In the middle of everything

When history classes discuss ancient trade routes, Afro-Eurasia often gets all the attention. It was home to the Silk Road, which connected Europe with South and East Asia. But plenty of trade was going on in the ancient Americas before 1500 A.D., too. Specifically, Mesoamerica (today’s Mexico and Central America) had much trade activity. And, as the “Meso” part of its name indicates, it was kind of in the middle of everything.

Until recently, historians and archeologists assumed there was limited long-distance trade in the Americas. For example, many believed that the Maya economy was controlled by the ruling class. Such control would prevent large markets and a merchant class from developing. They also assumed that the Inca in South America had a centrally planned economy with very little commercial activity. Other societies were also assumed to have few long-distance linkages. Those in the Southwestern U.S., the Caribbean, and the Mississippi River valley are examples.

There were good reasons to think this way. Mesoamerican societies did not develop sailing technology. Most Mesoamerican societies developed inland, away from seaports. The Americas had few pack animals to carry goods and hardly any navigable rivers. Most merchants had to carry goods themselves, on their backs. But Hirth notes that nonetheless, Mesoamerica developed active long-distance exchange networks and huge markets. All societies in the Americas traded. The big question: How far did these trade connections reach? One way to answer this is by comparing two Mesoamerican cities, separated by 25 miles—and by 1,000 years: Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlán.

Teotihuacan

In the fifth and sixth centuries CE, Teotihuacan was one of the largest cities in the world. As many as 200,000 people lived there. During the Classic Period of Mesoamerica (100 – 650 CE), this was the most powerful and most important city in Mesoamerica. It held the largest market of the Classic Period. It was the center of regional trade networks extending through Mesoamerica and possibly beyond.

Teotihuacan was a trading power because it controlled obsidian. This natural glass is formed by the cooling of volcanic lava. Since metal-working was rare in Mesoamerica, obsidian was the best option for weapons and sharp tools… if you could get it. Like iron and copper in Afro-Eurasia, Mesoamerican societies with access to obsidian had a distinct advantage.

The rulers of Teotihuacan completely controlled the region’s obsidian sources. Merchants from Teotihuacan traveled across Mesoamerica and beyond. They’d trade obsidian and bring back luxury goods. Archeological evidence suggests that Teotihuacan’s trade networks reached from today’s Southwestern U.S. to Panama. However, its strongest trade was with the Maya city-states (now Mexico). Maya merchants traveled the coast in huge canoes, carrying jade, cacao, honey, and feathers, among other luxury items.

Long-distance trade was limited to lighter, high-value luxury goods. These were easy for merchants to carry. But staples like salt, grains, cotton, lime, and ceramics moved shorter distances along the same routes. Short-distance trade moved food between different climate zones, helping protect societies from sudden natural disasters like drought. These shorter trade routes probably developed first and laid the foundations for truly long-distance networks during the Classic Period.

You might have noticed we said probably. We don’t have many written sources from Mesoamerican societies. Some societies, like Teotihuacan, left us no records. Many written records from other societies, like the Maya, were burned by Spanish colonizers centuries later. To make matters worse, merchants weren’t part of the ruling class, so we don’t know as much about them. This is probably why, for so long, scholars assumed that the Maya and Inca never really had a complex commercial economy. Scholars studying this region have had to rely on murals of market scenes and archeological evidence to understand the lives of merchants.

Tenochtitlán

Just 25 miles south of Teotihuacan sits the capital of the Aztec Empire—Tenochtitlán. Well, it contains the ruins of Tenochtitlán, at least. Today, it’s Mexico City, itself a global trade hub and home to almost 21 million people. Almost 1,000 years after Teotihuacan collapsed, the Aztec empire’s huge markets dominated Mesoamerican trade.

After Teotihuacan collapsed around 550 CE, other societies rebuilt regional trade networks. By the 1400s, the Aztec Empire controlled widespread trade routes across Mesoamerica. The Aztec Empire was formed by an alliance among three powerful city-states in the early 1400s. The empire’s capital city, Tenochtitlán, sat on a lake. It had huge markets, straight streets, and monumental architecture. Over 200,000 people lived there—larger than London, Paris, or Madrid at the time. Thousands of people visited the nearby market of Tlatelolco every day.

Trade was central to Aztec life. Their pantheon— the group of gods they worshipped—had a god of commerce, named Yacatecuhtli. This god protected faithful merchants and travelers. Aztec merchants were called pochteca and they traveled all over Mesoamerica, carrying their goods on their backs. Pochteca also acted as spies for the empire, gathering information about rivals.

We know more about the Aztec merchant class than we know about Teotihuacan or Maya merchants. We have more sources from the Aztecs and the Spanish colonizers. The pochteca formed their distinct social class and developed a complex hierarchy, or ranking system. Near the bottom were minor merchants who sold homemade goods at local markets. At the top were incredibly wealthy individuals who employed dozens of minor merchants to carry luxury goods beyond the empire’s borders. Like merchants in Europe and China, many pochteca were forced to hide their wealth to avoid angering the nobles.

Long-distance networks in the Americas

Other regions of the Americas also had long-distance trade. Extensive road systems linked societies in the Andes Mountains, today’s Southwestern U.S., and in the Maya lowlands. Llama caravans traveled the Inca highlands to the Pacific coast. In the Mississippi River valley, trade networks stretched from Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. Caribbean societies traded with communities in South America.

The Puebloan peoples in today’s Southwestern U.S. traded turquoise across a vast network stretching from California to Colorado to Northern Mexico. Puebloan turquoise has been found in Aztec sites. Aztec cacao and feathers have been found in the American Southwest. This is all evidence of long-distance trade.

Technologies moved along with goods. Methods for farming maize might have traveled to North and South America from Mesoamerica along trade routes. South American metal-working technology probably arrived in Mesoamerica along the same routes in the opposite direction.

There’s that word again: probably. Much of our historical knowledge about trade in the Americas before 1500 CE is based on incomplete evidence.

We know that trade within Mesoamerica was common and widespread. We know the same for the Andean highlands in South America, the Caribbean Islands, the Southwestern U.S., and the Mississippian societies. What scholars continue to debate is how interconnected these different regions were. Were Mississippian merchants connected to Aztec markets by way of Caribbean canoes? Was the Inca economy tied to the western coast of Mexico by routes along the Pacific coast? Did Amazonian people get any trade goods from the Caribbean islands?

Maybe.

The lack of sources limits our knowledge, but not our curiosity. Archeologists and anthropologists at sites across the Americas have only begun to trace the paths of exchange before 1500. The debates will continue as discoveries are made and new connections revealed.