3 - Canoes and Commerce

Summary

Examining the vibrant commercial sector of the economy as well as the busy transportation network that supported it, the third chapter demonstrates how canoes and pack animals enabled artisans and traders to reach local and distant markets. The transportation infrastructure also contributed to the ongoing vitality of exchanges in markets as well as the survival of specialist craft industries and commercial networks that connected Xochimilco to the wider global economy. Crucial to the provisioning of Mexico City, canoes and the dock facilities became key resources in the political economy of central Mexico even as haciendas increasingly replaced Nahua communities as the main source of Mexico City’s food supply by the early eighteenth century. Competition and conflicts developed among different interest groups, among them merchants, colonial officials, ecclesiastics, and Nahua communities, and the rowers of canoes emerged as key figures in the transportation system who could bargain and negotiate from a position of strength.