Analyzing the Tetzcocan Manuscripts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2008
Tribute sources have played a significant role in reconstructions of the Triple Alliance's history and geography at the time just before the Spanish Conquest. The Tenochcan tradition has been the main source for these reconstructions. The critical historical analysis of the internal relationship of an alternative tradition, that of Tetzcoco, sheds new light on the Tenochcan tradition and on the tribute distributional ratio of 2:2:1, i.e., of the Triple Alliance tribute to Tenochtitlan, to Tetzcoco, and to Tlacopan. I conclude that this distribution only applied to a minor geographical area in the Triple Alliance conquests. This ratio shows only that Tetzcoco and Tenochtitlan had a major participation in the conquest of part of the northeastern area of central Mexico.