stemacehuales and the corporate solution: colonial secessions in nahua central mexico

Macehuales and the Corporate Solution: Colonial Secessions in Nahua Central Mexico

Stephen M. Perkins*Oklahoma State University

This investigation of the legal separation, or secession,of indigenous subjectvillages from municipal governments in the Tepeaca district of Puebla, Mexicofinds that early colonial (15211650) and late colonial (16511821) cases dif-fered in their litigation and consequences. Early Spanish officials decided casesbased predominantly on pre-Hispanic tradition, only permitting separationsthat preserved older indigenous social units. Bourbon officials of the late era,in contrast, enabled an entirely new type of pueblo to develop. Indigenouscommoners (macehuales) used secessions to rupture relations with indige-nous nobles (caciques) and local Spanish agriculturalists. The corporateorganization of new pueblos in Puebla was without pre-Hispanic precedent.

En este artculo, investigo la separacin legal, o secesin, de sujetos ind-genas de sus municipios en el distrito de Tepeaca, Puebla, en Mxico. Ah,los trmites coloniales tempranos (15211650) contrastaban con los trmitescoloniales tardos (16511821) tanto en su litigio como en sus consecuencias.Los funcionarios espaoles del primer perodo resolvan los casos basndosesobre todo en la tradicin prehispnica, y permitiendo tan slo separacionesque preservaban las entidades sociales indgenas previamente existentes. Encontraste, los funcionarios borbones permitan el desarollo de un nuevo tipode pueblo. Los macehuales hacan uso del proceso de secesin para rompersus relaciones con caciques y agricultores espaoles locales. La organizacincorporativa de los pueblos nuevos en Puebla no tuvo precedente en la eraprehispnica.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol. 21, Issue 2, Summer 2005, pages 277306. ISSN 0742-9797

electronic ISSN 1533-8320. 2005 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please

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277

*Acknowledgments: A Fulbright-Garca Robles Fellowship and a grant from Wenner-Gren(Gr. 6023) funded research. I owe much to John Chance. I appreciate the advice of RachelAdler, Brian Larkin, and Blaire McPherson. Two reviewers comments improved and pol-ished the final draft. All errors are mine.

On the morning of June 9, 1800, Nahuatl-speaking gaanes (laborers)gathered at the chapel of the Hacienda of San Miguel Villanueva, locatedin the Valley of Puebla. They watched a Spanish surveyor prepare tomeasure a new townsite (or fundo legal). The act itself hardly meritedmuch excitement, but they must have been overjoyed: They had movedone step closer to independence. Once landless peons, they had litigatedfor over five years against their landlords, the Villanuevas, one of Pueblasoldest and most prominent Spanish families, descendants of an originalconquistador. The gaanes had pooled their meager funds to hire alawyer. The lawyer convinced colonial officials that they possessed thenecessary attributesa church, a robust population, adequate naturalresourcesto incorporate as a pueblo. Over the objections of the Villa-nuevas attorney, the government agreed and ordered measurement ofa townsite on the haciendas lands.

The surveyor began at the church door. Walking west, he used a cordmeasuring fifty varas (approximately forty-two meters) to mark off 600varas (503 meters). He then repeated the procedure for each cardinaldirection. Upon completion, the townsite of San Sebastian Buenavistameasured some 250 acres.

A year later, responding to further entreaties by San Sebastians cit-izens, colonial officials separated the pueblo from the municipality ofAcatzingo to facilitate better government and more efficient collectionof tribute. Officials also ordered the establishment of a town council inSan Sebastian led by a locally elected gobernador (governor, or mayor).

Thus, on lands once belonging to the hacienda of San Miguel Villa-nueva, the pueblo of San Sebastian Buenavista emerged. Known todayas San Sebastian Villanueva, it remains a viable community with 4,372inhabitants.1

Remarkably, legal challenges like this one happened frequently incolonial Mexico (or New Spain). San Sebastian Buenavista began as anhacienda. Other pueblos originated in the fission, or secession,of sub-ject communities (sujetos) from their municipal head town (cabecera).Disputes between head towns and subject towns frequently ended insecession. But whether originating as an hacienda or a subject town theresult was often the same: designation as a pueblo, establishment of amunicipal council (cabildo), and measurement of corporate lands.

Historians and anthropologists commonly note these judicial casesin regions they study (e.g., Garca Martnez 1987; Gibson 1964; Taylor

278 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

1. I found the case in Mexicos National Archive: Archivo General de la Nacin (here-after AGN), Tierras, vol. 1296, exp. 6. Statistics on Mexicos demographic characteristicscome from the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica Geografa e Informtica (hereafter INEGI)1991:3.

1996). Yet few investigate in much depth the timing, processes, or con-sequences for local indigenous social organization and land tenure. JamesLockhart (1992) concludes that the cases represent a continuation of pre-Hispanic processes carried forth into colonial years (see also Terraciano2001). He proposes that the cellular organization of Nahua society, inwhich larger sociopolitical units develop through the aggregation ofsmaller units, predisposed smaller units to fission. Decentralization con-tinued after the conquest, an embodiment of small-unit ambitions thathad existed since remote times (Lockhart 1992:57).

This article reports my archival study of colonial secession litigationin the Tepeaca political district, located in Central Mexicos Valley ofPuebla.2 I will periodize the districts cases to argue that early colonial(15211650) cases differed fundamentally from late colonial (16511821)ones. My data lead me not to contradict, but to qualify Lockharts (1992)argument. Many early cases did involve disputes and units of organiza-tion that predated colonial years. But later cases differed. First, they in-volved issues of the colonial present, not the pre-Hispanic past. Second,they resulted in social units without pre-Hispanic roots. Cells did not somuch separate as disintegrate. Finally, the history of secessions in theCastile region of Spain (Nader 1990), suggests a strong Old World legalprecedent for New Spains cases.

My investigation also addresses Eric Wolfs closed corporate peas-ant communitymodel. In a series of publications beginning in 1955, Wolfproposed that modern indigenous community organization stemmednot from isolation, but from capitalist integration. Wolf (1955:456457)theorized that corporate communities developed in the seventeenth-century era of indigenous depopulation and colonial economic depres-sion. He argued that society-wide economic depression could weakenexternal linkages between a colony and the wider world and disrupt orweaken urban commerce and industry. In rural areas strong communitystructures could flourish, meeting the limited demands of the largersociety for labor and products without surrendering local autonomy toexternal middlemen or commercial firms. To guard against external in-trusion, communities developed corporate controls: while individualcommunity members might use land and other resources for their ownpurposes, the land could not be sold or transferred to outsiders. Com-munity officials elected by the adult males of the community oversawand protected these insular, corporate privileges (see Wolf 1955, 1956,1957, 1959, 1960).

Perkins, Colonial Secessions in Nahua Central Mexico 279

2. As cited in the text and tables, the data derive from documents housed in Mex-icos AGN, and in Pueblas State Notarial Archive, the Archivo General de Notaras del Es-tado de Puebla (hereafter AGNP).

By explaining community closure to outsiders, corporate landtenure, cultural traits, and community identity as reactions to wider po-litical and economic fields, Wolf sought to identify the significant vari-ables and processes underpinning these communities. Unfortunately, likeprominent historians of his day (e.g., Gibson 1964:165), he also assumedthat colonization compressed indigenous society into a single impover-ished social and economic stratum (Wolf 1959:212213). Consequentlyhe envisioned closed corporate peasant communities as largely egali-tarian (but see Wolf 1986).

Later investigations demonstrate how indigenous noblestermedcaciques by the Spanishremained viable and very important inmany colonial, and even post-colonial, indigenous communities (Chance1996, 2003; Garca Martnez 1987; Gruzinski 1989; Haskett 1991; Mon-aghan, Joyce, and Spores 2003; Van Young 1984). In this vein, SteveStern (1983) revamps Wolfs scenario to hypothesize how an eighteenth-century struggle for solidarity between indigenous caciques and com-moners actually led to organizations approximating the corporate com-munity model (Stern 1983:39; see also Van Young 1984;Wolf 1986). Stern(1982,1983) illustrates how pre-Hispanic class or ethnic distinctionsmight influence New Spains indigenous community organization.

I will argue that secessions represent one manifestation of Sternsstruggle for solidarity. Later secessions, especially, led to communitiesnot unlike those first postulated by Wolf (1959) in his closed corporatecommunity model. The resulting pueblos operated outside the frame-work of older noble and commoner estates. Pueblo officers elected byall adult males, not just caciques, managed pueblo lands and finances.Pueblo townsites designated by Spanish officials allowed non-noble In-dians (termed macehuales) to cultivate crops on pueblo lands notowned by caciques. Such land tenure, at least in Puebla, was withouthistorical precedent. Overall, I will follow other investigators in sug-gesting that Wolfs model, while still inspirational, requires a revisionof the specific historical processes and timing underlying these com-munities origin.

I begin by discussing Pueblas pre-Hispanic institutions to better ex-plain the regions post-conquest reorganization. I then discuss Spanishideas about community organization, before reviewing early colonialcases from the Tepeaca political district. Over time Spanish ideas evolvedand I discuss the enactment of legislation designed to protect Indian com-munities and landholdings. I then turn to Tepeacas late colonial cases.The surprising acceleration of secessions all over New Spain during theseyears is reviewed in the context of the Bourbon reforms. I conclude bysuggesting that late colonial community processes, especially, must beunderstood within New Spains wider political and economic conditions.


Altepetl and Teccalli in Puebla

Located east across the volcanic divide from the more renowned Valleyof Mexico, Central Mexicos Valley of Puebla (hereafter Puebla) has along record of occupation.3 In pre-Hispanic and Spanish accounts of na-tive society, city-states termed altepetl appear as the most important in-stitutions. Within Pueblas altepetl, however, a pivotal institution was theteccalli, or noble house. Each altepetl contained multiple teccalli, butthe number varied greatly. Altepetl like Tepeaca, Tecali, or Cuauhtinchanmight have ten or fewer teccalli, while a larger altepetl such as Hue-jotzingo or Tlaxcalas Ocotelulco could have forty or more (Anguianoand Chapa 1976:142147; Chance 2000:488; Dyckerhoff and Prem1976:172).4

Every noble and commoner identified with a particular teccalli. Theupper stratum of the teccalli consisted of relations of authority and rec-iprocity between the lord of a teccalli and his dependent nobles. A lordgranted nobles the right to receive labor and agricultural products fromspecific commoner households. In return, nobles compensated him witha share of their tribute.

The number of nobles, commoners, and land parcels in each tec-calli likely correlated with its political influence. The ruler of a large anddominant teccalli often served as king of the entire altepetl. Or multipleteccalli rulers might jointly lead an altepetl, as with the four kings of Te-peaca at the time of the Spanish conquest. As segments comprising thelarger altepetl, each teccalli was a relatively independent social entity.Population pressure, warfare among competing city-states and inter-marriage likely welded fractious teccalli to one another, but new alte-petl could also be created through their fissioning (Chance 1999:6; Oli-vera 1978:7374; Reyes Garca 1977:76118).5


3. The most important primary document for Pueblas pre-Hispanic history is theHistoria tolteca-chichimeca (Kirchhoff, Odena Gemes and Reyes Garca 1989). Analy-ses and summaries of the Historia are found in Martnez (1984b), Olivera (1978), and ReyesGarca (1977).

4. For Nahuas (the Nahuatl-speaking peoples of Central Mexico), altepetl, teccalliand similar organizational terms remain unmodified in plural form. Pluralization denotesmembers (e.g., altepemeh).

5. I should note at this point that the term teccalli is absent from documents in theValley of Mexico. Adolph F. Bandelier (1878,1880) initiated investigation of Central Mex-ican social organization by focusing on the Valley of Mexicos calpulli organizations. Fol-lowing his work, many scholars assumed that calpulliinitially conceptualized as local-ized lineages (Caso 1963; Kirchhoff 1954; Monzn 1949), then as territorial wards(Carrasco 1971; Kellogg 1986; Offner 1983)organized all of Central Mexico. Investiga-tors of Puebla and Tlaxcala, however, encounter virtually no documents discussingcalpulli (Carrasco 1976; Chance 2000; Martnez 1984b; Olivera 1978; Reyes Garca 1977).Addressing this conundrum, Lockhart (1992:104108) divides Central Mexican social or-

Before the Spanish conquest, teccalli were managed collectively,even if hierarchically, by nobles and commoners. Commoners cultivatedteccalli lands in exchange for usufruct payments of surpluses to nobles.On a stipulated basis, commoner households delivered a portion of theirharvest or other products to agents of nobles. Commoners do not ap-pear to have been genealogically related to nobles. The Historia tolteca-chichimeca indicates that Nahua immigrants subdued local populationsas they established teccalli and altepetl (Kirchhoff, Odena Gemes andReyes Garca 1989). Even so, it appears that commoners remained in ef-fective control of landincluding bequeathing it to heirsas long asthey remained tribute-paying members of the teccalli. Each teccalli,therefore, can be understood as a type of corporate organization, albeit,one with a pronounced division of labor based upon estate stratificationbetween nobles and commoners. Spanish colonialism may have actuallyexacerbated the division between estates, leading to more antagonismbetween caciques and macehuales than had existed prior (e.g., Stern1983; Van Young 1984).

After conquest, Spanish officials dealt with Pueblas teccalli bylegally equating it with their own Iberian institution of mayorazgo. InSpain, mayorazgos were officially entailed landed estates, in other words,a property legally designated as inalienable and passed impartibly fromone noble to a designated heir (Clavero 1974). Spaniards labeled NewWorld estates held by caciques as cacicazgos. Treating teccalli as caci-cazgos privatized them. A specific cacique owned each one (Chance1996, 2000). But official Spanish recognition also gave the teccalli-turned-cacicazgo a legal existence in colonial society. The cacicazgo providedcaciques with a legal basis for their properties under Spanish rule.

Spanish Taxonomies

Just as colonial bureaucrats dealt with the teccalli by deeming it a caci-cazgo, a legal entity akin to mayorazgo, they drew upon Spanish prin-ciples to categorize and structure altepetl. They employed two tax-onomies. The first, a census taxonomy, had its basis in population sizeand degree of urbanization. A large, well-developed settlement might bedesignated a ciudad, or city; a medium-sized community a villa; a small,independent settlement a pueblo. Each designation was official in that


ganization into a western zone (i.e., the Valley of Mexico), where the term teccalli is ab-sent from early documents and calpulli organizations predominated, versus an eastern zone(i.e., the Valley of Puebla and Tlaxcala), where teccalli flourished and calpulli remainedinsignificant organizations found in but a few city-states.

it had to be awarded by Spanish officials, often in response to a formalpetition from the community. As discussed below, this taxonomyespecially the pueblo designationbecame critically important for eigh-teenth- and early nineteenth-century indigenous communities. Duringthe initial years of Spanish rule, however, these designations carried ameasure of prestige, but little else in terms of real benefits (Gibson1964:3233).

The second taxonomy dealt with the institutionalization of munic-ipal administration and brought more tangible benefits and obligations.In Puebla, as in the Valley of Mexico and elsewhere, Spanish officials fol-lowed pre-Hispanic precedent in designating the largest settlement ofan altepetl, with a proven line of indigenous rulers, as the cabecera, orhead town, of a municipality. The Spanish established a municipal coun-cil, or cabildo, in each cabecera; by the mid-sixteenth century it was ledby an indigenous gobernador, along with officials termed alcaldes, regi-dores, and other minor officials. As the council leader, the gobernadoradministered justice in indigenous disputes within the municipality andcollected the tribute and labor demanded by Spanish authorities.

Smaller settlements located in the hinterlands of the old altepetl,meanwhile, were designated as sujetos, or subject towns of the munici-pality.6 To be designated a cabecera came with a measure of power andprestige, while the sujeto designation did not. In comparison with cabe-ceras, sujetos tended to be populated more by commoners, the mace-huales. The early sixteenth-century effort to congregate isolated mace-hual households into nucleated sujeto settlements likely accentuated thestratified settlement pattern between caciques living in cabeceras andmacehuales occupying sujetos (Chance 1996:489; Perkins 2000:6264,132139).

Caciques might dominate a cabildo by preventing macehuales fromvoting. They could then monopolize elected offices.7 Macehuales wereexpected to rely on the gobernador to represent their interests and tocomply with his orders for tribute and labor. In this arrangement mace-huales living in sujetos found themselves at a distinct disadvantage: to


6. As discussed below in the case of Acatzingo, the Spanish also occasionally assignedone altepetl to another altepetl as its subject town.

7. Hildeberto Martnez (1984b:125165) chronicles the domination of teccalli no-bles in Tepeacas early colonial municipal council (cabildo). For the neighboring MixtecaAlta region of Oaxaca, Ronald Spores (1984:172173) documents cacique domination inthe electoral system, as does Robert Haskett (1991:2934) working in Cuernavaca, More-los. In the Sierra Zapoteca of Oaxaca, John K. Chance (1989:141142) reports that mace-huales in these small pueblos did participate, but always beginning in the lowest officesof the cabildo, while caciques began in mid- to upper-level offices.

make requests or air grievances they dealt with a cacique whose ownclass or political interests potentially conflicted with their own. Thus,in the relations between a cabecera and its sujetos the Spanish not onlycreated the infrastructure for the local level extraction of indigenous la-bor, products, and wealth, but also provided a municipal framework thathelped to preserve the indigenous social structure.8

Interestingly, while Spanish officials reorganized Central Mexicosaltepetl within the municipal cabecera-sujeto taxonomy, a movementcontrary to this sort of hierarchical organization was well underway inthe region of Castile, Spain. Helen Nader (1990) reveals that beginningin the fifteenth century and becoming especially prominent under theHapsburg dynasty (15161700), Spanish monarchs increasingly gener-ated revenue by allowing Castilian villages to secede from their rulingtowns or cities. For a stipulated price villagers could buy a township char-ter, establish an autonomous municipal council, and take greater con-trol of political and judicial affairs within their own municipality. Thesesales generated funds for a cash-starved monarchy. They also resolveddisputes between head towns and their subordinate villages, relation-ships fraught with tension in Spanish society. Over the course of theHapsburg dynasty, the political geography of Castile became a patchworkof small municipalities. All reported directly to the national government.With the ascension of Spains French Bourbons in 1700, the new dynastysought to reverse this process and institute provincial governing insti-tutions. In the end, however, the Bourbons too resorted to further salesof town liberty to gain revenue (Nader 1990:10).

Much as Spanish villages seceded from their head towns, secessionsbegan occurring in colonial New Spain. Early colonial secession caseswere often adjudicated based on the pre-Hispanic status of the peti-tioning community: in cases where a community proved its pre-Hispanicstatus as an independent altepetl secession might be permitted, leadingto the replication of the cabecera-sujeto structure (i.e., a new cabecerawith its own sujetos). In contrast, in late colonial secession cases, thefirst Spanish taxonomic system (ciudad-villa-pueblo) was used by plain-tiffs to disrupt and dismantle the second one (cabecera-sujeto). Late colo-nial cases turned on whether indigenous commoners, living in a sujetoor on a hacienda, could justify their designation as a pueblo with all therights inherent in this official title, and therefore achieve political andeconomic separation from their cabecera. If so, the community couldestablish its own autonomous cabildo. As an official pueblo it was thenentitled to an allotment of corporate-controlled landholdings, even if land


8. Lockhart (1992:5253) discusses how received ideas of the cabecera and sujetoimpacted Nahua thinking about the altepetl.

had to be appropriated from adjacent Spanish haciendas or Indiancabeceras.

Neither early nor late colonial cases suggest that subject communi-ties bought their autonomy, as occurred in Castile. But the parade of casesbefore the colonial government, the discourse used by Spanish lawyersin proceedings, and the frequently favorable rulings by Spanish judgesduring late colonial years suggest that Old and New World cases stemmedfrom a common ruling philosophy and judicial tradition.

Early Colonial Secessions (15211650): Litigating the Pre-Hispanic Legacy

At the time of the Spanish Conquest, the powerful altepetl of Tepeaca,located in Puebla, shared a long and complex history with two nearbyaltepetl: Acatzingo, located northeast some ten to twelve km., and Oz-toticpac, located approximately five km. north.9 Nobles of several tec-calli from nearby Cuauhtinchan founded Acatzingo in the fourteenth cen-tury. Mixteca-Popoloca immigrants settled Oztoticpac earlier in thethirteenth century. In 1458, Tepeaca overthrew Cuauhtinchans re-gional domination and aggregated both Acatzingo and Oztoticpac intoits own altepetl. Both altepetl now owed tribute and fealty to Tepeaca,but maintained their own leadership and teccalli. One ruler each fromAcatzingo and Oztoticpac were recognized as kings, and together withtwo others drawn from Tepeaca, they constituted the four kings of Te-peacas dominion.

After the conquest, colonial officials designated Tepeaca as the headtown of the new Spanish-style municipality. As subject towns, Acatzingoand Oztoticpac experienced even greater subordination than before.Most obligations ultimately fell to the macehuales. Not only did they pro-vide tribute and personal services to the caciques of their respective tec-calli in Acatzingo or Oztoticpac, but they now fulfilled similar demandsto Tepeaca as the cabecera. Such demands strained the prosperity of theteccalli in these communities and provided caciques and macehualesalike with an incentive to form municipalities apart from Tepeaca. Evenso, the people of Oztoticpac apparently never challenged their subjectstatus and the community remained a small sujeto throughout the colo-nial era and beyond. Perhaps Oztoticpacs dwindling numbers made asecession attempt unfeasible.10


9. Except where cited otherwise, Martnez (1984b:3749; 167184) provides thesixteenth-century information concerning Tepeacas disputes.

10. To this day Santa Mara Oxtotipan remains a small settlement of 1,654 personswithin Tepeacas municipality (INEGI 1991:160).

The caciques of Acatzingo, on the other hand, litigated vigorouslyto escape Tepeacas dominion (Carrasco 1969;Reyes Garca 1988:1178;Martnez 1984a:243247). Sometime after 1555, Acatzingo gained per-mission to elect its own gobernador, and shortly thereafter to obtain, ifonly temporarily, the official designation of ciudad (Carrasco 1969:6).Spanish officials resisted granting Acatzingo outright independence,which Tepeaca lobbied against. Eventually, however, after more than acentury of litigation, Acatzingo finally did secure its independence fromTepeaca in the mid-seventeenth century and became a head town in itsown right, taking with it a number of subject towns.

Acatzingos secession case echoes others of the same period. Headtowns and subject towns usually cited pre-Hispanic altepetl history toargue their case: Traditions of local seoro [lordship] were evoked indemonstration of cabecera rank, but Indian testimonies on the one sideand the other took opposite positions on what the pre-conquest statushad been (Gibson 1964:54). A well researched example of a colonialmunicipality fragmenting into its former altepetl comes from the south-ern Valley of Mexico, where Rebecca Horn documents the division ofthe head town of Coyoacan into its four original altepetl (Horn 1997:3037). Kevin Terraciano reports similar conflicts in the Mixteca Alta of Oa-xaca where legal cases centered on whether settlements housed dynasticrulers prior to conquest. As the sixteenth-century litigation between Yan-huitlan and Tecomatlan attests, Spanish officials sought verdicts by at-tempting to reconstruct the complex pre-Hispanic relations betweenthese localities (Terraciano 2001:124130).11

Early Colonial Class Conflicts

At the same time, more radical class conflicts in Puebla threatened thestability of both the indigenous teccalli and the Spanish cabecera-sujetohierarchy. In the Tepeaca district, Hildeberto Martnez (1984b:176184) describes the growing sixteenth-century rift within teccalli be-tween caciques and macehuales concerning land, tribute obligations


11. Bernardo Garca Martnez (1987:217221), working in the Sierra Norte de Puebla(located north of the Valley of Puebla), discusses a slightly different situation in the conflictbetween the cabecera Tlatlauquitepec and its sujeto Zacapoaxtla. While Zacapoaxtla ap-pears not to have been a pre-Hispanic altepetl, it had been designated as the seat of a parishin the mid-sixteenth century. In its secession case against Tlatlauquitepec, Zacapoaxtla usedthis status to achieve its independence in 1580. Nevertheless, the resulting secession re-sembles others discussed here in that Zacapoaxtla became an autonomous cabecera, tak-ing with it two sujetos formerly under Tlatlauquitepec.

and municipal government control. In various sujetos, macehuales at-tempted to bypass caciques by paying royal tribute directly to the colo-nial government, claiming that caciques no longer rightfully controlledteccalli lands. In rulings concerning Tepeaca in 1571 and again in 1581,Spanish officials formally designated teccalli as cacicazgos and empha-sized the right of particular teccalli caciques to collect macehual trib-ute (Martnez 1984a:447514). The rulings were consistent with colo-nial laws. The Recopilacin de leyes de los reynos de las Indias([1681]1973) specifically mandated the preservation of caciques pre-Hispanic right to cacicazgos and to the macehual labor and tribute em-bodied in them.12

In separate litigation between 1568 and 1571, macehuales of bothTepeaca and Acatzingo sought access to the offices of municipal gov-ernment. They undoubtedly appreciated the necessity of representationin reducing the omnipotence of the gobernador and his fellow caciques.The colonial government agreed. In 1571 it ordered that in Tepeaca inthe elections . . . of alcaldes, regidores, alguaciles, mayordomos, and othermunicipal officials, half of the offices belong to the [caciques] and theother half to the macehuales (AGNP, Tepeaca, paq.41, exp.28, fol. 2v.).Yet, no evidence suggests that local Spanish officials ever carried out thissweeping decree, especially for the highest offices of the municipal coun-cil. Tepeacas caciques, no doubt in league with local Spanish officials,found a way to bypass the governments ruling and keep their fellowmacehuales disenfranchised.

These legal conflicts abated by the seventeenth century. As else-where in Mesoamerica, Pueblas indigenous population declined rapidly.By 1650 epidemic disease reduced the population of Tepeaca and sur-rounding indigenous communities to one-fourth of their estimated sizein 1570 (Vollmer 1973).13 For Tepeaca a variety of sources indicate thecollapse of the citys indigenous population (Table 1). This holocaustdecreased the need for land among those who survived. In cases wheremacehuales did petition for land, viceregal officials rejected them in fa-vor of maintaining cacique land tenure. Officials viewed the preserva-tion of the indigenous social structure as essential to maintaining eco-nomic and political stability (Garca Martnez 1987:182187, 215217;Lockhart 1992:54).


12. See the section ttulo 7, libro 6, entitled De los caciques, in the aforementionedRecopilacin (1973).

13. Vollmer (1973) utilizes tributary counts from 1560 and 1570 as a baseline formeasuring subsequent losses, but it is important to recognize that even by 1560 the in-digenous population had already been drastically reduced from its pre-conquest size.


Tab

le 1

.Se

lect

ed E

stim

ates

of

Ind

igen

ou

s Po

pu

lati

on

,Tep

eaca

,Pu

ebla Es

tim

ated

Yea

r:U

nit

of

An

alys

is:

Enu

mer

ated

:M

ult

iplie

r:Po

pu

lati

on

:So

urc

e:

1520

su

nsp

ecifi

ed g

ener

al a

rea

30,0

00

ho

mb

res

100,

000

Ger

har

d (

1993

:280

)15

48p

ueb

lo (

?)32

,597

Bo

rah

an

d C

oo

k (1

960:

147

)15

52p

ueb

lo9,

122

trib

uta

ries

3.3a

30,1

03Pa

so y

Tro

nco

so (

1940

[150

518

18]:

155)

1568

city

(?)

21,8

79C

oo

k an

d B

ora

h (

1979

:20)

1646

mu

nic

ipal

ity

(?)

8,22

0C

oo

k an

d B

ora

h (

1979

:20)

1702

city

326

trib

uta

ries

3.8b

1,23

9A

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.27

30,e

xp

.1.

1742

city

457

fam

ilies

c4.

9d2,

239

Vill

ase

or

y S

nch

ez (

1952

[17

46

48]:

248

)17

85ci

ty2,

118

2,11

8B

riti

sh L

ibra

ry,

Mex

ico

,vo

l.22

5,fo

l.4v

.18

00m

un

icip

alit

y11

,432

tri

bu

tari

es5e

57,1

60G

erh

ard

(19

93:2

80)

1990

city

16,9

67 p

erso

nsf

16,9

67I.

N.E

.G.I

.(19

91:2

19)

1990

mu

nic

ipal

ity

49,0

89 p

erso

nsg

49,0

89I.

N.E

.G.I

.(19

91:2

19)

aFo

llow

ing

Bo

rah

an

d C

oo

k (1

960:

102)

.b

Follo

win

g C

oo

k an

d B

ora

h (

1979

:13)

.c

Follo

win

g C

oo

k an

d B

ora

h (

1968

:46

),I

red

uce

d t

he

481

enu

mer

ated

fam

ilies

by

5 p

erce

nt

(or

app

rox

imat

ely

24)

to a

cco

un

t fo

r w

idow

s an

d

wid

ower

s.d

Co

ok

and

Bo

rah

(19

68:4

6).

eC

oo

k an

d B

ora

h (

1968

:40)

.fw

ith

ou

t re

gard

to

eth

nic

or

raci

al d

iffe

ren

ces

gw

ith

ou

t re

gard

to

eth

nic

or

raci

al d

iffe

ren

ces

Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Townsite Legislation

While macehuales unsuccessfully petitioned for direct access to land andgovernment, Spanish colonial officials enacted statutes that would even-tually serve as the legal basis for more successful litigation during the eigh-teenth and early nineteenth centuries. In a series of rulings (summarizedin Wood 1990:118), the Spanish colonial government delineated the min-imum amount of land to be held by each Indian pueblo as its townsiteand the distance to be maintained between the townsite and Spanish en-terprises such as haciendas, ranchos and ganados mayores (livestockranches) (Gibson 1964:292293; the original decrees are published inSolano 1984:365367, 384385). By 1695, the government had ordereda standardized 600 vara measurement beginning at a pueblos church, typ-ically located in the center of the settlement. As in the opening case ofSan Sebastian Buenavista, if a surveyor measured 600 varas outward froma pueblos church in each of the four cardinal directions with the quad-rants squared off, the total area of the townsite measured approximately1,440,000 square varas, or about 250 acres (Wood 1990:119123).

Paradoxically, Spanish bureaucrats repeatedly framed this legislationin the idiom of pueblos (towns), rather than in the sixteenth-centurylanguage of municipal cabeceras and sujetos (Gibson 1964:293; Wood1984:183). Nevertheless, the legislation was consistent with languageused in the laws of the later Recopilacin de leyes de los reynos de lasIndias ([1681]1973), where more was said about the rights of pueblosthan those of cabeceras or sujetos. But what constituted a pueblo? Weresujetos eligible for pueblo status and land rights? Or were only cabecerasto be so designated? There existed no standard criteria (Lockhart1992:56; Wood 1984:190). An example of this ambiguity is evident in1567, when the government vaguely stated that 500 varas associated withcabeceras were to be protected, as well the surrounding area of othersthat requested and required it (Solano 1984:366). Whether done inten-tionally or not, the rulings contributed to the decline of the cabecera-sujeto hierarchy. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries lawyers rep-resenting various settlements seized upon the ambiguities concerningpueblos to support their macehual clients.

Late Colonial Secessions (16511821): Macehuales and the Corporate Solution

In comparison with earlier years, several significant changes occurredin the late colonial period. First, Pueblas indigenous population beganto recover, much like the rest of Central Mexico. The tributary popula-tion in the political district of Tepeaca from 1626 until 1800 reflects this


general trend, an overall recovery punctuated by epidemics and out-migration (Table 2).

Puebla remained heavily indigenous in its ethnic composition, sec-ond only to Oaxaca in the number of Indians per capita: In 1793, Span-iards and castas (individuals of mixed racial ancestry) constituted only25 percent of Pueblas population, while the remaining 373,752 personswere identified by Spanish enumerators as Indians (indios) (Thomson1989:149). By 1777 nearly a quarter of the district of Tepeacas popula-tion resided on Spanish haciendas. Many haciendas possessed moregaanes than the macehuales living in adjacent settlements (Garavagliaand Grosso 1990:261).

Second, the attitude of Mexico Citys viceregal bureaucracy towardcaciques and macehuales began to change. With the colonys matura-tion, cacique privileges were increasingly challenged by officials of thecolonial government. Unlike their predecessors, late colonial officials feltless compelled to rely on caciques as their primary liasons with indige-nous society, or on the cabecera-sujeto structure to collect tribute andrecruit labor (Gibson 1964:5557;Lockhart 1992:54). Increasingly, theyviewed this settlement hierarchy as a liability that concentrated too muchpower in the hands of gobernadoresusually caciquesopening thedoor to tribute fraud and other abuses.

One way to break cacique dominion was to allow subject commu-


Table 2. Late Colonial Tributary Population, Political District(Alcalda Mayor) of Tepeacaa

Year: Number of Tributaries:

1626 4,1381696 7,1891720 10,0171725 13,3911730 13,9381745 9,8851750 9,3931765 9,2361775 9,8631780 10,1621785 10,1621790 11,0811800 11,431

a Source: 1626 and 1696 figures derive from Cuenya (1987:65); other figures derivefrom Ouweneel (1991:573).

nities to secede from their head town. As Danile Dehouve argues inher investigation of Tlapa, Guerrero during the late eighteenth century,the secessionof villages was aimed at restraining the power of the In-dian government by dividing it (1990:169). In these years it was morecommon to create new pueblos than to establish new head towns. Thepueblo designation differed significantly from the cabecera-sujeto struc-ture. A head town governed subject towns. A pueblo usually possessedno subject towns at all. It remained within the municipality, but was po-litically and economically independent of the head town. By revampingsubject towns as autonomous pueblos, each with its own municipalcouncil, the political and economic power of the old head town and itscaciques was undercut, while tribute revenue moved more directly toSpanish coffers. Thus local-level macehuales and high-level Spanish bu-reaucrats each achieved their different ends, often to the detriment ofcabeceras, caciques, or Spanish hacienda owners.

But what sort of settlement qualified as a verdadero pueblo, a truetown? In contrast with the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century case ofAcatzingo versus Tepeaca, officials in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-turies expressed little concern or interest in whether settlements hadbeen the seat of an altepetl ruler, or even had any nobles at all. Unin-terested with historical tradition, and without a set list of objective re-quirements to determine if a settlement should be designated as a pueblo,colonial officials evaluated late colonial pueblo requests based on vari-able attributes more related to the present or future of the settlement:its population and potential for growth; its ability to remit tribute pay-ments; the adequacy of its church for weekly mass; the suitability of itscitizens for holding public office; the distance from its cabecera and theruggedness of the intervening terrain; and the relationship of the sujetowith its cabildo. A number of environmental variables, such as wateravailability, climate, availability of wood, and amount of arable soils,might also be discussed in determining a settlements suitability as apueblo.14 Lawyers hired by macehuales or gaanes touted the benefitsa community would enjoy if it achieved pueblo status.

Table 3 lists cases in Mexicos National Archive concerning the sep-aration of sujetos from their cabecera. Macehuales often complained ofthe treatment they received at the hands of the cabeceras gobernadoras the primary reason for their petition to fission. As head of the mu-nicipality, the gobernador was the indigenous authority with the mostpolitical and economic leverage over sujetos. Macehuales, like those inSantos Reyes (municipality of Tepeaca) and Santa Mara Ixtayucan (mu-nicipality of Nopaluca), accused gobernadores of abuse in matters of


14. Wood (1984:184212) discusses similar factors in the Valley of Toluca.


Tab

le 3

.Su

jeto

sPe

titi

on

ing

for

Des

ign

atio

n a

s a

Pu

eblo

,Po

litic

al D

istr

ict

(Alc

ald

a M

ayo

r)o

f Te

pea

ca

Mu

nic

ipal

Yea

r(s)

:Su

jeto

(s):

Juri

sdic

tio

n:

Ou

tco

me:

Sou

rce(

s):

1751

San

Sim

n

T

laco

tep

ecT

laco

tep

ecs

cab

ildo

co

mp

lain

s A

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.56

,ex

p.1

12.

Yeh

ual

tep

ecab

ou

t Y

ehu

alte

pec

1751

53

San

ta M

ara

Act

ipan

,A

catz

ingo

sep

arat

ion

ap

pro

ved

;600

var

as

AG

N,

Ind

ios,

vol.

56,e

xp

.100

;Sa

nti

ago

,San

Ju

an

no

t co

nsi

der

edvo

l.56

,ex

p.1

07;v

ol.

56,e

xp

.A

cosa

qu

e10

8;vo

l.56

,ex

p.1

09;v

ol.

56,

exp

.123

;vo

l.56

,ex

p.1

30;v

ol.

56,e

xp

.141

;vo

l.56

,ex

p.1

43.

1752

57

San

tos

Rey

esTe

pea

case

par

atio

n r

ejec

ted

AG

N,

Ind

ios,

vol.

56,e

xp

.129

;vo

l.58

,ex

p.3

9;vo

l.58

,ex

p.4

6.17

51,1

764

San

Lu

is d

e lo

s T

laco

tep

ecse

par

atio

n a

pp

rove

d;6

00 v

aras

alr

eady

A

GN

,In

dio

s,vo

l.56

,ex

p.1

12;

Ch

och

os

po

sses

sed

by

San

Lu

isvo

l.60

,ex

p.5

9;vo

l.60

,ex

p.7

7.17

707

3Sa

n S

ebas

tian

Q

uec

ho

lac

sep

arat

ion

ap

pro

ved

;600

var

as m

easu

red

AG

N,T

ierr

as,v

ol.

942,

exp

.5;

Cu

aun

op

ala

vol.

1443

,ex

p.2

.17

81A

caje

teTe

pea

case

par

atio

n c

on

sid

ered

AG

N,T

ierr

as,v

ol.

1056

,ex

p.7

.17

941

804

San

Ger

n

imo

Sa

n A

nd

rs

sep

arat

ion

ap

pro

ved

;200

0 va

ras

app

rove

dA

GN

,In

dio

s,vo

l.69

,ex

p.3

34;v

ol.

Aljo

juca

Ch

alch

ico

mu

la69

,ex

p.3

43;v

ol.

70,e

xp

.250

.17

98Sa

nta

Mar

a I

xta

yuca

nN

op

alu

case

par

atio

n a

pp

rove

dA

GN

,In

dio

s,vo

l.71

,ex

p.1

5.

royal tribute collection or labor requisition. They also accused gober-nadores of colluding with local Spanish magistrates or priests. A gober-nador could aid such officials by collecting illicit exactions or illegallydrafting laborers for personal use.

Such was the case in litigation involving the government of Acat-zingo versus the allied sujetos of Santa Mara Actipan, Santiago, and SanJuan Acosaque. Previously associated with Acatzingos successful liber-ation from Tepeaca, by the mid-eighteenth century these three sujetosbegan protesting their treatment by Acatzingo, much as Acatzingo de-cried its treatment by Tepeaca two centuries earlier. Unlike Acatzingoscampaign, macehuales headed these rebellious sujetos. Santa Mara Ac-tipan, Santiago, and San Juan Acosaque were contiguous barrios (asAcatzingos officials derisively referred to them).

By 1752, the sujetosmacehuales had acquired a Spanish legal coun-sel. He accused Acatzingos gobernador, Don Domingo Gutirrez, of forc-ing individuals to purchase the local Spanish magistrates mules at inflatedprices (sometimes called the repartimiento de mulas). He also reportedthat the gobernador demanded macehual labor for the official and priestwithout due compensation. Moreover, the magistrate and gobernador hadrecently imprisoned the sujetos elected leaders for failing to collect theroyal tribute. The leaders maintained that they did pay the tribute, butbecause of past problems they had bypassed Acatzingos gobernador anddelivered it directly to their Spanish magistrate. Now the latter was back-ing Gobernador Gutirrez while the sujeto leaders languished in jail.

The lawyer for the sujetos recommended in June of 1752 that thebest solution was to separate them from Acatzingo. He suggested thatSanta Mara Actipan be designated the cabecera of the new municipal-ity, with Santiago and San Juan Acosaque as its sujetos. The colonial gov-ernment commissioned a local Spanish scribe and a priest to examinethis possibility. They also recommended separation. The priest, however,warned that replicating the cabecera-sujeto hierarchy among the threesettlements would likely lead to similar problems. He advised that offi-cers for the new government be drawn equally from all three sujetos.Colonial officials agreed and designated all three as pueblos but withone unified political body. Their decision to erect three new pueblos,rather than one new municipality, reflects the declining interest incabecera-sujeto hierarchies during late colonial years. It satisfied the in-habitants of the sujetos, who could now take political control of theircommunity, bypassing the gobernador of Acatzingo in all matters, in-cluding tribute payments and labor drafts.15


15. Over time the three juxtaposed settlements became a single pueblo. ModernActipan de Morelos numbers some 4,328 inhabitants, the third largest pueblo in the mod-ern municipality of Acatzingo (INEGI 1991:2).

In this case, as in others, the late colonial enfranchisement of mace-huales and former gaanes established a modern cargo system, likethose reported by ethnographers of contemporary Mesoamerica. In con-trast to reserving offices for only a select few (i.e., caciques), modernvillagers encourage, even coerce, all men of the pueblo to serve in mu-nicipal government.16

Besides political autonomy, macehuales sought land (Tables 3 and


16. Frank Cancians (1965) description in Zinacantan, Chiapas, remains the defini-tive ethnographic analysis of the civil-religious cargo system, while John K. Chance andWilliam B. Taylor (1985) document the historical development of these systems duringthe colonial and early independence eras.

Table 4. Other Settlements Petitioning for an Allotment of 600 Varas or Larger,Political District (Alcalda Mayor) of Tepeaca

MunicipalYear(s): Settlement(s): Jurisdiction: Outcome: Source(s):

17014 Tepeaca Tepeaca 4 leagues AGN, Tierras, vol.recommendeda 2730, exp. 1.

1794 San Agustn San Agustn 600 varas approved; AGN, Tierras, vol.del Palmar del Palmar feasibility of 1,800 2694, exp. 8.

varas to be investigated1798, 1807 Santa Mara Tepeaca 600 varas recommended; AGN, Tierras, vol.

Techachalco feasibility of another 600 2725, exp. 24.varas to be investigated

1804 Santa Margarita Tepeaca 600 varas approved; AGN, Tierras, vol.Mazapiltepec investigation is recom- 1354, exp. 4.

mended concerning other landsb

1807 Santa Mara unknown 600 varas recommended AGN, Tierras, vol.Tlachichuca (subdele- 1384, exp. 4.

gacin de Tepeaca)

181011 San Hiplito San Hiplito 600 varas for each AGN, Tierras, vol.Soltepec, Soltepec pueblo approved 1411, exp. 6.Santa Margarita Mazapiltepec,and San Antonio Xoquitzingo

a As an officially designated city, Tepeaca was entitled to 4 leagues of land. Perkins (2000:112117).b As evident in this table, Santa Margarita Mazapiltepec reappears in 181011 along with several

other pueblos to again request a 600 vara allotment.

4). Pueblo status and townsites came to be highly associated with oneanother. Stephanie Wood (1990:23), working in the Valley of Toluca, ar-gues that the approximately 250 acre townsite must have been used formore than simply houses, although its center did contain the pueblo.As in Toluca, petitions by Tepeaca district pueblos repeatedly state theagricultural importance of townsites for feeding its members (AGN, Tie-rras, vol. 1320, exp. 7, fols. 1r.-2r.; vol. 1443, exp. 2, fol. 68r.; vol. 1354,exp. 4, fols. 3v.-4r.; vol. 2725, exp. 24, fols. 3r.-3v.). The townsite pro-vided an important starting point for a pueblo, though whether the town-site land alone could support the entire population is difficult to reckon.Macehuales or gaanes frequently petitioned for allotments in excess of600 varas in cases from Puebla (AGN, Indios, vol. 70, exp. 250; AGN,Tierras, vol. 1354, exp. 4, fols. 3r.-5r.; vol. 1411, exp. 6, fols. 4r.-4v.; vol.2694, exp. 8, fols. 3v.-4r.; vol. 2725, exp. 24, fols. 3r.-5r.).

In late colonial Puebla, townsites had to be carved from a landscapefilled with haciendas, pueblos and cacicazgos. Even so, when no otheroption existed, royal surveyers never hesitated to appropriate lands forincorporation into a townsite. In 1770, for example, caciques of the gov-ernment of Quecholac vigorously protested, but to no avail, the sepa-ration and establishment of San Sebastian Quacnopala as a pueblo, sincethe townsite would come directly from Quecholacs official communityproperty (bienes de comunidad) (AGN, Tierras, vol. 1443, exp. 2, fol.78r.). Likewise, as described in the opening case of San Sebastian Bue-navista, when gaanes incorporated as a pueblo, their old hacienda in-variably lost land and labor (see Table 5). Even in extreme situationswhere Spanish lands had been legally entailed through the Spanish prac-tice of mayorazgo, officials saw fit to suspend entailment and redistrib-ute lands. In one case, the colonial government spoke of its right, evenits obligation, to override its own earlier grant of mayorazgo for the goodof the pueblo (AGN, Tierras, vol. 1296, exp. 6, fol. 7v.-8r.).

In the few late colonial cases that Charles Gibson reviews in the Val-ley of Mexico, he maintains a pessimistic view of the likelihood of gansuccess since by this time many such populations had lived on hacien-das for over a century (Gibson 1964:297). In contrast, Stephanie Wood,in her later analysis from the neighboring Valley of Toluca, finds that thelarger, the older, and the more permanent the gan settlement on anestate, the better its chances were for the successful pursuit of pueblostatus (Wood 1992:396397). In cases from Tepeacas district, the is-sue was not whether a group of gaanes had been a community in thepastgaanes often freely admitted that they and their ancestors hadbeen hacienda laborersbut whether the group had the size and ac-coutrements to exist as a viable pueblo.

In this regard the chapel of a hacienda, very often equal in size and



Tab

le 5

.H

acie

nd

a G

a

an

esPe

titi

on

ing

for

Des

ign

atio

n a

s a

Pu

eblo

,Dis

tric

t (A

lca

lda

Mayo

r) o

f Te

pea

ca

Pro

po

sed

Mu

nic

ipal

Yea

rs:

Hac

ien

da(

s):

Pu

eblo

Nam

e:Ju

risd

ic-t

ion

:O

utc

om

e:So

urc

e(s)

:

1783

180

9Sa

ntu

ario

de

San

Jo

s d

e C

hia

pa

No

pal

uca

pu

eblo

cre

ated

;A

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.10

91,e

xp

.5;

Se

or

San

Jo

s

600

vara

s m

easu

red

AG

N I

nd

ios,

vol.

71,e

xp

.181

.C

hia

paa

1790

180

5Sa

n P

ablo

San

tsi

ma

Trin

idad

de

Qu

ech

ola

cu

nkn

ow

nA

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.13

66,e

xp

.3;

Teco

lote

pet

itla

nA

GN

,In

dio

s,vo

l.69

,ex

p.2

65.

1799

180

3Sa

n M

igu

el V

illan

uev

aSa

n S

ebas

tian

Bu

enav

ista

Aca

tzin

gop

ueb

lo c

reat

ed;6

00

AG

N,

Ind

ios,

vol.

71,e

xp

.37;

vara

s m

easu

red

vol.

71,e

xp

.79;

vol.

71,e

xp

.10

6;A

GN

,Gen

eral

de

Part

e,vo

l.77

,ex

p.7

3;vo

l.77

,ex

p.

91;

AG

N,T

ierr

as,v

ol.

1296

,ex

p.6

.18

031

805

La A

sum

pci

n

San

Ju

anTe

cam

ach

alco

pu

eblo

cre

ated

;600

A

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.13

20,e

xp

.7va

ras

app

rove

d.

1809

181

8C

apill

a d

e N

ues

tra

Nu

estr

a Se

o

ra d

e lo

s Sa

n A

gust

n

pu

eblo

cre

ated

;600

A

GN

,Tie

rras

,vo

l.14

02,e

xp

.3Se

o

ra d

e lo

s D

olo

res

Do

lore

s d

e C

ues

ta B

lan

cad

el P

alm

arva

ras

mea

sure

dC

ues

ta B

lan

cab

aT

his

cas

e in

volv

ed t

he

agg

rega

tio

n o

f ga

an

es f

rom

th

e fo

llow

ing

hac

ien

das

:Se

o

ra S

anta

An

a;Se

o

r Sa

n J

uan

de

Ojo

de

Agu

a;an

d S

an F

ran

cisc

o

las

Min

illas

.b

Th

is c

hap

el w

as lo

cate

d o

n la

nd

s en

taile

d t

o t

he

Span

ish

no

ble

,th

e C

on

de

de

Ori

zab

a.

grandeur to a regular pueblos church, could serve as the nucleus for aproposed pueblo. That gaanes would rally around a chapel is logicalsince royal decrees mandated that surveyors begin measuring townsitesat the church of a pueblo. Thus, as in the opening case of San SebastianBuenavista, the chapel served not only as the figurative heart of the newpueblo, but the actual axis for its townsite.

As alluded to earlier, the late colonial arguments presented by Span-ish lawyers on behalf of Indian clients were strikingly similar in contentand style to those made by lawyers for villagers in Castile who soughtliberation from head towns (Nader 1990:125, 130, 133). As in Castile,lawyers representing clients in Tepeaca always made sure to convey thecolonial governments vested interest in the proposed pueblo creation,emphasizing the viability of the settlement as a tribute-paying entity. Inthe case of a sujeto, they also usually outlined the improved religious in-struction that would follow from holding mass in the settlements ownchurch, rather than forcing the populace to arduously journey to thecabecera each week. On both sides of the Atlantic, it appears, Spanishlawyers appealed for justice using the same well-rehearsed lines. Indi-ans retained Spanish lawyers to articulate this philosophy in view of theirlocal circumstances.

Placed in this larger context, the arguments made by indigenouscommunities appear less original and more formulaic, more a construc-tion by lawyers than an original discourse set forth by the natives them-selves. Even so, the issues raised in the litigation, though framed in pre-conceived categories, still conveyed particular local facts and issues thatshed light on macehual motivations. All indications suggest that the im-petus for such cases came from the macehuales themselves.

Secessions and the Bourbon reforms

Of the nineteen cases of macehual and gan secessions investigated inthe Tepeaca district of Puebla, fifteen took place between 1764 and 1821.Such findings reflect those of other investigators. Surely the most strik-ing aspect of the entire picture of indigenous central Mexican sociopo-litical structure in the eighteenth century is the recognition of an in-creased number of independent units, most of them formerly constituentparts of larger units (Lockhart 1992:52). For example, in the Sierra Nortede Puebla north of the Valley of Puebla, Bernardo Garca Martnez(1987:377379) identifies twenty-two secessions in the 153 years be-tween 1590 and 1743, while another twenty-two occurred in just forty-three years between 1759 and 1805. In the large Archdiocese of Mex-ico, William B. Taylor reports six cases of sujetos seceding from theircabecera before 1754, while twenty-eight cases originated after that date


(1996:371). Kevin Terraciano, working in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca,finds that the number of autonomous governments increased by onlysixteen (from twenty-one cabildos to thirty-seven) between 1690 and1779, while another forty-three were added (from thirty-seven to eighty)between 1780 and 1800 (Terraciano 2001:131). In the district of Tlapa,Guerrero, Dehouve notes that the majority of cases fell between 1767and 1797. Originally, Tlapas government controlled the tribute collec-tion of some seventy sujetos and a population of well over 4,000 people,before Spanish officials ordered the establishment of new cabeceras in1767 for more efficient tribute collection. Afterward, a second wave oflate eighteenth-century divisions ensued, initiated by sujeto inhabitantswho wished to secede from their new cabeceras (Dehouve 1990:168).17

The uniform timing of these cases in the latter-half of the eighteenthcentury suggests that population growth was a critical factor: indigenouspopulation recovery strained agricultural resources as never before. Italso suggests that the newly instituted Spanish Bourbon bureaucracychanged its policies regarding the cabecera-sujeto hierarchy.

Associated with the ascension of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain,the Bourbon reforms were instituted most completely beginning in the1760s. Many of them centered on restructuring Spains colonial gov-ernments to expedite a policy of free trade to reinvigorate colonialeconomies, together with a more efficient and centralized system of rev-enue collection so that Spain would benefit from these improvedeconomies. The government pursued these absolutist policies throughadministrative reform, including the creation of new colonial politicaldistricts and offices, the removal of certain trading monopolies and therestraint of other interests, such as the Church, that disrupted state au-thority and impeded the flow of wealth into Spains coffers. Bourbonadministrators also placed a renewed emphasis on upholding the lawsof the colony.18

On a region-by-region basis, the effect of the Bourbon reforms forlocal indigenous societies remains generally overlooked and enigmatic.Nancy Farriss, in her investigation of colonial Yucatn, suggests that theyinitiated a virtual second conquest in that region. For the first time, lo-cal Spanish officials tightly administered Mayan communities by takingdirect control of community tribute, ending corporate use of revenues,and effectively undermining the corporate authority of local indigenous


17. Wood (1984; 1992) provides little summary data concerning the chronology andnumber of secessions in Toluca. But her findings generally concur with those of otherinvestigators.

18. Although Bourbons took over the Spanish throne in 1700, reformers under thedynamic reign of Charles III (17591788) enacted the most ambitious changes (see, e.g.,Brading 1971; 1987; Hamnett 1971; Lynch 1989).

elites. At the end of the eighteenth century in many communities, landused by indigenous religious confraternities was sold, while plantationagriculture expanded rapidly as the Yucatns export economy in hene-quen grew under the Bourbon policy of free trade (Farriss 1984:355388).

In Central Mexico such a radical second conquest is not evident.Unlike the eighteenth-century assault on Mayan land and organization,Central Mexicos lands had been under assault for a long time. Farrissspeculates that in regions where the Indians had little or no autonomyto lose, the consequences of the centralizing policies of the Bourbonmonarchs may have been minimal or even beneficial, to the extent thatmore effective royal government meant stricter enforcement of the lawsprotecting Indians from Spanish greed and ill treatment (1984:356). Ifcolonial laws aimed at protecting indigenous rights were indeed morefully enforced, as it appears they were, the reforms may have actuallybenefited indigenous peoples, particularly macehuales. The creation ofnew pueblos fit well with Bourbon policies, especially the goal of in-creasing revenue collection: New pueblos fragmented the political andeconomic monopoly of the old cabecera and its caciques. They becameviable tribute-paying entities directly accountable to the state, as lawyersfor macehuales and gaanes repeatedly emphasized in their petitions tothe viceregal government.

Conclusion

Scholarship over the last thirty years reveals how one of Mesoamericasoldest analytical dichotomies, Spanish haciendas versus Indian com-munities, is greatly oversimplified. A diverse array of landholding insti-tutions such as cacicazgos, ranchos, and cofradas (confraternities) alsoinhabited New Spains countryside. From an ethnic perspective, we rec-ognize that Spaniard versus Indian ignores the variety and fluidity ofsocial alliances prevailing across 300 years of colonial rule, and imputesan immutability in the categories.19

I have shown how various segments of colonial society realignedover time: Initial government support of caciques gave way to eighteenth-century government-approved secessions that diluted cacique power;macehuales, whose ancestors sixteenth-century petitions only suc-ceeded in reaffirming their tributary status to caciques, found eighteenth-


19. A recent special issue of Ethnohistory entitled Beyond the Hacienda: AgrarianRelations and Socioeconomic Change in Rural Mesoamerica (Alexander and Kyle, 2003)reviews older and more recent representations of the colonial countryside (see Alexan-der 2003).

century Spanish bureaucrats far more receptive to their requests for au-tonomy; local Spaniards decried government decisions made by fellowSpaniards to confiscate previously confirmed properties for the benefitof Indian pueblos. Such social realignments presented opportunities forreal, consequential resistance at the community level;opportunities usedby macehuales to effect meaningfulif not revolutionarychange.

As mentioned at the outset, James Lockhart (1992) hypothesizes thatsecessions reflected an inherent predisposition in Nahua society to frag-ment into ever smaller sociopolitical subunits. He conceives pre-HispanicNahua units such as altepetl and teccalli as relatively separate and self-contained, and hence cellular in organization (Lockhart 1992:1520,436438). In this conception colonial secessions represented a contin-uation of processes occurring since time immemorial:

Although affected by Spanish concepts to some extent, they had above all re-shaped notions like cabecera and pueblo in their own minds and manipulatedthem as a means to attain their own ends. Their goals were indigenous ratherthan Spanish in inspiration, an embodiment of small-unit ambitions that had ex-isted since remote times. What had happened was not so much fragmentationor homogenization as a decentralization that was one of the possibilities in-herent in indigenous sociopolitical organization from the beginning [Lockhart1992:5758].

However, by periodizing Tepeacas cases, I have shown that secessionsdiffered due to the variable relations between caciques, macehuales, andSpanish entrepreneurs in the context of changing viceregal policiesthrough 300 years of colonial rule. Early colonial secessions establisheda second identical unit (a second cabecera). It preserved teccalli socialrelations between nobles and commoners within the liberated altepetl.In my view, these secessions do represent a cellular division as conceivedby Lockhart (1992). In contrast, late colonial cases saw commoners es-cape cacique dominion, unravel municipal relations between cabecerasand sujetos, and in some cases destroy a basic unit of indigenous or-ganization, the teccalli. Such secessions led to entirely new organizations.The resulting unitspuebloswere as much Spanish in organization asthey were Nahua.

The eighteenth-century pueblo arising from hacienda or municipalsecessions ultimately led to communities stratified along lines familiarto modern ethnographers of Mexican pueblos. The late colonial pueblopotentially offered an escape from hereditary privilege. It allowed op-portunities for access to land and government. First, a pueblo possesseda town council composed of officers elected by all of the communitysadult male macehuales, not just the municipalitys cacique nobility asbefore. Absent the older cacique-macehual status system, town council


officers might more fully represent the will of all members. Second, of-ficials managed community finances, including the collection of colo-nial tribute. Third, the bestowal of townsites created opportunities formacehuales to cultivate crops on pueblo lands not owned by caciquesoftentimes for the first time in recorded history. Fourth, the populationconstituted a congregation of worshippers led by a priest within theirown church. Prior to secessions, members of many subject towns, lack-ing their own priest and church, traveled to the head town. Of course,this reorganization also provided opportunities for establishing social in-equality on new grounds.

Much as Wolf (1955, 1957, 1959) envisaged, Pueblas early colonialhistory revolved around Indian communities declining from European-borne disease, set against ever-expanding Spanish haciendas. Unlike aregion such as Oaxaca or Guatemala, where we now understand colo-nial hacienda growth to have been quite attenuated, or the Yucatn, wherecolonial economic developments occurred comparatively late, Pueblaexperienced explosive hacienda growth in the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries, en route to becoming the primary breadbasket of earlycolonial New Spain. Nevertheless, its history does not support the tim-ing and operative variables of Wolfs closed corporate peasant commu-nity model. Only during the eighteenth centurywhen populationgrowth, not decline, led to pressure on agricultural resources, and at atime when Spain implemented the Bourbon reforms to reinvigorate NewSpains economydo Wolfs hypothesized corporate features crystallizein the guise of the late colonial pueblo. My findings thus corroboratethose of later investigators who find factors associated with eighteenth-century indigenous population growth, not decline, and commercial ex-pansion, not depression, leading to the development of corporate com-munities (Farriss 1984:222223; Hill 1992:156; Stern 1983; Van Young1984).20

I have suggested that shifting priorities in the Bourbon colonial gov-ernment provided new opportunities for local-level macehual agency.To operationalize its renewed penetration in the late colonial country-side, the government used pueblos to identify Indians, just as those sodefined appealed to the state on the same grounds for political auton-omy and landholdings. To the extent that it effectively managed disputesbetween local Spanish, cacique, and macehual actors, the state imposed


20. In a later reassessment of the closed corporate peasant community model, Wolf(1986) recognized the influence of social stratification as an important variable within in-digenous communities. Until his death, he continued emphasizing the approach hehelped pioneer: to identify the operative historical processes in the political and economicrealm that articulate community with nation and lead to particular local arrangementsthrough time. I owe my own approach to Wolfs perspective.

its philosophy of the rights and obligations encumbent upon membersof newly formed pueblos. On the other hand, groups of macehualesand gaanes had tangible political and economic incentives to reor-ganize apart from their noble lords: In exchange for remitting royal trib-ute directly to the colonial government, inhabitants of pueblos were fullyinvested with voting rights, officeholding, and often with grants of com-munity land. The underpinnings of this community organization there-fore conformed far more closely with the states jural beliefs about therights and obligations of Indians in a Spanish-style pueblo, than it didwith pre-Hispanic Nahua notions of the role of macehuales in an alte-petl, or indeed, in a teccalli. Therefore, I conclude that these strugglesfor solidarity had less to do with primordial Nahua traditions than withan active social reconfiguration related to New Spains late colonial po-litical and economic situation.

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