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The Aztec Empire
The basic unit of Aztecs was the family. The family was very important to the Aztecs and marriage was considered sacred. Men could marry more than one wife, but there was usually a primary wife who was in charge of the household. Marriages were arranged by matchmakers.
Political Structure
Political Structure
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Families belonged to a larger group called the calpulli. Families and individuals did not own land in Aztec society, the calpulli did. A calpulli was like a clan or small tribe. Many of the families in a calpulli were related to each other. Calpullis had a chief, a local school, and often had a trade in which they specialized.
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Above the calpulli was the city-state, also called the Altepetl. The city-state included a large city and its surrounding areas. The largest city-state and capital of the Aztec Empire was Tenochtitlan. Other city-states in the Aztec Empire had to pay tribute to the emperor who lived in Tenochtitlan.
Expansion
The Aztecs expanded their empire through military conquest and sustained it through tributes imposed on the conquered regions. Every 80 days, the new subjects of the Aztecs had to pay tributes to Tenochtitlan. As for the Aztec society, it was very complex. It was socially divided between the nobility and the populace.
Expansion
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The Aztec was a strong state due to its military power, its religion, and its tribute system. They developed their own calendar of 18 months of 20 days each, built large cities and huge pyramids and temples, and developed a farming system called chinampas that they used to grow crops on shallow lake beds.
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They grew maize, beans, tomatoes, pumpkins, chilis, etc. The Aztecs’ contributions to the modern world are extensive, from agricultural products to farming techniques to stunning art and architecture.
Social Structure
The Aztecs followed a strict social hierarchy in which individuals were identified as nobles (pipiltin), commoners (macehualtin), serfs, or slaves.
Social Structure
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-The noble class consisted of government and military leaders, high level priests, and lords (tecuhtli). Nobles were entitled to receive tribute from commoners in the form of goods, services.
-The commoner class consisted of farmers, artisans, merchants, and low-level priests.Commoners generally resided in calpulli (also referred to as calpolli), or neighborhood wards, which were led by a single nobleman and a council of commoner elders.
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-Unlike slaves, people in the serfs class were free, but they were considered inferior to
commoners. Serfs did not belong to a calpulli and were not loaned land to
farm. Instead, they hired out their services to nobles.
-At the bottom of Aztec society were the slaves. Prisoners of war,
lawbreakers, or debtors might be forced into slavery. Unlike slaves in many
societies, Aztec slaves had a number of rights. They could own property,
goods, and even other slaves.
Culture
An important aspect of the Aztec Empire was the culture that the Aztec people expressed through their art, clothing, food, language, religious traditions and warfare.
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Aztec art was heavily influenced by the religious and cultural practices of the Aztec people. With that said, the Aztec religion and culture were based on earlier Mesoamerican civilizations, and thus Aztec art shared many similarities with the rest of Mesoamerica.
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Aztec clothing, pottery, jewelry, temples, and weapons contained artistic styles. More specifically, the Aztec were known to use bright colors and vivid imagery to convey their culture and religion on these objects.Common materials used to create these objects included: feathers (especially from the quetzal bird), shells, gold, silver, glass beads, and other gemstones.
Economy
Economy
The Aztec economy was based on agriculture and trade. Agriculture provided a great variety of fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes, chili peppers, pumpkins, and beans, necessary to feed the high number of inhabitants in the empire.
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The Aztec agrarian economy is considered one of the most evolved of Indigenous America, only surpassed by the system implemented in the Andean area. The products that could not be obtained in the Valley of Mexico were acquired through trading with other regions by merchants, who traveled long distances.
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In the market of Tenochtitlan, all kinds of merchandise were traded, included product from the Pacific and Atlantic ocean, both of them 500 km away from the Aztec capital. The Aztec economic system based on this simple way of trading was highly efficient and maintained great stability and ensured the welfare of the majority of the population of the empire