crops. The townspeople, with the help of the lord’s slaves, were put to work
14 Zorita, Alonso De. Life and Labor in Ancient Mexico: The Brief and Summary
Relation of the Lords of New Spain. Translated by Benjamin Keen. New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1963.

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in the fields tending the crops to make sure enough was produced, and tribute could
also be paid by providing fuel, water and housework for the lord. Cotton was grown
in many tribute fields, and if a town contained no cotton fields, it got its cotton from
areas separate from but subject to the town’s lord. If cloth was needed, the lord sent
the cotton over to towns where the locals grew no cotton but specialized in spinning
the cotton into fabric. Gold was given as tribute as well; it was easily collected from
rivers. Since there were many people tasked at producing the tribute, the work was
never strenuous and there was more than enough left over to go around. This was
how life was subject to the Aztecs: “Thus the peasants worked the tribute fields an
harvested and stored the crops; the artisans gave tribute from the things they made;
and the merchants gave of their merchandise-clothing, feathers, jewels, stones-each
giving of the commodities in which he dealt. The merchants’ tribute was the most
valuable of all, for they were rich and prosperous people. 15 If a town was conquered
in war or rebelled against its superiors, the tribute paid was greater. At certain
times of the year, lesser lords gave gifts to superior lords to show their loyalty and
submission. The merchants, due to their wealth, also presented the lords with gifts
in addition to the tribute, completely voluntarily. The goods went into a common
fund that the lord used to pay for the festivals and the enjoyment of his subjects. The
lord gave his lesser lords and visiting neighboring lords gifts like cloaks to award
their subjection and show their generosity.
Another question in the relation asked what times of the year the tribute was
paid and what order the Indians observed in its apportionment, collection, and
payment. Zorita writes that at harvest time, the tribute crops were gathered and put
into storehouses in each town. They removed the goods from the storehouses
whenever they were needed. Artisans and merchants paid tribute on a variety of
schedules. In one place they paid every twenty days, and in another every eighty
days, counting in months of twenty days each, usually paying once, twice, or three
times a year. The schedule varied according to what goods were needed, how long
they took to produce, and how long it took for the goods to travel from one place to
15 Zorita, 1963, p. 187

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another. Tribute was coming in all year long, and the lords apparently lacked for
nothing. The rulers took into account the number of people in their towns, the
occupations of their citizens, and determined what goods each town was to give and
how much land they were to cultivate: “To the merchants and artisans they also
indicated what they should give, taking into account the production of each town or
province of the things they dealt in… In every case these people took into account
the number and capacity of the inhabitants and the character of the land. There was
never any question of moving one people from one town to another, or even from
one barrio to another”16
The lords appointed officials known as majordomos to ensure that their
subjects did their share of work on the tribute fields and contributed their share.
When the time came for the tribute to be collected, the majordomos or the lesser
lords helped to collect the tribute. If there was blight or the crop failed, these lesser
lords would report it to the greater lords, and they would order production halted
and relief efforts for the affected towns. When asked in the relation whether the
tribute was paid in proportion to the value of the land, the value of their estates, or
assigned by heads, Zorita responded that they paid tribute in produce and most of it
was produced by communal labor. A tenant would pay tribute to a landowner based
on a prior agreement. They did not always work the lord’s land like mayeques or
serfs did, because they paid rent and labored in the communal fields. Tribute was
not assigned by heads because the natives didn’t know what it was. Almost all of
them had land, which was held individually or communally, and those who didn’t
have any paid tribute to their local lord or helped to work his land.
Tribute was also paid in the service of religion. Zorita notes that 15 towns in
the city of Texcoco’s territory and their subject towns were appointed to service the
temples and made sure the fires inside them were always burning. There were also
large parcels of land separate from these towns set aside for religious services.
Lords left the land to the temples, some rented them, and some worked them out of
devotion. Boys who received schooling in the telpochcalli schools served the
16 Zorita, 1963, pp. 193-94

15
temples, and grew corn, beans, chilies chia, and other crops to be stored in the
warehouses. The food was taken out when it was needed for festivals and to support
the priesthood.
When asked to describe what power the native lords once held, Zorita writes
“that the Mexican kings and their allies… left the natural lords of these provinces in
command of all the land they conquered and acquired… They also allowed all the
commoners to keep their land and property, and permitted them to retain their
customs and practices and mode of government.”17 Zorita goes on to describe how
the tribute was collected: “The commoners brought the produce to the majordomos
whom the native ruler appointed for the collection of tribute, and these majordomos
in turn took it to the persons sent thither for the purpose by the ruler of Mexico…
Each person this paid tribute to the ruler whose subject he had become and to
whom he owed the duty of obedience and service in war. This was the general rule
in all the provinces subject to the Confederacy. The former rulers preserved all their
former authority and governmental power, with civil and criminal jurisdiction.”18
Further on in his relation, Zorita goes into detail discussing the political
landscape and the changing power structure of the Valley of Matlalcinco, which the
Aztecs subjugated. It is of great interest because it shows how the Aztecs
incorporated a foreign land into their empire and how they implemented the tribute
system there. Before Axayacatl conquered the valley, three lords ruled it. One was
the most powerful, the second was below the first, and the third was below the first
two. When the first lord, Tlatuan died, the second lord, Tlacatecatle filled his place,
and the third lord, Tlacuxcalcatl in turn filled his. The son or brother of the first lord,
whoever was better suited to the job, filled the third place. If the middle lord died,
the third lord took over and a brother or son of the second lord filled his place, and if
the third lord died, they chose his son or brother. Each lord had calpolli, which paid
him tribute, and the people in each calpolli elected a governor that the lord had to
approve. The able-bodied citizens of these calpolli labored on the lord’s lands as
tribute. The crops were stored and were used by the lord and his household. In
17 Zorita, 1963, p. 112
18 Zorita, 1963, pp. 112-13

16
return, the lord gave them food and lodging. There was a bounty of goods available:
“The Indians always had large reserves of maize for use in time of crop failure; the
men who gave me this account said they had lived through four years of famine.
During this time the lords asked for no tribute from their vassals. On the contrary,
the lords ordered that there should be a distribution of food from the reserves of
maize and beans, for they always had a large store of provisions in reserve.”19
The lords treated their subjects kindly and generously, calling them fathers,
sons, brothers, and sisters. Each one strived to rule better than his predecessor.
Zorita notes that the man giving him the account saw the removal of a lord because
of his poor leadership. Each lord handled issues that came up among the tenants
according to how serious they were. The most supreme lord resolved the most
serious disputes, while the other two dealt with the smaller cases. If the lord wanted
to give a feast or hold a celebration for a festival, he asked his subjects to hunt for
game like deer and rabbits. They were not obligated to, but they always agreed
because of their thankfulness for the lord’s good service. Subjects were allowed to
farm the towns’ community lands free of charge, but they could also farm the lords’
good land for the price of a few chickens or deer, and did not have to labor on the
tribute lands if he did. Harvests stored in granaries could only be used for war and
the needs of the state, and the populace rose up if the lord did otherwise.
Once Axayacatl conquered the valley, he executed the two lower lords
because of their disobedience. Only the most supreme lord, Chimaltecutli, was
spared because of his subservience to the Aztec emperor. He enacted a large tribute
among his subjects to please his new conquerors, but they rose in revolt because of
overwork. Axayacatl invaded the valley again to quell the rebellion and killed a great
deal of the people doing so. Tizoc, who ruled in a similar way, followed Axayacatl.
After Tizoc came his brother Ahuitzotl, who ruled in the same way, and after him
came Montezuma, who gave distinguished warriors many gifts and honors. Overall,
Zorita describes the political landscape of the Aztecs as well organized and efficient.
All the lands were held in common and belonged to anyone who worked them. The
19 Zorita, 1963, p. 265

17
Aztec lords held the best land, and rented it out to those who could pay for it. When
the Aztec lords ruled, peace prevailed. The lords determined what goods were
needed, made sure that their subjects’ fields were cultivated, and that quotas were
met. Rarely did they ever come up short, few lawsuits occurred, and the empire
prospered. Zorita’s attitude towards the Aztecs and other peoples of Mexico
suggests that he believed the Aztecs did a better job of governing than the Spanish.
Hardly a negative word is heard from his writings about Aztec life when describing
the time before the Spanish conquest. After they took over, his tone changes.
Once the Spanish were in charge, Zorita says, they divided the land and
people among themselves. Cortés took Toluca, and asked for a tribute in maize from
the natives the first year. The second year, he ordered them to cultivate a field for
him, which they did for many years. Some of them were sent to Mexico City,
formerly Tenochtitlan, to build houses over what the Spanish destroyed. Later on,
he ordered the lords of the land to hand over all the available men and women to
work in the silver mines at Tletiztlac. They were branded on their faces and carried
corn from the tribute fields to the mineworkers. He ordered the natives under him
to collect large amounts of food, including meat like birds and deer, to give to the
miners. When two other mines were discovered in Taxco and Tzultepec, he ordered
sixty of his subjects to work at each of the mines and switched out groups every
twenty days. It was dangerous work, with many getting injured or killed atop being
mistreated and underfed. Little food was given to them, so little that they had to
bring food from home. When not being forced to labor at dangerous jobs like this,
they were being taxed so heavily that many suffered from hunger: “On account of
this intolerable abuse the Indians are dying like flies; they die without confession
and without religious instruction, for there is no time for these things. The fewer the
Indians, the more burdens the Spaniards load on those who remain. Because of this
and the ill treatment that they receive, the Indians return home with their health
shattered.”20
20 Zorita, 1963, p. 214

18
Zorita describes how when the natives were sent on construction projects,
they brought food to last them throughout their trip. The tortillas that they brought
spoiled after three or four days, but it was all they had, they either ate or died. Many
were so poor they had no food to bring in the first place. They were worked from
dawn to dusk in any weather, no matter how cold or hot, and slept without shelter,
sometimes completely naked. They were not paid until they were laid off, and what
they were given was too little to buy much anyway. Oftentimes their employer
would dock their pay for some arbitrary reason. He goes on, “Because the Indians
are now so few and the demands for their labor are so numerous, each Indian is
assigned many turns at compulsory labor… the officials make the Indians go at the
season when they should be sowing or weeding their fields, which are their sole
wealth and means of support. If he returns from work when the time for seeding or
cultivation is past, it does him little good to seed or cultivate, for he does not reap
half the crop he would have… most of the Indians return sick or fall sick on their
arrival, and since they cannot cultivate or clear their fields, they harvest nothing or
very little. As a result they suffer hunger all year long, and they and their families fall
ill and die….”
Concerning the authorship of this text, it should be stated that the Spanish
chroniclers were certainly not looking at the Aztecs from a neutral point of view.
The average conquering or colonizing European of that age would probably describe
the Aztecs as being a heathen, savage race, lower in status than an educated
European of some means. For example, the Spanish were horrified when they
learned of the mass human sacrifices that were performed by the Aztecs during
their rituals, however, as hard as it is for those this day and age to understand, to be
sacrificed was one of the highest honors one could have. While this is a more blatant
example, Spanish writings of the period are often written through this biased lens.
Alonso de Zorita is the odd man out in having a pro-Indian stance concerning the
Aztec government and tribute system. He viewed the Aztecs as a cultured and
intelligent people. He says the Aztecs “are by nature very long-suffering, and nothing
will excite or anger them. They are very obedient and teachable; if you blame them
or scold them for some negligence or vice, they display great humility and attention,

19
and their only reply is ‘I have sinned.’ The more noble they are, the more humility
they display. Sometimes one will say, “I have sinned, be not angry with me, only tell
me what I must do.”21
Zorita shows a great deal of sympathy for the natives all throughout his
writings, and one does not have to read much between the lines to know that Zorita
thought the Aztecs were much better off when left to their own devices: “Who shall
tell the sum of the miseries and hardships these poor unfortunate people suffer,
without help or succor from any corner! The ancient kings and lords never ruled in
this way, never took the Indians from their towns, never disrupted their way of life
and labor. I cannot believe Your Majesty or the member of Your Majesty’s council
know or have been informed about what is taking place.”22 The depopulation due to
disease and overwork shocked him and he believed the conquistadores and the
Spanish governors twisted the wording of the law to exploit the natives. He notes
that none of the orders given by the central government in Spain are obeyed, and
since Mexico was so far away, these orders had no real power. The Spaniards acted
only in their own interest, for example, summoning the natives subject to them for a
head count to determine what they should pay in tribute, and sending it to the
Audiencia, the Spanish government in Mexico, without their consent or agreement of
what they should pay. There was no concern for their welfare, and many of them
could only support themselves by the labor of their hands. Their whole estates did
not equal the value of the tribute they were to pay, and many didn’t marry because
they didn’t have the 4 or 6 reales to pay for it. They couldn’t even afford to go to
church. Some abandoned their families. Zorita says that on an inspection of a certain
area in Mexico he learned of some Indians who had hanged themselves because they
couldn’t afford the tribute to their Spanish lords. In Mexico City, he learned that a
daughter of Montezuma was thrown out on a mat on the ground and would have
gone hungry if some Franciscans offered her food.
Concerning their government along with the Aztec people themselves, Zorita
seems to think of the Aztecs as “noble savages”, claiming that “under the old system
21 Zorita, 1963, pp. 94-95
22 Zorita, 1963, p. 216

20
of government, then, the whole land was at peace… The natural lords cherish and
support their vassals, for they love them as their own…They fear not to lose them
and strive not to offend them lest they rise up against them… Therefore the natural
lords seek to ease their vassals’ burdens, treat them like their own children, defend
and protect them… The benefits that the subjects derived from the rule of their lords
were very great… The lords looked after everything and saw that the Indians lived a
proper life… The lords saw that the commoners paid their tribute, that they
cultivated their fields and worked at their crafts…”23
There is hardly any doubt that the Aztecs had an effective and reasonable
system of government due to the amount of land they governed and the
preeminence their society rose to, but the amount of effort that went into the
defense of the empire as discussed above shows that they engaged in serious
conflict, and to assume that the provinces happily accepted the Aztecs’ tribute
demands is foolish. So how accurate was Zorita’s assessment? Was the Valley of
Mexico before the conquest a land full of happy people, sunshine and rainbows?
Zorita faced a fair bit of criticism from other writers of the period. Serrano y Sanz
remarks that “Those Indians, so cultured, so honorable, so pious-all is as stylized
and conventional as the picture Garcilaso de la Vega left us of the Quichuas and their
Incas… or the fantasies drawn by Father Las Casas.24 Some chroniclers take the
complete opposite view. Debating the pro-Indian writings of Las Casas, he writes
that the Aztecs are a people “in whom you will scarcely find even vestiges of
humanity; who not only are devoid of learning but do not even have a written
language…they waged continuous and ferocious war against each other… they
considered a victory hardly worth while if they did not glut their monstrous hunger
with the flesh of their enemies.25
23 Zorita, 1963, pp. 116, 121, 123
24 Zorita, Alonso de, Historia de la Nueva España, ed. by M. Serrano y Sanz (Madrid,
1909) cited in Zorita, 1963, p. 69
25 Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de, Tratado sobre las justas causas de la guerra contra los
indios, cited in Benjamin Keen, Readings in Latin-American Civilization, p. 91,
further cited in Zorita, 1963, p. 70

21
Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, a professor at the University of Mexico and
official chronicler of the city council of Mexico City, said, “The Indians are cowardly
and have no sense of honor. They are extremely vindictive and cannot keep a secret.
They are ungrateful… They are so lazy that if necessity did not force them to work,
they would squat the whole day on their haunches, never speaking to each other…
There is nothing they will not steal, given the chance.26 It must be noted that the
colonial period of Mexico was a time of turmoil for the Aztecs and the Spanish in the
wake of the empire’s destruction. As the colonial government tried to get a grip on
the situation, chroniclers exaggerated aspects of the Aztecs’ savagery in order to
convince officials in Spain to grant the settlers more authority to increase their
control over them. Zorita, seeing firsthand the hardships the Indians endured and
having a fair bit of sympathy for the Aztec people, may have embellished his claims
to persuade the Spanish to grant the Aztecs more autonomy.
It is fair to say that in terms of how “civilized” (in European terms) the Aztecs
were, they were somewhere in the middle. The Aztecs built a fantastic empire, a rich
culture, an effective government, and a strong defense. The engineering and
mathematical know-how needed to build the city of Tenochtitlan and all its majestic
temples in the middle of a lake must have been quite developed, and a great deal of
cooperation and effort between different areas and groups of people were needed to
supply the capital with the materials to build it. But it is also true that the Aztecs
were capable of unimaginable savagery. Tens of thousands of prisoners of war were
sacrificed at the Templo Mayor in Tenochtitlan. The victims’ hearts were cut out and
offered to the gods, still beating. The victim would still be alive for a brief time
afterwards. Once this was completed, the victim’s body was thrown down the
temple steps, which were stained with blood from the numerous other victims.
Besides this, life as a commoner was difficult at times. A subject would not
only have to contribute to the empire-wide tribute, but the tribute to the local lords
as well. A subject was also expected to perform labor on public works projects, such
as temples or fortifications. This placed a considerable burden on a significant
26 Salazar, Francisco Cervantes de, Crónica de la Nueva España (Madrid, 1914), pp.
30-32, cited in Zorita, 1963, pp. 70-71

22
number of commoners. For example, commoners in two villages were required to
collect large amounts of wood to be burned every night for one year to pay respect
to the god Huitzilopochtli. Another two villages were selected for the next year. To
pay their share of the cost for the year’s celebrations, each family had to contribute
one large and four small cloaks, one basket of dried corn kernels, and one hundred
ears of dried corn. Bernardino de Sahagún writes that “this gave rise to much
distress; it caused much anguish; it affected them. And some therefore fled; they
went elsewhere. And many flung themselves in the midst of war, they cast
themselves to their deaths.”27
Fernández de Oviedo writes that the local lords assigned a tequitlato (tribute
collector) to collect what was owed from twenty to fifty homes on the lord’s land.
When the harvest came, the tequitlato took everything that the family had worked
for, leaving only enough food to last them for the year. In addition, depending on the
region, the tenants paid tribute in special goods like gold, silver, honey or wax every
forty, sixty, seventy, or ninety days, depending on the agreement. If the tenant
couldn’t pay, he was sold into slavery. Similar hardships were endured when
drought, storms or blight destroyed their crops: “When crops failed, as happened
from 1451 to 1456, and all reserves were exhausted, the unhappy commoner must
beg for charity or even sell himself and his children into slavery…the houses of the
merchants were filled with the victims of economic disaster… At this time one sold
oneself… Or else one sold and delivered into bondage his beloved son, his dear
child…28
The information available on how the empire was organized allows us to
have a good overview of the way the Aztecs organized themselves. We know that
the Aztecs could not intimidate everyone and certain areas full of people hostile to
the Aztecs fought instead of submitting to the tribute. If the tribute drove people to
resort to flinging themselves into the midst of war as Sahagún describes, then the
27 Sahagún, Bernardino de, General History of the Things of New Spain, Book III, The
Origin of the Gods (1952), page 6-7, cited in Zorita, 1963, pp. 73-74
28 Oviedo y Valdés, Fernández de, Historia general y natural de las Indias, cited in
Benjamin Keen, Readings in Latin-American Civilization, pp. 17-18, further cited in
Zorita, 1963, p. 75

23
tribute and Aztec rule was clearly unbearable for a significant number of people.
When the Spanish arrived in 1519, it is understandable to think that the natives of
central Mexico put aside their differences and collectively rose up to defend their
realm against the invaders, but the unpopularity of Aztec rule caused many peoples
to fight on the side of the Spanish. Pedro Gonzáles Nájera, a conquistador writing in
1573, recounts, “at that time there came to help in the conquest a great quantity of
Indian friends, natives of Tlaxcala, and Mexicans and natives of Cholula and
Zapoteca and Mixteca and Yope and from Cuauhquecholan, all friends of the
Spaniards, who after coming to this land-this witness saw-in the service of God our
Lord and of Your Majesty, were all at the battles and encounters… and served very
well with their persons and their arms, suffering much exhaustion and hunger and
deprivation and many wounds over many years until the land was conquered and
pacified and placed under the dominion of Your Majesty.”29
Some may also think that a negligible number of subjects fought with the
Spanish, but Cortes landed in Mexico with only several hundred men. Pedro de
Alvarado, another conquistador, notes that he has five or six thousand Indian allies
at his command, compared with his force of 250 Spaniards. The numbers of soldiers
under Spanish command were given number of captains, for example, Cempoala
gave forty captains and Xalacingo gave twenty. The units these captains commanded
were called cuadrillas by the Spanish and were made up of several hundred soldiers
from the captain’s hometown. If there were 200 men in a cuadrilla, we can calculate
that Cempoala sent at least eight thousand men to fight on the side of the Spanish.
According to Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the ruler of Tlaxcala, Xicotencatl, ordered ten
thousand of his men to march with the Spanish to Cholula. During the siege of
Tenochtitlan, the number of Indian allies had grown to twenty four thousand, and
there are a few records that refer to forty thousand Indians accompanying the
Spanish in their takeover of Iztapalapa.30 A few years after the Spanish conquest, the
29Matthew, Laura E., and Michael R. Oudijk. Indian Conquistadors: Indigenous Allies
in the Conquest of Mesoamerica. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,
2007. 31.
30 Matthew and Oudijk, 2007, pp. 32-33

24
numbers of Indian allies shrunk due to the death toll in the wars and the spread of
smallpox, but it is still common to find records of thousands of native warriors
fighting with the Spaniards even decades after the conquest.
This adds a new dimension to the tribute system. The Aztecs were not
necessarily an all-powerful empire. There were gaps in the empire’s territory filled
with thousands of hostile peoples and significant numbers of the population that felt
the tribute was too much of a burden. Similar to how the thirteen colonies rebelled
against the British when the Stamp Act levied taxes on lead, paper, paint, glass, and
tea, the peoples who felt subjugated by Aztec demands rose in rebellion when the
Spanish arrival incited it. When faced with a more powerful authority intent on
bringing down the Aztecs, those concerned joined the Spanish side. The Spanish also
did a fair bit of enticing. Cortés promised the Tlaxcalans exemptions from tribute,
conquered lands, and a share of the spoils. Whatever the reason certain peoples
defected, it shows a potential flaw in the tribute system: if a subject area refused to
pay, they were not part of the empire. The organization of city-states and tribute
provinces was very loose, and it was easy for different polities to fragment if they
disagreed with Aztec demands and could resist their army. Since each area was
allowed to govern itself, it was not uncommon that many would not wish to pay or
feel like the demands placed on them were too much.
In conclusion, we can say that the tribute was paramount in the lives of pre
and post conquest Aztecs; indeed, many Aztecs based their whole lives and work
around trying to meet it, and many died because of it. The Aztec empire stretched
from the Caribbean to the Pacific and from what is today San Luis Potosi in the north
to the Guatemalan border in the south. With that large and varied territory came a
diverse group of people with different ethnic backgrounds and different languages.
The Aztecs continue to intrigue historians today due to their enigmatic lifestyle.
Who were these people that lived in a far away land that no European had ever seen
before? Who built their city in an island on the middle of a lake? Who developed a
style of government that allowed their city to not just survive but thrive? Who made
beautiful temples, works of art, and a culturally rich civilization but also brutally
sacrificed tens of thousands of their prisoners of war? From today’s world, most of

25
us look back with disgust and feel confident about how far our society today has
come. However, we must remember that the past is a different planet, and we
cannot look at it in a completely objective way due to the different environment that
bred us.
The Aztecs are not that different from us. Brutal? No doubt, but the Spanish, a
western people living a lifestyle more similar to ours today than the Aztecs, were
hardly better according to some. If Zorita is correct, then the Aztecs suffered greatly
at the hands of the Spanish. Despite the numerous wars and sacrifices carried out,
the Aztecs were able to keep a large amount of resources and people under their
supervision, and their subjects certainly saw them as legitimate rulers due to their
submission and payment of the tribute. The Aztecs gave no consent to Spanish rule,
and until new policies stopped the conquistadores’ oppression, they suffered and
died in huge numbers, a great deal of them due to overwork from their new lords.
The fact that some native peoples like the Tlaxcalans and the Tarascans actively
resisted Aztec rule and sided with the Spanish throws preconceptions for another
loop, due to most people’s assumption that the conflict was clear cut, with the
Spanish one side and the Mexicans on the other. History is filled with nuance, and
the Aztecs are no exception. People usually choose the option that gives them the
greatest benefit for the least cost, and in most cases, siding with the Aztecs was the
best option. Before the Spanish came, it was for a lot of people, and the Aztecs did an
exceptional job of managing their authority and what was owed to them through
their tribute system. It was one of their empire’s greatest strengths. After the
Spanish came, the tribute system collapsed, in part because of its very nature in
being a loosely organized system. Natives who were against the tribute switched
sides, the goods stopped flowing, and the Spanish came to dominate. It became a
symbol of their weakness. No one is completely blameless in this episode of history,
and both sides end up with a lot of blood on their hands. Digging deeper into Aztec
culture and society may take away the mystery and romanticism for some, but for
others it reveals some of the greatest knowledge that history can bring: that people
are people, and just like us they are capable of making peace and killing, building
society and destroying it, and deciding what authority to submit to. In learning

26
about the Aztecs, we get a glimpse of who we are today, and with that information,
which was not available to the Aztecs themselves, we have the potential of building
a great society like they did, one that can outlast the twists that fate can throw at it.
Figure 1: The Aztec province of Coayxtlahuacan’s yearly tribute demands: From the
Codex Mendoza

27
Figure 2: Aztec tribute provinces and client states: From Smith, Michael E. "The
Strategic Provinces." In Aztec Imperial Strategies, 138. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton
Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996.

Aztec Tribute System: The Foundation of Their Empire

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Aztec Tribute System: The Foundation of Their Empire