A certain amount of research has recently been carried out concerning the development of markets and trade in colonial Mexico. However, the question of transportation of goods has hitherto remained unstudied. It is dealt with in this book, which presents a two-fold view—before and after the Spanish conquest—of transportation in New Spain in the sixteenth century.
Through the question of conveyance, however, the book presents the whole functioning of pre-Cortesian society and the subsequent colonial world. The first part, which deals with Aztec society, attempts to show how the latter managed to achieve a specific urban model in relation to the constraints of demography, productivity, and transportation. Reconsidering theories concerning tribute, warfare, trade, and the calendar, the author provides us with a general explanation of the Aztec empire. This empire, he assumes, was hegemonic rather than territorial, insofar as its aim was one of political domination over centers. Set in a lake country affording the possibility of conveyance by means of canoes, Tenochtitlán could exploit a large productive area. Beyond the perimeter of that center, the city had at its disposal two ways of exploiting the regions—trade and tribute—choosing one or the other according to the types of transportation favored to carry the goods to the hinterland. Consequently, the economic domination of Tenochtitlán spread in a circular fashion around that city.
The Spanish conquest introduced new means of travel (e.g., mules, carts, and roads), each of which was adapted to a certain type of topography. The consequence of this was the development of various commercial coexisting channels, some developed by Indians and others by Spaniards. In this connection, Hassig provides us with a very original analysis of Indian trade which survived in the sixteenth century, in the very pores of colonial society. He depicts early conflicts between towns concerning the periodicity of marketplaces. He also expounds astonishing views concerning the monetarization of the tribute paid to the Spanish crown, suggesting that this monetarization can be explained in part by the new means of conveyance. Finally, he shows that, putting an end to the circular model of Aztec expansion, the first century of Spanish colonization brought about the geographical fragmentation of New Spain and its subsequent regionalization. One cannot fail to appreciate that this book shows that the question of transportation, too often forgotten, can explain many developments of pre-Columbian and colonial Mexico.
