Structure of Territorial Organizations in the Basin of Mexico during the Aztec Period

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to find out some principles and structure of indigenous territorial organizations in the basin of Mexico, where located the capitals of the Triple Alliance or so called Aztec Empire. To this end, it would be inevitable to reexamine the previous discussions on the Aztec Empire, almost of which were filled with simplification and generalization without sincere criticism and examination of ethnohistorical materials. First of all, the characteristics of indigenous materials, such as “Matrícula de Tributos”, which were regarded as the authentic documents of the Aztec Empire erroneously, should be reexamined. Therefore, we can't suppose that the uniformity of territorial organizations in the region under control of the Triple Alliance would really exist. Each king of the Triple Alliance would have his own criteria for the territorial organizations.In this paper to further the discussion, we assume that the basic unit for territorial organizations would be a town or altepetl in Náhuatl, without detail analysis of internal structure of a town. Each town would be grouped to form the territorial organizations superior to the town level in accordance with varying degree of dependency and difference in size and importance. The Triple Alliance should be interpreted as one of such territorial organizations, and corresponds to the formation of military divisions in the Aztec army carrying out the campaigns against unconquested regions. The kings of Mexico, Texcoco and Tlacopan would be in command of each division which had comprised several subdivisions or military jurisdictions. Generally speaking, towns in the southern part of the basin were under the command of Mexican king, eastern part under Texcocan king and western part under Tlacopan king. But it is not positively afirmed that some other territorial organizations, which would have been organized on the distinct principles such as of extraction of tributes in labor or in kind, would exist as one of subdivisions under this tripartite military division.The jurisdictions of labor drafts such as the services in the palace of king and other places are found out through the comparative anaysis of some materials. The jurisdictions established by Texcocan king consisted some parts. The towns near the lakeshore and those along the inland riverain valley were assigned the services in the palace in a half year respectively, and some of the towns out of the basin had also paid services in the garden, canal repair and so on. The jurisdictions of labor drafts including the military services to the king of Tlacopan are able to be reconstructed by the comparison of “Códice Osuna” and “Memoriales de los pueblos.” Three of them are really situated out of the basin and there lived less civilized people such as Otomies, Mazahuas. Other three jurisdictions, situated in the basin, were that of Tlacopan, Coyohuacan and Cuauhtitlan. Unfortunatedly, we lack enough materials to reconstruct the jurisdictions of labor drafts established by the king of Mexico. But we can suppose that three jurisdictions of calpizcazgo, where resided calpixqui, a tribute collector, in “Matrícula de Tributos”, would be interpreted as the region of labor drafts. And the towns in these three jurisdictions would be assigned the labor services for Mexican king's enterprises such as the reclamation of the lands for chinampa cultivation. Generally speaking, the jurisdictions of labor draft would coincide to the so called tribal areas or provinces in the early colonial period.In respect to the jurisdictions of tributes in kind, we have a famous document named “Matrícula de Tributos, ” which had been unjustly treated as the most authentic source of the Triple Alliance in the studies after R.H. Barlow's prominent work.