Most people in the Aztec empire were farmers, fishermen, and hunters. Although, some were trained to be soldiers, doctors, priests, merchants, traders, craftsmen, matchmakers, engineers, ballplayers, and builders. Soldiers were nearly always at war and never lost. The soldiers were highly respected and trained. To increase their wealth they always needed captives to feed their hungry gods and tribute. Some soldiers lived long enough to retire. On the other hand traders had an easy time of it, they almost always got the best deal in any trade they got the opportunity to. Traders have brought back coco beans, jaguar skins, precious metals and gorgeous jewelry. Also, merchants might sell only jewelry or only baskets. There was as many as 60,000 people buying and selling wares in the capital city. Slaves were Aztecs not captured people, infact captured people were sacrificed to feed the hungry Aztec gods. Two ways to become a slave is you could be made a slave as a punishment for a crime you had committed. But, since most crimes were punished by death, this was actually a great alternative to most punishments. The second way was if your family sold you into slavery to pay your family debts. Your life of being a slave was over when your punishment was over. You could buy your way out of slavery once you paid off the debt. Slaves could have the opportunity to marry another slave or a …show more content…
The emperor placed one noble in charge of each city. The nobles job of being in charge of a city is to report to the emperor and run their city as the emperor directed. Although, sometimes most nobles ran their cities as they wanted to. The Aztecs developed city-states, cities with their own way of running things day-by-day, like the Mayas. The law were the same for everyone and for each city. The laws were written down. If you were to break the law your punishment was listed, along with the law. Everybody knew what would happen to you if you broke a particular law. Many of the laws punishment included death. These laws were very harsh. However, there was one way you could escape a punishment, but it was only good once. This was called the one time forgiveness law. How does it work? Well, if you confessed your crime to the priest before your crime is discovered. If you do confess you would receive no punishment for that crime you had committed. But, if you broke another law then, you would be punished. The Aztec government was well organized. The nobles and emperor had their hands full with growing a population. They needed to grow more food to build more schools, to fill more storehouses, and to create more temples. Also, they needed more captives, people they could sacrifice to feed their hungry