8. The Calpulli and Slavery

The bulk of the Aztec population consisted of commoners who lived in hamlets cultivating chinampas and fields allocated to their families by community groups known as the calpulli. Originally, calpulli (“big houses”) were clans or groups of families claiming descent from common ancestors. With the passage of time, ancestry became less important to the nature of the calpulli than the fact that groups of families lived together in communities, organized their own affairs, and allocated community property to individual families.

Apart from cultivating plots assigned by their calpulli, Aztec commoners worked on lands awarded to aristocrats or prominent warriors and contributed labor services to public works projects involving the construction of palaces, temples, roads, and irrigation systems. In times of war, the calpulli went into battle as a unit of about 200 to 400 men. Each calpulli was also attached to a noble house, which distributed land in return for tribute. Cultivators delivered periodic tribute payments to state agents, who distributed a portion of what they collected to the elite classes and stored the remainder in state granaries and warehouses. Nobles would be distinct from commoners by their ability to build two-storied residences. However, if a noble died without descendants, his land would revert to the calpulli.

Commoners had a limited ability to move in either direction in social rank. Upward mobility was achieved through achievement and service to the state, usually in war, religion or trade. They could become quauhpipiltin, or “eagle nobles”, meaning they were nobles only for their lifetimes. In contrast, Aztec society included slaves, who usually worked as domestic servants. Most slaves were not foreigners, but Aztec. Families sometimes sold younger members into servitude out financial distress, and other Aztec were forced into slavery because of criminal behavior.