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Aztec society was traditionally divided into social classes. They became sophisticated once the Mexica people settled and began to build the Aztec Empire . The class structure was so elaborate that it impressed the Spanish almost as much as Aztec architecture .
Aztec society was a highly complex and stratified society that developed among the Aztecs of central Mexico in the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and which was built on the cultural foundations of the larger region of Mesoamerica.
Aztec Empire's territorial organization in 1519. Originally, the Aztec empire was a loose alliance between three cities: Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and the most junior partner, Tlacopan. As such, they were known as the 'Triple Alliance.' This political form was very common in Mesoamerica, where alliances of city-states were ever fluctuating.
Aztec culture was organized into city-states , some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, the capital city of the Mexica or Tenochca, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power ...
Reconstruction of an Aztec market in Tenochtitlan in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Tenochtitlan can be considered the most complex society in Mesoamerica in regard to social stratification. The complex system involved many social classes. The macehualtin were commoners who lived outside the island city of Tenochtitlan.
The Aztec social class of the mācēhualtin were rural farmers, forming the majority of the commoners in the Aztec Empire. The mācēhualtin worked lands that belonged to the social unit of the calpolli called chinampas , with each family maintaining rights to the land so long as it did not lie fallow for more than two years.
Aztec slaves were a vehicle for moving around the societal hierarchy. José Luis de Rojas, the author of Tenochtitlan: Capital of the Aztec Empire, states that one of the most respected positions an Aztec commoner could obtain was the role of “tealtiani" or the person responsible for the cleansing of slaves before sacrifice. [8]
Of supreme importance is the Florentine Codex, a project directed by Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, who drew on indigenous informants' knowledge of Aztec religion, social structure, natural history, and includes a history of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire from the Mexica viewpoint. [25]