Terrazguero smallholders and the function of agricultural tribute in sixteenth-century Tepeaca, Mexico

This work examines the role of agricultural tribute within sixteenth-century indigenous populations from the Tepeaca region. The allocation of agricultural areas to commoners was a crucial strategy for the support of local political institutions. However, such land allocations have not been calculated adequately due to our poor understanding of the local measurement units. This work estimates the size of agricultural tribute spaces by re-evaluating the equivalence between the ancient land measurements and the modern metric system. Doing so allows an assessment concerning food production within domestic households and the involvement of the political apparatus on their food subsistence base.