page_title: Chinampa
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Chinampa / History
caption_attribution_description: Español: Trajinera en el Canal de Nativitas, Xochimilco, Mexico CityEnglish: Trajinera Xochimilco, Mexico City.
context_page_description: Chinampa is a technique used in Mesoamerican agriculture which relied on small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. They are built up on wetlands of a lake or freshwater swamp for agricultural purposes, and their proportions ensure optimal moisture retention.
  Although different technology existed during the Post-classic and Colonial periods in the basin, chinampas have raised many questions on agricultural production and political development. After the Aztec Triple Alliance formed, the conquest of southern basin city-states, such as Xochimilco, was one of the first strategies of imperial expansion. Before this time, farmers maintained small-scale chinampas adjacent to their households and communities in the freshwater lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco. Chinampas were invented by the Aztec civilization. Sometimes referred to as "floating gardens," chinampas are artificial islands that were created by interweaving reeds with stakes beneath the lake's surface, creating underwater fences.
context_section_description: The earliest fields that have been securely dated are from the Middle Postclassic period, 1150 – 1350 CE. Chinampas were used primarily in Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco near the springs that lined the south shore of those lakes. The Aztecs not only conducted military campaigns to obtain control over these regions but, according to some researchers, undertook significant state-led efforts to increase their extent. There is some strong evidence to suggest state-led operations for the “expansion” of the chinampas. This is sometimes referred to as the hydraulic hypothesis, which is directly related to a hydraulic empire, which is an empire that maintains power and control through the regulation and distribution of water. There is evidence to support the idea of state involvement, primarily the amount of manpower and materials it would take to build, turn, and maintain the chinampas. However, arguments about state control of the chinampas rely upon the assumption that dikes were necessary to control the water levels and to keep the saline water of Lake Texcoco away from the freshwater of the chinampa zone. This is plausible, but there is evidence that the chinampas were functional before the construction of a dike that protected them from the saline water. It is suggested that the dike was meant to drastically improve the size of the chinampa operation.
  Chinampa farms also ringed Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital, which was considerably enlarged over time. Smaller-scale farms have also been identified near the island-city of Xaltocan and on the east side of Lake Texcoco. With the destruction of the dams and sluice gates during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, many chinampas fields were abandoned. However, many lakeshore towns retained their chinampas through the end of the colonial era since cultivation was highly labor-intensive and less attractive for Spaniards to acquire.
  The Aztecs built Tenochtitlan on an island around 1325. Issues arose when the cities' constant expansion eventually caused them to run out of room to build. As the empire grew, more sources of food were required. At times this meant conquering more land; at other times it meant expanding the chinampa system. With this expansion, chinampas' multiple crops per year became a large factor in the production and supply of food. Empirical records suggest that farmers had a relatively light tribute to pay compared to others because the annual tribute may have been only a fraction of the amount necessary for local needs.
  The extent to which Tenochtitlan depended on chinampas for its fresh food supply has been the topic of a number of scholarly studies.
  Among the crops grown on chinampas were maize, beans, squash, amaranth, tomatoes, chili peppers, and flowers. Maize was planted with digging stick huictli [wikt͡ɬi] with a wooden blade on one end.
  The word chinampa comes from the Nahuatl word chināmitl, meaning "square made of canes" and the Nahuatl locative, "pan." In documentation by Spaniards, they used the word camellones, "ridges between the rows." However, Franciscan Fray Juan de Torquemada described them with the Nahua term, chinampa, saying "without much trouble [the Indians] plant and harvest their maize and greens, for all over there are ridges called chinampas; these were strips built above water and surrounded by ditches, which obviates watering."
  Chinampas are depicted in pictorial Aztec codices, including Codex Vergara, Codex Santa María Asunción, the so-called Uppsala Map, and the Maguey Plan (from Azcapotzalco). In alphabetic Nahuatl documentation, The Testaments of Culhuacan from the late sixteenth century have numerous references to chinampas as property that individuals bequeathed to their heirs in written wills.
  There are still remnants of the chinampa system in Xochimilco, the southern portion of greater Mexico City. Chinampas have been promoted as a viable model for modern sustainable agriculture, although one anthropologist disputes that they were sustainable.
caption: Trajinera tourist boat in Xochimilco
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