Mercado de Tenochtitlán
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Mercado de Tenochtitlán
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Description
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The marketplace is an essential feature of the Mexican plaza, which is the grid system of city design that was common in Spanish cities and imposed on Mexico City post conquest. The marketplace was the center of trade in Mexico City and was located near the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco. Merchants across Mexico and those coming from Spain to trade with the Nahua people would descend upon the marketplace to exchange goods. It was home to many new types of textiles, spices, and commodities that were shipped to Mexico from Spain post conquest. Shortly after the conquest, Spanish goods and materials were quickly incorporated into the markets in Mexico City. The marketplace would gather crowds as large as sixty thousand people. Gold, silver, jewels and other precious stones and metals were exchanged at the marketplace alongside various types of food grown across Mexico and various types of meats, including “every variety of birds in the country are sold, as fowls, partridges, quails, wild ducks, fly-catchers, widgeons, turtledoves, pigeons, reed-birds, parrots, sparrows, eagles, hawks, owls, and kestrels.” There were also apothecaries and restaurateurs that had shops in the marketplace. Cortés described the marketplace’s vibrancy and its robust collection of goods in a letter to King Charles V and highlighted the ways in which the Nahua goods were like Spanish goods, particularly in the art’s supplies and colors. In the market, according to Cortes “daily assembled more than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords.” The goods were sold by number rather than weight. The marketplace was also home to the audience house where a group of men would deliberate on controversies or crimes that occurred in the city. The marketplace was a hub of socialization and culture within Mexico City. When the Spanish constructed the marketplace, they used Spanish architecture practices. The Nahua people had not had open interiors spaces like the marketplace. This allowed for the marketplace to flourish because the open space was now covered and could remain open throughout different types of weather. The marketplace represents a blend of the Spanish and Nahua culture that took place after the conquest. The blend of native and imported goods displayed at the marketplace is an important illustration of post conquest merging of the Spanish and Nahua in Mexico City.
Sources: Altman, Ida. “Spanish Society in Mexico City after the Conquest.” The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 3 (1991): pp. 413-445. Cortes, Hernan. Hernan Cortes to King Charles V, 1520. Fordham University. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1520cortes.asp. Lockhart, James. Nahuas and Spaniards: Postconquest Central Mexican History and Philology. Los Angeles: Stanford University Press, 1991. Philipou, Styliane. “Ancient Origins of the Mexican Plaza: From Primordial Sea to Public Space.” Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 94, No. 1 (2014): 119-120. Sosa, Constanza Vega. Códice Azoyú 1: El reino de Tlachinollan. Mexico. 1993.
Códice Azoyú 1: El reino de Tlachinollan