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15. Cacao Production, Tribute, and Wealth in Sixteenth-Century Izalcos, El Salvador
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15 Cacao Production, Tribute, and Wealth in Sixteenth-Century Izalcos, El Salvador William R. Fowler The role of cacao as a luxury item and as money in the pre-Columbian Mesoamerican world is widely recognized (Bergmann 1969; Millon 1955a). As a luxury item, its use probably can be traced to the time of Initial and Early Formative village agricultural societies, dating to as early as 2000 B.C. (Evans 2004:107, 112). Consumption of cacao beverages is thought to be attested to archaeologically in the Maya Lowlands by the widespread distribution of a distinctive form of spouted vessel that occurs in Middle Formative (1000–400 B.C.) and Late Formative (400 B.C.–A.D. 250) ceramic assemblages and by the presence of cacao residue in some of these vessels (Hurst et al. 2002; Powis et al. 2002). This same vessel form also occurs in Chalchuapa, western El Salvador , in Middle Formative contexts (Sharer 1978:19, 23, 145, 151). Dating to several centuries later, the macrobotanical remains of a cacao tree, pods, fruit, and seeds have been recovered in excavations at Joya de Ceren; entombed by a massive volcanic eruption at around A.D. 600, these remains demonstrate cacao cultivation in the Zapotitán Valley of west-central El Salvador (Gerstle and Sheets 2002:79; Lentz 1996; Lentz and Ramírez-Sosa 2002; Sheets and Woodward 2002:191). Spanish tribute assessments dating to 1532 and 1548–51 indicate that cacao was still produced in this region in the early to mid-sixteenth century, and the same documents indicate a prodigious level of production in the Izalcos region of western El Salvador, some 25 km west-southwest of Joya de Ceren (W. R. Fowler 1989a:159–169) (Figure 15.1). The origin of the use of cacao as money in Mesoamerica is connected with long-distance trade, marketplace exchange, and the need for formalized media of exchange. These phenomena are associated, in turn, with the emergence of the state, urbanism, and stratified society, which were in place by the Middle to Late Formative (Evans 2004:194). By the time of the Conquest, the use of William R. Fowler 308 Figure 15.1. Map of El Salvador. Map by Francisco Estrada-Belli based on data distributed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (http://servir.nsstc.nasa.gov, 2004). cacao as money was widespread in Mesoamerica, from Central Mexico to Yucatan , and south as far as Nicaragua (Berdan et al. 2003:102). The Nahua Pipils of the Izalcos region were clearly full participants in these patterns. Izalcos and Cacao One of the richest and most renowned areas of the Spanish Colonial empire in the sixteenth century was the Izalcos region, in the valley of the Río Ceniza of western El Salvador. Its famed wealth was based on its exceptional production of cacao, the most important cash crop of early Colonial Central America (W. R. Fowler 1987, 1995; M. J. MacLeod 1973:Chapter 5). In his classic dissertation , René Millon (1955a:72) cautiously suggested that the Izalcos had been an important region of pre-Columbian cacao production. And more than three decades ago, John Bergmann (1969:91) pointed out that early tribute records from the sixteenth century provide reliable indications of the distribution of [3.238.254.78] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 12:10 GMT) Cacao Production, Tribute, and Wealth in Sixteenth-Century Izalcos 309 pre-Conquest cacao production in Mesoamerica. Bergmann noted that in the 1548–51 tribute assessment conducted by President Alonso López de Cerrato (AGI AG 128; see Kramer 1994:17, 18, 21; Rodríguez Becerra 1977:94–96, 118–121), Izalcos was second in cacao tribute only to the much more extensive Suchitepequez region of southwestern Guatemala. Thirteen of the fifteen towns of the Izalcos region paid tribute in cacao (W. R. Fowler 1995:21). The most heavily assessed were the four towns known as “los Yçalcos”: Izalco, Caluco, Naolingo, and Tacuscalco (Tasaciones de los naturales de las provincias de goathemala . . ., AGI AG 128, ff. 82, 82v., 86, 111v., 1548–51). Both Izalco and Caluco paid 1,000 xiquipiles (about 18,000 lb.), Naolingo paid 685 xiquipiles (about 12,330 lbs.), and Tacuscalco paid 400 xiquipiles (about 7,200 lb.) in cacao tribute each year. (A xiquipil was eight thousand cacao “beans”; three xiquipiles comprised a carga—the amount one man could carry with a tumpline—which weighed about 50 lb.) It is virtually impossible, Bergmann (1969:92–93) reasoned, that such high tribute demands...