production. These were poor peasants with few independent economic resources or op-
portunities.
Rural conditions in the Aztec period were quite different. Archaeological surveys located
many more rural sites, with a nearly continuous distribution of hamlets and villages in some areas.
Compared with Teotihuacan, Aztec city-states had less power to dominate or exploit their com-
moners, and the growth of market systems gave rural Aztecs ready access to goods and exchange
opportunities. Excavations at two rural sites in Morelos reveal thriving rural economies where
peasant households obtained large numbers of exotic goods including obsidian, foreign pottery,
and bronze tools. In addition to growing maize and other food crops using agricultural terracing,
farmers cultivated cotton, which was spun and woven into cloth for both tribute payments (to no-
bles and city-states) and exchange in the marketplace (textiles served as a form of money for the
Aztecs). Although these peasants lived in small adobe houses with stone floors (Figure 2.13), they
were well-off economically in the commercialized city-state economy of Aztec Central Mexico.
Knowledge of Aztec peasants is important not only to provide a complete picture of Aztec
society but also to understand the nature of change after the Spanish conquest. Aztec cities were
destroyed by the Spaniards, states and empires were dismantled, and the Aztec nobility were co-
opted into the Spanish colonial system (see Chapters 4 and 5), leaving rural peasants as the
repositories of the Mesoamerican cultural tradition. These people were accustomed to paying
tribute to nobles and to conforming to the laws of states. Age-old peasant strategies of surviv-
ing within the context of states and empires served them well under Spanish rule, when tribute
and law continued as institutions controlling peasant life. In fact, for many rural Aztecs, the Span-
ish conquest had only a minimal effect on their lives—one set of overlords was simply replaced
by another. The peasant lifeway had a long history in ancient Mesoamerica, and archaeological
research is now bringing to view these previously ignored rural Mesoamericans.(continued)Figure 2.13 Remains of an Aztec peasant house excavated at the Late Postclassic Period
village of Capilco, Mexico. Photo by Michael E. Smith.94 UNIT 1 PREHISPANIC MESOAMERICA