Imagining that chocolate was once the equivalent of gold or cash emphasizes its value in a way that translates easily to our modern mindset. “Chocolate as money” tends to be a quick, attention grabbing fact that many historians highlight, especially when marketing information about the Maya or Aztecs to children or for casual and quick understanding, as on this Field Museum website. At first, it seems that cacao was so tasty, and so important that it became money. A bean is like a dollar. The royal coffers under Aztec palaces are like a bank (Coe & Coe, 81-82). However, the truth of the matter is much more complicated, and the term “money” may not be the most accurate. Cacao’s use as currency demonstrates the complexity of Aztec society, but in ways not fully translatable to modern market economies.
In a “Horrible Histories” video, meant for humor as well as education, the writers of use the idea of “chocolate as money” as the basis of a short skit:
(Please watch the first 45 seconds)
Obviously, the skit has little realism and not much sensitivity towards the culture it portrays. However, it does demonstrate the oddness in our modern minds of the idea of “buying money.” How can something function as both currency and commodity? Through western eyes and the mouths of British men, this practice makes little sense. Coe compares the practice of drinking chocolate to that of lighting a cigar with a twenty-dollar bill (Coe & Coe, 101), and while this highlights the drink’s status as a luxury item, it doesn’t quite characterize how it functioned in Aztec society. Chocolate was an elite drink first, and then evolved to be an integral part of the Mesoamerican economy.
Chocolate did have undeniable value, and a 1545 Nahuatl document provides clear evidence of “set prices” in cacao beans for various commodities (Coe, 99-100). Furthermore, some Aztec merchants went to great lengths to counterfeit this form of “cash,” demonstrating its value. Ancient Mesoamerican Nahuatl language contains several words for “imitation” cacao (Millon, 159). Bernard Sahagun, a Spaniard who recorded information about Aztec culture, reports “bad cacao sellers” who would counterfeit cacao beans using an elaborate process to transform “amaranth dough, wax, avacado pits” into fake cacao beans. It could appear that chocolate’s value means that it was central to this society and its economy, the most sacred or important of commodities. Merchants were willing to risk loss of business and even life by creating fake beans, so the worth of the endeavor must have been quite high.
How can these intense efforts to make fake cacao fit in with evidence from other sources, such as archaeologist Rene Millon’s conclusion that cacao beans played a “subordinate role in terms of the Mesoamerican economy as a whole”? (Millon, 221) Furthermore, chocolate production was “overwhelmingly for consumption rather than exchange” indicating that even while it held purchasing power, it was thought of as a consumable drink first and foremost (Millon, 209). Cacao, then, was a sort of cash-barter hybrid, consumed by society’s elite and used as petty change by everyone.
This image from the codex mendoza was drawn for a European by an Aztec artist recording items taken in as tribute. Cacao is one of these items. It’s listing here demonstrates that cacao is a commodity with value beyond that of other, an extreme luxury good with some of the function of cash, but it did not completely change the Aztec economy from a bartering system to a cash-based market economy such as 15th century Spain or modern America. The image also demonstrates the Aztec’s complex system of tribute, which requires a societal hierarchy, and also their advanced writing system, unique from that of the Spanish, who were beginning to influence Aztec culture.
Chocolate’s use in Aztec culture demonstrates the complexity of their cultural systems, especially since chocolate was not valued significantly more than other luxury goods. Chocolate played a key role in the lives of pochteca, the Aztec long distance merchants, who would travel to the market of Xicallanco, which Coe describes as a “Mesoamerican Constantinople.” (Coe & Coe, 79-80) Millon proposes that the viability of selling counterfeits may indicate that trade was extremely extensive, enough to limit “face-to-face” or personal interactions (Millon, 203). In the town of Tabasco, “semi-specialization” occurred in which the town produced solely cacao, opting to trade for other items, such as cotton (Millon, 218). Chocolate, a minor player in the economy, developed interesting and multifaceted practices, demonstrating how many complex systems Aztec culture evolved overall.
As scholar Maria Paz Moreno explains, “The Aztecs could see no practical value in the silver with which the Spanish coins were made, while cocoa beans had a value derived from their use to produce the precious liquid” (Moreno, 51). Just as I, in modern America, struggle to understand the Aztec economic system, the Spanish invaders had a scheme that made no sense to the logic of the Aztecs. Both systems are complex, but very different. For the Aztecs, Chocolate always retained its “practical” value as a consumable commodity, and never became “money” in the modern sense of the word. The practice of using chocolate as a sort of “currency” is a testament not to the amazing properties of chocolate or cacao itself, but to the amazing properties of the Mesoamerican societies which first cultivated the crop.
Works Cited:
“Chocolate – All About Chocolate – History of Chocolate.” Chocolate – All About Chocolate – History of Chocolate. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. The True History of Chocolate. London: Thames & Hudson, 2013. Print.
“Horrible Histories -Angry Aztec’s- Chocolate Currency.” Horrible Histories. N.d.YouTube. YouTube, 18 Feb. 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Millon, René Francis. “When Money Grew on Trees a Study of Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica.” Thesis. Columbia University, 1955. (n.d.): n. pag. Microfilm, Tozzer Library, Harvard University.
Moreno, Maria Paz. “A Bittersweet Love Affair: Spain and the History of Chocolate.” Connections: European Studies Annual Review 7 (2011): n. pag. Web.
“NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers, Oaxaca 2014.” NEH Summer Institute for School Teachers Oaxaca 2014. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.
Chocolate Class 