TRIBUTE
UNDER THE AZTECS
OBSERVATIONS OF GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE OVIEDO Y VALDOS
Background: Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo
y Valdés (August 1478 - 1557) was a Spanish historian and writer.
In 1514 he was appointed supervisor of gold-smeltings at Santo Domingo
in what is now the Dominican Republic, and on his return to Spain in
1523 was appointed historiographer of the Indies. He paid five more
visits to America before his death, which took place at Valladolid in
1557. His 1526 book La General y Natural Historia de Las Indias
includes a mass of information about the Americas collected first
hand. Apart from a patriotic bias which is too obvious to be misleading,
his accounts of the New World is widely considered trustworthy and has
been confirmed by subsequent research. It is through his book, that
Europeans — and then the whole world — came to learn about
the hammock, the pineapple and tobacco among other things, because these
were used by the Native Indians that he encountered. The first illustration
of a pineapple is credited to him. He was also placed in charge of the
Fortaleza, the famous fort in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, where
there is a large statue of him given to the Dominican government by
the King of Spain.
Document
OBSERVATIONS OF GONZALO FERNANDEZ DE OVIEDO Y VALDOS
The Indians of New Spain, I have been told by reliable persons who gained
their information from Spaniards who fought with Hernando Cortes in
the conquest of that land, are the poorest of the many nations that
live in the Indies at the present time. In their homes they have no
furnishings or clothing other than the poor garments which they wear
on their persons, one or two stones for grinding maize, some pots in
which to cook the maize, and a sleeping mat. Their meals consist chiefly
of vegetables cooked with chili, and bread. They eat little -- not that
they would not eat more if they could get it, for the soil is very fertile
and yields bountiful harvests, but the common people and plebeians suffer
under the tyranny of their Indian lords, who tax away the greater part
of their produce in a manner that I shall describe. Only the lords and
their relatives, and some principal men and merchants, have estates
and lands of their own; they sell and gamble with their lands as they
please, and they sow and harvest them but pay no tribute. Nor is any
tribute paid by artisans, such as masons, carpenters, feather-workers
or silver--smiths, or by singers and kettle-drummers (for every Indian
lord has musicians in his household, each according to his station).
But such persons render personal service when it is required, and none
of them is paid for his labor.
Each Indian lord assigns to the common folk who come from other parts
of the country to settle on his land (and to those who are already settled
there) specific fields, that each may know the land that he is to sow.
And the majority of them have their homes on their land; and between
twenty and thirty or forty and fifty houses, have over them an Indian
head who is called tiquitlato, which in the Castilian tongue
means "the finder (or seeker) of tribute." At harvest time
this tiquitlato, inspects the cornfield and observes what each
one reaps, and when the reaping is done they show him the harvest, and
he counts the ears of corn that each has reaped, and the number of wives
and children that each of the vassals in his charge possesses. And with
the harvest before him he calculates how many ears of corn each person
in that household will require till the next harvest, and these he gives
to the Indian head of that house; and he does the same with the other
produce, namely kidney beans, which are a kind of small beans, and chili,
which is their pepper; and chia, which is as fine as mustard seed, and
which in warm weather they drink, ground and made into a solution in
water and used for medicine, roasted and ground; and cocoa. which is
a kind of almond that they use as money and which they grind, make into
a solution, and drink; and cotton, in those places where it is raised,
which is in the hot lands and not the cold; and pulque, which is their
wine; and all the various products obtained from the maguey plant, from
which they obtain food and drink and footwear and clothing. This plant
grows in cold regions, and the leaves resemble those of the cinnamon
tree, but are much larger. Of all these and other products they leave
the vassal [that is, the common Indian under the authority of the tiquitlato]
only enough to sustain him for a year. And in addition the vassal must
earn enough to pay the tribute of mantles, gold, silver, honey wax,
lime, wood. or whatever products it is customary to pay as tribute in
that country. They pay this tribute every forty, sixty, seventy, or
ninety days according to the terms of the agreement. This tribute also
the tiquitlato receives and carries to his Indian lord.
Ten days before the close of the sixty or hundred days, or whatever
is the period appointed for the payment of the tribute, they take to
the house of the Indian lord the produce brought by tiquitlatos;
and if some poor Indian should prove unable to pay his tribute the tiquitlato
tells the lord that such-and-such will not pay the proportion of the
tribute that had been assigned to him; then the lord tells the tiquitlato
to take the recalcitrant vassal to
a market, which they hold every five days in all of the towns of the
land, and there sell him into slavery, applying the proceeds of the
sale to the payment of his tribute.