The Tribute Ledger and the Market

Your starting point

Explain how tribute and markets supported power while affecting communities differently.

Mesoamerica is a region with many societies and long histories; it is not another name for one empire. This activity focuses on the Mexica, often called Aztecs, and their capital Tenochtitlan. The city was connected to markets and a system of tribute from subject communities. Goods could arrive through different relationships, including exchange and political obligation.

The Codex Mendoza records aspects of Aztec tribute and society, but it was created after the Spanish conquest in a colonial setting. Its evidence is important and must be read with that context. A record of goods demanded by rulers is not the same as an account of how households experienced those demands.

The ledger below is fictional and uses invented quantities. It helps separate a purchase from an obligation and asks who benefits, who supplies resources, and whose voice is missing. Your task is to build a precise account of an economic system without assuming that all Mesoamerican societies used the same institutions.

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