by Megan Bommarito

Economy in Mesoamerica
MEGAN BOMMARITO

Meso America was broken into different groups which resulted in a diverse development of each group economically. Each region specialized in something like the extraction of natural resources and trading.

* Pacific lowlands - cotton and cochineal.
* Maya lowlands and the Gulf Coast – cacao, vanilla, jaguar skins, birds and bird feathers (especially quetzal and macaw).
* Central Mexico – Obsidian (Pachuca).
* Guatemalan highlands – Obsidian (San Martin Jilotepeque, El Chayal, and Ixtepeque), pyrite, and jade from the Motagua River valley.
* Coastal areas – salt, dry fish, shell, and dyes.

Sea shells were used as currency during the preclassic period coming from both the atlantic and pacific coasts. After the preclassic period, cacao was used in transactions until the postclassic time in which gold coins were used.

The economy of Tenochtitlan was built off of one overwhelming fact: the urban population on the island required high levels of economic support from surrounding areas. In its earliest history, Tenochtitlan was self-supporting; the village was small and agriculture was managed through the chinampa method of architecture, practiced widely throughout Mesoamerica. In the chinampa , flat reeds were placed in the shallow areas of the lake, covered with soil, and then cultivated. In this way, the Aztecs reclaimed much of the lake for agriculture. A large part of the city's population were farmers; at its height (100,000-300,000), at least half the population would leave the city in the morning to go farm and return in the evening.
The city itself consisted of a large number of priests and craftspeople; the bulk of the economy rested on extensive trade of both necessary and luxury items. Tenochtitlan was a true urban center. It had a permanent population, it had a large and bustling market (the Spanish estimated that at least 60,000 people crowded the market), and it had the beginnings of economic class. For the kinship groups of the city were divided up into calpulli , many of which practiced a specific craft or trade, such as rope-making or pot-making. While there is a great deal of controversy over the precise nature of the capulli , it seems to be a transition point between kinship organization (the calpulli were kinship groups) and economic class (the calpulli specialized in particular crafts). In addition, the calpulli seemed to be arranged in ranks: there was the highest calpulli , another five calpulli that had schools for nobility, and then all the rest.
The Aztecs did have two clearly differentiated social classes. At the bottom were the macehualles, or "commoners," and at the top the pilli, or nobility. These were not clearly differentiated by birth, for one could rise into the pilli by virtue of great skill and bravery in war.
All male children went to school. At the age of 15, each male child went to telpuchcalli ("house of youth"), where he learned the history and religion of the Aztecs, the art of war and fighting, the trade or craft specific to his calpulli , and the religious and civic duties of everyday citizenship. The children of nobility also attended another school, a school of nobility or calmecac , if he was a member of one of the top six calpulli . There the child learned the religious duties of priests and its secret knowledge; for the distinction between government and religious duties was practically non-existent. This public education was only limited to boys.
In Aztec society, women were regarded as the subordinate of men. Above everything else, they were required to behave with chastity and high moral standards. For the most part, all government and religious functions were closed off to women. In fact, one of the most important religious offices, the Snake Woman, was always filled by men. There were some temples and gods that had priestesses, who had their own schools, but their exact position in the hierarchy is unknown.
Aztec laws were simple and harsh. Almost every crime, from adultery to stealing, was punished by death and other offenses usually involved severe corporal punishment or mutilation (the penalty for slander, for instance, was the loss of one's lips). This was not a totalitarian state, however; there was a strong sense of community among the Aztecs and these laws, harsh as they seem, were supported by the community rather than an autocratic judiciary.
Slavery was common among the Aztecs; it was not, however, racial or permanent. One became a slave by being captured in war, by committing certain crimes, such as theft, by voluntarily entering into slavery, or by being sold by one's parents. If one was captured in war, slavery was a pleasant option, for the purpose of Aztec warfare was primarily the capture of live human sacrifices. If, however, one had a useful trade, the Tenochca would forego the sacrifice and employ the captive in that trade.
There was little distinction between the religious and the secular hierarchy, although historians and anthropologists argue that the Aztecs developed farther than any other Mesoamerican group a secular aspect of society. At the very top of the hierarchy was the tlacatecuhtli , or "chief of men." He dominated all the religious ceremonies and served as a military leader. Below the tlacatecuhtli were a series of religious offices and some secular functions, such as military generals.
(http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/AZTECS.HTM)




MAYA GOVERNMENT
Political, economic, and social institutions characteristic of the governmental form

In Sharer’s view, during the Classic Maya period (ca. A.D. 250-900) state-level political organization developed, particularly in the southern and central lowlands. During the Late Classic (ca. 600-800) new state polities emerged and population peaked. During the Terminal Classic (ca.800-900 the southern and central lowlands declined and the northern lowlands rose (Sharer 1994:138). An economic system of contributing labor and food to the state and acquiring tribute from neighboring polities developed. Political alliances could be strengthened through marriage of the ruler. The Classic Maya form of political organization, with no standing armies, appears to have emphasized the qualities of the individual leader, and was closer to the "big man" system of Papua New Guinea, rather than the Zapotec political organization which emphasized the office rather than the individual. The coercion that a Mayan leader like 18 rabbit could impose on a city state apparently had limits since he was perhaps forcibly "given up" during a neighboring polity’s conquest and sacrificed. The Zapotec considered the generic political office to be more important than the individual’s personal characteristics, and in Oaxaca powerful families ruled in a kind of confederacy with hereditary palaces and a disembedded capitol, which was both an administrative and ceremonial center supported through tribute and conquest. Similar to the Aztecs, each valley in this confederacy was semi-independent.

Aztec government
War and tribute were central to the Aztec empire, which gained territory, subjects, and economic power as it expanded (Berdan 1982:35). War was a nearly constant activity requiring a large bureaucracy supported by tribute (Id. at 38). "Aztec rulers were chosen from eligible royal offspring by a council of noble elders" (Marcus and Flannery 1983:218). Manufacturing, trade, and agriculture were the main economic institutions for the creation of tribute. Traders were used as a kind of spy network outside the empire and provided information for future areas of conquest. The form of government at the time of the Triple Alliance was a confederacy that bonded together militarily, politically, and economically. The Aztec empire was a multiethnic and multilingual political organization. Near the end of the empire, religious and military activity may have resulted in the astounding figure of 20,000 human sacrifices per year.

Map of the Mesoamerican city-states



The earliest Maya were farmers who lived in small, scattered villages of pole and thatch houses. They cultivated their fields as a community, planting seeds in holes made with a pointed wood stick. Later in the Preclassic period, they adopted intensive farming techniques such as continuous cultivation involving crop rotation and fertilizers, household gardens, and terraces. In some areas, they built raised fields in seasonal swamps. Their main crops included maize (corn), beans, squash, avocados, chili peppers, pineapples, papayas, and cacao, which were made into a chocolate drink with water and hot chilies. The women ground corn on specially shaped grinding stones and mixed the ground meal with water to make a drink known as atole or to cook as tortillas (flat cakes) on flat pottery griddles. The Maya also drank balche made from fermented honey mixed with the bark of the balche tree. Rabbits, deer, and turkeys were hunted for making stews. Fishing also supplied part of their diet. Turkeys, ducks, and dogs were kept as domesticated animals.
In the early Classic period Teotihuacán in central Mexico emerged as the greatest city in Mesoamerica, an area that included modern Mexico and most of Central America. The religious and political power of Teotihuacán radiated throughout Mesoamerica. One result of Teotihuacán’s influence was a highly integrated network of trade in which the Maya participated.

Mesoamerican cultures did great work in the realm of the economy. Farmers learned how to grow maize in different ways as well as cultivate lands that were mostly swampy. They saw some of the highest crop yields of the ancient world. They also had great success making things such as obsidian glass pottery and bronze sculptures
The civilizations of Mesoamerica had complex economies which were divided into three realms: production, distribution and consumption.