From food to slaves: what could the Mexicas acquire in the grand tianguis of Tlatelolco

When the Spaniards arrived in Mexico City-Tenochtitlan in 1519, they found that it was organized in a very specific way, so they were impressed. One of the things that caught their attention the most was the city of Tlatelolco, north of Tenochtitlan, where was the market that supplied food to the capital of the Mexican empire.

The city of Tlatelolco was founded around 1337, and became the headquarters of the main market that supplied the Mexican population with all the products they could imagine at that time. Its size, order and diversity of merchandise attracted the attention of conquerors and chroniclers, who recorded in their works the complex network of trade relations that took place daily in the Tianguis of Tlatelolco.

Both the conquistador Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo did not hide the admiration they felt for this great market and thanks to their stories we can learn some of the physical characteristics of this place, for example, that it was surrounded by portals, and that its extension “was as large as twice the city of Salamanca ”. This allowed a large number of people (Cortés mentions 60 thousand) to gather daily to exchange the products that merchants and tamemes (a term that means shippers), sent through land routes and countless canoe trips.

One of the peculiarities that both conquistadors pointed out, and also referred to in his Indian Monarchy Fray Juan de Torquemada, was the great “concert”, which existed in the market of Tlatelolco. Díaz del Castillo even compares the order in this one, with the trade fairs that were held in his native Medina del Campo. The market was divided into streets, and each one corresponded to a genre of products. In them, merchants took their seats “without someone else taking it”, and placed their items on the floor to begin the day of bartering some objects for others. There were also transactions, where cocoa beans, carved blankets, copper objects and gold dust were used as currency.

There was an immense variety of products that could be purchased at the Tlatelolco market. In terms of edibles, there was a great diversity of corn, beans, pumpkin and chili, the basis of Mesoamerican food. There were also various seeds, such as chia and cocoa, as well as legumes and dried fruits.

In another street there were birds of different types, such as turkeys, quails, pigeons and ducks, to mention just a few examples. There were also deer, dogs, hares, rabbits, turtles, iguanas, snakes, snakes and insects such as ants and grasshoppers.

Lake and marine products also had a place in the market, and it was possible to obtain various fish and crustaceans. Likewise, there was honey from bees and maguey, essential for sweetening, among other preparations, the cocoa drinks consumed by the Mexican nobility.

On the other hand, the high-value products that were brought to Tlatelolco from distant lands by the pochtecas were made available to the Mexican elite, the only social sector that could access fine pieces made with gold, silver and copper, as well as specialized items of plumery, lapidary, richly carved cotton blankets and Choluteca faience. At the same time, clay utensils, bags, baskets of different sizes, rough fabrics, razors, metates, molcajetes, and a wide variety of animal skins, bones, sponges, shells, snails, as well as wood, firewood, coal, stone, pigments and lime coexisted.

In addition, according to Cortés, there were spaces where they “wash and shave heads” as well as places where herbalists had a large amount of herbs and roots that were used to cure diseases and that were also prepared, according to Torquemada, in ointments and syrups. Among such diverse goods, the appetite opened up and to satisfy hunger it was enough to go to the street where you could buy prepared foods such as corn and cocoa atole, roasted or cooked fish, tortillas, tamales of different fillings, tlacoyos, among other stews.

In the market in Tlatelolco, slaves could also be purchased to be offered in sacrifice. Díaz del Castillo is amazed at the number of captives that could be seen in Tlatelolco and even compares their abundance to the black people of Guinea sold by the Portuguese. However, these slaves had the possibility of obtaining their freedom and the market played an important role. When the “owner” entered the market with the captive, he could escape and, according to Diego Durán in his History of the Indies of New Spain and mainland islands, if he managed to get out of it and manage to step on animal feces, he was able to claim his freedom.

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