pochteca

…ancient tradition, the merchants (pochteca) of Aztec society were organized in powerful guilds, which even started wars on their own and sent trading expeditions as far as Central America. It was on the basis of the geographic data collected by their merchants, often wandering through hostile territory, that the…

…was an institution called the pochteca, a hereditary guild of armed merchants who traveled into distant lands looking for luxury goods to bring back to the royal house. Quite often the pochteca would seize lands of hostile peoples through which they passed, or they would provoke incidents that led to…

…caravans of professional merchants called pochteca, who frequently undertook journeys exceeding a year in length. As a group the merchants enjoyed very high prestige and even had their own tribunals. Various merchant wards of a great number of towns and cities in central Mexico were organized into one great trading…