Living in a beautiful, rich and well regulated altepetl (city-sate) of the Mexican Valley might have been a pleasant experience unless you and your family were extremely poor.

To be a pipiltin, a noble, was good. Whether residing next to the imposing cultural center, among the magnificent temples, palaces and ceremonial enclosures with a full size ball court and a beautiful plaza, or living in the colorful neighborhoods consisted of two-storey stone houses, you would have nothing to complain about. Wealthy citizens, traders, artisans and minor nobility lived well.

But closer to the marketplace and the harbor areas, the dwellings turned into lower, simpler looking constructions, sporting logs or cane-and-reed houses and much less wealth and color.

So if you were macehuatlin, a commoner, you would live around those areas, enjoying less luxury and more of a hard work. Each morning you would wake up with dawn, ready to go to work, whether to row out in order to farm your chinampa (floating man-made farms that covered considerable parts of the Lake Texcoco), or heading for your workshop to do various urban crafts. You would be expected to serve in the army too, but usually as a simple warrior, unless you managed to distinguish yourself and so start climbing the ranks.

If it happened, you would be better and better off, accumulating wealth and influence, eventually moving into a better neighborhood and acquiring slaves to make your life easier. You would be even allowed to wear jewelry like noble people, because the commoners were forbidden certain costly adornments and cotton clothes. They were not to drink octli in public and to be idle about their duties, expected to lead righteous, generally humble lives. Organized into calpulli, districts, they got by, working together, answerable to the elected head of their district, who was in his turn reporting to the representatives of the city administration.

So, just in case your prospective career as a brave, fearless warrior didn’t work, you would have to accept your lot and work diligently and with no complains, because if you succumbed to crime or gambling you may end up in a worse position, selling yourself into slavery, or sentenced to it by a court.

Tlacotin, slave, was the next lower step in the Mexican Valley societies. But as opposed to some other ancient cultures, slaves composed relatively small percentage of the general population, maybe because the slavery was almost never for life.

Slaves could be either captives taken from the conquered lands (opposed to the general belief, only the captive warriors were qualified to be sacrificial victims; no commoners or women and children faced that fate), or they were commoners who sold themselves into slavery to pay debts, survive poverty or serve their time if convicted by a court.

The crimes sentenced to slavery varied from failure to pay tribute to theft, but even a murderer could end up turning into a slave. Convicted of murder person would usually be executed, but if the family of the victim wanted him to serve as their slave, the judge might be forthcoming. Also if a man murdered a slave, the owner of the destroyed property could demand this person to serve as a slave instead.

Theft and rape often resulted in slavery, as well. And so was the crime of selling free people (like selling slaves’ children, who were legally free; in this case both the seller and buyer would be enslaved). A slave who had sold himself voluntarily might have saved money and paid the same price to gain his freedom back.

So basically the slaves were not outside the law, relatively protected from mistreatment, allowed to have families, possessions and even slaves of their own, entitled to appeal to courts in the case of mistreatment. There were even some legal benefits, like an exemption from paying a tribute and serving in the army. It was not illegal for the slaves to marry a free person and there was no social stigma attached to such unions and their fruits. The children of the slaves were born free people.

Many slaves were brought in from foreign lands, to be sold in the central markets of the large altepetls. Like with any other state activity, the government regulated this trade and it was illegal to sell an obedient slave against his or her wishes. In his turn, if the slave disobeyed his master, he was the one to be dragged into court, with the charges brought against him, backed by witnesses. A public warning would be ensued for the first time offender, but a few more of such warnings would see a slave chained with a wooden collar and sold for good. If this happened more than three time, a slave would be branded as troublesome, handed to the government for public works or sacrifice, creating the ultimate three strikes rule.