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conflict: how far away from home the enemy was, how good its logistical support in the region was, how near hostile groups were, and how determined the enemy was, among others. |
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The Aztecs created "buffer states" at the periphery of the empire that paid tribute in service and arms rather than in goods sent to the center. But since the empire was expanding, this was a transitional situation, and the buffer zones' tribute apparently shifted from service to goods as the frontier moved on. The main imperial troops were drawn from the basin of Mexico and adjacent areas; the main role of tributaries was passivity and logistical support. Buffer states probably helped only in wars against their traditional enemies, and since these were usually the adjacent polities, the loss of buffer-state assistance as the imperial borders expanded was relatively minor. But even though border states offered only rudimentary military assistance, they remained responsible for maintaining order locally. Thus they freed Aztec troops from this occasional necessity and provided important intelligence, logistical support, and arms supply, as well as some military support. |
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Tribute was an economic benefit, but the tribute system was modified to serve political purposes as well, by tying the empire together. Earlier changes in the tribute system are unrecorded, but it was apparently reorganized by Moteuczomah Xocoyotl.
11 Each tributary town had a traditional relationship with its subject towns from which tribute goods flowed. From at least the time of Moteuczomah Xocoyotl's reorganization, the traditional flow of tributary goods from subject to cabecera (the local political center) was tied into an expanded tribute system. Tributary towns were organized into larger tributary "provinces," each of which was organized around a tributary capital (see fig. 15), with tribute goods now moving from subject to cabecera to provincial capital to imperial capital.12 It was a rationalized reform: the system was not traditional, since no previous empire had been large enough to require such a reform. Nor did the system simply develop along the lines of the historical sequence of Aztec conquests. |
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The tributary provinces listed in the Matrícula de tributos (a native-style, Conquest-era pictorial tribute record) often grouped together towns of similar ethnic affiliation, but this grouping was pri- |
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