Another Jerusalem : Political Legitimacy and Courtly Government in the Kingdom of New Spain (1535 - 1568) [1 ed.] 9789004341456, 9789004341449

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‘Another Jerusalem’

Atlantic World Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500–1830

Edited by Benjamin Schmidt (University of Washington) Wim Klooster (Clark University)

VOLUME 35

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/aw

‘Another Jerusalem’ Political Legitimacy and Courtly Government in the Kingdom of New Spain (1535–1568)

By

José-Juan López-Portillo

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Photograph of a coat of arms carved in stone, possibly from the convent of San Francisco in Mexico City, currently in the Museo Nacional de Historia, ‘Castillo de Chapultepec’. By the author, courtesy of inah. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: López-Portillo, José-Juan, author. Title: “Another Jerusalem” : political legitimacy and courtly government in the Kingdom of New Spain (1535-1568) / by José-Juan López-Portillo. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2018. | Series: Atlantic world: Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500-1830 ; volume 35 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017035421 (print) | LCCN 2017055495 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004341456 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004341449 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Mexico--Politics and government--1540-1810. | Mexico--History--Spanish colony, 1540-1810. | Mexico--Politics and government--16th century. | Mexico--History--16th century. Classification: LCC F1231 (ebook) | LCC F1231 .L88 2017 (print) | DDC 972/.02--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035421

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1570-0542 isbn 978-90-04-34144-9 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34145-6 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations x List of Abbreviations xii Glossary XIII A Note on Terms XVIII Introduction 1 Historiographical Background 5 ‘Another Jerusalem’ Reconsidered 16

part 1 New Spain’s Original Sin 1 Tlatocayotl and Hidalguía: Ideals of Life before the Conquest 23 Polities, Palaces and Princes in Mesoamerica 24 Hidalguía in the New World up to 1521 43 2 Original Sin 57 Honour among Thieves: The Cortésian Settlement of 1520–1527 58 The Castilian Perspective and Failure of the Cortésian Settlement 70 Mendicant Exception 83 Conclusion 89

part 2 Courtly Government 3 Viceroys and Magnates 93 Rivalling the conquistadores 99 Managing Officialdom 119 Conclusion 129 4 Republic of Spaniards 130 Appropriating Royal Grace 133 Influence over the encomenderos 147 Appropriating Public Ceremonial 152 Conclusion 154

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5 Republic of Indios 157 Alliance with the Friars 162 Personal and Courtly Government 169 Tribute 172 Mediation of Disputes 175 Political Patronage 178 Indio Chivalry 187 Conclusion 193

part 3 ‘Another Jerusalem’ 6 Political Ideals 197 Conquest as Conversion 200 Liberty, Tyranny and Piety 208 Viceroys 221 Conclusion 230 7 Constructing New Spain 232 Law, Tribute and Bureaucracy 237 Principal Citizens and Viceregal Preponderance 250 Conclusion 259 Epilogue: Cui bono? 261 Appendix A: Prominent Courtiers 269 i Indigenous Recipients of Viceregal Licences to Bear European Arms or Ride Horses 269 i The West: Michoacán, Jalisco and Colima 269 ii The Centre: Mexico Basin, Toluca Valley and the Northern Frontier 271 iii The East: Tlaxcala and Puebla Valleys 274 iv The South: Oaxaca, Tehuantepec and Verapaz 275 ii Antonio de Mendoza’s Household Dependants 276 i List of ‘Bodyguards’ Taken from a Copy of the Memorial Produced by Antonio de Turcios Found in agi Justicia 259 276 ii Individuals Described Explicitly as Mendoza’s Household Dependents in Witness Testimonies Found in agi Justicia 258 283 iii Individuals Described Explicitly as Mendoza’s Friends or Favourites in agi Justicia 258 284

Contents

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Individuals Registered as Travelling to New Spain with Mendoza at the Casa de Contratación in Seville 285 iii Treasury Disbursements from the Quitas y Vacaciones Fund (1537–1546) 288 Appendix B: Monetary Terms, Weights and Measures 295 Bibliography and Printed Sources 297 Archival Sources 312 Index 313

Acknowledgements Without the love, generosity and example of my family I could not have ­embarked on my research, sustained it, or navigated it to a safe harbour. I owe them everything and thank them for everything so I dedicate this book to them. Without the friendship, expert guidance and respect I received from Professor Felipe Fernández-Armesto, my horizons would have been diminished and I would not have known how to correct my course when I was drifting. This book is based on my doctoral thesis and I would like to thank the School of History at Queen Mary, University of London, for their patience during my doctoral research. The archivists and staff at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and the Archivo General de la Nación provide essential guidance for any researcher and they were always generous with me. John Elliott introduced me to Dr Enriqueta Vila Vilar at the Escuela de Estudios HispanoAmericanos in Seville and I am grateful for her kindness and and for granting me access to the wonderful library and study room there. Eric Christiansen and Penry Williams generously offered to read my work and proffered much wise advice. As a post-doctoral research fellow at the Early Modern Conversions Project at McGill University I revised my work with all that I learned from its enriching exchanges. I was particularly fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate closely with Professor Benjamin Schmidt, who read my work and encouraging me to submit it to Brill for publication. I am now proud to form part of a dynamic, stimulating and highly collegial academic community at the cide in Mexico City, whose support has allowed me to finish this book. My brother Matias, my wife Venetia and my friend Rutilo Rojas Osornio gave up their time to help me to identify and secure the images in the book, for which I am deeply grateful. I am also grateful to the editorial team at Brill, especially Jason Prevost, Gerda Danielsson Coe and Pieter van Roon for their patience, dedication and professionalism in seeing the book to print. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to Eric Christiansen, Robin Lane Fox, David Parrott and Christopher Tyerman who taught me how to think about the past during my time as an undergraduate at New ­College, Oxford.

List of Illustrations Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Quinatzin Map, Lamina 2, a representation of Nezahualcoyotl’s palace 30 Codex Bodley, detail of the exaltation of 8-Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’ by 4-Jaguar ‘Face of the Night’ 34 Codex Mendoza, folio 12, depicting the achievements of Tizoc 41 Detail from the retablo mayor of the Capilla Real in Granada by Felipe de ­Vigarny, 1521, showing the entry of the Catholic Kings into Granada 48 Andrés de Villanueva’s coat of arms 55 Enconchado 11 by Juan y Miguel González, 1698, Motecuhzoma addressing a furious crowd of his subjects from the balcony of his palace 62 Detail from the Lienzo de Quauhquechollan 69 Lienzo de Tlaxcala, fol. 48, Cortés accepting the surrender of Cuauhtemoc while wearing a quetzal headdress 71 Lucas Cranach the Elder and workshop, ‘A hunt in honour of Charles v at the castle of Torgau’ 95 Lienzo de Tlaxcala depicting the suppression of the Mixtón rebels at Xuchipila 159 Map of New Galicia and the Western Chichimeca frontier 160 Functions of a convent’s atrium, from Fr. Diego de Valadés, Rhetorica Christiana, 1579 165 Códice Azcatitlán depicting baptism and other Christian rites 166 Relación de Michoacán, frontispiece 170 Códice Osuna, front page, depicting viceroy Luis de Velasco distributing staffs of authortiy to worthy Indios with the help of a nahuatlato 180 Códice Osuna, negotiations with the viceroy at the ‘tecpan of Mexico’ 181 Códice Techialoyan García Granados 184 Hernando de Tapia’s coat of arms 189 Murals in the convent of San Miguel Arcángel, Ixmiquilpan 206 San Miguel Huexotzinco, representation of the New Jerusalem 209 Lienzo de Tlaxcala frontispiece 220 Uppsala Map, also known as Santa Cruz Map 238 Mapa de Culhuacán, c. 1580 239 Enconchado, Motecuhzoma’s throne room 256 Códice Osuna, Expedition to Florida 257

List Of Illustrations

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Maps 1 2

The ‘heartlands of New Spain’ 161 Distribution of viceregal licences allowing prominent Indios to carry European weapons, ride horses or carriages according to Appendix A.i 192

List of Abbreviations agi Archivo General de Indias agn Archivo General de la Nación cdi Colección de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y colonización de las posesiones españolas en América y Oceanía, sacados en su mayor parte del Real Archivo de Indias (Vaduz: Kraus reprint, 1964–1966). cjv José Porrúa e hijos, sucesores eds., Cartas del Licenciado Jerónimo de Valderrama Y Otros Documentos Sobre su Visita al Gobierno de Nueva España. 1563–1565 (Mexico: Porrúa, 1961). ene Francisco del Paso y Troncoso and Silvio Zavala, Epistolario de Nueva España (Mexico: Porrúa, 1939–1942). sp Las Siete Partidas del Sabio Rey don Alfonso el X, ed. G. López, Vol. 1 (Madrid: Compañía General de Impresores y Libreros del Reino, 1843–4). vea Lewis Hanke ed., Los Virreyes Españoles en América Durante El Gobierno de la Casa de Austria, Vol. 1 (Madrid: Atlas, 1976); documents are divided by viceroy. d ‘Ducado’ (ducat): see Appendix B, ‘Monetary Terms, Weights and Measures.’

Glossary Acolhua

A name often used to describe Texcoco’s domain over the eastern portion of the Basin of Mexico. Adelantado Spanish commander of an expedition or the highest authority of a peripheral territory which was not under a formal governor or an audiencia. Afán nobiliario Fascination with nobility identified as a Spanish phenomenon of the early modern period. Ahuehuete Literally the ‘Old man of the water,’ Taxodium Mucronatum known in English as the ‘Montezuma Cypress’ is a characteristic tree of central Mexico that can grow to an enormous size. Alcalde mayor Spanish official typically with authority over of larger area than a corregidor. Alcalde Municipal magistrate who formed part of the cabildo and could preside it. Alguacil An official associated with the implementation of certain judicial duties like surveying weights and measures or conducting arrests and other police-like duties. Allegado A term that denoted intimacy or proximity. Used of family or dependants. Almojarifazgo Customs taxes. Altepetl Nahua polity. Alumbrado Spanish term with evolving meanings normally associated with certain types of Catholic mysticism. As I discuss in the text, in New Spain it also seems to have acquired connotations of disregard for immediate authorities and the appeal for legitimacy directly from moral principles or from the highest authorities like the viceroy, by the 1560s. Astillero Dry-dock. Audiencia Court which normally heard appeals and in the Americas took on administrative functions. Ayuntamiento Municipal governing council. Caballero Knight. By the sixteenth century this appellation denoted a higher level of nobility than hidalgo. Cabecera Capital city of a district, a kingdom or any other defined territorial unit. Cabildo Gathering in council of a municipal unit or a polity’s representatives (elected and/or appointed).

xiv Cacique Calmecac Calpixcalli Calpixque Calpolli Cañas Capitulación

Casa poblada Cazonci Cédulas

Chichimeca Cihuacoatl Coacalli

Compadres Comuneros Congregación Contador Contino Corregimiento

Criados

Cuauhpilli

Glossary Generic Spanish term, taken from a Taíno word, for the ­dynastic head of an indigenous polity. School for the Tenochca elite. Administrative offices in a Nahua palace. A Nahua term for foreman or steward. Nahuatl term meaning the district of a polity, but literally a ‘large house.’ A type of game that simulated combat on horseback. A form of contract between the crown and the leader of an ­expedition which involved the ‘capitulation’ or transfer of rights from the crown to the latter. A household with dependents. Dynastic head of the Purehpecha polities of Michoacán. Writ or decree issued by an authority dealing with a broad range of issues from appointments to office to judging a dispute. They could constituted a legal precedent. Generic Nahua term for the nomadic and semi-nomadic populations of their northern frontier. Chief adviser to the Tenochca ‘emperor’ (Huey Tlatoani). Nahua term for the chamber within a palace used to host, house and entertain visitors under the protection of ­safe-passage and included storage-rooms from where they could be provisioned and granted presents or supplies for their onward journey. Denoted intimacy and friendship; from the close relationship ­between a child’s parents and god-parents. Rebels of Castile against the authority of Charles v and his ­regime with a variety of grievances and aims. Like the term reducción; it was policy to congregate disperse­indigenous settlements into more recognisably European towns. Treasury official. Member of the king’s bodyguard. An office granted by the viceroy or the King as a reward for ­merit. It implied changing administrative and judicial powers over a defined territory usually corresponding to an indigenous polity. Denoted the relationship and bonds of loyalty between a ­patron and a dependent. It referred to individuals ‘created’, i.e. ­supported, and promoted by a patron. A term applied to nobleman by merit (literally son of an eagle or noble eagle).

Glossary Cuauhtlatoani

Cuicacalli Doncella Gobernador

Encomendero Encomienda

Factor Hidalgo Huehuehtlahtolli Huey tlatoani Icpalli or icipalli Legajo Letrado Lienzos

Macehual Maestresala Malcalli Malinche Mandamiento Marquesado

Mayeque Mayordomo Mayor Mercedes

xv Interim governors for the period between the death of a prince or lord and the election, or selection, of his or her successor. They were normally chosen from without the governing nobility which theoretically ensured his autonomy. Nahua term for the chamber within a palace used for organising the construction of public works. A maiden, but also used of noble women. A governor. In the context of New Spain this applied to an ­office in indigenous polities created by Mendoza and beholden to viceregal grace. Holder of an encomienda. A changing and developing term in this period that at its most basic meant a right to a proportion of a polity’s tribute in exchange for certain responsibilities like readiness for war or ­support for evangelisation. Treasury official. Generic Spanish term for nobleman meaning literally ‘son of someone’ or ‘son of virtue’ according to the Siete Partidas. ‘Ancient words’ referred to a series of didactic lessons in conversation form. The Nahua term normally applied to the Mexica ‘emperor.’ Nahua term for the reed-thrones used by figures authority. Bundle of papers. A university educated lawyer. Literally a canvas, the term is used to describe the ‘painted books’ and other documents produced by or on behalf of indigenous communities or individuals. Nahua term for a plebeian member of a polity. Household position. Nahua term for a prison within the palace complex. Name given to Hernán Cortés by the Nahua during the conquest campaigns. Command or instruction given by an authority. Marquisate. In the context of New Spain in our period it can only refer to the domains and rights of Hernán Cortés and his heir Martín. Landless serfs tied to a lord’s land. Also called naborias or terrazgueros. Highest household position. Rewards granted by a lord to his vassal.

xvi Mestizo/a

Glossary

An individual classed by society or those in authority as being legally neither an Indian nor a Spaniard but a mixture of both and consequently not harmoniously integrated into either ‘republic.’ Mixcoacalli Nahua term for the chamber within a palace to house entertainers, musicians and hangers-on. Naborias See Mayeque. Nahuatlato Nahuatl speaker. Used to describe interpreters. Nobilis (pl. nobiles) A term from republican Rome applied to those families that had produced at least one consul. Both patricians and plebeians could be nobiles, as their family’s honour came from civic distinction. Nopal A type of cactus (opuntia cacti) represented on the pictograph for Tenochtitlan and the crest on the modern Mexican flag. Oidor A judge that forms part of an audiencia. Papahuaque Provincial governor, translated by some authors like Sahagún as ‘Satrap.’ Pastel Refers to Isatis Tinctoria, also known as woad in English. A valuable plant used to create indigo coloured dyes for fabric. An individual liable to contribute to the commonwealth Pechero through direct taxation or tribute (unlike a nobleman who contributed with his personal service). Petlacalco Nahua term for a palace’s store-house. Petlatl Nahua term for reed-mat used in palatial residences, like ­Japanese tatami. Pilli Nahuatl term for nobleman. Like hidalgo it was taken to mean literally ‘son of someone.’ Poblador Literally: ‘someone who populates.’ A Castilian term used since the Reconquista to describe a settler in a conquered land. Pochteca Nahua term used to describe a commercial entrepreneur. Quinto real The ‘royal fifth’ or the 20% owed to the crown from any p ­ recious metal extracted. In this period it was more normally a tenth than a fifth. Reducción See Congregación, above. Regidor Member of a municipal cabildo. Repartimiento A ‘distribution.’ It was another way of saying encomienda. Residencia A judicial review of an individual’s term in office. Teccalli or Teccalco Nahua term for the chamber within a palace where civil cases were heard.

Glossary Tecuhtli or Teuctli

xvii

Lord of a ‘tribe’ or ‘tribal segment’ within an indigenous polity (see calpolli). Tecpan / teccalli Nahua term meaning palace, literally ‘lord-house.’ Tecpantlalli The lands and rents endowed to a palace. Tecpilcalli Nahua term for the chamber within a palace used to pass judgement exclusively on noblemen-warriors. Teixhuiuh Nahua term, used in Tlaxcala and the Puebla valley, literally ‘the grandsons of someone.’ Teohua Teuctli Lordly title with authority over the Chalca confederacy. Tequihuacacalli Nahua term for the chamber within a palace that housed the council of war where military commanders were named and appointed. Terrazguero See Mayeque. Tlacuilo Nahua term for scribe. Tlacxitlan Nahua term for the chamber where criminal cases were heard. Tlatic Teuhtli Lordly title with authority over the Chalca confederacy. Tlatoani Prince, dynastic leaders (meaning literally ‘he who speaks’). Tlatocamecayotl Nahua term for genealogies of lordship. Tlatocatlacamecayotl Nahua term for ruling dynasty. Tlenamacaque Provincial governor, translated by some authors like Sahagún as ‘Satrap.’ Tlatocayotl Nahua term for lordship. However it could also mean, state, kingdom, crown, patrimony, dignity, greatness, genealogy, eloquence, majesty. There are many related and derivative verbs, adverbs and adjectives in Nahuatl. Válido An acknowledged favourite. Vecino Literally a ‘neighbour’ but used to describe a member of a ­municipality, or a ‘citizen.’ Veedor An official charged with overseeing the activities of certain ­enterprises or guilds. Visita A general inspection the conduct of an administration. Visitador Individual charged with conducting a visita.

A Note on Terms All translations from Spanish are my own unless otherwise stated. All names and terms in a language other than English are rendered in italics and can be found in the Glossary. For ease of comparison I have decided to convert all monetary terms (including cacao) into ducats (d), according to the ­methodology in my Appendix B. Anyone writing on Mesoamerica in this period has to contend with several languages and a variable terminology. I have rendered the most familiar Spanish terms in their original language because they are relatively uniform. The variety of different Mesoamerican linguistic and cultural groups in New Spain, on the other hand, encouraged me to translate many indigenous terms into English in order to generalise about specific subjects without favouring a particular linguistic or cultural tradition. I have chosen the term Indio or indigenous as a generic description of the various Amerindian populations of Mesoamerica; and Spaniard or Spanish to describe the European and African immigrants to Mesoamerica that were not brought over as slaves. I prefer the term ‘Castilian monarchy’ to ‘Spanish Empire’ when referring to the broader political structure into which the Kingdom of New Spain fitted; and by the ‘crown’ I mean the monarch, his advisors and administrators in Castile. There were several conquests during the period of our study, but ‘the Conquest,’ with a capital ‘C,’ was the period of two years and four months between the foundation of Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz and the surrender of Cuauhtemoc on the 13th of August 1521. I will discuss the great variety of indigenous political communities, like Nahua altepeme, in Mesoamerica, but I will refer to them generically as ‘polities.’ In order to avoid the terminological confusion that existed in the sixteenth century, I will refer to all dynastic rulers of a polity as ‘princes’ because the term implies their principal status among peers, that relates more closely to autochthonous connotations of terms like tlatoani, than the more institutional term ‘king,’ which modern historiography sometimes prefers; or the Caribbean term cacique, which Spaniards at the time sometimes used. By ‘lord’ I mean a member of the indigenous nobility who enjoyed formal lordship within a polity (often rendered as a tecuhtli in Nahuatl), normally over a tribe or the tribal segment of the polity (a calpolli in Nahuatl), rather than merely membership to the noble class (pilli in Nahuatl), whom I will refer to as ­noblemen or noblewomen.

Introduction Usually, Toribio de Benavente evinced, or perhaps affected, humility, appropriate to his vocation as a Franciscan friar and to the soubriquet by which he was commonly known: Motolinía, Nahuatl for ‘he who is poor.’ His triumphant exhortation of Mexico City as ‘another Jerusalem’ seems uncharacteristic. References to New Jerusalems in the sixteenth century normally aimed to evoke chiliastic and even antinomian connotations drawn from Biblical prophecies linked to the anticipated creation of a ‘Millennial Kingdom.’1 But figurative language creates associations between otherwise unrelated meanings and the change of perspective from Old World to New helped to refocus many old terms by adding different connotations. In this instance eschatological intentions were subsumed under worldly as well as spiritual themes that suggest Motolinía’s engagement with the broader polemics surrounding the nature, justification and purpose of the Spanish presence in the Americas:2 O Mexico, enveloped and crowned by such mountains! Now your fame will rightly fly abroad, for in you there shines the faith and gospel of Christ! You, who were once mistress of sins, are now a teacher of truth; and you, who once stood in darkness and shadows, now glow with the light of Christian teaching! You are more exalted and magnified now by your present subjection to the most invincible Caesar, Don Carlos, than you ever were by that tyrannical power with which you formerly sought to subjugate all men. Then you were a Babylon, full of confusion and evil; now you are another Jerusalem, mother of provinces and kingdoms. Then you came and went where you pleased, guided by the will of a heathen idiot who ruled you with barbaric laws; now many watch over you, that you may live according to laws both human and divine.3 The stated intention of Motolinía’s History of the Indians of New Spain, which contains this exhortation, was to describe the ‘ancient rites, idolatries and 1 John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956); Norman Cohn, The pursuit of the millennium (London: Pimlico, 1993). 2 Edwin E. Sylvest Jr, Motifs of Franciscan Mission Theory in Sixteenth Century New Spain Province of the Holy Gospel (Washington: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1975) esp. 121f (for Motolinía in particular, 123–25). 3 Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, Edmundo O’Gorman ed. (Mexico: Porrúa, 1973), Bk. 3, Ch. 6.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_002

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introduction

sacrifices of the Indians of New Spain, and the marvellous conversion which God has effected in them’ to his Castilian patron, the Count of Benavente.4 In allegorising Mexico as ‘another Jerusalem’ Motolinía was drawing a parallel between Mexico’s perceived religious conversion to Christianity, and her concurrent political conversion to Justice and legitimate authority. The importance of these two conversions to Motolinía’s view of his adopted land becomes even clearer if we read the passage in contrast to the only other allusive, rhetorical exhortation in his book, which comes a few pages later and addresses ‘the land of Peru’ as a ‘Babylon and mountains of Gilboa,’ (the scene of the glory-loving and ultimately unrighteous king Saul’s defeat and death in battle that was subsequently cursed by king David to sterility) and where ‘greed for black gold was converted into bitter tears’: Where in heathen lands have there been so many and such cruel battles as those fought between Christians in Peru? … Much more potent a force was the avarice of our Spaniards in the destruction and depopulation of this land than all the sacrifices and wars and assassinations that took place in its pagan days – including all that were sacrificed everywhere, and they were certainly numerous. And this because some of [the Spaniards] had the diabolical notion and fantasy that, conquering with fire and blood, the Indians would serve them better and always remain in fearful subjection to them; so they would lay waste to any town they came to. How much better would it have been, in truth, to win them over by love.5 Taken together the juxtaposition of ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Babylon’ exhibits the sort of didactic purpose found in other works of literature and art that aimed to educate political authorities by contrasting the horrors caused by tyrannical, and therefore illegitimate, government with the benefits of legitimate authority founded on Justice. The thrust of this commonplace tradition (that was ultimately indebted to Aristotle, the only classical authority quoted by Motolinía) focused on the need to discover the best political arrangements to enact Natural Justice – a reflection of the Divine order that stood in judgement over humanity – which allowed the attainment of grace, peace and the good life. Tyranny on the other hand was inherently unjust, breeding corruption, immorality, and disharmony in ruler and ruled alike, condemning tyrants to

4 Ibid., ‘Introductory letter.’ 5 Ibid., Bk. 3, Ch. 11.

Introduction

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vain attempts at governing through violence for the sake of retaining a hold on meaningless ‘power without grace.’6 These theoretical notions at once helped to interpret, and were reinforced by, Motolinía’s experiences of the New World. As a member of the first Franciscan mission to New Spain in 1523 he was heir to an edifying tradition of mendicant remonstrance against the abuses and impieties that had accompanied the expansion of Spanish authority in the New World and, more recently, of his fellow mendicants’ early support for municipal liberty in Castile’s comunero rebellion.7 He was never an unconditional apologist of empire nor can his revulsion at the news from Peru in the 1530s and 40s be ascribed merely to the motives of a propagandist for his adopted land. Throughout the 1520s Motolinía had added his voice to those of other increasingly vociferous critics of the faction-riven secular Spanish authorities in control of Mexico City. By 1529, as the political situation of New Spain deteriorated and the fear of indigenous revolt gripped Spanish settlers, he allowed himself to become implicated in a conspiracy to overthrow the representatives of royal government as a first step towards expelling all lay Spaniards from the land.8 In his History, he would famously catalogue the ‘10 plagues’ that Spanish maladministration in the 1520s had unleashed on Mesoamerica’s indigenous population, the damage this had done to the evangelising mission, and the near destruction of Spanish authority that it had provoked. Unrighteous and unjust power could be destructive no matter who wielded it, and in the hands of Motolinía’s fellow Spaniards it had seemed even worse than any allegation he heard levied against the pagan empires that had preceded them in the Americas. His contrast between New Spain and Peru in the early 1540s was not gratuitous. In the face of mounting reports detailing Spanish outrages in the Americas, more famous observers and participants in the Spanish imperial venture, like Bartolomé de las Casas, the royally appointed ‘Protector of the Indians’ or Francisco de Vitoria, whose careful lectures to students at Salamanca implicitly condemned Spanish behaviour as unjust, would come to the theoretical conclusion that unarmed evangelisation of Amerindian populations and 6 For an overview of this tradition in European thought in general see e.g. Alan Ryan, On Politics (London: Penguin, 2012), Ch. 7. For the corresponding Mesoamerican tradition see Chapter 1 below. 7 Aurelio Espinosa, The Empire of Cities: Emperor Charles v, the Comunero Revolt, and the Transformation of the Spanish system (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 64. 8 Joaquín García Icazbalceta, Don Fray Juan de Zumárraga, primer obispo y arzobispo de México: con un Apéndice de documentos ineditos ó raros (Mexico: Antigua librería de Andrade y Morales, 1881), 244.

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peaceful ­commerce with them were the only legitimate courses open to European interactions with the natives of the Americas.9 Legalistically minded courtiers and letrados in Castile believed that they could halt abuses through the promulgation of laws, which would in turn safeguard direct royal control over their far-flung dominions. To Motolinía, however, the past pagan empires of the Americas, the horrors of 1520s New Spain, and the disheartening news from Peru and other parts of the Empire, all contrasted with the transformation he had witnessed under the government of the first viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza (governed 1535–1550). New Spain’s achievements during Mendoza’s viceroyalty appeared as a new proposition and an object lesson. Motolinía ascribed this change to ‘good government’: Studiously he banished from his allegory of ‘another Jerusalem’ any notion of a violent native defeat at the hands of Spanish invaders along with any sense of indigenous subservience to forceful Spanish domination. Instead he emphasised the sort of continuity that is present in all voluntary, and therefore genuine, conversions. Mexico City endured in her pre-conquest role as ruler of Mesoamerica, but her redemption from paganism and tyranny meant that her authority had now become legitimate, and righteousness made her deserving of both Divine grace and her earthly authority. Her subjection to Charles v – pointedly not ‘the Spaniards’ as in his description of Peru – was an affirmation of Mexico’s new found status, enshrining her Mesoamerican sub-empire of New Spain within a cosmic hierarchy that equated it, implicitly, with the kingdom of Castile and all the other righteous polities that accepted the universal imperial authority of ‘the Caesar’ Charles v in his role as the ‘secular sword of Christendom.’ Participation in the imperial venture afforded Mexico City, with her Spanish and indigenous inhabitants, helpful ‘guardians’ – not masters – in the shape of the viceregal administration, along with the episcopal hierarchy and committed mendicant friars, like Motolinía himself. Motolinía’s perception of New Spain’s conversion was not idiosyncratic. It formed part of a strain of optimism about New Spain that we can detect in the sources produced throughout the reigns of the first two viceroys – A ­ ntonio de Mendoza (1535–1550) and Luis de Velasco (1550–1564). In this period, which later commentators would still remember as a ‘Golden Age,’10 a diverse 9

10

E.g. Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959); David Brading, The First America: The Spanish Monarchy, Creole Patriots and the Liberal State 1492–1866 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) esp. 58–128. Solange Alberro, El águila y la cruz: Orígenes religiosos de la conciencia criolla. México, siglos xvi–xvii (Mexico: Colegio de México, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999), 77.

Introduction

5

c­ ross-section of Mesoamerica’s Indio and Spanish population expressed, in remarkably consistent terms – through spectacle, architecture and the written or painted word – an exalted sense of the virtues of their ‘Kingdom’ and were equally keen to highlight their participation in its perceived successes. They often articulated the notion, autochthonous to 1530s New Spain, that the viceroyalty was a largely self-contained and righteous polity composed of two autonomous ‘republics’ – one ‘Spanish’ the other ‘Indio,’ both headed by the viceregal administration, albeit as representative of the sovereign. Even highly sceptical external observers detected something extraordinary about New Spain’s arrangements or were forced to react to the claims made by so many of her inhabitants. Las Casas, for example, grudgingly concluded his most famous polemic, the Brevisima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (written in 1542 but published ten years later), with an acknowledgement of New Spain’s (qualified) exception to many of the accusations he levied against the Castilian Monarchy in general: ‘So the Christian religion is ignored in almost all of Spanish America, except in the Kingdom of New Spain. But what is New Spain when compared to the rest of the Spanish Empire?’ He continued a few sentences later: ‘The only place where cruelties have diminished is Mexico: there one can find Justice and public inhumanities are not tolerated, even if tributary burdens are immense and unbearable, but homicides are not frequent.’11

Historiographical Background

Explaining the creation of New Spain as a viable polity is a first step towards engaging with further problems regarding the nature and propagation of the Castilian Monarchy and its role in global history: According to another controversial claim of New Spain’s Franciscans, Cortés, not Columbus, deserved to be considered the ‘Moses’ of the New World.12 The argument remains compelling. Seen as a whole, Castile’s American Monarchy has been characterised as remarkable and unprecedented for being the first ‘overseas’ empire that was also ‘territorial’ rather than purely ‘commercial.’ Furthermore, unlike other contemporary territorial empires, like the Ottoman or Mughal empires, it was not contiguous with the metropolis; the ecosystems it came to span were unprecedentedly diverse and unfamiliar; the cultures it encompassed were varied, alien and remote; and its span could be considered global. The attempt at 11

Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española), ‘Conclusión.’ 12 Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom, 28 and 50.

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incorporating Mesoamerica, the most densely populated region of the hemisphere, represented the first step in this new departure. By comparison with Mesoamerica, the conquest and colonisation of the Caribbean islands and the early exploration of the Tierra Firme seem like a continuation of fifteenthcentury Castilian and Portuguese experiences in forging an ‘Atlantic metaEurope’ over other archipelagos in the ‘Ocean Sea,’ and were less complex than Iberian interactions with the African mainland. The unlikely success the Spanish venture in Mesoamerica set the precedent, provided the impetus, and shaped the template for the achievements that came to characterise the global reach of the Castilian Monarchy – with all the consequences that ensued for the underlying grand narrative of global history that seeks to explain the ‘rise of the West’ against the prevailing currents of the past. Motolinía’s notion of Mexico City as ‘another Jerusalem,’ and the sixteenth century polemical tradition it represents, offers a challenging but suggestive approach to understanding the origin and survival of Habsburg authority in Mesoamerica. In this contention New Spain, emerged from a voluntary conversion that made it different – more righteous – than either its indigenous past or its Spanish influences. Conversion, as Motolinia knew, is always incomplete, but it offers a useful perspective for approaching broad questions about why the nominal subjects of an empire sometimes choose to accept its authority more often than to reject it; why they change the parameters of their notions of community; and why they are willing to collaborate voluntarily with its objectives. It is notoriously difficulty to produce a suitable definition for empire that pertains in every case to which the term has been applied. Somewhat tautologically, empires are often defined by what they are not: not ‘natural’ or ‘atomic’ units, such as ‘kinship-groups’ ‘historic nations,’ national or city-states or a voluntary confederation of these. We tend to condemn them as inherently illegitimate because they represent the domination that one such ‘group’ exerts over others, which are seen as more legitimate precisely because they are defined as more ‘natural’ or atomic. In consequence empire, along with its modern appendages like imperialism or colonialism and ‘domination,’ is seen through the lens of contemporary concerns. In the twentieth century, these have included, for example, Marxist-Leninist historical teleology; the struggle for national self-determination in the era of ‘decolonisation’ or Cold War competition; ‘post-modernist’ discourse; grand narratives that seek to explain modernity and the ‘Rise of the West’; or more recently the imperative to secure equality and Universal Human Rights.13 Even if today we consider all imperial systems 13

For the best recent discussion see Anthony Pagden, The Burdens of Empire. 1539 to the Present (Cambridge: University Press, 2015).

Introduction

7

as an imposition that is inherently illegitimate, it would be rash to suppose that this was always the case in the past. For most of the last thousand years most people have probably lived in an empire of sorts. Experience and historical example indicate that long-lived empires achieved a greater degree of acceptance, or at least tacit consent, from the populations they encompassed, than resistance. Except in cases where there is such an asymmetry of power that imperial domination amounts to ‘the peace of the graveyard,’ a degree of coercion (including the use of violence, intimidation and co-option of local power-brokers) that a population considers illegitimate leads to unresolved resentments and prepares the ground for political instability at the first opportunity. Our experience of the failure of the nato and usled interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq at the dawn of the 21st century, for example, suggest the difficulty of imposing any political project on a population that deems it to be illegitimate – even when that project was not explicitly imperial and enjoyed a remarkable advantage in military might and financial resources. As one thoughtful participant of the ill-fated attempt to turn Iraq into a modern democracy observed: We overestimated the power of the United States and its allies. Even critics of the war mistake our capacities … [they suppose that] somewhere else an ‘A’ team exists, or that at least such an ‘A’ team might be created, of ideal nation-builders with the qualities of a Machiavellian prince – informed, charismatic, intelligent, flexible and decisive, supported by their own populations and powerful enough to fundamentally reshape alien societies. But in fact there are no such Machiavellian princes … We often speak as if Bremmer could have sat down after the invasion and drawn on a blank sheet of paper the social and economic conditions of an ideal democracy. Plato would have failed at such a task.14 In Mesoamerica the Castilian Monarchy and later the Spanish Empire endured for 300 years at a time when communications, manpower and resources, made the capacity for coercion extremely limited. Terms like ‘Spanish conquest and colonization’ have signified an overly simplistic approach that grants excessive intentionality and agency to the Spaniards (the conquistadores or the royal bureaucrats that allegedly ‘conquered’ them in turn; or the friars who achieved the ‘Spiritual Conquest’ of the New World) and not enough to the nominally colonized Indios. Recent scholarship has dispelled many dogged old myths and 14

Rory Stewart, Occupational Hazards: My time governing in Iraq (London: Picador, 2007), ‘Epilogue.’

8

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historiographical traditions, dating back to the ‘Black Legend,’ that characterised force and fraud as the pillars of Spanish imperialism (though it is always surprising how often these views persist in general culture, in books with a broad approach to the Spanish empire, and those written by specialists in other fields looking for easy classifications to support their central theses). Thanks to these revisions, Spain’s European empire is now routinely recognised, rather, as a ‘composite monarchy’ and one historian has even described it as more akin to a ‘multi-national company.’15 The Castilian Monarchy’s inception in the Americas can no longer be justifiably credited to the almost super-human genius of ‘great men’ like Cortés; or explained in terms of decisive European technological or biological superiority permitting the rapid conquest of the Americas and the subsequent forceful suppression of their new subjects. Nor are indigenous societies seen as suffering from an incurable fatalism; their empires over-stretched; and, their tired societies, in general, ready for submission to the divinity of ‘returning gods’ they allegedly identified in un-shaven ­Extremaduran faces. In their place the ‘New Philologists,’ the purveyors of ‘New Conquest History’ and others, who have spearheaded this revision using indigenous perspectives gleaned from sources in native languages, originating from localities at the periphery of empire, to uncover an intriguing, implicit map of regional differences within New Spain that has restored voice and agency to the indigenous populations of the American mainland.16 15 16

Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492–1763 (London: Allen Lane, 2002), Ch. 11. For the best summary see Matthew Restall, ‘The new conquest history.’ History Compass 10, no. 2 (2012): 151–60. See also e.g., Matthew Restall, Seven myths of the conquest (Oxford: Oxfird University Press, 2003); Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa, Kevin Terraciano eds., Mesoamerican voices: native-language writings from colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Laura E. Matthew and ­Michael R. Oudijk eds., Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007); James Lockhart, Los Nahuas después de la conquista (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1999); Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in The Sixteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952); Kevin Terraciano, The Mixtecs of colonial Oaxaca: Ñudzahui history, sixteenth through eighteenth centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Margarita Menegus Borneman and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador eds., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: Plaza y Valdés : Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México : Centro de Estudios Sobre la Universidad (cesu), 2005); Margarita Menegus Bornemann, Del señorio indígena a la republica de indios: el caso de Toluca, 1500–1600 (Mexico: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1994); Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Emma Pérez-Rocha and Rafael Tena eds., La nobleza indígena del centro de México después de la conquista (Mexico: inah, 2000);

Introduction

9

The fascinating new perspectives unfolded by these scholars provide an opportunity to look back at old problems from different vantage points, reinvigorating the subject by suggesting new questions, avenues for research and interpretation. They are fundamental to my discussion of indigenous political cultures and objectives; the commitments, alliances, and enmities they produced and how these formed the basis for how Indio political actors approached Spanish viceregal government. I hope to contribute to this body of work by revisiting its conclusions in the light of different political contexts. Reinforced, perhaps, by our natural sympathy towards the vanishing p ­ re-Conquest indigenous world, we have focused too much on isolated groups and areas of the periphery that has promoted ‘continuity’ or ‘survival’ of preconquest indigenous norms as the only palliating attributes of otherwise resented imperial impositions. Indios who could not defend this continuity are characterised as ‘collaborators’ who ‘accommodated’ Spanish demands uncomfortably or met them with underhand, often coded, ‘resistance’ (sometimes seen as enduring right up to the Zapatista rebellion of 1994 and to the present day) within a context of prevailing Spanish cultural hegemony.17 Too often indigenous agency in the Americas is still circumscribed, as the title of a recent publication suggests, as ‘negotiation within domination.’18

17

18

Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas ed., Cacicazgos y nobiliario indígena de Nueva España (Mexico: Instituto Bibliográfico Mexicano, 1961); María Castañeda de la Paz, Conflictos y alianzas en tiempos de cambio: Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Tenochtitlan y Tlatelolco (siglos xii–xvi) (Mexico: unam, 2013); David Wright, Conquistadores Otomíes en la guerra chichimeca (Querétaro: Dirección de Patrimonio Cultural, Secretaría de Cultura y Bienestar Social, Gobierno del Estado de Querétaro, 1988); Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: ­Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico (Norman: Univeristy of Oklahoma Press, 2003); Susan Kellogg, Law and the Transformation of Aztec Culture (Norman: Univeristy of Oklahoma Press, 1995); Francisca Perujo, ‘La nueva identidad de Don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli’ and Elke Ruhnau, ‘Titlaca in nican Nueva España (Somos la gente aquí en Nueva España): la historia novohispana según los historiadores indígenas (siglo xvi y principios del xvii)’ in Karl Kohut and Sonia V. Rose eds., La formación de la cultura virreinal 1. La etapa inicial (Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2000–2006). Jesús Bustamante García, ‘Nueva Roma: del señorío indígena novohispano y su asimilación política (La orden de caballeros Tecles, el colegio imperial de Santa Cruz y las nuevas elites de poder local),’ in José Martínez Millán coord. Carlos v y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558) (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001), Vol. 4, 15ff; Max Harris, Aztecs, Moors and Christians: festivals of reconquest in Mexico and Spain (Austin, tx : University of Texas Press, 2000). Ethelia Ruiz Medrano and Susan Kellogg eds., Negotiation within Domination (Sebastopol: University Press of Colorado, 2011).

10

introduction

Conversely, historians who survey the situation from ‘the centre’ in Castile, portray imperial administrative institutions, so far as they are still studied, as being implanted wholesale from Europe to America where the crown could ‘start from scratch,’ unconcerned by the accretion of burdensome traditions and privileges it had to contend with in Europe. This is considered to have led to the development of an essentially ‘modern’ bureaucracy, largely detached from the societies it governed, to the extent that some authors have even described it as a ‘machine’ capable of ‘conquering the conquistadors’ and extracting wealth from the natives: part of the first manifestation of the early-modern project of state-building. Corruption or the inevitable disruptions caused by distance, created serious failings despite the empire’s modern intent: the ‘machine’ was ‘blemished here and there with ad hoc parts, full of frictions making it creak and groan, but undeniably running.’19 Similarly the ‘Spanish struggle for Justice’ is portrayed as an essentially European intellectual exercise whose practical aims proved to be no more than imperfect or unsuccessful attempts to impose, from Castile, legal protection for the benighted Indios in the teeth of unwilling settlers and a self-seeking local administration reliant on corrupt patronage. Contemporary historiography continues to view the Castilian Monarchy in the Americas as an inherently illegitimate imposition that was borne with either futile resistance or resignation in those areas where it could make its presence felt. I will contend, instead, that despite the general continuity of life in Mesoamerica, those Indios and Spaniards who interacted most frequently at the viceroy’s court in Mexico City, or with it through the use of trusted intermediaries became ‘enfranchised’ by their participation; leading to a new ‘identification’ with the sui generis political culture of New Spain, which they had helped to generate.20 Although misunderstandings abounded at first, repeated peaceful interactions through novel courtly routines, allowed both Indios and Spaniards to correct many of their misapprehensions about each the other and overcome 19

20

For the perceived modernity or proto-modernity of the Spanish Empire see Peter Bakewell, ‘Conquest after Conquest,’ in Richard L. Kagan and Geoffrey Parker eds., Spain Europe and the Atlantic World: Essays in honour of J.H. Elliott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), esp. 296–315; John H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), esp. 127f; Felipe FernándezArmesto, ‘The Improbable Empire’ in Raymond Carr ed., Spain: A History ­(Oxford, 2000), 126; Horst Pietschmann, El estado y su evolución al principio de la colonización española de América (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989); José María Ots de Capdequí, El Estado Español en las Indias (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986). For ‘Identification’ see Tamar Herzog, Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 6.

Introduction

11

(like so many others in global history) the problem of ‘cultural incommensurability’: at least at the higher levels of political participation and diffusing down through time.21 In any case cultures are seldom static and intense interactions between members of diverse societies, of the sort that occurred at the viceregal court in Mexico City, tend to ‘speed-up’ the rate of cultural change.22 New Spain’s viceregal government was not, on the whole one big case of ‘doublemistaken identity’ that worked because the Indios and Spaniards misunderstood each other’s intentions all the time.23 Its enfranchised participants were conscious of promoting new routines and affinities, often in competition with each other, to affirm those that best suited their needs. Ancestral traditions and practices inspired these innovations, but they did not therefore seek to replicate them pristinely. Enfranchised Indios and Spaniards had to explain and justify their innovations to constituencies in the periphery or recent arrivals from Spain. Sometimes this lead to the ‘Nahuatlization’24 of aspects of Christianity, hidalguía (nobility) or viceregal government; and sometimes to the ‘Hispanization’ of indigenous towns, tlatocayotl (lordship); and religious ceremonial. In both cases I detect a more conscious intent to innovate than is often allowed for in the historiography. I propose, therefore, to shift the perspective from both the indigenous communities of the Mesoamerican periphery and the imperial centre in Castile, towards the viceregal court in Mexico City, where the Kingdom of New Spain was most obviously embodied. As Motolinía’s allegory suggested, it was the viceregal administration’s ability to impart justice, or to seem to do so, that rendered it acceptable: this made it legitimate and worthy of authority both in Castilian and Mesoamerican eyes. Neither group considered that justice in New Spain 21

22 23

24

For recent discussion of Tzvetan Todorov’s problem of ‘cultural incommensurability’ (in e.g. La Conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’Autre (Paris: Seuil, 1982,)) and examples from other parts of the world see: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Courtly Encounters: Translating Courtliness and Violence in Early Modern Eurasia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012); E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). Felipe Fernández-Armesto, A foot in the river: why our lives change, and the limits of evolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), esp. 174 and 181. See James Lockhart, ‘Double Mistaken Identity: Some Nahua Concepts in Postconquest Guise.’ Of Things of the Indies: Essays Old and New in Early Latin American History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999): 98–119. See Charles Dibble, ‘The nahuatlization of christianity.’ Sixteenth Century Mexico: The Work of Sahagún (1974): 225–33 for the term ‘Nahuatlization’; with Louise M. Burkhart, The slippery earth: Nahua-Christian moral dialogue in sixteenth-century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989), esp. ‘Christianity Conquered,’ 184–92.

12

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was identical to the enactment existing laws. The famously disputed notions, originating in medieval European jurisprudence, that lex iniusta non est lex and that there could be ‘one truth, many formulations,’ gained renewed relevance in the face of the uncertainty generated by the unprecedented problems, and practical difficulties, that Spanish legislators faced in dealing with their domains in the New World. As a result, traditional Spanish notions of the king as a sovereign judge, the ‘fount from which all grace emanated,’ who would hear the petitions of his subjects, determine the justice of their claims (even if these were made against existing laws), and then legislate to redress any injustices, became particularly relevant.25 For practical reasons the king delegated these attributes to his appointed agents in Mexico City: tellingly the title of viceroy carried no legally defined powers or attributes because he was thought to represent the king by using his judgement rather than by merely following the law. If his judgement failed him, or proved unsatisfactory, to either the crown or the inhabitants of New Spain, the king could replace his representative. The flexibility that this allowed helps to explain why although New Spain was a sub-kingdom of Castile, like Granada, rather than aeque principaliter like Naples, in practice it operated under more (and increasing) exceptions to Castilian law: a variety of indigenous customs operated at the provincial level, while viceregal mandamientos (commands) or judgements over specific disputes were de facto accepted as legal precedent. Royal legislation aimed specifically at its American possessions, which could be affected by the claims of its New World subjects, added to this increasingly divergent corpus of legislation that came to be known as derecho indiano, to theorists of a much later period.26 The degree of practical autonomy that this allowed the viceregal administration to practice, reinforces Motolinía and his contemporaries’ view of 25

26

See e.g. James M. Boyden, The Courtier and the King: Ruy Gómez de Silva, Philip ii and the Court of Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Harald E. Braun, Juan de Mariana and Early Modern Spanish Political Thought (London: Ashgate, 2007); J.A. Fernández-Santamaria, The State War and Peace: Spanish Political thought in the Renaissance 1516–1559 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Antonio Fernández-Santamaria ed., Natural Law, Constitutionalism, Reason of State, and War: Counter-Reformation Spanish Political Thought, José – Volumes 1–2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); Richard W. Truman, Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the Time of Philip ii (Leiden: Brill, 1999). For the importance of viceregal mandamientos in the development of this corpus see Lara Semboloni, ‘La Construccion de la autoridad virreinal en Nueva España, 1535–1595,’ 2 vols. See esp. Vol. 1 ‘Introducción’ and Vol. 2, 296f (PhD diss., Colegio de México, 6 November 2007).

Introduction

13

New Spain as a largely autonomous polity directed from Mexico City. It also speaks against the definition of New Spain as an imperial province governed by a modern rule-bound bureaucracy whose aim was limited to the enactment of royal legislation emanating from Castile. However, this autonomy does not explain why the inhabitants of Mesoamerica obeyed the commands and laws that the authorities in Mexico City, or the Castilian crown, promulgated. A ­ rguments derived from European intellectual history and applied to the later history of New Spain that identify the population’s adherence to a ‘culture of authority’ are not plausible by themselves for our period either. Exponents of this view focus on the ceremonies and visual representations of power, where ‘beliefs and practices … constitute viceregal power and the Spanish imperial system of rule …’ and purportedly allow us to ‘“see” a viceroy as contemporaries would have done and … study … the viceregal institution as both image and ritual.’27 At the start of our period, however, there was no common ‘culture of authority’ in New Spain. What interests us is how one arose from a combination of different Mesoamerican and Spanish traditions and gained acceptance.28 These problems were accentuated by the uncertainties generated by what I will describe in subsequent chapters as New Spain’s ‘original sin.’ Legitimacy in New Spain meant creating novel political routines that gained the direct acceptance, or at least consent as mediated through those enfranchised leaders of society, of a critical mass of the local population. Given the seeming peculiarities of New Spain as an autonomous but not a sovereign polity, I decided to emphasise the semi-formal practices of government that have created new forms of authority and political legitimacy in other exceptional contexts. Works like Ronald Syme’s The Roman Revolution or Nicolai Rubinstein’s The Government of Florence Under the Medici provide useful analogous examples for this approach. Edward Gibbon gave Augustus the epithet ‘that subtle tyrant’ and in a sense Syme’s book is an attempt to unravel and explain that subtlety which allowed Octavian to transform the limits and the meaning of the ancient Republican offices and titles he held for his political ends and ‘auctoritas.’ In theory the Roman citizens were sovereign, but Syme explored how Octavian, later Augustus, was able to co-opt and at times coerce the individualistic and fiercely competitive Roman elite into 27 28

Alejandro Cañeque, The king’s living image: the culture and politics of viceregal power in colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge, 2004), esp. 11f. For this dynamic see James Lockhart, ‘Double Mistaken Identity: Some Nahua Concepts in Postconquest Guise’ in Of Things of the Indies: Essays Old and New in Early Latin American History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 98–119.

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peacefully accepting his de facto, if not de jure monarchy despite their proud republican traditions. Syme’s aims led him to investigate the links between the ‘imperial family’ and the power-brokers of the Roman world. His study focused on the strategic links of dependence or patronage, marriage and friendship with which Augustus tied the Roman elite to his agendas and linked their fortunes with his own, while concealing it behind a veil of political legitimacy expressed in art, architecture and literature. Augustus became the indispensable keystone of this unofficial and subtle structure of alliances: ‘In all ages, whatever the form and name of government, be it monarchy, republic, or democracy, an oligarchy lurks behind the façade; and Roman history, republican or imperial is the history of the governing class.’29 Seen from this perspective, the distribution of titles and ‘bureaucratic’ offices up for grabs in the Roman Empire gain a meaning which transcends the apparent roles and responsibilities that they describe. Instead they become part of an often-deadly competition for power mediated by the person of the linchpin princeps. The Medicean hegemony within the Florentine Republic operated in a similar fashion despite the fact that the state’s institutions were designed specifically to avoid such a monopoly of power. Rubinstein concentrated on the electoral records of the Florentine republic ‘to uncover the mechanisms by which citizens with the same status as everyone else wielded such influence.’30 He ascertained this by finding out who these people were and where they fitted into Florentine society and the Medici networks. Like the princeps, the head of the Medici family in Florence came to be acknowledged as the mediator of power internally and internationally: from blessing Florentine marriages to dealing personally with envoys of other states the first citizen became indispensable to the operation of the Florentine state. Although the origin and nature of viceregal government in New Spain differs in fundamental ways from either ancient Rome or fifteenth-century Florence, in all three cases the power that individuals wielded surpassed the strictly defined legal limits of their station or their office. In all such cases certain individuals achieved a supremacy over their fellow competitors for power by exploiting informal mechanisms of power and thereby elbowing their way to a position of near indispensability in the eyes of the sovereign authorities and ahead of competing claimants.31

29 30 31

Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 7. Nikolai Rubinstein, The government of Florence under the Medici 1434–1494 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ‘Introduction.’ Norbert Elias, The civilising process (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), esp. 335ff.

Introduction

15

I am also indebted to the methodology of historians of Tudor government like Penry Williams and David Starkey who sought new departures away from the previous emphasis on institutional history that had dominated their field.32 As we have seen Castilian administration of her American colonies has been held up to be essentially and consciously different from what had preceded it, like Geoffrey Elton’s ‘Tudor revolution in government’ with regards to the English Monarchy. The new approach pioneered by Williams ‘[w]ithout ignoring the institutional framework … concentrated on describing the ways in which government actually worked, the people who ran it the impact that it made upon society, and the reason for its survival: in short … processes not structures.’ Similarly, Starkey formulated and promoted the methodology, emphases and aims of Tudor ‘court history’ that proved particularly relevant in helping to uncover where power and political initiative lay in early modern states. Individuals and their personal relationships regain a paramount importance in government and decision-making from this perspective, even the physical space they inhabit becomes imbued with significance. ‘… the doors of the Council Chamber and Bedchamber were thus separated only by the few yards of the width of the gallery. This proximity explains almost in itself the close links of Privy Chamber and Privy Council. They co-habit the same exclusive areas of the palace to which, moreover, only they had access’; or ‘the extremely close and intimate existence of the men who lived and worked at Whitehall. Late night discussions and sincerities alone between the king and his most important ministers: the rules and etiquette of court were subverted by the camaraderie of power, this was the centre of government. Not the nearby offices. Here decisions were taken as much when the council dined together as when they met in formal sessions.’33 Further concepts derived from this perspective like ‘representation through intimacy’ that operated in a situation where government ‘like the dinosaur [has] difficulty in communicating between their head and their extremities’ proved particularly useful when applied to New Spain: Only someone known to be close to the king (or viceroy) could be trusted by both parties: for the king/viceroy that his instructions will be faithfully relayed and, for the receiver, that the messenger truly represents authority and so can be trusted if some accommodation is necessary.34 Interest in European courts of the Early Modern period has grown in the last three decades to encompass diverse themes such as the importance of 32 33 34

Penry Williams, The Tudor Regime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), vii. David Starkey ed., The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (New York: Longman, 1987), ‘Introduction.’ Ibid., ‘Intimacy and Innovation,’ 82–83.

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introduction

ceremonial display, the rise of the favourite and ‘courtly bureaucracies’ as a solution to government and the resulting struggles between ‘court and country.’ An indirect route to understanding the importance of the court in the Spanish world generally has been through works on Iberian courts spearheaded by José Martínez Millán.35 His descriptions and discussions offer a useful guide to identifying the often obscure webs of clients and mutual dependence within a sixteenth-century Hispanic court; the vocabulary of court power and patronage and a certain culture of service, in particular, that were often replicated in New Spain. Yet, with some notable exceptions,36 interest in the viceregal courts of Castile’s American Monarchy has been sporadic, particularly with regards to the sixteenth century – despite calls to embrace this approach that date back to the 1974 collection of essays New Approaches to Latin American History. Even so, the stated aims and methodology that are advocated tend to replicate the existing avenues of research for European courts without exploring the more sui generis function that they played in the Americas.37

‘Another Jerusalem’ Reconsidered

In developing my argument I will combine the work of the New Philologists and their heirs, with prosopographical investigation and elements of the courtstudies tradition, heavily adapted to the unprecedented circumstances of New 35

36

37

E.g. José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992) and La Corte de Carlos v, Vol. 1 (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2000). E.g. Christian Büscheges, ‘La corte virreinal como espacio político: El gobierno de los virreyes de la América hispánica entre monarquía, elites locales y casa nobiliaria’ in Pedro Cardim and Joan-Lluis Palos eds., El Mundo de los Virreyes en las monarquías de España y Portugal (Madrid: Vervuert, 2012). Much of their approach harks back to ­Norbert Elias, The Court Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) and Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke eds., Princes, Patronage, and the nobility: The Court at the beginning of the modern age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Richard Graham and Peter H. Smith eds., New Approaches to Latin American history (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1974), esp. the contributions of Stuart B. Schwartz on ‘State and society in colonial Spanish America: an opportunity for prosopography’ and Margaret E. Crahan on ‘Spanish American counterpoint: problems and possibilities in Spanish colonial administrative history.’ For a conspectus on the subject see Pilar Latasa, ‘La corte virreinal Peruana’ in Feliciano Barrios coord., El gobierno de un mundo–virreinatos y audiencias de la américa hispánica (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004), esp. 345 and 347–49.

Introduction

17

Spain, to reveal the routines and practices of its sui generis political life, and the emerging cultural affinities that bound indigenous and non-indigenous political communities to the viceregal regime. While my approach is thematic, I hope to convey that these political solutions evolved incrementally, were dictated by specific contexts, and involved individuals capable of choosing between uncertain alternatives at every step.38 One of my underlying objectives is to avoid the ‘unfortunate compartmentalization’ between ‘Hispanists’ and ‘Amerindianists’ that has characterised the study of the Spanish Empire.39 Since at least the thirteenth century, Spaniards had used the term conquista to describe the legitimate recovery of territory formerly lost to the enemies of Christendom. In the sixteenth century their descendants appropriated the term and used it as the foundation-myth of New Spain. I will argue in ‘Part One’ that this neat designation masked a series of messy contradictions that led to a crisis of legitimacy and the failure of the first, ‘Cortésian,’ attempt at a political settlement for New Spain. ‘The Conquest,’ (by which I mean the armed conflicts that broke out in Mesoamerica from the Spanish foundation of Veracruz in 1519 to the surrender of Tenochtitlan in 1521) and its immediate aftermath became, instead, New Spain’s ‘original sin’ which tarnished its burgeoning elites with the taint of political illegitimacy. Explaining how and why it was expiated will form the basis for understanding the creation of legitimate authority in New Spain. Chapter 1 will serve to discuss the ‘ideals of life’ that informed the motivations and political expectations of the Indio governing classes and Spanish conquistadores and early settlers of Mesoamerica. I focus on their attitudes to nobility comparing the lordly essence of Nahua tlatocayotl, which was fixed to a specific place, with the more flexible notion, promoted by deracinated Spaniards, that nobiltiy was a product of royal service. The similarities and differences in these previously discreet political cultures provide an indispensable background for understanding why some political projects to create legitimate authority in New Spain failed and others succeeded. Chapter 2 will show how the expectations of the most prominent participants in the early attempts at governing New Spain were first aroused and then disappointed or undermined by the political developments of the period spanning from 1519 up to 38

39

As argued in Derek Beales, ‘History and biography: an inaugural lecture,’ esp. 282, in Timothy C.W. Blanning and David Cannadine eds., History and Biography: Essays in Honour of Derek Beales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) and Hugh Trevor-­ Roper, History and Imagination (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). John H. Elliott, Spain and Its World, 1500–1700: Selected Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 3.

18

introduction

1535. It will also analyse how the vagaries of courtly politics in Castile after the failed comunero revolt impacted on the development of New Spain’s administration: together these will account for why the Conquest became tainted as a foundation myth, turning it into New Spain’s ‘original sin.’ The chapter will include a discussion of a phenomenon that Felipe Fernández-Armesto has described as the ‘stranger-effect,’ which he summarised as ‘… the experience of welcome, which may even include deference of various kinds, accorded in some societies to newcomers who are not easily classifiable in the terms of the approached community, except as strangers, outsiders, foreigners or by some roughly equivalent term,’40 and which I have found to be an increasingly valuable concept through which to view the early interactions between Spaniards and native Mesoamericans ever since I first heard Felipe recommend it to a wary, but intrigued, audience of undergraduates at Oxford in 2001. In Chapters 3 to 6 I will discuss how Mendoza and Velasco secured their own standing before the ‘two audiences’ – in Castile and Mesoamerica – against the claims of their competitors in New Spain. Their success related to their ability to secure, in practice if not always in theory, standing for other individuals within New Spain as well. I will argue that the viceroys achieved this through the distribution of patronage, the mediation of disputes and by guaranteeing that negotiated agreements were upheld. Relatively quickly the viceregal court became the accepted arena for resolving disputes at various levels: from unresolved conflicts that arose within individual indigenous polities and between neighbours; to disputes between the localities and Mexico City, such as tribute assessment and collection, evangelisation, and military cooperation; to the imperial level of mediating between the sovereign authorities in Castile and the political nation of New Spain. These practices were, in most cases, a response to the demands and interests of the burgeoning elites of New Spain. I will examine how the interaction between royal, viceregal and the local interests of New Spain’s elites interacted and how they contributed to the development of viceregal authority. For viceregal judgements and mediation to be accepted as legitimate, rather than dismissed as arbitrary or corrupt by the ‘two audiences’ they had to appear to be just. One of the more engaging problems of this period relates to how disparate political cultures, originating in Mesoamerica and Europe, were adapted and fused into new standards that achieved authority, in this period, over the political nation of New Spain. In Chapter 7 I will engage with the question of the extent to which the emergent ‘benchmarks of legitimacy’ and their 40

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘The Stranger-Effect in Early-Modern Asia’ in Itinerario, Vol. 24, Issue 02 (July 2000), 80.

Introduction

19

­accompanying ‘language of legitimacy’ constitute a sui generis ‘culture of authority’ and whether both its creation and the political nation’s adherence to its tenets was the reflection and result, rather than the cause, of the dynamic political processes I examined. I will propose some general conclusions in Chapter Eight and the Epilogue, where I will discuss what they might imply for how we should understand New Spain. This discussion will be guided by the underlying question posed since Cicero to determine responsibility: Cui bono? I will suggest that New Spain came to be organised on the basis of internal arrangements guaranteed by the viceroys and justified through the developing political culture that accompanied them. This implied that viceregal favour amounted to an ‘enfranchisement’ of meritorious individuals into what contemporaries began to label as the Spanish and Indio ‘Republics’ of New Spain. This led to the development of what I define as a ‘parasitic nobility with civic values,’ which benefitted from the perpetuation of the viceregal system of government, along with the crown, and had a vested interest in its propagation. The viceregal court in New Spain became a much more decisive and inclusive political arena than the royal courts of Europe and in a sense its size and influence anticipated the rise of the European ‘courtly bureaucracies’ of the 17th century. The success of the viceregal court poses further comparative questions about the relevance of problems such as, for instance, the uneasy interaction between ‘court and country’ or the costs and advantages of the centralisation of political power and economic resources on ‘courtly bureaucracies’ run by ‘royal favourites’: debates that are well established in European historiography but have not been discussed explicitly with regards to New Spain. I will end by arguing that the internal political logic of most decision making in New Spain, combined with the emergence of a defined local identity and a community of interests accompanied by increasingly sui generis ‘ideals of life,’ qualify New Spain to be considered not as a ‘colony’ run by an alien bureaucracy that perpetuated Spanish ‘domination’ but as Mexico City’s sub-empire within the Habsburg ‘composite monarchy.’

part 1 New Spain’s Original Sin

∵

This violence of landscape, this cruelty of climate, this continual tension in everything, and even these monuments of the past, magnificent yet incomprehensible because not built by us and yet standing round us like lovely mute ghosts; all those rulers who landed by main force from every direction who were at once obeyed, soon detested, and always misunderstood, their only expressions works of art we couldn’t understand and taxes which we understood only too well and which they spent elsewhere: all these things have formed our character, which is thus conditioned by events outside our control as well as by a terrifying insularity of mind. The Prince of Salina in ‘The Leopard’ by giuseppe tomasi di lampedusa

...

The temples in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed … For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest places, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps. pope gregory ‘the Great’ to abbott mellitus in Britain

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Tlatocayotl and Hidalguía: Ideals of Life before the Conquest The objects displayed in the first room or two of regional or anthropological museums are strikingly similar around the world. Their similarity suggests ‘universal’ practical solutions to similar basic problems: a deep clay bowl holds liquids; a sharp edge cuts. As one progresses to subsequent rooms the differences in appearance become more noticeable than the underlying practical design, and of greater significance for what they reflect of the interests, ideals and aesthetics of the cultures that produced them. Anthropologists have identified some universals, such as that humans are social animals, interested in status and security, who have a notion of ‘the sacred’ or taboo. Cultural historians seek to identify the refinements that orient these underlying, perhaps universal, impulses towards specific manifestations and peculiar divergent motivations. Political ideals are one such cultural refinement. They ‘reflect’ a society’s aspirations, define an individual’s objectives in public life, and inform the criteria through which contemporaries judged the legitimacy of political acts.1 A society’s political ideals reveal motives and preferences beyond universal human aims or desiderata like status or security. It is true that ‘[b]oth S­ paniards and Nahua belonged to societies ordered in one way by the distinction between noble and commoner, and in another by hierarchies of patronage and military service’2 but this is the level of abstraction of the deep bowl and the sharp knife: most agricultural societies are hierarchical. A sense of recognition on this level can lead to misunderstanding more specific manifestations of these phenomena: for example what justified nobility in these different societies and how did this affect their objectives? Exploring pre-Conquest indigenous political ideals in Mesoamerica and those of Spanish conquistadores and pobladores, will help us to contextualise the competing political aspirations that prompted the Conquest, the problems that their differences created thereafter, and how

1 Johan Huizinga, Men and Ideas: History, the middle ages, the renaissance, trans., James S. Holmes and Hans Van Marle (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), 78. 2 Sean F. McEnroe, From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) and notes.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_003

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the routines of viceregal government allowed a common political ­culture to emerge in New Spain.

Polities, Palaces and Princes in Mesoamerica

In a funeral oration commemorating Itzcoatl, the recently deceased prince of Tenochtitlan, his nephew and chief advisor Tlacaelel purportedly described princes as ‘the mirror in which all see themselves’. Itzcoatl’s death had ‘darkened’ that mirror, but Tenochtitlan endured: ‘illustrious men, it is not suitable that our polity be left in darkness; may another sun emerge to light it’, he exhorted.3 In central Mesoamerica princely titles were a product of the polities that their holders governed: an individual who was not engaged in ruling a polity had no independent right to the title. Throughout Mesoamerica politically conscious members of those polities shared ideal notions of lordship, what the region’s Nahua speakers termed tlatocayotl, which they expected to see reflected in their rulers. In turn the specific person chosen to act as a prince, rather than their title as an institution or any abstract notion of the state, determined a polity’s social hierarchy. By the turn of the 16th century, the settled polities of Mesoamerican resembled each other: a Nahua altepetl (plural, altepeme), corresponded to Mixtec ñuu or yuta, Zapotec quiche, or Mayan batabil. Indigenous notions of communal or individual liberty, autonomy or subjugation were determined in relation to these units: Tenochtitlan’s leaders, for example, described their empire in terms of the estimated 489 polities that paid them tribute; while individuals defined their formal social status, political objectives and expectations in relation to their polity’s social hierarchy and found in it the ‘theatre’ that gave meaning to their public acts.4 The average polity in the densely populated basin of Mexico consisted of 40  settlements ranging from fully-fledged towns to small clusters of agricultural dwellings.5 Spanish observers mistook these latter to be the rural hinterland of a cabecera or capital town, but to the indigenous mind membership of 3 Joyce Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Propaganda, Myth, and History in Four ­Ancient Civilizations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 316. 4 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 155. 5 Susan Toby Evans and Joanne Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World – A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 10th and 11th October 1998 (Washington, dc: Dumbarton Oaks, 2004), 14, n. 6 and Mary G. Hodge and Michael E. Smith eds., Economies and Polities in the Aztec Realm (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), 43f and 72.

Tlatocayotl and Hidalguía

25

one of the polity’s constituent ‘tribes’, known as calpolli or tlaxicalli in N ­ ahuatl, ­counted more than the physical limits of a settlement. A lord – tecuhtli or teuctli in Nahuatl – governed each tribe and his domain could include both scattered rural settlements and urban ‘districts’. Traditionally, the ruling dynasty of the dominant tribe supplied the polity’s prince – tlatoani in Nahuatlas well its ­patronal deity.6 A polity’s segmentation into tribes was a time-tested way of incorporating diverse groups under a single prince’s authority. Some scholars have argued that Indios understood conversion in the viceregal period through analogies to their experiences and myths about integrating migrants into new societies.7 Migration was the main cause of Mesoamerica’s ethno-cultural diversity, particularly as nomadic or semi-nomadic populations that the Nahua called chichimeca in the north of Mesoamerica routinely migrated to the richer centre and south; though settled groups could also seek to relocate for a variety of reasons: from economic migration to the colonisation of strategic regions that followed imperial conquests.8 Notably, the eight Nahua-speaking groups (­Tepaneca, Acolhuaque, Culhuaque, Xochimilca, Cuitlahuaca, Mixquica, Chalca and Mexica) that settled in central Mesoamerica cherished their ancestral migratory origin myths and valued communal memories of their hardy nomadic ancestor’s irruption into, and eventual ascendency over, the civilised portion of Mesoamerica: like Ottoman evocations of camp-sites on the steppe in Istanbul’s Topkapi palace, or their use of horse-mane standards.9 Despite the importance of these ancestral cultural differentiations, however, the number of tribes that constituted a polity (usually four, eight or seven) was tailored to artificial numerological or practical considerations, rather than historical accident.10 This suggests 6

For a useful discussion of ‘segmentation’ in Mesoamerican polities see Pedro Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire of Ancient Mexico: The Triple alliance of Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco and Tlacopan (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 421–33; James Lockhart, Los Nahuas después de la conquista (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1999), 145 and 149 with references to Sahagún in n. 34. Also see Margarita Menegus Borneman and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: unam, 2005), 253ff. 7 Viviana Díaz Balsera, ‘Celebrating the Rise of a New Sun: The Tlaxcalans Conquer Jerusalem In 1539’ in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl, 39, no. 039 (2008), esp. 327–28. 8 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 223f; Menegus Bornema and Aguirre Salvador eds., El cacicazgo, 16–17 and 27f; For Oaxaca see Fr. Diego Durán, The Aztecs; the history of the Indies of New Spain, trans., Doris Heyden (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 236. 9 Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952), ­4–6. Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Historia de la nación Chichimeca, G. Vázquez ed. ­(Madrid, 1985). 10 Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire, 421–28 and Lockhart, Los Nahuas, Ch. 2.

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that Mesoamerican polities were organised along ‘rational’ lines, and points to the power that princes enjoyed to shape their societies.11 According to a standard Nahua expression, a prince was the ‘iyollo altepetl’ – ‘the heart of the polity’. It was assumed that he (or occasionally she) enjoyed divine favour; but a prince’s worldly power depended on their legitimate possession of their polity’s preeminent palace (tecpan-calli or teccalli in Nahuatl). Sahagún’s Nahua informants, in the first 40–60 years after the conquest of Mexico, described princely palaces as both communal spaces – ‘houses of the public (casas del pueblo) where the law-courts gathered and the lords came together to determine public affairs’ – and as a prince’s personal possession – ‘royal houses where the lords lived’.12 Archaeological remains confirm literary and pictographic assertions regarding the ubiquity of princely palaces and their conspicuous physical presence in Mesoamerican towns. They usually stood either in the ‘sacred precinct’ amongst the temples, or facing the central square. Even in small polities like that which included the humble town C ­ hiconautla in the Teotihuacan valley, the palace, which measured 25 meters by 25, was three times larger than the next largest habitation uncovered by archaeologists.13 Some of the larger palaces or palatial complexes contained gardens, ponds, temascal baths, ball-courts for ritualised games common throughout Mesoamerica, and even, as in the case of Texcoco, hosted the polity’s markets. Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin’s square-shaped palace, which stood on the site of Mexico’s current National Palace and which Sahagún’s informants described in detail, was purpose-built in its entirety at some point after his accession in 1502 to display unparalleled wealth and imperial pretensions, rather than historical accretion; but it was not the largest palace in Mesoamerica: Nezahualcoyotl’s sprawling, irregular complex in Texcoco was said to measure one square kilometre (see Fig. 1).14 In codices and ‘chronological maps’ we can see how indigenous scribes (tlacuilos in Nahuatl) depicted the essential nexus between a prince and their 11

12

13 14

Analogous examples in archaic Greece such as Cleisthenes’ reforms of the tribes of Sicyon descsribed in Herodotus Bk. 6. For a discussion about the term ‘rational’ in this context see Oswyn Murray, ‘Cities of Reason’ in Oswyn Murray and Simon R.F. Price eds., The Greek City: from Homer to Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). Bernaldino de Sahagún, Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España, Vol. 2. eds. Josefina García Quintana and Alfredo López Austin (Mexico: conaculta, 2000). Bk. 11, Ch. xii, 813 and Bk. 8, Ch. xiv de la manera de las casas reales, 517f and Bk. 11, Ch. xii, 813; with Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 20–24; for another example, see Gibson, Tlaxcala, 110–12. Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 33. Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 27.

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palace as the embodiment of an autonomous polity. Princes appear near their palace or in a chamber carpeted with petlatl reed-mats (no unlike Japanese tatami), often sitting on elaborate reed-thrones (icapilli, icpalli, or icipalli in Nahuatl; tayu in Mixtec).15 These pictographic conventions corresponded to terms like ‘in petlatl, in icpalli’ – ‘the mat, the throne’, in Nahuatl, which represented tlatocayotl – lordship – and ‘petlapan, ycpalpan nica’, whose literal meaning was ‘to be on top of mats’ but which was understood as ‘to govern or hold office’; or analogous Mixtec terms like tayu or yahuitayo, which could mean both princely palace and reed-throne depending on the context.16 ­After the Conquest, Indio scribes devoted the central pages of the Mendoza and Quinatzin codices to loving illustrations of Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin and ­Nezahualpilli’s palaces, respectively, as the locus of their polity’s political authority; its forum for public debate; court for the arbitration of justice; offices for the organization of commerce; and school or the cultivation of civic virtues and the arts.17 Conversely, when the same scribes painted their polity’s warriors dragging captured enemy princes away from toppled, ransacked palaces, they were portraying the defining act of conquest in Mesoamerica.18 A prince retained his authority so long as he kept control of his polity’s preeminent palace; even if, for example, the polity’s once preeminent divinity was discredited by its failure to protect its worshippers from defeat and replaced by another patron god, or captured by victorious enemy forces. Similarly a polity’s autonomy could endure changes in princely dynasties and even rule by prestigious foreigners so long as the palace survived and its chosen prince ruled from its matted halls. Princely palaces were one of the polity’s defining institutions. As such they counted on the income from entailed lands (tecpantlalli in Nahuatl), independently of the current prince’s properties, to guarantee its upkeep.19 15 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 154, 162–63, 172 and 173–74 with notes. 16 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 309. For Mixtecs see e.g. Kevin Terraciano, The Mixtecs of Colonial Oaxaca: Ñudzahui History, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 400. 17 See for example Eduardo de J. Douglas, In the Palace of Nezahualcoyotl: Painting manuscripts, writing the prehispanic past in eary-colonial period Tetzcoco, Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010), esp. 49 for a description of the two portrayals and 84f; for a more detailed description of Nezahualcoyotl’s palace see Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 24–29. 18 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 324; Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 29 and 38. 19 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 223f and Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador eds., El cacicazgo, 16 and 27f.

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Its ­ institutional role distinguished a princely palace from private villas ­constructed for the enjoyment of wealthy aristocrats and the distinction was vitally important: according to Alva Ixtlilxochitl, writing in the early 17th century, Nezahualpilli was forced to put one of his sons to death for erecting an unauthorised palace for himself. He does not mention what distinguished this structure from merely a grand private residence but if this represents an accurate, or at least a credible, memory it illustrates the extent to which palaces had become associated with autonomous lordship – making them a matter of public concern with perhaps similar restrictions as those attached to the severely circumscribed erection of castles in European kingdoms.20 Most of our evidence regarding the detail of princely palaces comes from the wealthy and relatively new polities of the valley of Mexico, where one might expect such concentrations of political power and wealth to have arisen. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the appeal of palatial government had also been growing amongst the more ancient cultures of Oaxaca, at least since the first millennium. There, princely palaces had become more ubiquitous since the demise of the great imperial hubs like Monte Alban, giving rise to the more autonomous ñuu or quiche style of polity; and the new palatial structures that accompanied these polities were becoming noticeably larger and increasingly magnificent by the 14th century. By the 15th century the appeal of princely palaces had spread westwards to the burgeoning Tarascan Empire in the Purehpecha heartlands centred on Lake Patzcuaro and Cuitzeo in Michoacán, areas that did not previously have the same traditions of palatial government as central and southern Mesoamerica.21 The most characteristic public feature of Mesoamerican palaces was their alfresco, but enclosed, courtyard that served as the focal point for communal political engagement, as well as certain pedagogical exchanges. In most known instances it seems to have opened onto a principal town’s main square, further suggesting its public role.22 Most importantly for our purposes it acted as the setting for the polity’s general assemblies, and the public space where petitioners could gather to express and seek redress for their concerns, as described 20

21

22

For the best discussion of the relevant archaeological evidence see Toby Evans and Pillsbury, Palaces of the Ancient New World, 7–58 and 16 for Ixtlilxochitl’s claim about Nezahulpilli’s son; Pedro Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas tramontanos’ in Tlalocan, Vol. v, No. 2 (1966), 133f, esp. 138 offers a useful discussion. See Ernesto González Licon, ‘Royal Palaces and Painted Tombs: State and Society in the Valley of Oaxaca’, esp. 104–07 and Ben A. Nelson, ‘Elite residences in West Mexico’, esp. 74–75 in Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World. Ibid., 14f.

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in the Mixtec Relación de Atlatlauca and Malinaltepeque: ‘and all the people’s complaints and requests and embassies coming from elsewhere were attended by these old men and after they discussed these matters with their chief, they declared to the people their chief’s will.’23 At more important events it hosted assemblies of noblemen and tribal lords, like Tlaxcala’s reputed ‘senate’ of 220.24 In hegemonic (see below) towns like Texcoco, princes gathered there from dependent polities like those depicted in the Quinatzin Map. As the Quinatzin Map also suggests, these courtyards served other communal functions such as the stockpiling of military equipment; receiving merchants and their wares; fostering arts and poetry. It has been plausibly argued that the ubiquitous, sui-generis, ‘open chapels’ or ‘Indian chapels’ of Mesoamerica’s early convents were a conscious appropriation of these palatial spaces, converting them into a new communal arena, an ecclesia, for newly-won indigenous adherents to Christianity. During dangerous periods of interregnum palaces became the most tangible symbols of political continuity: retaining their governmental functions and housing the public rites of accession that culminated in the new prince taking formal possession of the palace. After the election and religious rites ended, a prince-elect was left alone, bereft of property in the community’s empty palace until his ‘afflicted’ relatives and their plebeian vassals would return to redeem him, symbolically renewing the bonds and covenants between lord and community: ‘and though everything he had given and spent [during the interregnum] had come from them, they in turn offered to give him everything they possessed because he had been left with nothing, because they had pity on him, and because he would take it anyway if they did not grant it to him.’25 A palace’s warehouses (petlacalco in Nahuatl), where a new prince’s vassals would have deposited many of their gifts in accession rituals, are often ­overlooked but they provided essential functions for the polity and acted as an indispensable mainstay of princely authority. These palatial warehouses stored tributary and other dues, and were large enough to hold ‘the provision of the city and republic’: according to Sahagún’s informants, just one of the several rooms assigned to storing maize in Motecuhzoma’s palace, could store 2000 fanegas – about 110,000 litres – of maize, while similar rooms stored ­quantities of other staple goods including all-important reserves of salt and

23 Ibid., 104. 24 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 110–12. 25 Pedro Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas tramontanos’ in Tlalocan, Vol. v, No. 2 (1966), 133f and 138; with Sahagún, Historia General, Bk. 8, Ch. xviii, esp. 527f.

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Figure 1

Communal memories of Texcoco’s once magnificent princely palace persisted after its destruction at the hands of Tlaxcalan forces during the Conquest. In the Q ­ uinatzin Map, probably dating to the mid-sixteenth century, it is rendered ­ideally: its courtyard and chambers encompassing the public, private and ritualistic ­activities that Mesoamerican polities expected to perform in those essential spaces. reproduced with permission from the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

seeds for sowing.26 As such palaces also acted as a polity’s only known form of communal granary, staving off starvation in times of need, and furnishing seeds from its reserves to sow the fields after a crop-failure (a recurring danger in central Mesoamerica due to the region’s dependence on seasonal rainfall and t­ emperature; its paucity of navigable waterways and lack of beasts of burden to transport foodstuffs more effectively than human porters, who would consume more than they could carry after relatively short distances).27 26 27

For archaeological evidence see Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 35. Alan Knight, Mexico: From the beginning to the Spanish conquest (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 165f and 181f.

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Alva ­Ixtlilxochitl, for example, recalled the tradition that Nezahualpilli’s ­palace ­granary in ­Texcoco held 5,000 fanegas of maize for just such eventualities and that he had used these reserves to stave off famine in his polity during consecutive lean years in 1505 and 1506.28 Mesoamerican palaces retained this crucial attribute after the Conquest, which struck foreign witnesses, like Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo who calculated that the ‘granary’ in Mexico City’s palace could hold 70–80,000 fanegas of corn (105,000 to 120,000 bushels of corn).29 In times of war the reserves that were kept in the storehouses supplied at least part of a polity’s military activity; or they could be used to fulfil a polity’s obligation to feed allied or imperial armies passing through their territory. Apart from foodstuffs these rooms housed luxury goods, like quetzal feathers or cocoa, which a polity might receive as tribute or through trade. Conversely, in the provinces where this obligation applied, tributary dues were prepared at this central location before they were dispatched to the imperial court of Tenochtitlan or Texcoco, for example. Control of these storehouses enhanced a prince’s coercive power too. Even during times of plenty the p ­ alace-nobility could corner valuable resources in the non-monetised barter economy of ­Mesoamerica, control their distribution through patronage and regulate regional markets more easily to their advantage.30 Normally a polity judged their prince’s right to rule based on the interplay between his level of consanguinity with the polity’s previous rulers and evidence of his virtues, which they measured in relation to accepted norms of noble behaviour. According to the Florentine Codex, for example, when choosing a new prince Tenochtitlan’s electors sought, ideally, ‘one of the most noble of the line of the previous lords, who was a brave man, well versed in war-like matters, daring and full of spirit, who did not know how to drink wine, who was prudent and wise, who had been brought up in the calmecac (a school for the education of noblemen), who was eloquent and well informed and honest and loving’.31 Consanguinity determined the natural, assumed, field of heirs presumptive; but the prevalence of polygamous practices and lack of fixed hierarchy of 28 29

Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 28. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Misfortunes and Shipwrecks in the Seas of the Indies, ­Islands, and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, 1513–1548: Book Fifty of the General and Natural ­History of the Indies, ed. and trans. Glen F. Dille (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2011), 64. 30 Toby Evans and Pillsbury eds., Palaces of the Ancient New World, 35; Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador eds., El cacicazgo, 165f; for its importance in funding military activity see Sahagún, Historia General, 523; and Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 65–70. 31 Sahagún, Historia General, Bk. 8, Ch. xviii, 527.

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lineage, like primogeniture in Europe, left the potential field relatively open. There are examples of almost any member of a princely dynasty ascending to the reed-throne, including, exceptionally, females.32 Nor did the bias in favour of consanguinity necessarily exclude individuals who had no initial connection to a polity’s ruling dynasty. According to tradition the Mexica invited Acampichtli to rule as their prince in 1376 because he belonged to the powerful dynasty of Culhuacan and boasted of a prestigious Toltec heritage that would add lustre to their polity of despised recent migrants. On the other hand, Mixtec codices produced in the generation before the Conquest recalled how, in the 11th century, lord 8-Deer ‘Jaguar-Claw’ emerged from a cave, rather than the womb of a member of a princely dynasty, but through his merits attained  the lordship of Tilantongo at a time of crisis. He engaged in a series judicious marital alliances and successful military ventures that allowed him to establish his line’s hegemony over the surrounding polities of the Mixteca Alta, down to the coast. 8-Deer legitimised his hegemony through acts of ritual piety, marital alliances with the more established ruling dynasties he had defeated, until 4-Jaguar ‘Face of the Night’, a Toltec lord, recognised his status in the culturally prestigious polity of Cholula (see Fig. 2). 8-Deer’s eventual defeat and sacrifice did not prevent his several offspring from maintaining their princely status in the polities he had distributed amongst them.33 Unless a foreign power imposed its choice of prince through force or intimidation, a polity’s political elite relied on a variety of sui generis practices for determining who would succeed from among its eligible candidates.34 ­Genetic proximity to the new prince and his subsequent determinations on the matter would define membership to the polity’s nobility. Like princes, noblemen differentiated themselves from the rest of the population by in the first instance by claiming descent from their polity’s governing dynasty. Pilli (plural pipiltin), the generic name for ‘nobleman’ in Nahuatl, like the Spanish term hidalgo, to which it would be commonly translated in the sixteenth century, meant ‘son of something’. Nobility, like princely lordship, was not intrinsic to the individual but linked to the exercise of political power: noblemen did not hold 32 Motolinía, Historia, 97–98. 33 Codex Bodley, ms. Mex. d.1 p.009, 113, B033; with Arthur A. Joyce, Andrew G. Workinger, Byron Hamann, Peter Kroefges, Maxine Oland, and Stacie M. King. ‘Lord 8-Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’ and the Land of the Sky: the archaeology and history of Tututepec.’ Latin American Antiquity (2004): 273–97; Michel R. Oudijk, ‘The Postclassic Period in the Valley of Oaxaca’ in After Monte Albán: Transformation and Negotiation in Oaxaca, Mexico (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2008), esp. 109–11. 34 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 303–32.

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autonomous inheritable titles of the sort that were guaranteed in codified laws and customs in Europe; and while individual noblemen could own moveable wealth and estates that were worked by serf-like dependents or tenant farmers (known variously from post-conquest documents as mayeques, naborias or terrazgueros) this kind of patrimonial property depended on the prince’s consent. Although a nobleman could theoretically transmit his status to all his offspring, most polities lived in, at best, a ‘zero-sum’ scenario in terms of ­available resources, titles and offices that sustained noble status. Only a proportion of each new generation born of noble parents could expect to enforce their claim to their progenitor’s status, unless a polity could improve its condition through conquest, enhance its tributary income or incorporate immigrants in the fashion of the imperial polities of Tenochtitlan’s ‘triple alliance’. A nobleman’s status, his sense of legitimacy and his wealth were bound up with his position in the palace’s hierarchy of offices, and princely preference, or his leadership one of the polity’s tribal segments. Those members of the nobility that lost out in the competition faced being subsumed in the general mass of the plebeian population. In Tlaxcala, for example, the ambiguous status of recently derogated individuals earned them the denomination teixhuiuh, literally ‘the grandsons of someone [important]’, to contrast them with pilli, ‘son of someone [important]’.35 Fears of derogation from noble status are evident in the admonitions of the huehuehtlahtolli – didactic verses that young noblemen learned through recitation to the rhythmic beating of a Tlatol drum- as they were recorded in later in the sixteenth century: Whatever you do, warned one, don’t risk everything on an uncertain or risky venture ‘don’t lose your station, don’t lose your command; don’t dive into the water, don’t jump from the cliff, don’t lose strength, don’t lose consciousness.’36 Otherwise ‘there you will lose your lineage, the bond with your descendants; you will deserve the old truss, the old cape.’ To do so might condemn one’s family to live harsh lives far from grace or c­ ivilisation or the palace: ‘… you will be cast away, you will be persecuted, you will make rabbits, and you will make deer of your wife and your children. N ­ owhere will be your house, you will never see the interior of your home …’37 In times of political crisis, like the disputed election of a new prince, the hierarchical flexibility and segmentation that characterised Mesoamerican polities could turn from aiding social association between different groups, to abetting s­ ocial ­resentment 35 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 145. 36 Miguel León-Portilla, Huehuehtlahtolli: Testimonios de la antigua palabra (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 145–48. 37 Ibid., 174.

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Figure 2

chapter 1

Several ruling dynasties in the Mixteca Alta region of Oaxaca claimed descent from lord 8-Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’ and attributed to their ancestor a standard sequence of notable struggles, achievements and pieties that allow us to glean indigenous ‘ideals of life’. In this section of the Codex Bodley, produced before the Conquest, 8-Deer ‘Jaguar Claw’ undergoes a ritual piercing of his septum at the hands of 4-Jaguar ‘Face of the Night’, lord of the influential Toltec polity Cholula to have his achievements sanctioned by a respected authority beyond the Mixtec sphere. reproduced with permission from the Bodleian library, Oxford.

and polarisation along ethnic lines, making outbreaks of civil discord acrimonious affairs.38 Exile for the losing faction was one, at least ­temporary, solution to such social and political crises. When Cortés arrived in the region there were 15,000 Chalca exiles biding their time in Huexotzinco and plotting their return home.39 Full-blown insurrection was offered an alternative path to power for popular and talented leaders of the excluded; but the common outcome of such civil strife was a ‘blood-bath’ where either the losers or the unsuccessful new prince and his faction were violently repressed.40 38 Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire, 428; Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 307. 39 Schroeder, Chimalpahin, 97. 40 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 53.

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To avoid civil war a prince or a nobleman sought to legitimise their right to rule by acting in accordance to norms of service to the polity that justified their privileged status. In one huehuehtlahtolli dialogue a father asked of his son: ‘Will you defend and give lustre to your nobility; that of your descendants; that which carries the attribute of the eagle; the jaguar? And will you work hard like the eagle; like the jaguar that you may walk tall like them?’41 Like European nobles they tended to associate nobility with predatory animals in contrast to the vulnerable rabbits and deer they linked with the poor, the vulnerable, and the dispossessed. However Noblesse oblige, so noblemen were admonished to struggle constantly in the service of their community: [B]ecause you are the mother of the people, their father; because you educate men, you teach them; you are their protector, the one with the broad back who carries them; what you carry on your back is great i­ ndeed, great is your responsibility, because you are ceiba, ahuehuete; because you give shadow, you give protection; you give shelter; you are the relief and the remedy. Next to you come your vassals, those who share your blood and your colour; those who rise from you, your dependants, your family, your relatives, your kin …42 To behave like a true lord would guarantee that ‘your fame will never be forgotten or lost … God, lord of the earth has favoured you; let Him give you honour, heighten your attributes of mother, of father, your charge, your lordship, your government, your fame, your honour …’. They often end with the admonition to ‘work hard my son!’ A community’s common stock of historical exempla reinforced these ideals and displayed them visibly in murals or what Spaniards called lienzos: painted cotton sheets that hung on the walls of palaces and mansions and described the more glorious episodes of a polity or its dynasty – divinely inspired migrations; successful military exploits; and acts of piety.43 Similar exempla are also evident in in the memorialisation of great men, which form such a prominent part of the ‘ethno-historic data’ recorded after the conquest.44 Political routines – such as the election of a new prince, or the military campaigns that princes-elect in Tenochtitlan were obliged to conduct before their enthronement – and civic or religious ceremonial – like the palace rites 41 Leon-Portilla, Huehuehtlahtolli, 113. 42 Ibid., 131. 43 Laura E. Matthew and Michael R. Oudijk eds., Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 18. 44 Durán, The Aztecs, 72ff; S.A. Colston, ‘Tlacaelel’s Descendants and the Authorship of the “Historia Mexicana”’ in Indiana, Bd. 2 (1974), S. 69–72.

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described above or the elaborate rituals that associated a prince-elect with ­divine favour – aimed to diffuse the potential social tensions that emerged from fears of derogation that accompanied every succession.45 These exempla, routines and ceremonies emphasised a paternalist notion of public virtue in benefit of the polity as the root of Mesoamerican ‘ideals of life’ for the nobility: the exercise of lordship – rather than inherent status or the nexus between land and title – guaranteed a person’s nobility.46 The person of the prince, defined the direction of dynastic lines of inheritance; and his control of the palace and its resources allowed him to determine appointments to public offices or military commands that justified an individual’s inherited or, occasionally, acquired nobility. Unsurprisingly Mesoamerican noblemen evinced a competitive ethos that led to the emergence, not of a purely ‘meritocratic’ society as some have claimed, but of a recognisably courtly type of ‘­nobility of service’: eager to embrace the responsibilities of palatial government and the risks battle.47 Noblemen by consanguinity to the prince were best placed to compete for the most prestigious positions in a polity: they enjoyed the prince’s a priori consideration, as well as access to better equipment and training in schools of v­ irtue like the calmecac in Tenochtitlan.48 However, Mesoamerican societies also countenanced avenues for the ennoblement of plebeians and even foreigners. In pre-conquest Mesoamerica warfare was ‘procedural’, and the hegemonic Nahua valued prowess and success in war especially highly.49 As ­Sahagún’s ­informants put it ‘The most principal office of a lord is warfare either to defend himself from his enemies or to conquer foreign provinces’. After ­battle ‘…[R]eports were made of who had done best in combat, that they may be rewarded with honour and gifts, especially if they were of noble lineage.’50 In  Tenochtitlan plebeian ennoblement was common enough for it to enjoy a fixed terminology. Those who achieved success in war could ascend to the status of cuauhpilli (literally ‘eagle-descendant’ or ‘eagle-noble’)  – a term that ­became synonymous with nobility by merit. A cuauhpilli was ­entitled 45 Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 303–32. 46 Sahagún, Historia General, Bk. 8, Ch. iv and vi which clearly resonate with the didactic injunctions of the Huehuehtlahtolli. 47 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 67; Nicholas Cheetham, New Spain: The birth of modern Mexico (London: Gollancz, 1974), 48. 48 Hassig, War and Society, 140. 49 Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 23. 50 Sahagún, Historia General, Bk. 8, Ch. xvii, entitled ‘on the things which the lords devoted themselves to in order to govern well their domains’, 522–524.

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to a ­palace and household, called a yaotequihuacacalli;51 they were invited to join the polity’s ‘council of war’ in the princely palace and even a military ­command in subsequent campaigns. The acknowledgement of a cuauhpilli’s virtues, combined with his distance from the intricacies of noble faction, made such individuals ideally suited to act as trustworthy interim governors (cuauh­­ tlatoani, literally ‘eagle-prince’) while the succession was determined and the accompanying rituals completed: a process that could take several months. As we should expect from societies accustomed to incorporating migrants, similar principles of associations affected attitudes towards foreigners who exhibited worthy virtues that could serve the polity. Usually this involved ­employing the specialised skills of particular ethnic groups – like Texcocan architects in Tenochtitlan or Otomi mercenaries in Tlaxcala – but perhaps the most intriguing example is that of the Tlaxcalan – possibly Otomi-Tlaxcalan – nobleman called Tlahuicolli. Both Duran’s hostile Tenochca sources and Diego Muñoz Camargo’s patriotic Historia Tlaxcalteca agree that Tlahuicolli was a supremely talented warrior and military commander that the Tenochca captured, ennobled, and employed in several campaigns until the contradictions between his native and acquired loyalties induced him to commit suicide.52 Plebeians who made their name in warfare found it possible to attain high political office later in life, as was the case with Motelchiuhtzin, Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin’s Cihuacoatl.53 Wealth was another, though rarer, path to noble status. Officially recognised merchants, like the Nahua pochteca held a privileged position within the plebeian classes: their relatively cosmopolitan knowledge, which included their geographical awareness of paths and routes to distant areas; their far-flung network of commercial associates or guest-friends; and the news they brought from the distant territories they visited, gave them a distinguished social status. Consequently, successful pochteca families were known to have married into noble dynasties and for their descendants to have enjoyed the attributes of nobility forming a part of the hereditary palace cliques within the districts or polities.54 Tlatocayotl was rooted in specific localities and its ethos of service was aimed at a particular polity. By the turn of the sixteenth century most polities were 51 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 161f. 52 Durán, The Aztecs, 447–49; Diego Muñoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala (1591), eds. A. Chavero and E. Aviña Levi (Guadalajara: Edmundo Avina Levy, 1972), 125–28, Ch. xv. 53 Rossend Rovira Mondrago, ‘De valeroso quauhpilli a denostado quauhtlatoani entre los Tenochcas: Radiografía histórica de don Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuhtzon’, Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 45 (2013), 157–95. 54 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 149.

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engaged in supra-polity arrangements, which, although they never replaced the polity as the main context for political life in Mesoamerica, affected the ambitions, expectations and strategies of its competitive nobilities. In this regard we can draw some illuminating analogies between Mesoamerican polities and ancient Greek poleis.55 In particular with regards to what classical scholars have termed ‘peer-polity’ interactions and the resultant ‘micro-imperialism’ that some poleis, like some polities, aimed to achieve over their immediate, natural, geographic space.56 In both cases local competition, fear of overbearing neighbours and the threat of internal strife (what the Greeks called stasis) induced polity elites to engaged in arrangements with other polities that we can categorise as confederations, hegemonies and (more unusually) empires. The misnamed ‘Aztec Empire’ encompassed illustrative examples of all three types of supra-polity arrangement. In 1427, by traditional reckoning, the polities of Tenochtitlan, Tlatelolco, Texcoco and Tacuba, formed a confederacy known as the ‘triple alliance’ to overthrow Azcapotzalco, at that time the dominant power in the Valley of Mexico.57 The triple alliance’s triumph ensured that Texcoco, until then Azcapotzalco’s confederate, retained its ancestral hegemony over fellow Acolhuaque polities in the eastern part of the valley; Tacuba acquired a new prominence over some of its fellow Tepanec polities on the western shores of the lake; and the newly powerful Mexica polities of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco replaced Azcapotzalco’s hegemony over a combination of all the other Nahua-speaking polities in the rest of the Valley of Mexico, sometimes known as Colhua. The princes of these hegemonic polities styled themselves generically as huey-tlatoani (roughly, ‘great-princes’); and more specifically Chichimecatecuhtli (Chichimeca-lord) and Colhuatecuhtli (lord of Colhua) in the case of Texcoco and Tenochtitlan respectively. Their titles expressed a sense of their natural authority over polities that shared an ethnic kinship and common ritualistic and calendric practices. A huey ­tlatoani 55

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57

See e.g. James Lockhart, ‘Double Mistaken Identity: Some Nahua Concepts in Postconquest Guise’ in Of Things of the Indies: Essays Old and New in Early Latin American History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 99. See e.g. John Ma, ‘Peer Polity Interaction in the Hellenistic Age’ in Past & Present 180 (2003), 9–39; Nicole Loraux, La cité divisée: l’oubli dans la mémoire d’Athènes (Paris: Payot, 1997); for ‘micro-imperialism’ see John Ma, ‘Fighting Poleis of the Hellenistic World’ in eds. H. van Wees and Paul Beston, War and Violence in Ancient Greece (London: Duckworth, 2000), 337–76. For a recent overview see María Castañeda de la Paz, Conflictos y alianzas en tiempos de cambio: Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Tenochtitlan y Tlatelolco (siglos xii–xvi) (Mexico: unam, 2013). Tlaxcala offers another well-studied example of a confederacy; see, e.g., Lockhart, ­Nahuas and Spaniards, 25–31; Gibson, Tlaxcala, 105ff.

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reserved the right to interfere in the princely succession of polities under their hegemonic authority and could demand their participation in military ­campaigns and tributary contributions; but the hegemon also took care to preside over assemblies composed of princes from the polities he led in order to maintain a degree of consent for his decisions.58 In some ways, therefore, hegemonies operated like a scaled up version of the segmented relationship between a polity’s tribes. Beyond its natural ambit of hegemonic authority Tenochtitlan was more explicitly predatory and reliant on violence or the threat of violence to secure its domination. Imperial conquests, like those memorialized in the ‘Stone of Tizoc’ or the Codex Mendoza, normally meant the co-option, intimidation or substitution by force of a defeated polity’s ruling dynasty and the capture, denigration or destruction of its preeminent deity, rather than the extinction of the polity itself (see Fig. 3). The aim was to secure the subjugated polity’s tribute and assistance on military campaigns.59 However, the fate of Xochimilco and the 27 polities of the Chalca confederacy, who Tenochtitlan conquered in c.1465, offer stark examples of innovative forms of Tenochca imperialism (as innovative, though in different ways, as the Athenian Empire in the fifth century bce). For a generation Tenochtitlan supplanted the region’s native dynasties with Tenochca governors (Tlenamacaque and Papahuaque in Nahuatl, which Sahagún translated as Satraps) and the grandsons of the deposed Chalca princes that it restored to their ancestral titles were the offspring of the Tenochca prince Acampichtli and his captive Chalca princesses.60 Tenochtitlan also confiscated large parcels of land for ­redistribution amongst Tenochca settlers and imposed a heavy tribute in food-stuffs, due every 80 days, known as the Chinampaneca ­Tlacalaquilli. The ­severity of Tenochtitlan’s impositions spoke to the region’s strategic ­importance: ­Xochimilco’s exceptionally fertile chinampas (­agricultural plots reclaimed from the sweet-water lake) and Chalco’s extensive hinterland of wellwatered volcanic soil, produced enormous surpluses of food that, u ­ nusually in ­Mesoamerica, could be transported efficiently to Tenochtitlan due to the 58 Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire, 424f; Marcus, Mesoamerican Writing Systems, 149; Douglas, In the Palace of Nezahualcoyotl, 84f. For other types of hegemony see e.g. Susan Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991), 98; Lockhart, Los Nahua, 44–45. 59 Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 12. 60 Schroeder, Chimalpahin, 96f; for other examples see Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 34f, esp. note 14; Thomas, Conquest, 27 and 31; for the use of ‘Satrap’ see Sahagún, Historia General, Vol. i, 527.

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region’s access to the lake they shared. Mexica preponderance came to depend on the Chinampaneca Tlacalaquilli as it allowed the imperial polity to maintain a far larger p ­ opulation than any of its friends or rivals – or indeed any other settlement in the Americas.61 As a result it was able to field Mesoamerica’s largest, best-trained, armies;62 and to send colonists to an estimated thirtyseven other r­ egions of strategic importance that it had conquered – including Oaxaca, Tochpan, and distant Soconusco – to act as the dominant tribe and ready-made militia in new-fangled polities that incorporated tribute-paying local populations under their control.63 Tenochca rulers aimed to aggrandise their own polity with these innovations, rather than to develop new forms of political community with their subjects. Even Tenochtitlan’s subjection of Tlatelolco, the Mexica confederate with which it shared a cramped lacustrine island, in c.1473 and the subsequent abolition of its princely dynasty, did not lead to a full integration of the two polities.64 In the shadow of Tenochtitlan’s ever taller pyramids, yearly ceremonies like the Tlacaxipehualiztli instilled, in their specially invited foreign guests, an awful respect for the imperial polity’s military might and pious willingness to secure divine preferment with the offer of human hearts; but there was no attempt 61 Carrasco, The Tenochca Empire, 429f; Knight, Mexico: From the beginning, 165f; M ­ argarita Menegus Borneman, Del Señorío a la rrepública de indios: el caso de Toluca: 1500–1600 (Mexico: conaculta, 1994), 68ff. 62 Thomas, Conquest, ‘Appendix A’ and Cheetham, New Spain, 48f for a general discussion. Sherburn F. Cooke and Woodrow Borah, The Indian Population Of Central Mexico 1531–1610 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1960), using rates of consumption to the amount of foodstuffs imported into Tlatelolco-Tenochtitlan, estimated that the city could have sustained up to 200,000 people in an area of between 8 and 13.5 km2. The analysis is heavily disputed, not least, in my view, because it suggests a comparable population density to today’s Delegación Cuauhtémoc, which encompasses the same area, but measures 32.44 km2 with a current population of 516,255 – one of the most densely populated parts of modern Mexico City. 63 Susan Toby Evans, Ancient Mexico and Central America archaeology and culture history (London: Thames and Hudson, 2008), 487: quoting Emily Umberger, ‘Aztec presence and material remains in the outer provinces’ in eds. Frances Berdan et al., Aztec Imperial Strategies (Washington dc: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1996), 178; Durán, The Aztecs, 236 for Oaxaca; Pérez-Rocha and Tena eds., La Nobleza Indígena, Doc. 3, ‘The Second Audiencia apprises a petition to Charles v by various principales of Mexico City’, 18 June 1532, 101; Margarita Menegus Borneman, Del Señorío a la república de indios: el caso de Toluca: 1500–1600 (Mexico: conaculta, 1994), 68ff. 64 María Castañeda de la Paz, ‘Apropiación de elementos y símbolos de legitimidad entre la nobleza indígena. El caso del cacicazgo tlatelolca’ in Anuario de estudios americanos 65, no. 1 (2008): 21–47, esp. 22–24.

Tlatocayotl and Hidalguía

Figure 3

41

The short rule of Tizoc as Huey Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan (c. 1481–1486) remained controversial even after the Conquest, with some Mexica sources claiming that he was murdered for his military incompetence. Conquest was an obvious measure of success for a Huey Tlatoani and this folio of the Codex Mendoza shows the polities Tizoc was said to have conquered. reproduced with permission from the Bodleian library, Oxford.

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to convert them in order to enjoy Xipe Tótec’s grace together as a community that transcended the polity.65 Even in the context of T ­ enochtitlan’s empire, Mesoamericans continued to define themselves by membership of a polity: time and again during the Conquest, for example, princes and colonists of Tenochca descent chose the interests of their adopted polities over their blood-relations in the imperial city.66 Nor were the Tenochcas interested in granting their status to members of other polities or in building ‘new Tenochtitlan’s’ elsewhere. If it’s true that cultures find mythologised animals ‘good to think with’67 then as Fernández-Armesto has acutely observed, the Tenochca ruling class reviewed their domain from the figurative perspective of an eagle, looking for prey to nourish its young and adorn their eyrie with the remains.68 It set a new standard for the wealth, power and glory that empire could garner for the lords of a polity; but the difference between it and other polities was only one of scale: the horizon of Mesoamerica’s political imagination remained the polity. To paraphrase Thucydides, Tenochtitlan did what it had the power to do and weaker rivals accepted what they had to accept.69 Loyalty to Tenochtitlan afforded its subject polities a measure of security from external enemies and promoted internal political stability. It also gave them a reliable access to the imperial city’s markets, which stocked rare and prized products from across Mesoamerica’s diverse ecologies: often the most appreciated symbols of status, like Quetzal feathers, cacao beans and jaguar pelts, and more essential products like salt from Tehuantepec. Enemies, like Tlaxcala for example, were excluded from the bonanza by trade embargoes, a fact they bitterly resented.70 Under Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (r. c.1502 to 1520) the Mexica experienced one of their periods of greatest imperial expansion and innovation. Emboldened after the New Fire ceremony of 1507 that renewed the cyclical calendar, the new huey tlatoani refreshed the higher echelons of the nobility after the consecutive rule of three brothers, and concentrated power on his new palace and away from Tenochtitlan’s former allies.71 As recent scholarship has ­pointed 65 Thomas, Conquest, 27 and 31. 66 See e.g. the example of Gonzalo Matzatzin Moctezuma in Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 34f. 67 Quoted in David A. Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical models in sixteenth century Spain (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 32. 68 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 1492: The Year Our World Began (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), 293. Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 12. 69 Thucydides, The history of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (London: Penguin Books, 1988), 5.84–116. 70 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 14f. 71 Thomas, Conquest, 38–39; Lopez Don, Bonfire of Cultures, 149f.

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out, Castilians and Mexica were ‘equally aggressive, equally dynamic, and equally self-confident warrior societies’ at their encounter.72 But the Mexica were one, albeit preponderant, polity. They defended their imperial dignity to the limit of their powers. Others in Mesoamerica were less confident.

Hidalguía in the New World up to 1521

‘Nothing is more obscure than human intentions’ according to Cicero.73 However, Francisco de Aguilar claimed that all it took was a simple promise to revive his spirits and those of his fellow Spaniards during the most disheartening moments of the Conquest: If they could only hold their nerve and triumph, their captain Hernán Cortés would assure them, the king was bound to make them all ‘Counts or Dukes and Lords by honorific title … and with these promises, from lambs we became lions’.74 Around two thirds of all Spaniards who partook in the Conquest would die in the attempt, illustrating just how disheartening their campaign through Mesoamerica could be;75 but as Cortés himself explained in 1526 ‘[it was] for the sake of gaining recognition as serving Your Majesty and his Royal and Imperial Crown, that I have put myself through such travails and sufferings’.76 Secular Spaniards in the Americas presented their actions in strikingly consistent terms that proclaimed their zeal for serving the monarch and their ­expectation that he would reward their services by ennobling them or affirming their nobility with aggrandising worldly rewards. In doing so they were emphasising a particular strand in European political theory, echoed in popular literature of the turn of the 16th century, which proclaimed that virtuous royal service was the defining justification of nobility. In contrast to Mesoamerican political culture, which was rooted in a specific polity, Spaniards in the ­Americas defended a notion of nobility that could be applied universally. Castilians found theoretical justifications for the nexus between royal service and nobility (hidalguía in Castilian) in the kingdom’s seminal law-code, 72 73 74 75 76

Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘“Aztec” auguries and memories of the conquest of Mexico’ Renaissance Studies Vol. 6, No. 3–4 (1992), 288. Cicero, ‘Pro Murena’, 36. Juan Miralles Ostos, Hernán Cortés: Inventor de México (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2001), 447; Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (London: Hutchinson, 1993), 543. Laura E. Matthew and Michael R. Oudijk eds., Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 25, n. 22. Hernán Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ed. Manuel Alcalá (Mexico: Porrúa, 1993), 5th letter, 280.

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known as the Siete Partidas of Alfonso x. The Partidas were compiled in the late thirteenth century and in 1491 they were printed for the first time, making their neo-Aristotelian discussion of hidalguía available to a wider public than ever before. Even a provincial adventurer like Cortés, who was not a trained lawyer (though he seems to have spent some time at the University of Salamanca in his teens) and left for the Caribbean in 1504 at the age of 19, knew the Partidas well enough to ‘justify and legalise his own very difficult position after breaking with the governor of Cuba … and setting off unauthorised on the conquest of Mexico’.77 The Partidas equated hidalgos with Aristotle’s ‘citizens’ in that they served the commonwealth voluntarily ‘with their persons’ as ‘warriors’ and ‘counsellors’. Titolo xxi of the 2nd Partida defined their purpose as Defensores, differentiating them from Labradores (Aristotle’s mechanics), who served the commonwealth indirectly through the economic contributions of tribute and labour; and Oradores (Aristotle’s priests) who mediated and interceded with the divine through prayers and spiritual guidance. The Duke of Nájera could put it simply to the Cortes (parliament) of Toledo: ‘The difference that exists between hidalgos and pecheros is between personal and monetary service [to the king] and in this we know one from another.’78 As with Aristotle’s citizens, virtue and its propagation, rather than erratic brutish strength, justified the status of the Defensores because it allowed them to fulfil their duties without resorting to arbitrary or irrational power.79 To be virtuous a nobleman needed to be a ‘free man’, equivalent to the chivalric virtue of franchise as well as classical notions of libertas.80 Only someone who was independent could act voluntarily or speak according to his own conscience. Dependence on another’s will conditioned an individual’s choices, actions and opinions making them untrustworthy in war and council. This explains why banausic activities, like wage-labour or commerce, were considered inherently antithetical to nobility. One of Miguel de Cervantes’ characters could go so far as to associate the qualities of nobles and workers with those of two different species: ‘The spirit of a knight, brother, is to put one’s life on the line, when and if it is necessary and to do so willingly; but to suffer every hour a thousand deaths carrying sticks and bundles without ever dying is more for horses (caballos) than for knights 77 78 79 80

John H. Elliott, ‘The Mental World of Hernán Cortés’ in John H. Elliott, Spain and Its World: 1500–1700 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 29–30. Joseph Pérez, Hidalgos et Hidalguía dans l’espagne des xvie–xviiie siècles (Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 1989), 12. sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, prologo. Maurice Keen, Chivalry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 149–59.

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(caballeros).’81 Breeding and wealth (particularly if it was inherited or granted by the sovereign) fostered virtue, but they were not essential ends or justifications for nobility. ‘Men of good lineage … guard themselves against committing any shameful deed [for the sake of their ancestor’s reputation] and hence they are called fijos dalgo (hidalgos) which is the same as saying “sons of virtue” or in other places, gentlemen … or the “noble and good”.’82 Independent wealth allowed noblemen the leisure to cultivate their virtues: in particular ‘becoming educated, as this is what makes a man most upright and accomplished in his doings’.83 As popular wisdom put it ‘some have likened nobility to the number zero, which by itself is worth nothing but together with another number, it makes it increase’.84 Royal service was perfect freedom and a nobleman’s duty: ‘[hidalgos] should not doubt to die for their lord, not only in protecting him from harm or evil, but increasing and improving his land and his honour, as far as they can do and know, and in doing so they will act for the common good of their land.’85 In exchange for their services monarchs were expected, but not obliged, to grant their noblemen mercedes – literally ‘mercies’ or rewards – that ran the gamut from salaried offices to parcels of land or gifts so long as they were at the crown’s expense: ‘Kings should honour them [hidalgos] as those with whom they share their work, keeping them and honouring them and increasing their power and honour.’86 To further emphasise that a nobleman’s service was voluntary he was exempt from direct taxation. His freedom from coercion was also safeguarded by immunity from confiscation of his house, his horse, or his sword for debt, and from torture during judicial proceedings. Only the crown could punish a nobleman for breaking the law and, in extreme cases where the penalty was death, a nobleman could expect the honour of decapitation rather than the humiliation of the gallows. As a final symbol of his freedom, and confidence in his virtue, the nobleman was trusted to appear armed in public in order to help him perform his duties, usually with a sword. These became the famous espada ropera which marked its wearer out as well as embodying the virtues that an hidalgo ideally espoused: ‘wisdom’ was represented 81 Pérez, Hidalgos et Hidalguía, 13. 82 sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, Lex ii. See with Aristotle, ‘Politics (Politica)’, Bk. vii, Ch. 9 in Aristotle ii, trans. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Random House, 1951), esp. 533. 83 sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, Lex v. 84 Floreto de Anécdotas y Noticias Diversas. (Que recopilo un fraile Dominico residente en ­Sevilla a mediados del siglo xvi), ed. F.J. Sánchez Cantón (Madrid: Imprenta y Editorial Maestre, 1948) (Hereafter, Floreto), 360–61. 85 sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, Lex xxi. 86 sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, Lex xxiii.

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in the ­handle, ‘fortitude’ in the pommel, ‘measure/proportion’ in the guard and ‘justice’ in the straight and double-edged blade.87 Castilian society in the late fifteenth century reflected the relative permeability that these notions of nobility implied. As in France, for example, all the offspring of a Castilian nobleman were notionally entitled to their father’s status; but only around one and a half per cent of the French population were considered noble, whereas in Castile (despite considerable regional variations) the figure was closer to 13 per cent of the population.88 The difference was cultural. Normally, in Castile, municipal officials called procuradores determined cases of disputed hidalguía based on local custom, which tended to value not so much that a claimant ‘possessed noble blood as, through the sophistries of the genealogists and the historian, [that he] be able to profess it, and hence to subscribe to its creed.’89 According to Castile’s most popular origin-myth, for example, a few Visigothic Christians resisted the eighth century Moorish conquest of Hispania from their redoubt in the mountains of Asturias and proceeded to elect Don Pelayo as their new king before he, in turn, granted them all hidalguía in exchange for their help in recovering the lost kingdom. In recognition of this tradition the inhabitants of Asturias paid no direct taxes to the crown. Elsewhere, the cruel hand of fortune may have suppressed any external evidence of an Old Christians’ nobility for as long as anyone could remember but, on this optimistic interpretation, it could be stirred from its slumber through virtue and recognised by a monarch whose own claims to that status were no older.90 As Jorge Manrique put it in the greatest poem of the period: ‘… the blood of the Goths/ and elevated lineage and nobility/ Through how many means and ways from its great height can be lost in this life! /Some for ­being worth so little … and others for not having enough/ are forced to maintain themselves with unworthy occupations’.91 Since all nobles could inherit their father’s status any ‘Old Christians’ – anyone without proximate Muslim or Jewish ancestry – could presume a noble ancestry by appealing to this tradition. Theoretically, therefore, nobility in Castile was neither mysteriously unattainable nor circumscribed by the equivalent of a Venetian ‘Golden Book’

87

sp, 2nd Partida, Titolo xxi, Lex iv; and Richard F. Burton, Book of the Sword (New York: Dover Publications, 1987), 122f. It was soon adopted by other European elites, called in France the épee ropier and rendered in English as the rapier. 88 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 203–04; for France see David Potter, A History of France 1460–1560: The Emergence of a Nation-State (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995), 170–73. 89 I.A.A. Thompson, ‘Neo-noble …’ European History Quarterly Vol. 15 (1985), p. 397. 90 Floreto, 355. 91 Jorge Manrique, ‘Coplas por la muerte de su padre’, c. 1476.

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or ­English traditions of peerage, where a nobleman’s younger offspring were treated legally as part of the commons. Ferdinand and Isabella presided over remarkable successes from the 1480s to the early 1500s that was initially facilitated by Spanish society’s traditions of ennoblement through royal service and in turn made them more relevant than ever in practice. Since the early fifteenth century a recognisably chivalric ethos played an important part in launching and sustaining both Portugal’s and Castile’s Atlantic expansion.92 The decade-long series of campaigns to conquer Granada (1482–1492) evoked – or recast – Reconquista origin myths and their righteous teleology, reawakening crusading associations of an iter per Hispania, and adding the more contemporary claim that their efforts represented Christendom’s first significant counter-strike after the loss of Constantinople to the apparent inexorability of Ottoman advances (see Fig. 4).93 Roussillon and Cerdagne were taken between 1492–3; and after Isabella’s death Ferdinand went on to intervene successfully in the Italian Wars; capture Oran, Bugia, Algiers, Tenes, Tremecen and Tripoli in North Africa before 1510. At the treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) Portugal agreed to cede any ‘Canary isle, won or any other yet to be won’ to Castile and with Isabella’s support the persistent but long underresourced efforts of the Peraza clan in the Canaries were reanimated so that within fifteen years Castilian forces all but extinguished the final remnants of native resistance. Finally, Columbus’ return in 1493 from the discovery of promising and populated archipelagos in the ‘Ocean Sea’ seemed to offer the prospect of winning over yet other ‘Canary isles’. Concurrently, the monarchs toured Castile nearly ceaselessly, dispensing royal justice in person, settling local disputes and, with their presence, exposing a large proportion of their subjects to the spectacle of their majesty.94 Castile’s titled dynasties (known as the ‘new nobility’ since their titles dated only from the Trastamaran usurpation of the latter half of the 14th century) and the kingdom’s ecclesiastical hierarchy gained new honours tied to vast estates in Andalusia from their monarchs. Furthermore a series of concessions from the Holy See, known together as the patronato regio, permitted the crown to determine major ecclesiastical appointments in their domains. Aristocrats and ­ecclesiastics found previously unparalleled opportunities to serve in commanding armies governing new domains and reforming the Church of their newly 92

93 94

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, ‘The Sea and Chivalry in Late Medieval Spain’ in John B. Hattendorf ed., Maritime History, i, The Age of Discovery (Malabar: Krieger Pub. Co., 1996), 137–48. Patrick J. O’Banion, ‘What has Iberia to do with Jerusalem? Crusade and the Spanish route to the Holy Land in the twelfth century’ Journal of Medieval History 34:4 (2008), 383–95. Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire (London: Penguin, 2003), 8.

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Figure 4

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At the bottom left of the reredos in the Royal Chapel at Granada, which houses the remains of Ferdinand and Isabella, a carved panel shows the Catholic Monarchs and a courtly host of knights and ladies entering Granada in triumph, in accordance with the gracious, chivalric impression of its conquest that circulated at the time. reproduced with permission from the Cabildo de la Capilla Real de Granada.

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illustrious ‘Catholic Kings’.95 The honour they found in this nexus ­quieted the rebelliousness that characterised their caste for much of the 15th century. Instead the crown was allowed to garner additional attributes, from the distribution of new governmental offices at their disposal to the appropriation of the mastership of their kingdoms’ chivalric orders, or support for ­Archbishop Cisneros’s programme of monastic reform. Success also induced Ferdinand and Isabella to aggrandise minor hidalgos like Francisco de Los Cobos,96 and ennoble deserving commoners on an unprecedented scale. They issued around 1000 letters patent of ennoblement during their 42-year reign, which contrasts revealingly with their contemporary Louis xi of France, whose kingdom was at least twice as populous but who issued only about 180 such patents in 22 years, or with Francis i’s 183 in 32 years.97 In Castile, most of these royal patents were granted to distinguished soldiers and administrators, but the royal mercedes accrued by Columbus, an explorer, provided the most extravagant example of ennoblement and consequent rise of a ‘new man’. Except for those excluded from royal grace – Jews and Moors most explicitly – ­Castilian society saw their monarchs as concerned allies and began to view them with a greater reverence than in the past – a change that royalist scholars, like Antonio de Nebrija, promoted in their political tracts.98 Witnesses to Castile’s triumphs achieved a charisma in the squares and taverns of their provincial municipalities, and in the half-built settlements of the Caribbean frontier. Cortés’s beloved father Martín served in the war against Granada and his emulous son, equating the notion of royal service anywhere with advancement and royal rewards, at one point considered seeking his ­fortune with the tercios in Italy before deciding to try his luck in America while he was stuck waiting for a ship in Valencia.99 In Cuba he was drawn to 95

Hugh Thomas, Rivers of Gold: the rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan (New York: Random House, 2004), 41; and Aurelio Espinosa, Empire of Cities: Emperor Charles v, the Comunero Revolt, and the Transformation of the Spanish system (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 36–40. 96 Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos: Secretary of the Emperor Charles v (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1960), 6f. 97 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 114f and Henry Kamen, Spain 1469–1714: a society of conflict (Harlow, England; New York: Pearson/Longman, 2005), 23; Potter, A History of France, 170–73. 98 John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 88–89 and 110f; Espinosa, Empire of Cities, 40–42; Keene, Chivalry, 69. For Nebrija see Elise Bartosik-Vélez, ‘Translatio Imperii: Virgil and Peter Martyr’s Columbus’, Comparative Literature Studies Vol. 46, No. 4 (2009), 559–88. 99 José-Luís Martínez, Hernán Cortés (Mexico: unam: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990), 113–14.

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Amador de Lares, who had also served Fernández de Cordoba as maestresala and, according to Las Casas, ‘often related the deeds of the Gran Capitán’. Nor did adventurers like Cortés forget these historical life ideals, even when the crown no longer seemed to share them: An aged Bernal Díaz del Castillo thought it fit to remind the king that ‘King James of Aragon defeated the Moors and took much of their land which he divided amongst the knights and soldiers that participated in the conquest and since those days they have their coats of arms and are brave, the same happened when Granada was captured, and in the time of the Great Captain at Naples, where lands and lordships were distributed to those that helped in wars and battles’.100 Royal service seemed to be a viable route to ennoblement, encouraging some and distressing others but imbuing society in general with what became known in the sixteenth century as an afán nobiliario: a mania for discussing the origin, nature and purpose of nobility.101 To paraphrase and adapt Johan Huizinga: The ideal ‘form’ of the nexus between nobility and service regained its ‘substance’ in the later 15th century because it appeared to ‘reflect’ the kingdom’s practices.102 By the sixteenth century Castilians who defended merit over birth, local tradition or wealth as the essence of nobility could argue that: there is no true hidalguía that is not created by the king … the republic also creates hidalgos, because in knowing a man to be brave and of great virtue and rich, it doesn’t dare to subject him, since this would be disproportionate, and he deserves … to live in liberty and not to be equalled with plebeian people; this esteem being handed down to his sons and grandchildren becomes nobility and they begin to acquire rights against him. Beyond theoretical polemics, Castilian society responded to the expansiveness of this period by equating it, atavistically, with a vindication of the worth and relevance of old chivalric values.103 Chronicles, memoirs and histories presented the war in Granada as an archetypally chivalric affair, particularly 100 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 589 and Ch. 207. 101 Ian A.A. Thompson, ‘Neo-noble Nobility: Concepts of hidalguía in Early Modern Castile’, European History Quarterly Vol. 15 (1985), esp. 397, and Elliott, Imperial Spain, 114–15. 102 John Huizinga, ‘Historical ideals of life’ in Men and ideas: history, middle ages the renaissance, trans. James S. Holmes and Hans van Marle (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1960), 77–96. 103 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘The origins of the European Atlantic’, in ed. José-Juan LópezPortillo, Spain, Portugal and the Atlantic frontier of medieval Europe (Farnham, England; Burlington, vt: Ashgate Variorum, 2013).

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with ­regards to the climactic events of the siege of the city itself, when the kings were in attendance at the gridiron neo-Roman castrum of Santa Fe.104 A decade later, Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo captured this spirit in his Amadís de Gaula ‘the most successful printed book of the early sixteenth century in Spain’,105 prompting several sequels and imitations. Tellingly this hero’s most prominent attribute was fidelity to his beloved and to his king and after fantastic voyages, trials and reversals of fortune he was rewarded. The appeal of this somewhat crass ‘pulp fiction’106 transcended class. Rodríguez de Montalvo belonged to the municipal bourgeoisie of the Castilian market-fair town of ­Medina del Campo, where he sat as a regidor (member of the municipal council) alongside the future conquistador of New Spain Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s father.107 Analogous provincial municipal hidalgos and their more aspirational plebeian neighbours were the romance’s natural constituency. But Amadís and the taste it inspired also found their way into the libraries of the great titled noblemen at the centre of court and cultural life, like that of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1st Duke of Infantado. The Mendozas were amongst the most classically inclined of the Castilian aristocracy but even Infantado’s preferences in this period ‘marked an important shift in [the Mendoza family’s] literary interests from classical antiquity to the medieval past’. In 1525 Francis i of France was drawn to read the romance in the Duke’s library during his forced sojourn in Spain after his capture at the battle of Pavia by three Spanish hidalgos, suggesting that Amadís retained a prominent role in the Duke’s collection, or at least in his affections, for many years after its publication. On his release Francis promptly ordered its translation into French.108 Chivalric romance occurred in a fantastical world. Unlike the Partidas it could not provide a serious political justification or legal precedent, but like the Classics and perhaps all other literature that is able to reflect the present (La Celestina’s memorable middlebrow wisdom was also much quoted at the time), it was ‘good to think with’. Amadís and its trope suggested archetypes that became common points of reference in Castile. Longing and the capacity for abstraction, which permits metaphor and simile, meant that unquiet young Castilians in parochial little municipalities could aspire to be ‘like’ Amadís if 104 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 1492: The year our world began (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 48–50. 105 Amadís de Gaula, intr. A. Souto Alabarce (Mexico: Porrúa, 1969), ixf. 106 Fernández-Armesto, ‘The origins of the European Atlantic’, 122. 107 Thomas, Rivers of Gold, 702 n. 54 with Amadís de Gaula, ixf. 108 Helen Nader, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance: 1350–1550 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979), 182.

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they set off for the coast to catch a boat for Italy or the Indies. The passions that reading such romances provoked in the context of Castile’s successes seared their spirit onto their reader’s imagination; so that when, for example, writing in old age, Díaz del Castillo sought to evoke his first glimpse of Tenochtitlan he chose to liken it to ‘an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadís …’ An ethos of direct royal service, reinforced by the charisma of chivalry, held a particular appeal for Spanish migrants of uncertain social status seeking to make their fortune in the New World. In Castile a person’s intention to serve the crown competed with, or was understood in the context of, other intrinsic loyalties: ties of kinship, municipal solidarity, bonds of deference to wealthy titled noblemen that bound society to specific places and people. These loyalties were diluted or dissolved in the passage to the New World. Spaniards in the Americas had little affection for the land they occupied or respect for the social hierarchies composed of other recent arrivals who, at best, might be kinsmen but were more often unknown competitors from unknown parts of the Iberian Peninsula, seeking to further their own interests at the cost others. For example, Spanish settlers affected to reproduce Iberian municipalities in the Caribbean because these ‘republics’ were the most obvious unit of public identity in their political imagination. But they created unconvincing reflections that generated little of the devotion to a patria chica, which animated their counterparts in Iberia. The first generation of settlers after 1492 willingly moved or disbanded their new municipalities according to practical ­convenience or to attain more important ends like royal recognition for their services: explicitly so when Cortés and his followers founded the notional municipality of Veracruz after scuttling their ships on the Mesoamerican mainland in April 1519. Castilian political culture was difficult to recreate in the conditions of the ­Caribbean, but royal service was sufficiently detached from a specific context to render it a viable aspiration. Royal grace could redeem, in this world, obscure backgrounds or unorthodox careers, trumping the prejudice of established hierarchies and norms from Castile. Whenever someone disputed his decisions Cortés would brush them off with a common saying among his fellow adventurers: ‘let the king be my fighting cock’.109 Recent Castilian history suggested that the crown would be receptive to the claims of Spanish adventurers to be serving the crown’s interests; as did an optimistic reading of the legal norms that the crown established to determine authority in its expanding American domains. The capitulaciones of Santa Fe had originally granted Columbus sole authority over any lands he might ­discover 109 Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés the life of the conqueror by his secretary, ed. and trans. ­Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 385.

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and subject, but the crown and most Spanish settlers in the New World found this arrangement unsatisfactory. Instesd Isabella promulgated the foundational royal decree of April 10th 1495, which sought to establish a direct link between the crown of Castile and every Spanish emigrant to the New World as a means of circumventing and ‘breaking Columbus’ monopoly’ over the New World. The decree made plain that participating in the perpetuation and expansion of the Castilian crown’s domains in the New World was equivalent to meritorious royal service; as well as its corollary, the propagation of Christianity. Consequently the mere act of settling in the New World brought privileges that were akin to those of hidalguía, such as exemption from direct tribute to the crown.110 Most secular Spanish migrants to the Americas presented their actions as a function of their zeal for royal service. They referred to themselves as conquistadores y pobladores: terms originally employed by medieval Castilian kings to honour participants in the legitimate recovery and repopulation of the Christian lands of Hispania from her Muslim occupiers – what the eighteenth century telescoped and named ‘the Reconquista’. As if to reinforce the point Cortés would name an ill-defined area of Mesoamerica where he found himself recovering from numerous wounds in 1520 as ‘New Spain’ after the abstraction his father had helped to liberate a generation earlier, at Granada.111 Like their heroic forebears or knights of chivalric romance, conquistadores in the Americas hoped that royal recognition of their services would lead to concomitant rewards: ‘It is this hope [of receiving mercedes for services in the Americas] that makes all men, or most of them, leave their homes and tranquillity to place themselves in great dangers and to accomplish deeds of importance’ reflected Jerónimo de Valderrama from the vantage point of the 1560s.112 Of course the sincerity of such appeals has been questioned since the sixteenth century. Early critics like Antonio de Montesinos, Francisco de Vitoria or Bartolomé de Las Casas pointed out the dissonance between the rhetoric of would-be conquistadores y pobladores and their rather more squalid reality in the New World.113 The heterogeneous individuals that migrated to the 110 Thomas, Rivers of Gold, 158–59. 111 Charles Gibson, ‘Reconquista and conquista’ in Raquel Chang-Rodríguez and Donald A. Yates eds., Homage to Irving A. Leonard: essays on Hispanic art, history, and literature (East Lancing: Michigan State University, 1977). 112 cjv, ‘Valderrama to the King’, 5 November 1565, 183. 113 Bartolomé de las Casas, Historia de las Indias, 3 vols. (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951) eds. Agustin Millares Carlo and Lewis Hanke, i.72–90; ii.203; ii.240; ii.338 and ii.518 reacting against Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s claim that the Americas were the Hesperides and therefore part of the Visigothic Mauretanian inheritance. Gonzalo

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­ mericas only had in common the fact that none of them were really knights, A traditionally speaking, or obviously engaged in the legitimate liberation of Christian lands. Yet recurrent public invocations of particular terms, suggest their relevance as common points of reference: by appealing to them they were also acquiescing, implicitly, to being judged by their standards. To convince the king, conquistadores and pobladores disciplined their actions and shaped their objectives to reflect, at least on paper, virtues that they assumed the crown would value. In order to display their merit Spaniards in the Americas represented their actions to the crown in the vocabulary of the Siete Partidas, with reference to recent historical precedent and in the spirit popularised in romance and positive literary portrayals of virtuous ‘new men’. In a direct appeal to these traditions Díaz del Castillo, writing in the suggestively named Santiago de los Caballeros, could claim that ‘We were all hijosdalgo, even if some of us were not of such clear lineage, because as we all know, not all men are born equal in this world, either in ancestry or in virtue …’ and later ‘apart from our ancient nobility, with the heroic acts and great deeds that we performed in war … serving our king and lord, discovering these lands and even conquering this New Spain and the great city of Mexico and many other provinces, all at our own cost, being far from Castile or any other source of help save that of Our Lord Jesus Christ … with these we revealed ourselves to be much more than what came before.’114 In this hopeful spirit Pedro de Alvarado, who would play a prominent role in the Conquest, was said to have worn his uncle’s cross of ­Santiago on a tattered old velvet jerkin throughout his early penniless wanderings and adventures in America.115 Andrés de Villanueva, whose heroics during the unlikely defence of Guadalajara in 1541 earned him a coat of arms, displayed in his chosen motto the values of chivalric voluntary service and gratitude to the crown: ‘Such as I have always done, with my fortune and my person, I will serve thy crown’ (see Fig. 5).116 These individuals subscribed to the a­ uthority of such ideals and believed that they shared them not only with Fernández de Oviedo, General y Natural Historia de las Indias (1535), ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso (Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1959), Part 1, Bk. ii. 114 Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, Ch. 207. Interestingly he uses the word generosidad, an ­archaic term for nobility derived from the Latin genesis or birth and generositas. The archaic generosity in English had the same meaning and in both cases obviously associated with our current use of generosity which in turn is related to concepts of magnanimity or greatness of spirit that revert in their most famous form to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. 115 Keniston, Francisco de Los Cobos, 106. 116 José López-Portillo y Weber, La rebelión de la Nueva Galicia (Saltillo, Coahuila: Escuela Normal Superior, 1981), 500.

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‘Such as I have always done, with my fortune and my person, I will serve thy crown’. The motto that Andrés de Villanueva chose to blazon on his newly-won coat of arms expresses the ethos of royal service that he and his fellow Spaniards in the Americas subscribed to. reproduced with permission from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Indias, MP-ESCUDOS, 85.

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their peers in the Americas, but also with the monarch that was to judge their merit. As such, they had an impact on their behaviour and their expectations. As one historian of Colonial Guatemala has put it, ‘… where all individual acts were in the public domain, personal values corresponded faithfully to social values … we insist that the ideal of hidalguía moved men to action’.117 Their frequent failure to live up to these ideals, or to convince the crown that they were acting according to their demands, does not deny their power to motivate and shape behaviour. While the Castilian crown never conceded the notion that that its subjects in the New World were engaged in recovering lost domains, it did recognise that they were performing an analogous service to that of their Iberian forebears in the Reconquista and ratified their use of conquistador and poblador to describe themselves. It remains difficult to know what else to call them but by those borrowed terms. Despite the popular witticism about gold curing the ‘sickness of conquistador hearts’, their stated intentions differed from those of purely piratical or commercial enterprises devoted to accumulating moveable wealth – like the ever more explicitly mercantile objectives of the Portuguese in Africa and South-East Asia; let alone the later Dutch, English, and French trading companies, whose primary stated duty was to produce a profit for their shareholders. Men like Cortés or Aguilar expected rewards from the crown for their services in the Americas as a by-product of royal grace, but the relationship was not ‘contractual’, as it has often been described. They did not operate like mercenary companies bound to the detailed terms of a contract and willing to fight for any client that could meet their wages; nor were they salaried soldiers like most members of the Spanish tercios in the Italian Wars, subject to a chain of command and specific military objectives. Despite their practical autonomy, Spanish conquistadores and pobladores never sought domains for themselves that were independent of their king’s authority: like El Cid and his host after capturing Valencia; the Catalan Company’s duchies in Greece; or the Norman knights who spearheaded the eleventh-century ‘European expansion’ in England, Southern Italy and the Levant. On the contrary, the expressed intention of the conquistadores and pobladores, even during the rare rebellions they launched against specific royal officials, was to gain their king’s recognition and affections as his deserving servants. 117 Pilar Sanchiz Ochoa, Los Hidalgos de Guatemala (Sevilla: Publicaciones de la Universidad, 1976), 11.

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Original Sin In the end it amounted to a transient panic. But in March 1536 ‘it was believed and often repeated in Mexico that all the caciques of New Spain wanted to rebel, seeing that Cortés was not in the land.’1 Antonio de Mendoza had assumed his position as the first viceroy of New Spain four months earlier, but Spanish titles in themselves conferred little authority in the land. Tensions only eased in April when news came that Cortés was alive and returning to Mexico City. The episode demonstrated the extent to which Spanish settlers perceived indigenous discontent and feared that it would lead to further outbreaks of violence. They knew that the Conquest had not cowed the Indios: on the contrary they remained ‘free and tough, very enamoured of military matters … and quick to learn’, according to one treasury official.2 Less than five years earlier Cortés was forced to repress a major Indio rebellion that coincided with another change in royal government in Mexico City.3 Hard power lay with magnates, like Cortés, who relied on provincial power-bases, and answered to factional agendas, that included Indio collaborators, rather than royal government in Mexico City. To  increasing numbers of Spanish settlers, New Spain came to seem a lost cause. In the early 1530s a large proportion drifted to more promising arenas of expansion, particularly in Peru, or took what they could back to Europe, threatening the survival of the entire venture in Mesoamerica.4 In order to understand why viceregal government succeeded we must look at the problems it addressed. Violent revolutionary conflicts tend to lead to crises of political legitimacy as the victors try to establish their new-fangled authority over a society riven by resentments. The Conquest was not only violent and revolutionary, but was undertaken by groups that held the diverse 1 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 651; Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), 33–36; Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 107. 2 Joaquín García Icazbalceta ed., Colección de documentos para la historia de México (Mexico: J.M. Andrade, 1858–1866; 1980), Vol. 1, ‘Letter of the Contador Rodrigo de Albornoz to the Emperor’, 15th of December, 1525, 504–05. 3 Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés the life of the conqueror by his secretary, ed. and trans. Lesley Byrd Simpson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 396. 4 Ibid. 395; ene, Vol. ii, Doc. 101, ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, 19 April, 1532, 117; and Vol. iii, Doc. 140, ‘Jeronimo López to the King’, February 1534.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_004

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ideals of life, political expectations and practical objectives we discussed in the previous chapter. During the Conquest Spaniards and Indios were thrust together by expediency and bound, at first, by circumstantial ties of mutual interest. However, unlike other conquerors, Cortés was not sovereign nor did he aspire to be: he deferred to the crown of Castile, and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the Catholic Church, who were ambivalent about the conquistadores and their indigenous allies. Almost everybody who survived the Conquest became ­implicated in its abuses. On the other hand the crown’s commands or legislation, and the agents it sent to implement them in New Spain were equally unacceptable as they proved insensitive and inadequate to the delicate local arrangements that had emerged during Conquest. The tensions that resulted created a violent instability that, in turn, further delegitimised New Spain’s political actors and the crown’s efforts at establishing a viable government. The nature of the Conquest heralded the inception of New Spain as a polity; but it also signified its original sin.

Honour among Thieves: The Cortésian Settlement of 1520–1527

Officially ‘the Conquest of Mexico’ was consummated when Cuauhtémoc, huey tlatoani of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco surrendered to conquistador García de Holguín on the 13th of August, 1521. During the viceregal period processions and hymns honoured Saint Hippolytus, the day’s saint; and to this day an emotive plaque in Tlatelolco’s ‘square of the three cultures’ recalls the date as the ‘painful birth pangs’ of a mestizo nation.5 Yet the date’s significance has been overstated. Spanish conquistadores did not acquire a Mesoamerican empire because they defeated Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco: they only triumphed against Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco because they had already managed to unite the imperial polity’s subjects and enemies under their leadership. Other empires have collapsed suddenly after the defection of key allies. In Mesoamerica, Azcapotzalco suffered a similar fate at the hands of Tenochtitlan; and one could also point to analogies with the Mexican Revolution of 1910 in that the Conquest also ‘arose in the provinces, established itself in the countryside, and finally conquered an alien and sullen capital’.6 However there were two interrelated features of the revolution of 1519–21 that made it unusual 5 Lorenzo Candelaria, ‘Bernardino de Sahagún’s Psalmodia Christiana: A Catholic Songbook from Sixteenth-Century New Spain’ in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Fall 2014), 676–77. 6 Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) Vol. 1, 2.

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and require explanation: the rapid rate at which polities of formerly different loyalties united against Tenochtitlan; and the ability of a handful of Spanish strangers to wrest the initiative from established Mesoamerican powers, such as Tlaxcala or Texcoco, to bind the anti-Tenochca coalition under their command and then retain their loyalty after their military triumph. Although the presence of Spanish conquistadores in Mesoamerica did not alter the traditional objectives of its populations, it did induce their politically active members to imagine alternative means of attaining them using Spanish assistance.7 Ixtlilxochitl, for example, was already leading a popular rebellion against his brother, prince Cacama of Texcoco, whom Motecuhzoma had imposed on the throne, when the former chose to ally himself with Cortés. Cacama had accepted – presumably in exchange for Tenochca support in his election – Motecuhzoma’s arbitrary appropriation of the entire Chinampaneca Tlacalaquilli (tribute from the Chinampas of the sweet-water lake of Xochimilco), depriving Texcoco of a crucial source of food and undoing one of the oldest agreements between the founding members of the Triple Alliance. As Tenochtitlan’s authority crumbled it was natural for Ixtlilxochitl and many others in Texcoco to wish to join their enemies’ enemy.8 Resentment against Tenochtitlan’s imperial interference was usually a secondary motive in a faction’s decision to side with Cortés. Members of the burgeoning Cortésian alliance like Don Gonzalo Matzatzin Moctezuma, prince of Tepexi de la Seda and kinsman of Motecuhzoma, or Necuametzin prince of Tlalmanalco and hegemon of Chalco, had benefited tremendously from the protection of Tenochca military power before switching sides.9 Cortés recorded an early, but more characteristic example of the local indigenous calculations that motivated certain factions to join his cause. As he was finishing his second relación (report to the king) at his new camp in Tepeaca de la Frontera late in 1520, a delegation from the polity of Huaquechula interrupted his writing. The Huaquechulans blamed their prince for their polity’s recent hostility towards the Spaniards, and warned Cortés that he was at that moment in Tenochtitltan requesting reinforcements after the recent spate of 7 Cf. Thycydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Bk. iii. 8 Patricia Lopes Don, Bonfire of Culture: Franciscans, indigenous leaders and the Inquisition in Early Mexico, 1524–1540 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 147–56 for the best summary of Texcoco’s dynastic disputes and Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (London: Hutchinson, 1993), 38–39 and notes. 9 Laura E. Matthew and Michael R. Oudijk eds., Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 48f; Susan Schroeder, Chimalpahin and the Kingdoms of Chalco (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991), esp. 97, but also 89–91 and 101.

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Tlaxcalan-Spanish victories in the region. The hated prince’s absence provided an ideal opportunity to rid Huaquechula of a tyrant and to install instead his professedly pro-Spanish brother. Through the agency of his now primary interpreter, doña Marina, Cortés accepted the Huaquechulans’ excuses and agreed that in ‘rebelling’ against the Spaniards their absent prince had forfeited his right to rule. They could count on Spanish support for their coup in exchange for future cooperation, and the recognition that Charles v was their sovereign. Spaniards and their native allies duly marched on Huaquechula and secured their candidate’s control of the polity. No sooner had they achieved this than other delegates arrived to solicit Spanish assistance: this time from the neighbouring town of Izúcar, where, it was claimed, Motecuhzoma had murdered the rightful prince and imposed his own candidate, who was married to his niece. The army, enlarged by eager new Huaquechulan allies, defeated the Mexica forces in the vicinity and, after the escape of the current prince, Cortés determined the disputed succession in favour of a grandson, on his mother’s side, of the murdered former ruler, whose father also happened to be none other than the newly installed prince of Huaquechula. For Huaquechula this was a signal victory in their ancient strategy to control Atlixco while retaining their autonomy against the more powerful Mexica, Tlaxcalans, Cholulans or Huexotzinca who had all sought to dominate them in the past (and would seek to do so again in the future).10 Such an obvious victory soon brought to the conquistadores other petitions for help from suppliants in similar disputes, as well as delegations from sitting princes eager to anticipate their potential rivals by backing the winners first. Returning to his desk to report on these sudden developments, Cortés was able to conclude his epistolary report with surprising confidence: Thus Your Highness may be very sure that … we shall within a short time regain what was lost, or the greater part of it; because every day many provinces and cities, who before were subject to Montezuma, come to offer themselves as vassals of Your Majesty; for they see that those who do so are well received and that those who do otherwise are destroyed one after another.11

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Also rendered as ‘Atrixco’, it was highly valued for its climate and fertility before and after the Conquest. See Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 192; Gerhard, Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), Index. Hernán Cortés, Cartas de Relación, Manuel Alcalá (Mexico: Porrúa, 1993) ‘Segunda Carta’, 94.

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In the ensuing months almost every polity that we know about experienced a similar outbreak of factional strife, exacerbating tensions caused by their micro-imperialist aims. Even the Mexica of Tenochtitlan – Tlatelolco suffered from a degree of internal dissent, if we credit later accusations against Cuauhtémoc that he executed Motecuhzoma’s son Atlixcatzin (perhaps suggestively named after his father’s victory over Atlixco?) along with all other nobles that favoured negotiation with the Spaniards; and that he sought to assert the primacy of Tlatelolco, of whose suppressed ruling dynasty he was descended, over that of Tenochtitlan as the Spanish siege began to take effect.12 Although the ambitions of a polity’s factions were initially parochial, the nature of Cortés’s objectives meant that they were soon involved in the larger struggle against Tenochtitlan. Exemplary massacres, like the one that the conquistadores helped their Tlaxcalan allies to perpetrate against Cholula in 1519; unusually bloody usurpations of power, vendettas or repressions raised the stakes in the polities’ factional conflicts and in the outcome of the war against Tenochtitlan. Ambivalent polities, such as Huexotzinco that, before the conquistadores, had prevaricated between supporting Tlaxcala or the Mexica, were forced to commit to one armed camp or another.13 The generalised disturbances that the Spaniards provoked made traditional factional divisions in the polities more acute and the fear of defeat greater than had been the case hitherto. Fear and necessity compelled the Spanish conquistadores in particular. Tenochca warriors had nearly obliterated them on the night of June 30th 1520 – la Noche Triste – and the survivers became suppliants of Tlaxcala. As Cortés let slip in his second relación the expedition didn’t retreat to Veracruz after la Noche Triste because a withdrawal would have been ‘disgraceful to me and dangerous to all … to show such little courage to the natives, especially our friends, might cause them to abandon us the sooner and turn against us’.14 In the days after the Noche Triste Tlaxcala concluded a treaty with the Spaniards that would have made Tlaxcala into the primary imperial polity in central

12

Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo, 17; Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuhtzin claimed to have always supported the Spanish cause, see also Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas ed., Cacicazgos y nobiliario indígena de Nueva España (Mexico: Instituto Bibliográfico Mexicano, 1961), 230. 13 Norma A. Castillo Palma and Francisco González-Hermosillo, ‘Nobleza Indígena y cacicazgos en Cholula, siglos xvi–xviii’ in Menegus Borneman and Salvador Aguirre eds., El cacicazgo; Thomas, Conquest, 37–38; Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ‘Segunda Carta’, 88f. 14 Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ‘Segunda Carta’, 86.

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Figure 6

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The Conquest became New Spain’s origin-myth and its original sin. In the 1690s the brothers Juan and Miguel González combined techniques derived from their exposure to Mesoamerican narrative-art, European figurative painting and East-Asia’s fashionable use of nacre, to portray some of the Conquest’s canonical moments according to contemporary tradition. This panel shows Tenochca rebels about to wound Motecuhzoma mortally because they resented his conversion and support for the Spaniards. The Conquest, on this view, was a legitimate suppression of this unrighteous rebellion. reproduced with permission from the Museo de América, Madrid.

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Mesoamerica, leaving the conquistadores as a secondary ally in charge of a defeated Tenochtitlan.15 Such a substitution of power between one martial polity and another would have been in line with Mesoamerican tradition. Paradoxically it was the ­conquistadores’ vulnerability combined with their more abstract political ideals that allowed them to gain the initiative and lead the coalition of usurpers and malcontents against Tenochtitlan instead of Tlaxcala – or another established power. A recent estimate has put the population of the Tlaxcalan confederation at around 165,000;16 whereas there were hardly ever more than about 1,000 Spaniards under Cortés’s command at any one time, though in total around 2,100 Spaniards participated in the ‘Conquest of New Spain’ from 1519–1521. Of these, about 60% would perish in the attempt, contradicting claims of their invincibility: indeed a far higher proportion died in Cortés’s campaign of 1519–21 than of the 2,000 Spaniards that fought in the Habsburg army during the nearly contemporaneous campaign that culminated at the battle of Pavia in 1525. The conquistadores enjoyed a marginal advantage from their steel swords, the spectacular effects of gunpowder and the services of about 90 horses, all of which confirmed them as efficient killers; but by their own frequent admission these were not decisive on the battlefield, and they would have counted for little without the loyalty of their copious allies.17 Their numerical weakness made the Spaniards relatively unthreatening, but their foreignness made them charismatic. ‘A stranger is a leader in a foreign city’ according to an ancient Sumerian proverb from Ur around 2000 bc.18 Felipe Fernández-Armesto has identified and discussed this recurrent phenomenon as the ‘stranger-effect’, which he summarised as ‘the experience of welcome, which may even include deference of various kinds, accorded in some societies to newcomers who are not easily classifiable in the terms of the approached community, except as strangers, outsiders, foreigners or by some roughly equivalent term.’19 Confident societies whose unchallenged cultural dominance made them insular seem particularly susceptible to the 15 16

17 18 19

Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (London: Hutchinson, 1993), 427f. R. Jovita Baber, ‘Empire Indians and the Negotiation for the Status of City’ in eds. Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Susan Kellogg, Negotiation within Domination (Sebastopol: University Press of Colorado, 2011), 21. Matthew and Oudijk, Indian conquistadores, 25, n. 22; Thomas, The Conquest, 491 and n. 30; Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire (London: Penguin, 2003), 60–61. Quoted in Rory Stewart, Occupational Hazards: My time governing in Iraq (London: Picador, 2007), 301. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘The Stranger-Effect in Early Modern Asia’, Itinerario 24 (2000), 80–103.

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‘stranger-effect’: the self-contained ‘islands’ of civilization in Mesoamerica and Peru, whose rough peripheries were as unthreatening as they were unpromising; where each ‘island’ had its own generalised and comprehensible cultural norms; whose vision of change was cyclical; and, in the case of Peru, where the last Inca would have had a much greater subjective claim to have pacified the world and united it under his leadership than Alexander the Great, Augusts or Genghis Khan. On the other hand European societies, which operated on that relatively ‘poor promontory of Eurasia’, were particularly wary of strangers in their midst, but glorified instead those daring heroes who sought out and brought back, tamed and unthreatening, attractively exotic goods and ideas from wealthier lands. Sedentary Mesoamerican cultures, especially the Nahua, were used to dealing with migrant groups and incorporating them into their polities. The Mexica hosted the Spaniards for over seven months in the old princely palace of Axayacatl, like foreign guests in a coacalli during the Tlacaxipehualiztli festival, with every sign of favour, even after the Spaniards’ panicky sequestration of Motecuhzoma in their own palatial residence. Perhaps the context for the effect that these strangers had on the Mexica can be found in their equation of the Spaniards with the sort of useful migrant group that could be given its own autonomous tribal ‘segment’ in exchange for useful contributions to the polity. This, after all, traced the outline of the Mexica’s own origin myth. Motecuhzoma and his immediate entourage may also have had a more immediately relevant motive in mind. Later sources indicate that Motecuhzoma sought to centralise power on his inner court: away from Tenochca magnates who had entrenched their power during the consecutive rule of Motecuhzoma’s father Axayacatl and his two uncles Tizoc and Ahuizotl, and from Texcoco and Tacuba as well.20 History abounds with examples of autocrats relying on foreign dependants, particularly those with useful martial attributes, to shore up their personal power against local rivals.21 The conquistadores, however, did not share the flexible mentality of Chichimeca migrant warrior bands. If they had, perhaps more of them might have survived the subsequent debacle. Nevertheless some of the Spanish survivors, like Jerónimo López and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, suggested, albeit rhetorically, years later that ­Motecuhzoma, who they claimed had quickly grasped their inherent nobility, treated them with greater dignity

20 Thomas, The Conquest, 38–39; Lopez Don, Bonfire of Cultures, 149f. 21 Most notably, the various designations of ‘Ghilman’ or foreign slave-soldiers and slaveadministrators common in the Arab world.

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than that ­displayed in the prevarications of their own u ­ ntrusting king.22 In the end Spanish objectives were too different and they obtusely alienated their host population, which duly expelled them after the death of their former patron: Motecuhzoma. The ‘stranger-effect’ also offers a plausible explanation as to why so many other indigenous actors were, at least initially, more willing to align themselves with Spanish outsiders than with their own immediate neighbours, like ­Tlaxcala, as the conflict unfolded. Recent historiography has rightly discredited self-justificatory conquistador and later indigenous claims that the Spaniards were mistaken for returning gods during the Conquest, but it is possible that such claims represent highly mediated echoes of Mesoamerican speculation about the origins of the strangers that had arrived in their midst: after all, nearly every Mesoamerican ethnic group claimed descent from some member of their common pantheon; and Europeans made analogous intellectual ­efforts to explain the Americas and its population in relation to their own ­sacred texts or lore. Such mistaken mental associations suggest an important appeal of strangeness originating in the concept’s defining attribute: its observers’ ignorance about the stranger. This negative attribute meant that strangers appeared as a blank canvas onto which those attempting to define them could project their own hopes or fears – the ‘confidence of ignorance’. Spaniards would see in the unfamiliar spaces and people of the Americas a mirage of their homeland; chivalric myths of El Dorado and Amazons; or uncorrupted humanity repeatedly; and it urged them on to desperate and often disastrous ventures. For a while Mesoamericans saw in the unthreateningly small band of conquistadores an appealing detachment and impartiality, combined with a useful capacity for violence, that could help them resolve intractable local conflicts better than their prejudiced and more threatening indigenous neighbours. Committing to the Spanish cause was not too onerous. It entailed sending troops or resources to fight Tenochtitlan and perhaps the need to erect a cross, undergo rituals of baptism, and smash some holy statues – but the reward was power. Conversely, as strangers, the Spaniards had a more detached relationship with the polities of Mesoamerica. Unlike migratory groups from the Chichimeca the Spaniards were also ideologically inclined to this approach, as we discussed in the previous chapter. From the Spanish perspective any nobleman or polity authority could become a partner, just as anyone could have taken the place of Tlaxcala as their principal ally- including the defeated Tenochca and Tlatelolca; the envious Texcocans or Huexotzinca; a different faction within 22

Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, Ch. 207; or Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal, Doc. xix.

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Tlaxcala impatient with the dominance of the Maxixcatzin; or even the suppressed Otomi and Pinome polities within the province. The result was that the various polities of New Spain competed not to be outdone in their shows of loyalty to the Spaniards in order to protect their newly won status. The speed at which this dynamic encouraged a confederation of polities to coalesce around Spanish leadership was unprecedented: the Mexica had built up their empire in conjunction with two other allied polities over the course of a century; but within a year the Spaniards were at the head of more polities than the Mexica Empire comprised at its height. This secondary factor exalted and cemented Spanish leadership. Each polity, or faction, allied itself directly with the Spaniards rather than the Tlaxcalans or any other indigenous polity. Every new member, therefore, enhanced the importance of the Spaniards in relation to each of the other allied polities individually. Soon the Spaniards did not need to depend on any singly allied polity, as they had done in the summer of 1520 with Tlaxcala, since every additional ally diminished every other allied polity’s relative bargaining power, while enhancing the importance of the Spaniards as power-brokers over an ever broader and otherwise more heterogeneous alliance. Illustratively, when Xicotencatl ‘the younger’, a lord of the Tlaxcalan polity of Tizatlan and a key commander during the siege of Tenochtitlan, abandoned his post in dissent against Spanish commands, he was rapidly captured by other indigenous forces, disowned by his more pragmatic father and other ­Tlaxcalan leaders. Instead the most strenuous protest against his execution came from the Spanish commander Pedro de Alvarado, whose concubine, doña Luisa Xicotencatl, was the accused man’s sister.23 Spanish conquistadores and Indio factions conspired to usurp power during the Conquest and they continued to depend on each other’s support to safeguard their gains. In some cases we can detect a genuine camaraderie, born of shared dangers during the war – like the friendship between Cortés and Lord Acxotecatl Cocomitzi of Tlaxcala24 – and dynastic-sexual alliances that cemented the affection and identification between individual conquistadores and indigenous dynasties. In others the calculation was purely practical: Indio factions that benefited from the Conquest continued to need Spanish support to secure their local objectives. In the third (1522) and fourth (1524) cartas de relación Cortés described the petitions he received from indigenous polities asking for his help in resolving their local political problems. Since the Spaniards had a limited understanding of Mesoamerica, they could be 23 24

Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 127ff; Thomas, The Conquest, 491. Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952), 55.

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manipulated into supporting traditionally outrageous behaviour: ‘In our town of Huexotzinco there arose amongst our ancestors two factions until one of them defeated and killed the other and then confiscated everything they had, both land and moveable property. They left nothing for the sons of the dead and instead distributed it amongst themselves.’ These events were so traumatic to Huexotzinco’s society that they remained grievously relevant 30 years later, when they were related to the viceroy.25 Having grabbed power with Spanish support, usurping factions became dependent on it – or at least the threat of its exercise – to safeguard them from the retribution of vengeful neighbours. Another indigenous incentive for courting Spanish support was to use Spanish-led military assistance to further micro-imperialist goals against immediate neighbours: ‘the province of Tepeaca’ Cortés reported in one instance where Spanish and local goals coincided in 1522 ‘and other neighbouring counties, vassals of your majesty, received much harm from the naturales of a province called [Oaxaca]. Because they were our friends and apart from the necessity of remedying this situation, it was a good idea to secure the province of [Oaxaca] because it was on the way to the Southern Sea …’ His lieutenant had scouted the area and ‘because the Tepeacans urged him to make war on [the people of Oaxaca]’, Cortés agreed to intervene. The subsequent campaign was successful and the land taken from their enemies opened up another area for settlement and colonisation for the Spaniards and their indigenous allies.26 Even polities that had not been involved in the Conquest found the Spanish strangers useful for achieving their local goals. Perhaps the most remarkable and illustrative example comes from the large and populous Purehpecha kingdom in Michoacán in 1522, which the Mexica had never managed to overcome. A now familiar pattern repeated itself when Cristobal de Olíd approached the kingdom’s capital Tzintzuntzan at the head of Spanish-Nahua forces. Cuinierángari (later don Pedro the main informant of the Relación de Michoacán where he relates this episode in great detail) took advantage of his role as emissary to outmanoeuvre Timas, a hated rival for influence over the inexperienced new Cazonci (king) Tzintzincha Tangaxoan ii. The account in the Relación suggests that Cuinierángari was encouraged to reach a private agreement with Spaniards by friends in the Tenochca contingent of Olíd’s army 25

Pedro Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas tramontanos’ in Tlalocan, Vol. v, No. 2 (1966), 156. 26 Cortés, Cartas de relación, ‘Tercera Carta’, 164. Tepeaca was the province of Tepexi de la Seda from where Don Gonzalo Matzatzin Moctezuma had earlier launched his reassertion of authority over several Mixtec towns, see above.

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(the subject remains unexplored, but there are hints that form of guestfriendship associations, akin to ancient Greek xenia, operated across Mesoamerican cultures. Particularly suggestive in this case is the Nahua-Purehpecha friendship between don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli of Tlalmanalco and the author of his war journal Gabriel Castañeda of Colomocho in Michoacán).27 With the foreigners’ backing Cuinierángari was able to defeat, murder and dispossess Timas and used his subsequent dominance at court to ensure an alliance with the Spanish authorities in Mexico City, which was soon cemented with tribute and joint military operations.28 A clear indication that the post-Conquest Indio elites valued the role of the usurping conquistadores of Mexico City is that they adapted old Mesoamerican imperial routines to Spanish demands. Tribute was the most obvious nexus. Under the auspices of Cortés and doña Marina the lords of the central valleys travelled to Coyoacan (war-damage made Mexico uninhabitable throughout 1521) to negotiate its level and ‘each [Spanish encomendero] went off with a cacique and principal lord of the town he had been granted in encomienda to agree on the rate of tribute to be paid every eighty days’.29 While the Spaniards could expect sustenance and wealth (albeit in kind rather than coin) from the resulting arrangements, native lords gained recognition of their status as their polity’s authority in uncertain times. Participation or assistance for Spanishled military expeditions and associated activities like the settlement of garrison colonies was another defining imperial relationship. Within five years the Spaniards of Mexico City and their indigenous allies had explored and ‘pacified’ far beyond the Tenochca empire – From the Coatzacoalcos River and Guatemala in the Southeast to the Huasteca polities along the Pánuco River in the north and Colima and Compostela in the West. Persistent Spanish demands that any alliance be formalised through the destruction of local idols and the performance of Christian rituals, of which baptism, particularly of allied princes, and the erection of crosses became perhaps the most common exhibit. This too had a precedent in Mesoamerican traditions of conquest that saw the submission through the sequestration of a polity or a tribe’s tutelary 27

Fr. Jerónimo de Alcalá, La Relación de Michoacán, intro. Francisco Miranda (Mexico: conaculta, 1988), book xxiv, 303f; and Gabriel de Castañeda, ‘Relación de la jornada que hizo don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli, cacique y señor natural que fue del pueblo de Tlalmanalco, provincia de Chalco, con el señor visorey don Antonio de Mendoza cuando fue a la conquista y pacificación de los indios chichimecas de Xuchipila’, trans. Pedro Vázquez, in Joaquín García de Icazbalceta, Colección de documentos para la historia de México, Vol. 2 (Mexico: J.M. Andrade, 1858–1866; 1980), 307. 28 Alcalá, La Relación de Michoacán, 303–24. 29 Miranda, El tribute Indígena, 74.

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deity, and in the universal appeal of associating with powerful supernatural forces, in whose signs one triumphed. Conversely the Spaniards adopted the showy suppression of inconformity or revolt that the Tenochca had employed to sustain their power. López de Gómara’s description of the repression of the Huasteca revolt of 1523 offers a vividly immediate example of the combined Mesoamerican legacy and conquistador practices of terror in this regard: after a drumhead trial, 460 ‘caciques and principal men’ were burned alive before the eyes of their sons as punishment for their ‘rebellion’. When their fathers finally died, in a blend of brutality and legality the heirs were granted their rightful lordships in the name of the emperor Charles v.30 The pressure on the post-Conquest Indio authorities

Figure 7

Huaquechula was not a powerful polity and stronger neighbours had long vied for control of its fertile hinterland in the strategic valley of Atlixco before the Conquest. However, by cooperating with the Spanish strangers, its leaders increased their standing in Mesoamerica and secured their polity’s autonomy. In this lienzo, the Huaquechulans who conquered and colonised Guatemala alongside their Spanish allies in the late 1520s proudly boasted of their achievements and reminded Spanish authorities of their services. reproduced with permission from Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala City, Guatemala.

30 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 368.

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to remain in favour with the Spaniards created a dynamic that encouraged competition within and amongst polities to present themselves as loyal allies. War was a natural service but allied authorities also competed to send workers to effect the reconstruction of Mexico City and the damaged palaces of Motecuhzoma and Axayacatl in particular – the most tangible symbol of the restoration of the city as the hegemonic power of Mesoamerica.31 The Cortésian settlement that emerged from the Conquest was founded on the mutual interests of usurpers. Time can assuage the outrage caused by old transgressions, which come to appear as exaggerations rather than ruptures of past conduct. But for honour to be sustained amongst thieves long enough for this to occur, they must feel secure, which perhaps explains why so many revolutions end in authoritarian government. If Mesoamerica had remained selfcontained in its political considerations, the settlement between the usurping Spaniards and their indigenous accomplices may have prevailed through coercion: but it unravelled within a lustrum. Its undoing came not from the socalled conquered, but from the presumptive conquerors, whose ‘mind-forged manacles’ denied them true autonomy.

The Castilian Perspective and Failure of the Cortésian Settlement

Conquest is paradoxical for the victors: former enemies become subjects, their property an inheritance.32 For Cortés victory over Tenochtitlan changed who should be included in the common good that royal service was supposed to foster. Leaders of Indio polities viewed Cortés as the guarantor of a postConquest political settlement that would safeguard their usurpations or defend them, in defeat, from further depredations; and he willingly played the part for his own glory and the political stability of Mesoamerica.33 However, seeing the new airs of lordliness, (including, if we can trust certain depictions in the Lienzo de Tlaxcala, indigenous Quetzal feathers) with which Cortés differentiated himself from other Spanish conquistadores – including, unforgivably, his habit of surrounding himself with a noble indigenous entourage- many Spaniards concluded that he was tyrannically betraying true royal service and the dues he owed his own people (see Fig. 8). Graffiti verses appeared on the whitewashed walls of the palace that Cortés chose as his first residence in Coyoacan declaiming these 31

Richard C. Padden, The hummingbird and the hawk (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1967), 226; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 17. 32 Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London: Penguin, 1986), 259. 33 Wood, Transcending Conquest, 33.

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Tlaxcalans in the mid-sixteenth century portrayed Cortés as wearing an indigenous headdress while he judged political matters after the Conquest. According to Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Spanish conquistadores resented their captain’s new found identification with the Indios, who until recently had been the enemy, and suspected his intentions. reproduced with permission from Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, nmhm.

tyrannical injustices: ‘White walls are the paper of fools’ Cortés retorted, only to find the following morning a warning: ‘or rather of the wise and of truths that His Majesty will know all about very soon’.34 Unlike other conquerors, Cortés was trapped between his commitment to upholding local arrangements with the Indios, the demands of his Spanish conquistadores, and the expectations of the distant crown, who understood very little of the political realities he faced. His successors, who were mostly Castilian courtiers, would face complications that mirrored his own: while they enjoyed the confidence of the crown and understood its interests, they lacked local experience and the emergent authority that Cortés had garnered, at least amongst his Indio accomplices, during the Conquest. 34

Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 376.

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From the foundation of Veracruz Cortés used his cartas de relación to explain the local Mesoamerican objectives of his expedition in ways that he imagined the crown would consider legitimate. In the second relación Cortés christened Mesoamerica, pending royal ratification, as ‘New Spain of the Ocean Sea’ and, in a wilful but judicious misrepresentation of his expedition’s situation, he claimed that his initial anabasis through this promising land had been a success, resulting in Motecuhzoma’s peaceful conversion to Christianity and voluntary submission to Habsburg authority. The disaster of the Noche Triste was accordingly characterised as a treacherous rebellion, which Cortés and his followers were now engaged in ‘pacifying’ (see Fig. 6). To ‘conquer’ New Spain amounted to the legitimate recovery of land that rightfully belonged to the Castilian King: like the conquest of Granada, that of New Spain was a Reconquista. Fortuitously, the land’s natural attributes, meanwhile, made a duty to restore the king’s rights an attractive prospect.35 Furthermore, Cortés and his followers would defend the notion that New Spain was an empire, analogous to any in Europe: ‘[the Indians of New Spain] had a great lord who was like an emperor. They also had, and still have, others like kings, dukes, counts, governors, knights, squires, and men-at-arms. The lords have their governors, administrators and other officials in their own lands’.36 The equation of New Spain with a European empire was a new departure from previous Spanish attitudes towards indigenous polities in the Caribbean. In relaciones written after the Conquest, Cortés used the notion that he and his conquistadores were the rightful heirs to the Mexica aristocracy and their supposed imperial dignities. With this argument he justified contravening royal instructions, most notably in the distribution of encomiendas, but also in his personal arrogation of political authority to create a political settlement for New Spain as a whole.37 The crown was not convinced by these innovative arguments. Charles v’s response to news of the Conquest was informed, primarily, by his synchronic military subjugation of Castilian municipalities that had revolted in defence of their autonomy against what they considered to be an alien and unsympathetic royal court: known to posterity as the ‘comunero rebellion’ 35 Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ‘Segunda Carta’, 96. 36 Patricia de Fuentes ed., The Conquistadors: First person accounts of the conquest of Mexico (New York: Orion, 1963), 174. 37 Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), Doc. xix; Martínez Hernán Cortés, 382–83; José Miranda, El tributo indígena en la Nueva España durante el siglo xvi (Mexico: Colegio de México 2005), 74–75; Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ‘Cuarta Carta’, 15 October 1524.

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(April 1520 to October 1521). Despite the crown’s decisive military victory, it needed to assuage Castilian concerns in order to govern effectively – Charles was still a relatively alien Burgundian Habsburg who spoke no Castilian, surrounded himself with a polyglot court and held his allegedly mad Spanish mother and co-ruler sequestered at a convent in Tordesillas. The Carolingian settlement for Castile that emerged in the early 1520s transformed the relationship between the crown and the kingdom’s principal municipalities or ‘republics’: enshrining principles of municipal autonomy and creating routines for direct negotiation between the crown and each new municipal unit.38 These concessions, however, allowed Charles and his advisors to centralise power on the royal court. Royal interests asserted themselves in the crown’s prerogative to appoint loyalists to dominant offices in local government: corregimientos, alcaldias mayores and regimientos. Municipalities could appeal to the Council of Castile whose president, Archbishop Juan Pardo de Tavera, made from 1524 municipal offices subject to residencia conducted by the growing team of professional lawyers that he maintained for these purposes. For those individuals whose merit depended purely on local credibility, municipal autonomy implied a political dead-end at the city-limits.39 Any further advancement depended on royal patronage, mediated at the royal court.40 After the royalist victory of 1521, Castilian political culture exalted the virtue of direct royal service, but not in the way that would-be conquistadores and other novi homini with a dissonant or liminal relationship to their native societies expected. Titled noblemen, whose loyalty during the comunero rebellion had underscored the presumption of their virtue, and deracinated university trained lawyers that depended on the court emerged as the crown’s favourites. Charles v even legislated to define the hierarchy of Castilian noble rank in 1520 in an effort to contain the rate of mobility into that class that occurred during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs.41 Veterans of the tercios, conversos, and New World conquistadores fit uneasily into this scheme. Prejudice or envy made them seem increasingly like picaros, an archetype that shared much with Plautus’s Miles Gloriosus: defined by cunning but 38

Aurelio Espinosa, Empire of Cities: Emperor Charles v, the Comunero Revolt, and the Transformation of the Spanish system (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 10–16. 39 Ibid., 216–17. 40 John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 159–63; José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992), 17. 41 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 103; Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, The Golden Age of Spain 1516–1659 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1971), 116.

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self-serving hypocrisy; the triumph of display over substance and the antithesis of chivalry. During his five year sojourn in Spain following the comunero revolt Charles and his advisors were anxious to reward his loyalists and assert the supremacy of the Castilian royal court over unruly subjects in Castile and beyond (not least those who, like Cortés and his followers, relied on the principle of municipal autonomy to justify their questionable acts). Their main strategy from Naples to Mexico City was to appoint trusted courtiers to prominent administrative positions: an extension of the common Early Modern practice that David Starkey has termed ‘representation through intimacy’,42 which allowed the Castilian crown to ‘convey the commands of a central authority to distant localities … directly dependent on imperial control’.43 In the short term, the royalist victory against the comuneros and the subsequent elevation of a new cadre of favourites saved Cortés and his ad hoc political settlement in Mesoamerica. Hitherto Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, aided by King Ferdinand’s lack of interest in American affairs, had controlled the crown’s approach to expansion in the Americas since 1495.44 Recognition of the bishop’s unofficial preponderance came from Pope Leo x, who gave him the sobriquet ‘Patriarch of the Indies’; his enemies, on the other hand, claimed he ruled affairs in the New World ‘like an absolute ruler’.45 Until 1521 Fonseca’s unofficial authority allowed him to promote kinsmen and allies, such as ­Diego de Velázquez (married to Fonseca’s niece doña Petronila de Fonseca) who became the first governor of Cuba; and to harm those that dissented from his network of patronage by denying them any official standing for their achievements, as occurred to Nicolás de Ovando and Vasco Núñez de Balboa (who was murdered with impunity by envious Fonsequistas).46 Fonseca’s standing at court perpetuated his influence in the Americas, but his authority was never institutionalised in a formal bureaucratic hierarchy and remained dependant on the king’s grace, or at least his indifference to American expansion. When Cortés and his expedition defied Fonseca’s arrangements by usurping, in the name of the king, the authority of Velázquez, the governor of Cuba, they sent 42

David Starkey, ‘Intimacy and Innovation’, in ed. David Starkey, The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War (London: Longman, 1987), esp. 82–83. 43 José María del Moral y Pérez de Zayas, El virrey de Nápoles: don Pedro de Toledo y la guerra contra el turco (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1966), 30–34; John H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Pres, 2006), 127. 44 Thomas, Rivers of Gold, 159. 45 López de Gómara, Cortés, 327–28. 46 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 373; Thomas, Rivers of Gold, 257–58 and 359.

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trusted delegates (Francisco de Montejo and Alonso Hernández de Portocarrero, who were joined there by Cortés’s father Martín) armed with the cartas de relación to circumvent the Fonsequista network at the royal court.47 Fortunately for them the ambitious new courtiers saw in Cortés and his expedition a useful vehicle for discrediting and displacing Fonseca. They willingly entertained their representatives’ arguments, in a way that had not been possible for past dissenters, like Balboa.48 In October 1522, praising ‘his deeds in service of God and [the king]’,49 the crown decided to appoint Cortés as governor of the Kingdom of New Spain, legitimising a fait accompli and the local arrangements it implied, including Cortés’s distribution of encomiendas, which the crown had expressly forbidden. Francisco de los Cobos, a rising star at court, was behind this manoeuver.50 By 1523 Los Cobos was secretary of every Castilian council of state except three, outmanoeuvring rivals like Charles’ elderly Italian minister Mercurino Gattinara for influence in Castile. In 1524 he accused Fonseca of corruption and the bishop withdrew from court. He died soon after, leaving Los Cobos to dominate the Council of the Indies.51 By the mid-1520s Los Cobos was considered the king’s privado (favourite) in Castile and his sway increased during Charles’ frequent absences, declining only with his health and the coming of age of Prince Philip in the early 1540s. From his preponderant position he would accumulate profitable interests in the Americas throughout the 1520’s: one grant allowed him to sell slaves to the New World; another earned him 2,000d per annum from the income generated by the sale of cochineal from New Spain; he gained rights over all the salt-mines of Mesoamerica (paying a fifth of the profits from this to the crown); and most profitably, Los Cobos’s office dealt with the assay of precious metals in the Casa de Contratación in Seville, from which he allegedly made more than 22,857d in about two and a half years, exclusively from New Spain.52 To guarantee these interests he sent intimate representatives to New Spain. The crown’s approach to governing New Spain amounted to regarding the conquistadores more like former comuneros than the meritorious, ­chivalrous, 47

See e.g. Glen Carman, ‘The Means and Ends of Empire in Hernán Cortés’s “Cartas de relación”’ in Modern Language Studies, Vol. 27, No. 3/4 (Autumn–Winter, 1997), 113–37. 48 López de Gómara, Cortés, 327–28. 49 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 377. 50 Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos: Secretary of the Emperor Charles v (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1960), 21. 51 López de Gómara, Cortés, 328; with Elliott, Imperial Spain, 174–81. 52 Keniston, Francisco de Los Cobos, 102–05.

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royal vassals they imagined themselves to be. After Fonseca was out of the way the crown quickly asserted the pre-eminence of its courtly interests over local arrangements. In 1524 courtiers of proven loyalty to the king or Los Cobos, who also deserved to be rewarded for their services against the comuneros, were appointed treasury officials, with higher salaries than Cortés received as governor: the corpulent, silver-tongued, factor Gonzalo de Salazar and veedor Peralmíndez Chirinos came to court with Los Cobos’s from his home turf between Úbeda and Granada; Alonso de Estrada, the tesorero liked to boast (and people tended to believe) that he was an illegitimate son of King Ferdinand, in whose court he grew up and served loyally in various capacities, including as a naval commander in Naples; and contador Rodrigo de Albornoz, had been one of Charles v’s personal secretaries, intimate enough with the monarch to discuss the comparative merits of Mesoamerican and Castilian hunting-hawks in his correspondence with him,53 and enjoying such confidence with the Council of the Indies that they gave him a secret code with which to transmit delicate information without fear of disclosure.54 As early as December 1525, Albornoz expressed the post-comunero prejudice of the court in favour of its own members and its lawyerly agents over local power-brokers in organising the administration of Castile and its domains: ‘nothing will be achieved nor mended [in New Spain] until your majesty sends us, as soon as possible, the remedy in the shape of a governor and a prudent audiencia without covetousness and with authority.’55 Subsequently a royal audiencia (law-court) finally reached Mexico City on December 9 1528 – a de facto recognition of New Spain as a kingdom that formed part of crown of Castile, like Granada. Its oidores (university-trained judges) came from the same recruiting-grounds that Archbishop Pardo de Tavera used to judge officials in the suspect municipalities of Castile and its president – the ‘governor’ Albornoz requested – would be another courtier: Nuño de Guzmán.56 Once its agents were installed, the crown ordered judicial inquiries of ­undefined duration into the conduct of Cortés and his captains during the Conquest, effectively hanging the sword of Damocles over their heads to encourage good behaviour. At their first opportunity they deposed Cortés from his 53 54 55 56

García Icazbalceta ed., Colección de documentos, Vol 1, ‘Letter of the Contador Rodrigo de Albornoz to the Emperor’, 15th of December, 1525, 501–02. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 443 and 460 describes them well. García Icazbalceta ed., Colección de documentos, Vol. 1, ‘Letter of the Contador Rodrigo de Albornoz to the Emperor’, 15th of December, 1525, 490–91. Donald E. Chipman, ‘New light on the career of Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán’, in The Americas Vol. 19, No. 4 (April 1963), 341.

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governorship in 1526 following his disastrous expedition to Honduras. Although the crown would make Cortés marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca in 1528 after his successful visit to court and marital alliance with the daughter of the Duke of Béjar, it chose not to restore him to the governorship of New Spain: ‘so that no conquistador ever thinks that it is owed to him’.57 After Fonseca was out of the way the crown used the contested legitimacy of the Conquest and subsequent news of political disorders and reports of abuses against the native population throughout the 1520s (even when they were provoked by crown agents) to undermine the claims of the conquistadores. Their services deserved to be rewarded, but only up to a point that remained in contention. The varying number of encomiendas that the crown allowed; and the question of which individuals should be favoured in their distribution; remained the emblematic gauge of its attitude to the claims of the conquistadores.58 The crown was able to assert the dominance of its courtly interests because the conquistadores remained ideologically committed to the ethos of royal service and concomitantly accepted royal supremacy. To them courtier officials offered the opportunity to establish a direct conduit to the monarch and they quickly showed their preference for the benefits of this ‘vertical’ type of association to the ‘horizontal’ local loyalties that had emerged from the Conquest. Cortés, for example, alienated his natural constituency of conquistadores and Indio clients by granting the courtier-officials some of the most lucrative encomiendas and tolerating their irksome interference in his government in an effort to win their favour: ‘… as the saying goes the magistrate was their father-in law, for they were the henchmen of Secretary Los Cobos, whom Cortés did not wish to offend, lest he suffer in other and more important matters’ according to López de Gómara.59 Others, including the best connected Indio leaders, followed his logic. While the officials, eager to foment their own standing in New Spain, welcomed these local alliances for their individual ends. It did not take long for factions to coalesce around the new-comers as the courtier-officials competed for supremacy, while the settlers and postconquest Indio leadership struggled to protect their former gains.60 By the end of 1525 Albornoz reported that ‘… there have been in these parts and amongst the vassals that have come 57 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 512. 58 For the latest survey see Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996); Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) remains a classic study. 59 López de Gómara, Cortés, 386; J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacán (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 158. 60 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 386–87.

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to lord over the land [and] others to govern, much dissension and many deaths between your Majesty’s Christian subjects … and they have counted on the Indios for help; one Christian against another …’61 At first Guzmán, who was charged with solving this situation, was more successful. Conscious of the destabilising influence that a plurality of conduits to the court had produced in the past, he sought to make his authority uncontested by either co-opting or destroying any actual or potential rivals. He aligned his fellow courtier-officials and the oidores of the First Audiencia to his political project through patronage and a sense of camaraderie as the king’s chosen agents. Together they did their best to control all communication to Castile in order to only put their case across – to the fury of Fr. Juan de Zumárraga, whom they never managed to co-opt. Meanwhile they presented their regime as ostentatiously royalist, as demonstrated in their propagandistic programme of carving the royal coat of arms on prominent buildings around Mexico City and defacing or replacing rival displays of euergetism, particularly those alluding to Cortés. Furthermore, they persecuted Cortés’s remaining allies; including Alvarado who they first arrested and then harassed out of Mexico City. In order to secure the supremacy of their faction, they appropriated their enemies’ assets, particularly encomienda grants, and redistributed them to their own adherents: many of whom had come to New Spain as members of Guzmán’s retinue from Castile of around 300 or so who claimed to be ‘all hidalgos and clean in order to come on the journey’.62 In a bid to create a new client base amongst the indigenous leadership the Audiencia began interfering in the Cortésian political arrangements: some committed allies of Cortés, like lord Cocomitzi of Atlihuetzia to cite an example mentioned earlier, and later the Cazonci of Michoacán were executed, others were degraded or dispossessed.63 If we are to believe Guzmán’s critics, the changes of leadership that Guzmán sponsored in the polities served to coerce greater tributary contributions to shore up his regime; and to procure more slaves to sell in the Caribbean, as had been Guzmán’s wont in his former position as governor of Pánuco. His tactics were relatively effective in the short term. Even at the twilight of its power – ­after Guzmán left Mexico City to invade New Galicia with his 300 or 61

García Icazbalceta, Colección de documentos, Vol. 1, ‘Letter of the Contador Rodrigo de Albornoz to the Emperor’, 15th of December, 1525, 504–06. 62 ene, Vol. i, Docs 69 and 55. 63 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 55; James Krippner-Martínez, Rereading the Conquest: power, politics, and the history of early colonial Michoacán, Mexico, 1521–1565 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), esp. 34f; José López-Portillo y Weber, La Rebelión de la Nueva Galicia (Saltillo, Coahuila: Escuela Normal Superior, 1981), 7.

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so Castilian adherents and 5–8,000 indigenous allies, − the oidores were able to command indigenous polities to isolate and embargo the recently arrived Cortés and his retinue of 400 Castilian followers in Cuernavaca, causing half of the latter to perish of starvation; including the mother of the marqués.64 Guzmán is remembered as a ‘natural gangster’, but his regime was punctilious about adhering to legal formalities; often contrasting, in letters to the crown, the strict legality of his own actions with the irregular conduct of Cortés in their correspondence with the crown.65 His regime was the high-point of the Castilian’s court’s disregard for the local arrangements that emerged during the Conquest, or the argument that participation in the Conquest should determine royal favour. From the perspective of New Spain it amounted to a coercive imposition. Local resistance from discontented Indio leaders, the appeals of their Franciscan allies, and the outrage of original conquistadores eventually convinced the crown to depose Guzman and reconsider local claims, particularly those of the abused and increasingly rebellious Indio population. Such, at least, is what appears from the instructions the crown gave to the oidores of the Second Audiencia (10 January 1531 to 14 November 1535) while they awaited the arrival of a viceroy. Like their predecessors they were convinced exponents of their legal training and post-comunero outlook, making them, at first, similarly uninterested in deviant local arrangements: they considered the demoralised and dwindling Spanish population in New Spain as untrustworthy; the Indios irretrievably querulous and as to their authorities ‘up to now we have no information on their [indigenous] government or system of justice or the true status of their señores, but it all seems to have been tyranny’.66 The difference between the two audiencias lay in the crown’s evolving opinions regarding the causes for the ongoing troubles in New Spain. The First Audiencia’s excesses and the terms in which its opponents described them, echoing a long tradition of blaming encomienda for the depopulation of the Caribbean, convinced the crown of the undesirability of encomenderos. It no longer mattered whether they were unreliable conquistadores or more recent immigrants like Guzmán’s hidalgo adherents; the preferred o­ ption was for direct administration of the indigenous population from Mexico City. The crown duly charged the Second Audiencia with overseeing the escheatment of 64 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 624. 65 Krippner-Martínez, Rereading the Conquest, 13–50. 66 ene, Vol. ii, Doc. 91 ‘2nd Audiencia to the empress’, 30 march 1531, 57f; Charles Gibson, ‘The Aztec Aristocracy in Colonial Mexico’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 2, No. 2. (January 1960) 169–96, esp. 175.

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encomiendas to the crown and 53 of around 300 were redeemed from private holders. In another adaptation of Castilian post-comunero solutions, and their erroneous equation of Indio polities with Castilian municipalities, the audiencia decided that they would appoint corregidores to administer indigenous towns in the royal domain. Contrary to later opinions, the effects of the Second Audiencia’s Castilianminded policy proved to be almost catastrophic, and the crown would reverse course in the royal instructions and decrees it issued to inaugurate Mendoza’s administration four years later. The indigenous polities despised the corregidores at least as much, and in some cases more than the encomenderos. Yearly changes in who occupied a corregimiento meant that there was little scope for indigenous authorities and their corregidores to negotiate or develop common interests. Instead, like the dreaded ‘inspector generals’ of Gogol’s play, the corregidores sought to extract as much tribute as possible through any means at their disposal during their short tenure: Pedro de Arellano for example (a gentleman and royal appointment – so one of the supposedly more legitimate and capable holders of the post) ‘tormented with fire three Indios, so that they would tell him where certain jewels and gold’ were hidden. One of Mendoza’s first concerns would be to remedy this state of affairs.67 Another example of these letrados’s lack of understanding of either indigenous interests or those of their fellow Spaniards comes from the foundation of Puebla: a much vaunted initiative to create a municipality populated with self-sufficient Spanish farmers. Not only did Puebla imply a considerable confiscation of fertile land between Cholula and Huexotzinco; but when only very few Spaniards deigned to settle there on the audiencia’s terms, the letrados were forced resorted to the sort of forced indigenous labour and resettlement practices, which they had ostensibly sought to avoid, in order to save their project. The resentment this caused in key allied polities like Tlaxcala worried contemporaries in Mexico City and continued to be a cause for concern to Mendoza in 1537.68 Their policy towards encomienda, meanwhile, damaged the Spanish population. Encomienda sustained, directly and indirectly, the bulk of the Spanish 67

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As in Nikolai Gogol’s eponymous play of 1842. For evidence against the corregidores see ene, Vol. ii, Doc. 101 ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, 19 April 1532, 117f; Doc. 114 ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, 10 July 1532, 118; and cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.162, ‘Antonio de Mendoza to the Emperor’, 10 December 1537, 181f. ene, Vol. ii, Docs 121, 122 and Vol. iii, Doc. 135 ‘Cabildo of Mexico to the King’, 6 May 1533, 82f; cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.162, ‘Antonio de Mendoza to the Emperor’, December 10 1537, 181f.

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population in New Spain and gave their holders a semblance of the rewards they believed they deserved for serving the king. The settlers vehemently resented the Second Audiencia’s policy as a threat to their livelihood and a further blow to their dignity. Some reacted by reviving and strengthening the ayuntamiento of Mexico City to serve local interests through common action in an institution that still conferred some legitimacy in Castilian minds.69 Most others, disillusioned, sought the protection of more amenable patrons and chose to leave Mexico City.70 The Audiencia lacked the means to prevent this exodus and soon found itself without capable, scrupulous or respected Spaniards to fill the administrative positions it was creating: soon encomenderos were appointed to fulfil the role of corregidores in towns neighbouring their own grants, concentrating wealth and power in fewer hands, while making their excesses harder to control.71 The audiencia’s weakness exacerbated the disarticulation of royal government in Mexico City and gave scope for the rise of magnates it could not control. Nuño de Guzmán escaped with his adherents to carve out a New Galicia in the west, in a final bid to redeem himself in the eyes of the crown; Cortés returned to take over his marquesado and Montejo exploited his presence at court to secure rights over the conquest of Yucatan. Pedro de Alvarado achieved autonomy and political cover after falling out with the First Audiencia by cannily associating himself dynastically and economically with Los Cobos during his own sojourn in Castile. He gained the title of comendador of the knightly order of Santiago – one of the conquistador’s most cherished aspirations as suggested by the oft-mentioned detail that he wore a tattered black velvet cloak with a red-cross of Santiago that had belonged to his uncle on his campaigns in Mexico and Guatemala – he was also recognised as the rightful conqueror and consequently the adelantado of Guatemala with an annual salary of 1,606d.72 Pedro and his brother Juan were able to marry the aristocratic de La Cueva sisters who were in turn related by marriage to Los Cobos. Alvarado even became the privado’s business partner in the latter’s grant to sell slaves to New World colonies. 69

Helen Nader, ‘The Spain That Encountered Mexico’ in Oxford History of Mexico, Helen Nader ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), esp., 20–21 and 120f. 70 ene, Doc. 101, ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, 19 April, 1532, 117; Vol. iii, Doc. 140, ‘Jeronimo López to the King’, February 1534. 71 Ibid. 117f; Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain: government and private interest in the colonial bureaucracy, 1531–1550, trans. Julia Constantine and Pauline Marmasse (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2006), 47. 72 Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos, 102–05.

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These magnates combined local power-bases with the support of powerful members of the Castilian royal court and became characteristic ‘overmighty subjects’ that overshadowed the authority of the Second Audiencia. Cortés became the indispensable strong-man of the audiencia, subduing the indigenous rebellion that greeted its inauguration in 1531, but failing to arrest Nuño de Guzmán according to its instructions. In exchange the audiencia allowed Cortés complete liberty to pursue his exploratory ventures in the Pacific and received a degree of immunity from his own judicial concerns: most importantly the question of the number of vassals in the towns the crown had granted him, a task that, for all their protestations and excuses, the audiencia proved unwilling, or unable to pursue. In practice, therefore, political authority in New Spain became fragmented between antagonistic foci of authority, which encouraged a bitter factionalism that would threaten the survival of the subsequent viceregal administration.73 Looking back on the decade and a half after the conquest, Motolinía concluded that Spanish factionalism constituted the 10th plague to afflict the indigenous population, bringing them closer to a generalised rebellion than anything else the Spaniards had done.74 Each new administration seemed to disregard previous agreements; aggravating socio-political tensions in the polities, and confusing the benchmarks of legitimate or meritorious behaviour expected of the indigenous authorities in exchange for Spanish support. Indigenous lords led out their hosts in military campaigns, paid the fluctuating and often-arbitrary tribute demanded of their polities, cooperated in organising labour for a whole raft of Spanish projects; but each new Spanish administration disowned the debts of their predecessors or of their factional rivals. Worse, like Guzmán, they sometimes interfered in matters of lordship. Like the wealthier conquistadores, a considerable number of indigenous noblemen, particularly from the Tenochca or Tlaxcalan ruling dynasties, regarded the long journey to Castile as a price worth paying for confirmation or elevation of their status throughout the turbulent 1520s and early 30s.75 In some cases, notably that of the descendants of Motecuhzoma, their efforts were rewarded with honours, titles and dynastic alliances to match those of the conquistador leadership, in others it helped to entrench the local authority

73

For example ene, Vol. ii, Docs 95 ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, 9 August 1531, 103–05; and 120 ‘Audiencia of Mexico to the Empress’, November 1532, esp. 213f; López de Gómara, Cortés, 396. 74 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 17. 75 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 496.

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of a dynasty and confirm their nobility.76 But these were a fortunate minority. We can deduce the degree of Indio frustration from the violence of the period: isolated but common armed resistance flared up into large-scale indigenous conspiracies or rebellions, most notably at the start of 1525 and in 1531, that were only repressed with considerable violence.77 The oidores reported to the crown that serious Indio unrest (‘alborotos grandes’) rumbled on throughout the early 1530s; in Oplicingo Christianised Indios were murdered by their neighbours; the Yopes rebelled near Acapulco, and conflicts broke out in Chalco.78 It was only in 1533–4 that the new president of the audiencia bishop Ramírez de Fuenleal was able to take advantage of the lower demands made by a dwindling Spanish population to engage in the sort of direct personal negotiation with the heads of indigenous polities in central New Spain that would restore some indigenous confidence in royal administration (an achievement that was offset, however by his inability to assert any control over the magnates, especially Guzmán, who promoted slave-raiding as one of New Galicia’s few profitable economic activities). Fuenleal achieved this rapprochement thanks to the Franciscans, whose years living in the midst of indigenous polities had turned them into viable intermediaries.

Mendicant Exception

Historiographical debates about the mendicant mission to New Spain tend to focus on who conquered whom spiritually during the Christianisation of Mesoamerica, or the epistemological problem of the sincerity of conversion.79 If, instead, we see their actions in the political context we have been following, then we can understand why the mendicants gained ‘standing’ – by which 76 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 105 and 168; Thomas, Conquest, 598, Wood, Transcending Conquest, 40. 77 Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Misfortunes and Shipwrecks in the Seas of the Indies, ­Islands, and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, 1513–1548: Book Fifty of the General and Natural History of the Indies, ed. and trans. Glen F. Dille (Gainsville: University Press of Florida, 2011), Ch. 29, 65f. 78 E.g. series of letters from the Second Audiencia to the Empress: ene, Vol. ii, Docs 84, 89, 91, 120; Vol. iii, Doc. 127. 79 For a summary see Susan Schroeder, ‘Introduction: the Genre of Conquest Studies’, in Matthew and Oudijk eds., Indian Conquistadors, 7–9. For the term ‘Spiritual Conquest’ see Robert, Ricard, The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico [1933] (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) and Louise M. Burkhart, The slippery earth: Nahua-Christian moral dialogue in sixteenth-century Mexico (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1989) for ‘­Christianity Conquered’, 184–92.

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I mean ‘the authority to make your case and ensure a hearing’80 – in the most prominent polities of central Mesoamerica in the first place. Communal indigenous memories of Cortés publicly abasing himself before the impoverishedlooking ‘twelve apostles’ in 1524 persisted and spread throughout this period. Their appearance offered a counterpoint to the abusive demands of Spanish settlers and made the mendicants, perhaps, the ultimate ‘strangers’ (a quality suggested by their effectiveness in widely diverse contexts from their importance in the Christianisation of the ancient and medieval world to their future successes in Asia would demonstrate).81 But the insecure postconquest Indio leadership realised that they could use the mendicants to protect their status. Unlike the secular Spanish administrators of New Spain, the Franciscans were able to combine an understanding of the specific local interests of the indigenous polities, where they lived and whose languages they began to learn, with the abstract imperial concerns of the monarchy and the universal claims of Christianity. Like New Spain’s magnates, mendicant communities in Mesoamerica could rely on their brethren in Europe and other powerful allies as ‘intimate representatives’. Some individual Franciscans, like Peter of Ghent, who was allegedly a kinsman of Charles v, or Motolinía, who regarded the Duke of Benavente as a patron, were connected with powerful political figures too. As a community, their ultimate patrons were the king, through his Patronato Regio; and the Roman Curia through the Franciscan hierarchy. In the 1520s these two strands combined when the order in Spain came under the supervision of Francisco de Quiñones: son of the Count of Luna, a protégé of Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros and Minister General of the Franciscan Order from 1523–1527. Quiñones was responsible for sending the first Franciscan mission of the so-called ‘12 apostles’ to New Spain and was so avid for missionary activity that he reputedly planned to join them there. Instead he became Cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, charged with repairing the breach between the papacy and Charles v after imperial troops had sacked the pontifical city. The order’s links to the Vatican, from where one of Castile’s most recognisable, if contested, justifications for claiming half the globe derived, gave the Franciscans a potentially E ­ uropean-wide 80

For my use of the term ‘standing’ in a political context see the discussion in Michael Ignatieff, Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), Ch. 7. 81 Wood, Transcending Conquest, 38–39; Georges Kubler, Mexican Arquitecture of the 16th century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 3f; María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios HispanoAmericanos, 1978), 155ff; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 88.

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audience for their approach to legitimacy in New Spain and strengthened their relative autonomy with regards to secular authorities in Castile and New Spain. This structure ensured their particular standing in Spain from the mid-1520s. Armed with these political attributes, the Franciscans first proved their worth to Indio leaders in the resistance they organised to the impositions of Nuño de Guzmán and the First Audiencia. The Franciscans based their campaign on moral arguments deduced from their experiences in New Spain rather than Castilian legal precepts or courtly political interests. They proved sufficient to convince the crown to replace Guzmán and the audiencia.82 Their triumph also affected royal policy against encomienda and afforded them an unprecedented influence over Fuenleal. Canny Indio leaders could see from the outcome of this struggle that the mere presence of Franciscans in a polity could help to mitigate excessive ­Spanish demands without the need to engage in risky acts of rebellion. Hosting friaries in their polities displayed, however abstract their understanding or insincere their actual feelings, an adherence to Charles v and Christianity.83 The relative security this afforded Indio hosts from the unpredictable Spaniards, improved their authority in their own polities. In any case friars were more appealing intermediaries with Mexico City than whimsical encomenderos or corregidores; and cheaper as well as safer than visits to Castile. Local political considerations during the turbulent 1520s and early 1530s therefore prompted the polity leadership to court the Franciscans, and later Dominicans and Augustinians. Meanwhile the Franciscans willingly converted themselves into not only their host-polities’ intercessors with the divine, but also their intermediaries with the authorities in Mexico City and Castile. We can gauge the value that Indio leaders placed on this association from the competition that arose between them to attract the few mendicants available during the 1520s to settle in their district. In exchange for their presence, indigenous lords and their subjects willingly sustained the mendicants, built their convents and participated in their rituals.84 In Tlaxcala, for instance, the p ­ alace 82 83

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John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 28. Jorge E. Traslosheros, Iglesia Justicia y Sociedad en la Nueva España: La audiencia del Arzobispado de Mexico 1528–1668 (México: Porrúa; Universidad Iberoamericana, 2004), 10f; Wood, Transcending Conquest, 40. There were only 800 friars in New Spain even in 1559. Kubler, Mexican Arquitecture of the 16th century, 2; Motolinía, Historia de los indios, 92–93 and for the reliance of mendicants on the patronage of the indigenous nobility, 19.

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of Maxixcatzin at Ocotelulco became the first Franciscan convent in Mesoamerica and, for a time, the polity’s cathedral. The revered image of the Virgin Mary – probably the image that Cortés gave to Lord Acxotecatl Cocomitzi (son in law of Maxixcatzin) and the one represented at the start of the Lienzo de Tlaxcala in the centre of the four polities – stood nearby at Atlihuetza.85 The Maxixcatzin clan who were identified as partisans of the Franciscans and Cortés became the dominant force in Tlaxcalan politics after the conquest.86 Accordingly their resentful neighbours in Quiahuiztlan demonstrated their discontent by encouraging rival Dominicans to their altepetl in an attempt to assert their autonomy and equal standing.87 Similarly the five leading tribes of Amecameca, in the province of Chalco, used mendicants in their wrangles over local precedence; while their hegemons in Tlalmanalco confirmed their precedence by hosting the earliest convent in the province, dedicated to San Luis de Tolosa, and eventually housing there the talismanic remains of the revered Fr. Martin de Valencia from his death in 1534 until their mysterious disappearance in 1567.88 Displays of Christian piety also helped smaller polities to affirm their autonomy against the pretensions of more powerful neighbours. Huaquechula, for instance, had done very well from its early alliance with Cortés and its participation, under Alvarado, in the conquest of Guatemala, which they exalted in the magnificent Lienzo de Quauhquechollan (see Fig. 7). But the polity’s location in the coveted valley of Atlixco continued to make its usurping dynasty fearful of attack from more powerful neighbours.89 In order to forestall their rivals, leading Huaquechulan noblemen like don Juan and the prince, don Martín, made much of their displays of Christian piety and turned their polity into an important centre for Christian ritual for all Atlixco; cementing this association with the construction of the valley’s preeminent convent to the latter’s namesake, St. Martin, out of their own funds in 1533. The polity retained the Spaniards’ recognition and so its autonomy. Eventually it earned it the notice of viceroy Mendoza who rewarded don Martín and don Juan, with a licence to carry Spanish weapons specifically for being such ‘good Christians’ and for fighting in Guatemala.90 The construction of a convent could even elevate the status of a calpolli to prominence in a polity. The convent of San Miguel, for instance, was one 85 Gibson, Tlaxcala, 55. 86 Ibid., 105–10. 87 James Lockhart, Los Nahuas después de la conquista (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1999), 296–97. 88 Motolinía, Historia de los indios, 128, n. 29. 89 Ibid., 192. 90 Ibid., 92–93.

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of the first four to be built in New Spain. It stood in a lowland territory belonging to Amillpan, a calpolli that formed part of the fractious altepetl of Huexotzinco. Amillpan came to enjoy a special prestige for hosting this f­ riary so that when Spanish authorities insisted on the congregación (also called a reducción) of Huexotzinco’s population into a more coherently urbanised ­municipality, Amillpan became the natural choice for its civic centre as the ‘City of Huexotzinco’, attracting wealth and immigrants that benefitted its ­local nobility.91 Similarly, ambitious indigenous dynasties started inviting friars to preside over their dynastic unions in order to reinforce their prominence in the community, particularly before a Spanish public. Motolinía recorded the most glamorous occasion of Texcoco’s social (and political) calendar of 1526: the simultaneous wedding of don Hernando de Alvarado Pimentel Nezahualcoyotl, nephew of the usurping prince Ixtlilxochitl, and seven other prominent lords in a Christian ceremony that was attended by prominent Spanish guests and their wives, including a representative of Cortés. After the Christian rite the feast grew to encompass traditional indigenous dances, public processions and pageantry involving thousands of participants.92 Don Hernando, shored up his claims to precedence in the fraught Texcocan matter of succession and would come to govern Texcoco from 1545 until his death.93 Like marriage, baptism became an essential, legitimising, rite, as did displays of Christian piety through proselytising and the smashing of ‘idols’. Members of the indigenous nobility would even dress in the normally unglamorous garb of friars, when they returned from visits to Spain to display their identification with the mendicants.94 The obvious practical benefit to indigenous leaders of hosting a mendicant community helps to explain the number and speed with which so many new convents were built in this period; the Franciscans’ enthusiasm for the apparent piety of the native population and their perception of the success of their evangelical mission. Zumárraga, who held the vaguely defined but suggestive title of ‘Protector of the Indians’ from the crown and was a trusted confidant of Quiñones,95 seems 91 Gerhard, Guide to the Historical Geography, Index. 92 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 97. 93 Emma Pérez-Rocha and Rafael Tena eds., La nobleza indígena del centro de México después de la conquista (Mexico: inah, 2000), 47f. 94 Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 545. 95 Alberto M. Carreño ed., Fray Juan de Zumarraga: Primer Obispo de Mexico. Documentos Ineditos publicados con una introduccion y notas por Alberto Maria Carreño (Mexico: Porrúa, 1941), 83.

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to have seen it as his prerogative to resist the more extravagant demands of the First Audiencia. According to Motolinía, his patronage gave coherence and authority to the mendicant-indigenous resistance to that regime’s exactions, enhancing the mendicants’ standing in key polities even further.96 Many natives adhered sincerely to those tenets of Christianity that they could identify with most readily. As rebels and usurpers themselves, many seemed interested in learning about the heretical but powerful deity that had defeated Tenochtitlan and overthrown countless gods throughout the land – anecdotal evidence, like Alonso de Zuazo’s famous debate about Christianity with sceptical indigenous lords gives a flavour of the tenor of these discussions.97 Almost regardless of the genuineness of their conversion, Christian display became an essential and obvious decoration with which indigenous lords could feather their crowns. Without it they could not achieve legitimacy in the eyes of Spaniards, and those of their native subjects as well, since so many had come to power in the first place through a usurping alliance with the Spaniards and their God. Without displaying their Christianity they became suspect and vulnerable to rivals who could question their legitimacy to rule. This identification, however cosmetic at first, would, in time, Christianise the benchmarks of legitimacy in the polities, helping to explain the nature and origins of the land’s religious conversion. Hostile observers, like the cabildo of Mexico City, noted the extent of the political association between the Franciscans and their indigenous hosts by 1533: they declared that the mendicants aspired to be ‘lords … judges and givers of orders’ in the polities they inhabited, and that the friars undermined the dignity and authority of secular Spaniards, and encouraged the Indios to despise the demands of the encomenderos, suggesting instead that the Spaniards should live off their own labour rather than indigenous tribute.98 Meanwhile Fuenleal validated the role that the friars had arrogated on themselves as intermediaries and, in a change from earlier pronouncements from the Second Audiencia, determined that the natives were as capable as any Spaniard and that with Franciscan instruction they could be expected to act as useful agents of the crown in their own right.99 Indeed the audiencia had already been forced to rely, surreptitiously, on pochteca from Tlatelolco and Matlalcingo to help count the vassals of Cortés as the Spaniards were too attached to their own factions to act as reliable agents.100 96 Motolinía, Historia de los indios, 82–85. 97 Fernández de Oviedo, Misfortunes and Shipwrecks, 69f. 98 ene, Vol. iii, Doc. 135, ‘Cabildo of Mexico City to Emperor’, 6 May 1533, esp. 84–87. 99 Ibid., Doc. 141, ‘Obispo de Santo Domingo to the Emperor’, 118. 100 ene, Vol. ii, Doc. 116, ‘Audiencia to the Empress’, 27 July 1532, 195.

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Conclusion Indigenous noblemen and the Spanish expatriates in the Caribbean failed to realise the ideals that impelled them to participate in the Conquest during the fifteen years that followed the capitulation of Tenochtitlan. Nor did a new consensus develop to fill their ‘emptied form’. The Conquest was never superseded as the basis for political legitimacy but neither was its memory refashioned to mean something more worthwhile. It became, instead, one contested element of uncertain importance amongst others in the claims and counter claims to authority of those nearly anomic years. On the eve of Mendoza’s arrival New Spain’s the power of the magnates made him either dependant on their resources or worried by their rivalry; the Spanish population was demoralised and divided into factions; and the confidence of the Indios in royal government was fragile, while the tensions that the Conquest had produced in many polities remained unresolved. Initially, New Spain’s original sin robbed the new viceroy of a coherent framework for establishing political legitimacy, or ascertaining merit: either at the local level or in the estimation of the sovereign in Castile and the future of New Spain as a polity remained uncertain.

part 2 Courtly Government

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A king, they argued, was, after all, a human being, and there was a chance of getting from him what one wanted, rightly or wrongly; under a monarchy there was room for influence and favour; and a king could be angry, and forgive … Law, on the other hand, was impersonal and inexorable. Law had no ears. An excellent thing, no doubt, for paupers, it was worse than useless for the great as it admitted no relaxation or indulgence towards a man who ventured beyond the bounds of mediocrity. Human nature not being perfect, to suppose that a man could live in pure innocence under the law was, to put it mildly, risky. titus livius, Ab Urbe Condita Libri (2.3-4)

...

Nations are not primarily ruled by laws: less by violence … Nations are governed by the same methods … by which an individual without authority is often able to govern … his equals and superiors; by a knowledge of their temper, and by a judicious management of it. edmund burke, ‘Thoughts on the Cause Present Discontents’

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Viceroys and Magnates After more than five years of negotiation and postponement the crown chose Antonio de Mendoza as its first viceroy to New Spain, on the 17th of April 1535. Although the title was new the crown did not imbue it with any legal faculties or jurisdictional competencies. Mendoza derived his official powers only from his simultaneous appointment to the pre-existing offices of Governor and President of the audiencia, so that he had no greater official powers than predecessors like Nuño de Guzmán or Ramírez de Fuenleal. In addition to his offices, Mendoza received formal instructions, along with other, more substantial, ‘Secret Instructions’ that queen Isabella, acting as her husband’s regent, addressed to her former chamberlain in an affectionate language of courtly complicity. In these unofficial instructions, which contradicted many of the formal ones, the queen urged Mendoza to communicate with her directly and in secret; she confided the crown’s insecurities about attaining reliable information about New Spain and revealed its real, undisclosed, objectives. She signed off by restating her trust in the initiative of her ‘man of confidence’.1 In creating a viceregal title for New Spain Charles v did not intend to reform its troubled administration: he had specifically chosen not to employ a letrado to act as ‘reformer of New Spain’ when the Council of Castile proposed the measure in 1529.2 Instead he and his principal Castilian courtiers sought to replicate the benefits they had accrued in Europe from appointing viceroys based on informal affinities with Charles and his Castilian ministers. Mendoza would come to dominate the over-mighty magnates of New Spain despite severe initial disadvantages. To explain this achievement we will examine why Charles v favoured viceroys as a means of governing his multifarious domains before turning to the informal means that Mendoza and his successor, Luis de Velasco, employed to establish their supremacy in New Spain.

1 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 4; with Arthur S. Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham: Duke University Press, 1927); Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 526. 2 For a recent discussion on the framework of these offices see: Lara Semboloni, La construcción de la autoridad virreinal en nueva España, 1535–1595 (Mexico: Colegio de México, 2014); and Jorge I. Rubio Mañe, El Virreinato. Vol. 1 Origenes y jurisdicciones, y dinámica social de los virreyes (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005), 20–25.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_005

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In Europe Charles ruled over a ‘composite monarchy’ through the maxim of aeque principaliter, which meant that no kingdom took official precedence over any other and he remained the sovereign of each in accordance with their traditional laws, political institutions, customs and privileges.3 Attempts at interfering in these arrangements, as Olivares would do a century later, met with often violent resistance. Even if he had wanted to, Charles could not have appointed viceroys with the delegated legislative authority of Roman proconsuls; or with the autonomy of feudatories to whom the crown had surrendered part of its dominion in exchange for vassalage. In the context of his ‘composite monarchy’ viceroys served more like ambassadors that transmitted or enacted the will of a distant monarch, and embodied his absent majesty in the eyes of his subjects. This did not mean, however, that viceroys couldn’t be used to create what might be termed a ‘structural bias’ in favour of certain interests. Charles spent the longest sojourn of an itinerant life in Castile between 1522 and 1528. In that time the young Habsburg monarch learnt Spanish, married his cousin Isabella of Portugal in Seville, and lived amongst Castilian courtiers to whom he was bound by their recent displays of loyalty during the comunero revolt. His Castilian court was flush with new wealth from the kingdom’s military successes overseas, and dominated by the rising star of the king’s new favourite: Francisco de Los Cobos. This sojourn transformed the affective world of the king. Since the late 1520s Los Cobos succeeded in convincing Charles to deviate from his previous practice and to install, whenever the opportunity arose, Castilian courtiers as viceroys in his Iberian and Italian kingdoms. Until 1532, for example, the viceroys Charles appointed to Naples had hailed from Catalonia, the Low Countries, Valencia, Franche-Comté and Italy; thereafter they would all be Castilians for the rest of his reign and, with few exceptions, until 1707. In formal bureaucratic terms the provenance of a viceroy should have been irrelevant; but in practice Castilian viceroys used their influence to favour their native land and crown (see Fig. 9). Apart from a natural affinity for Castile, Castilian viceroys were conscious that fellow Castilian courtiers, rather than Charles or his non-Castilian advisors, would sit in judgement over their merit. The inhabitants of the kingdom a viceroy was sent to oversee could assume that he enjoyed access to Castile’s financial and military resources. This access allowed viceroys to dispense patronage or wield the threat of force from outside the kingdom he was overseeing, with a view to aligning local power-brokers to their cause. This informal authority allowed viceroys to 3 See, e.g., Javier B. Grandón, ‘El cursus de la jurisdicción letrada en las Indias (s. xvi–xvii)’ in coord. Feliciano Barrios, Un gobierno de un mundo: virreinatos y audiencias en la América hispana (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004).

Viceroys and Magnates

Figure 9

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A successful hunt depended on trust in the effective cooperation of one’s fellow hunters, even when communications were difficult. Common endeavours, like hunting, created emotional bonds between partners. Lucas Cranach’s painting of Charles v hunting with the elector of Saxony and their courtiers at Torgau, did not record a historic event; instead it intended to highlight the virtues necessary for the successful operation of the emperor’s courtly style of government and the intimate associations it could produce. reproduced with permission from the Museo Nacional del Prado.

entrench their position amongst their host societies: often through dynastic alliances with their most influential members. Later generations of Castilian apologists liked to point to their empire’s uniquely ‘just beginnings, great parts of it coming together through inheritance’ rather than ‘violence and force of arms’,4 but it was the Flemish-born Habsburg Charles v, not Castile, that had inherited those domains: the Castilian court’s achievement was to win over Charles and thereby dominate the other realms of his composite monarchy subtly and informally: without changing their formal structures, but nonetheless redefining the perception of Charles’ monarchy towards an identification with Castile. When Charles decided to appoint a viceroy to New Spain he had in mind this informal European precedent – not older Iberian uses of the term viceroy, 4 Henry Kamen, Golden Age Spain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 8: quoting Gregorio López Madera, Excellences of the Monarchy of Spain (1597).

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or the largely hypothetical viceroyalty of the Ocean Sea that Columbus had briefly sported. Mendoza, for example shared many characteristics with Pedro de Toledo, who was made viceroy to Naples in 1532. Like Mendoza, Toledo was an untitled younger son of one of the most successful dynasties since the Trastámaran usurpation. Both were amongst the first Castilians to declare for Charles at his disputed succession in 1516; and they solidified their prestige at court by fighting for his cause with distinction against internal challengers to his authority in the early 1520s: principally Navarrese rebels and comuneros.5 Toledo, who was a decade older than Mendoza, went on to cement his reputation as a military commander; while Mendoza and his brothers benefitted from hosting the royal couple on their amorous honeymoon in the Alhambra in 1526, which afforded them access to the inner circles of the court, the affection of well-disposed monarchs and a consequent preferment. In any case, Los Cobos was familiar with the Mendozas from when he worked for their father, Iñigo López de Mendoza, at his court in the Alhambra.6 Soon after the royal couple left Granada in 1526 Mendoza was summoned to court as Royal Chamberlain: a position that brought him close to the affections of the queen-regent, a generous patroness beloved by her adherents (famously, the young Francis Borgia, then her Equerry, would date his conversion to Christian piety, which would lead to his canonization, to the anguish he felt after seeing the decomposed remains of Isabella that he had conducted for burial to Granada). Mendoza duly received a series of prestigious commissions, which included a delicate embassy in 1532 to the embattled eastern frontier of Christendom in Hungary, where the Emperor’s brother was fighting John Zápolya for the crown, while Ottoman forces massed menacingly south of Buda.7 All the while Mendoza was touted as the most viable candidate to occupy the newly created title of viceroy of New Spain. The crown considered the conquest and administration of Granada as a partial model for how they wished to govern New Spain, so Mendoza’s ancestral and administrative background there was a pertinent antecedent.8 Finally, as an untitled younger son of a grand dynasty that had until recently become somewhat alienated from court through their remoteness in Granada, Mendoza offered the crown two linked advantages: his 5 Carlos José Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Napoles en el siglo xvi. El virrey Pedro de Toledo: linaje estado y cultura (1532–1553) (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 1994), 8f. 6 Francisco J. Escudero Buendía, Antonio de Mendoza: Comendador de Socuéllamos y primer virrey de la nueva España (Ciudad Real: Perea, 2003), 205. 7 Ibid., 209. 8 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 1, Instrucciones a Antonio de Mendoza, 17 April, 1535.

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noble ancestry gave him a natural standing amongst Spanish settlers;9 but his status in the Mendoza dynasty and relative lack of patrimonial wealth made him less likely to demand as much as other grandees in recompense for accepting such a remote posting; and to make him more disposed to seek his own aggrandisement through loyal service to his royal patrons. For Mendoza the association of Granada to New Spain, and the sense of improving his station through royal service were important inducements for accepting such a remote posting.10 Napoleon’s dictum that a man’s world-view is formed by his experiences at twenty applied to the future viceroy: at around that age in 1512, Ferdinand added Marquis of Mondéjar to his father’s hereditary title of second Count of Tendilla, as a reward for the generally successful execution of his duties as alcaide (commander) of the Alhambra and Captain General of the unquiet Kingdom of Granada since 1492. As mentioned above, settling in Granada to discharge these duties had implied Tendilla’s de facto exile from the royal court and his ancestral estates in Guadalajara; but the royal recognition implicit in the new title confirmed to the mind of the Mendozas of Granada the transformative relevance of the old medieval precept of do ut des that summarized the ethos of voluntary service that notionally underscored the compact between crown and nobility in a just commonwealth. Ferdinand’s reward elevated the Mendozas’ fortunes in general and those of Antonio in particular, as his father felt able to bestow on his favoured, but second-born, the wealthy encomiendas of la Mancha de Socuéllamos and Torre de Vegezate without excessive detriment to the inheritance of the eldest, Luis. The relationship between the brothers was also formative, characterized by displays of public solidarity that masked a personal competitiveness: Luis contested unsuccessfully in the audiencia Tendilla’s further grant of Almayete (worth 800d per annum) to Antonio in his will, and even suggested his brother might be illegitimate on account of his unusual height.11 But later, as Antonio’s viceroyalty lost support in Castile and a visita was commissioned, Luis, as president of the Council of the Indies, rallied to protect his brother from any formal legal repercussions. Unofficially, however, he urged Antonio to leave New Spain and take up the viceroyalty of Peru to safeguard Mendoza honour.12 9

10 11 12

See, e.g., the comments of Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés the life of the conqueror by his secretary, ed. and trans. Lesley B. Simpson (Berkley: University of California Press, 1965), 405. agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey’, 18. Germán Vázquez, Antonio de Mendoza (Madrid: Quorum, 1987), 20f. Juan Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. T. Silva Tena (Mexico: conaculta, 1990), 154–55 with Francisco J. Escudero Buendía, Don Francisco de

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Like the offices that the crown granted his father in Granada, Mendoza’s instructions left the length of his tenure and the question of succession to the viceregal title unstated, reserving for itself the right to rule on such matters ‘as the king wills it’.13 Yet the king’s willingness to create a new hereditary precedent by ratifying his brother Luis in their father’s similarly conditional offices in Granada became the model for Antonio’s long-term dynastic ambitions regarding the viceroyalty of New Spain.14 Mendoza would seek to convince the crown to make his title hereditary: once again the criteria would be informal and based on political negotiation. Behind their personae as the king’s alter ego viceroys were noblemen with the traditional patrimonial ambitions of their class, which their offices, considered rewards as much as responsibilities, would help them to achieve. In another parallel with Pedro de Toledo in Naples, Antonio de Mendoza would act overtly on this ambition when, pleading ill health in 1549, he appointed his son Francisco as acting viceroy for what proved to be the last year of his government, in the hope that the king would ratify a de facto succession and create another dynastic precedent for his branch in New Spain. However long Mendoza and his descendants were to rule New Spain, however, it is clear that the style of his authority was expected to be more lordly than bureaucratic. This was implicit in a royal cédula signed by the queen on May 5th 1535, which accompanied Mendoza’s commission, excusing him from import duties (almojarifazgo) on any items intended for ‘the provision of his household and person’ that he wished to transport to Mexico City. The items listed for exemption provide a glimpse into the lordly style of his household, its scale, hierarchy and importance as the core of a network of patronage that would evolve into the viceregal court of Mexico City. It includes items like 36 shirts for the viceroy and 144 ‘for his criados’, 12 caps for him and 48 for his criados; 5 doublets for the viceroy and sixty for his criados; 12 pairs of socks for him and 120 for his criados and many further items of ceremonial and everyday clothing, including slippers; all manner of splendid equestrian equipment, ornaments, refinements and knives for his vassals, along with six choice horses to complement their turnout. The list also boasted other courtly refinements to decorate and entertain in the palace in a regal manner with 50 marcos of worked silver ornaments, 300 anas of tapestries, two salas (perhaps

13

14

Mendoza: protomonarca de México y Perú, comendador de Socuéllamos y capitán general de las Galeras de España (Guadalajara: aache Ediciones, 2006), Ch. vi. agi Justicia 259, where the cédula granting the viceroyalty with the proviso ‘for as long as the king wills it’ came up and was copied as part of Sandoval’s visita; and Escudero Buendía, Don Antonio de Mendoza, ‘Conclusión’; vea, Mendoza, Docs 1–4. Escudero Buendía, Antonio de Mendoza, 209.

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sufficient furniture to decorate two halls), 24 pieces of embossed leather furniture, draperies from Segovia; Cooking equipment and ingredients that were scarce and valued in New Spain including wine, olive-oil, vinegar, spices and flavourings amongst other products; along with up to fifty ducats worth of medicinal elixirs; and, as testimony to the viceroy’s humanist inclinations and intentions to settle in his new domain, a valuable library of 200 books.15 Like the matter of succession, the courtly mandate behind Mendoza’s appointment left the nature of viceregal government and the extent Mendoza’s personal authority open to definition in the course of his tenure. Authority in New Spain could easily have remained diffuse, as it was under the Second Audiencia, when the treasury officials and the oidores each served the crown largely separately from each other’s influence in Mexico City; while the administration remained dependent on the cooperation of the autonomous territorial magnates: Cortés, Guzmán, Alvarado and Montejo. Mendoza’s inconformity with this arrangement emerged, in the first instance, from his patrimonial ambitions for personal aggrandizement, which prompted him to seek to subordinate, or eliminated, rival sources of authority, even if this was not formally envisioned in his mandate. At first sight, his most obvious rivals were the territorial magnates.

Rivalling the conquistadores

Reflecting on the scandal that overshadowed New Spain’s public life during his infant years, Juan Suárez de Peralta concluded that Antonio de Mendoza had suffered most from the attempt to conquer the illusory ‘Kingdom of Cíbola’ in the early 1540s: ‘because the issue went so badly when he had been so certain of it and of becoming greater than the greatest lord in Spain’.16 Yet in thinking Cíbola was another Mexico or Peru, the ambitious viceroy overcame severe practical disadvantages to assert his leadership over the competing campaigns to conquer it. In the process he degraded or destroyed the power of the magnates of New Spain who, in the course of the previous decade and a half, had come to dominate Spanish expansion in Mesoamerica. Although Mendoza’s victory did not yield the sort of personal rewards he had hoped for, it reversed 15

16

Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), 197. This library was possibly the largest of only three collections known to exist in New Spain at the time. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento, 150.

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the destabilizing diffusion of authority in New Spain and set a precedent for subsequent viceregal supremacy in the land. Throughout the sixteenth century expanding the crown’s domain remained the most prestigious and easily quantifiable service in the Americas. By the time Mendoza arrived in Mexico City, Pizarro’s exploits in Peru had revived the faith of many Spanish settlers in the potential of exploration into the unknown expanses that surrounded them. Meanwhile, Caribbean settlements were in decline and factional strife in New Spain had disillusioned many Spanish settlers. The extent of Spanish disillusionment with New Spain became evident the summer before Mendoza’s arrival, when the cabildo of Mexico City calculated that over half of the Spanish population of the City, the richest and best supplied in the Americas, had left to join new ventures since the conquest of Peru: even Cortés, the greatest beneficiary from the Conquest was restlessly preparing new conquests in the Pacific.17 Late in 1536, in the midst of this unsettled atmosphere, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and three companions were brought before the astonished viceroy and citizens of Mexico: they came with tales of the distances and peoples of eight years-worth of wandering in the terra incognita to the north. As their stories spread the received wisdom became that a rich kingdom called Cíbola lay within reach, and for those Spaniards that had remained in New Spain, or arrived recently in search of their fortune, ‘a new glamour was thrown around the work of discovery’.18 This excitement heightened the existing competition between Cortés, Alvarado and Guzmán for control of exploration along the Pacific coast, which they expected to yield access to Cíbola in addition to the old allure of reaching Asia by sailing west. Mendoza, who was at least as interested as the magnates in the prospect of making his reputation through the conquest of another great kingdom, was initially at a severe disadvantage in the race to conquer Cíbola – or at least win the exclusive right to try. The viceroy did not have any clear-cut formal authority or mandate to supersede Cortés, who was ‘Captain General of New Spain and the Southern Sea’, charged with defending the land and enjoying a specific (though contested, like every other office in New Spain) mandate to explore. The viceroy’s authority was even weaker with regards to provinces and ‘kingdoms’ that Alvarado, Guzmán and Montejo, had conquered (and to a far lesser extent Hernando de Soto’s claims to the undefined region of ‘Florida’), and which the crown had allowed them the right to govern autonomously as 17

José-Luís Martínez, Hernán Cortés (Mexico: unam; Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990), 701. 18 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 118.

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a­ delantados, governors and captains general.19 As the crown’s latest intimate representative Mendoza may have had a better standing than the magnates at the royal court, but Guzmán retained some influential allies there, who ­defended his claims to New Galicia;20 while both Cortés and Alvarado had managed to forge important working alliances with influential members of the royal court during their triumphal visits to Castile in the 1520s. Apart from rumours that the Indios were on the brink of rebellion on hearing that Cortés was dead, Mendoza gained a revealing insight into the limits of his capacity to command the over-mighty subjects of New Spain in his first year there. An opportunity arose for the new viceroy to mark his authority as the crown’s supreme representative in Mesoamerica as far afield as Honduras and Guatemala – which he could notionally claim as the periphery of New Spain. Early in 1536 he sent the oidor Alonso de Maldonado to Guatemala to take over the governorship of the province and begin the residencia of Pedro de Alvarado, as due process demanded. On reaching Guatemala, Maldonado duly dispatched his scribe, Juan de Herrera, to notify Alvarado of his impending trial. However, Herrera spent a month and a half trying to reach the adelantado in vain: suffering beatings, threats and sequestrations from the latter’s supporters in the process. Meanwhile, Maldonado faced such united resistance from the Guatemalan encomenderos and from bishop Marroquín, who had always relied on Alvarado’s sponsorship, that the unfortunate oidor eventually backed down from his enquiries and promised to do only ‘whatever was necessary for the pacification of the land and the service of the king’.21 Synchronically, in Mexico City, Mendoza was trying to cast himself as an arbiter in the on-going disputes between Alvarado and Montejo over control of Chiapas and Honduras. The latter had hurried back to Mexico in search of support after a Maya rebellion devastated his parlous entrada into Yucatán, over control of Chiapas and Honduras. The viceroy soon failed to materialize his presumption of authority to mediate disputes: in another example of the varied forms of legitimacy that operated simultaneously in the Americas, Alvarado had already ‘formally’ accepted the governorship of Honduras from Andrés de Carceda and other local authorities who were desperate for the resources he could proffer to protect them against indigenous reprisals for earlier

19 Rubio-Mañe, El virreinato, 41 and 199. 20 Donald E. Chipman, ‘New light on the career of Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán’, in The Americas Vol. 19, No. 4 (April 1963), 341–48. 21 José M. Vallejo García-Hevia, Juicio a un conquistador: Pedro de Alvarado (2 vols) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2008), Vol. 1, 35–37.

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Spanish depredations.22 Nor did Alvarado have any intention of renouncing Chiapas in exchange for gaining Honduras. Without attending to the viceroy and ignoring Maldonado, Alvarado set sail for Spain in early August to present his case to the king in person and to settle the issue of his authority over Honduras directly with the crown: he rightly trusted in the greater relevance, at the time, of securing the support of Los Cobos, with whom he already enjoyed dynastic and economic ties.23 Even Montejo, until recently the viceroy’s suppliant, ignored Mendoza’s attempts at mediation and, taking advantage of Alvarado’s absence in Spain, sailed to Puerto Caballos in March of 1537 without the viceroy’s blessing. From there he proceeded to snatch back the governorship of Honduras, cloaking his actions in the legitimacy of an out-dated royal instruction of 1535 to that effect. Mendoza found himself in Mexico City holding a newly arrived royal instruction with the relevant spaces left blank for him to appoint governors as he saw fit, but knowing that since he could not make his authority count in this matter the instruction gave him no power except, at best, to confirm developments in which he had been signally irrelevant. Such episodes serve to illustrate how the viceroy’s authority in New Spain could not depend on paper commands without an effective way of enforcing them in practice. Entrenched local authorities could rely on a variety of parallel, or at least alternative, sources of legitimacy that need not involve the viceroy, so long as their vertical relationship with the crown persisted. Mendoza’s most egregious disadvantage, however, was monetary. In America, self-financing bands of conquistadores, rather than royal treasure was the main driver of expansion: it had elevated men had like Cortés, but only after their gamble paid off – many others lost everything without recompense. This voluntary ethos was an essential feature of virtuous noble service in Castile as well: when the Duke of Alba died in 1582 after a lifetime of devoted service, the crown still owed him 474,000d, a burden that his descendants continued to bare for generations.24 If Mendoza wanted the sort of personal rewards and recognition given to Cortés or Pizarro in order to become ‘greater than the greatest lord of Spain’, then he would need to risk his own wealth. Without access to rents from his properties in Castile, his personal income on arrival in Mexico City totalled 8,000d a year, including 2,000d that were notionally destined for the upkeep of his bodyguard. The viceroy had no automatic right to dispose of money from the royal treasury in Mexico City like a king; but the royal officials could grant his requests for funds if they ­considered

22 23 24

Ibid., 32. Ibid., 146. Henry Kamen, The Duke of Alba (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 158 and 167f.

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that they would be destined for matters governance. When his m ­ ayordomo Agustín Guerrero and Antonio de Almaguer conducted an inquiry into royal tribute from the 101 indigenous polities governed directly by the crown, which they completed on 17 March 1536, they revealed a total income of 33,929d a year of which 16,514d were left over after just the salaries and expenditures of the corregidores that supervised its collection were deducted. An additional 20,340d were sent to Castile from the quinto real (a 20% levy on precious metals), but these were not available to the treasury.25 However, even if Mendoza could convince the royal officials to allow him access to royal funds for the expedition to Cíbola he would have been at a severe disadvantage ­vis-à-vis his rivals. Detailed accounts do not survive, but ‘snapshots’ ­provide an impression of the cost of exploration in the 1530s. Cortés spent an estimated 48,000d to launch Olíd’s ultimately treacherous expedition to Honduras in 1524;26 closer to our period Alvarado sold the battered remnants of his forces for the invasion of Quito in 1534 for 120,000d. This expedition had included 12 ships, and 500 Spaniards along with 200 slaves and ‘many Indian auxiliaries’ from ­Guatemala. In 1536 Alvarado proposed to raise a slightly smaller expedition at a cost 48,000d to explore the ever beckoning Pacific ‘and islands’.27 Finally according to López de Gómara Cortés spent an enormous 200,000d on his four Pacific voyages of exploration during the 1530s. The figure seems high and López de Gómara was trying to justify Cortés’s position in his struggle with the viceroy over rights to further exploration; however, judging by the other figures I have quoted it does not seem excessively high.28 When Mendoza took office, the magnates controlled resources that far outstripped what either he or the entire royal treasury could muster. In 1546 Cortés earned 37,478d – more than the treasury’s entire tributary income – just from the tribute generated by his holdings in the modern state of Morelos (excluding the rest of his marquesado and his various commercial enterprises).29 The Marqués also counted on large reserves of moveable wealth attained during the Conquest: the famous emerald necklace, the one he notoriously kept from 25

agi Justicia 258, Relación sacada de los libros de la contaduría, 18 August 1546; and José Miranda, El tributo indígena en la Nueva España durante el siglo xvi (Mexico: Colegio de México, 2005), 123. 26 José López-Portillo y Weber, La Rebelión de la Nueva Galicia (Saltillo, Coahuila: Escuela Normal Superior, 1981), 90–91. 27 Vallejo García-Hevia, Juicio, Vol. 1, 150–59. 28 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 720–21. 29 Michael G. Riley, Fernando Cortés and the Marquesado in Morelos 1522–1547 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973), 81–82; and Bernardo García Martínez, El Marquesado del Valle, tres siglos de régimen señorial en Nueva España (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1969), 144f.

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the empress after she admired it in order to give to his wife instead, and which then was lost in the debacle in Algiers in 1541, was valued at 100,000d; while his fame and the rumours of hidden treasures in New Spain meant that he was always able to borrow: at the time of his death he owed about 127,516d to various creditors.30 More directly comparable figures of royal vis-a-vis marquesado income are found towards the end of our period – when, it should be noted, the balance had shifted considerably in the crown’s favour after many more encomiendas had escheated than in the 1530s and the marquesado had been stripped by crown agents since 1565 ‘like an enemy’s enterprise’ for their own benefit.31 Nevertheless the relative wealth of the marquesado was still remarkable: In 1569 Hortuño de Ibarra calculated that the crown received 275,661d in tribute from royal towns, while the marquesado generated 144,000d.32 The relative weakness of royal government in New Spain becomes more evident if we compare the situation in New Spain to that in Castile, where the crown’s relative income was much higher than that of any individual magnate and it was all at the direct disposal of the king as sovereign. Charles v’s annual revenue as ‘King of Spain’, which at the time may have had a similar population to New Spain, was on average about 1,000,000d a year, rising to 1,500,000d after 1542, and through the sale of juros and by borrowing he was able to raise an additional 39,000,000d.33 By comparison the wealthiest magnates in Spain, like the Duke of Medina Sidonia, earned around 50,000d a year in 1558, while the lordly favourite Los Cobos enjoyed around 53,042d of gross earnings by 1546. The total rents in 1525 of all the Grandes de España combined have been estimated at 1,100,000d.34 30 31 32

33

34

José Miranda, El tributo indígena en la Nueva España durante el siglo xvi (Mexico: Colegio de México, 2005), 157; Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 752–56. García Martínez, El Marquesado del Valle, 75 and note 156. When the royal officials took over the running of the marquesado in 1569, they estimated that the estate generated 110,571d per year just from the tribute of 60,903 tributaries, but these figures exclude the various rents, mining and entrepreneurial ventures it also held. I calculate the total by subtracting the earnings of the marquesado from total royal revenues. Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 705, note 72. For royal income see John H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469–1716 (London: Penguin Books, 1990), 206. The most recent methodology tends towards a lower estimate of Mesoamerica’s population at contact in 1519: Susan Toby Evans and David L. Webster eds., Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2013), 216 estimates 11 million. The census of Feb. 25, 1560, after some severe epidemics estimated: 16,180 Spaniards, 15,609 Africans, 2,425 Mestizos, 1,465 Mulattoes, a further 3,000 Spaniards of unfixed habitation between New Spain, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Honduras. The number of Indians was unknown but estimated at c. 2–3,000,000. Juan Miralles Ostos, Hernán Cortés: Inventor de México (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2001), 692, n. 28.

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Mendoza’s predicament was not unusual; the Castilian crown underpaid its officials both because there was an expectation that ‘an official with a small salary would work all the harder in the hope of eventual mercedes and rewards’35 and because it could rely on the willingness of wealthy noblemen, who were not necessarily salaried administrators, to bare the initial burdens of the more onerous but glorious commands, as befitted the ethos of royal service they subscribed to. In his first years Mendoza was duly forced to reproduce the pattern that had operated during the previous administration and seek the ­co-operation of Cortés. In April 1536 Mendoza asked Cortés to return to Mexico City in order to calm indigenous disquiet at rumours of the latter’s disappearance in the Pacific, much as the Second Audiencia had done in the past.36 Later that year, Mendoza found it necessary to ask Cortés to fund and organise an expedition to rescue Pizarro, who was under siege from the resurgent Manco Inca in Lima, as the viceregal government was powerless to do so – Mendoza’s organization of another expedition to rescue Peru a decade later under the command of his son suggests the transformation in the viceroy’s fortunes. The Marqués responded immediately. Despite the expense it was an obvious opportunity to display his value and loyalty to the crown: the glory of saving Lima would have enhanced his prestige in Castile at a time when judicial and j­urisdictional concerns threatened his position in New Spain. In the event, news of Pizarro’s victory reached New Spain before Cortés could set off. Even so, Cortés made the best of the situation in revealing ways: using the ­resources he had amassed for the rescue operation, he pioneered and laid a ­monopolistic claim to what he hoped would become a lucrative new maritime commercial route to Peru. Two ships subsequently sailed to Lima, via Panama, every year with passengers and goods from bases controlled by the ­marquesado and ­handled by kinsmen and local commercial agents beholden to Cortés. The expedition also gave Cortés an opportunity to continue his e­ xplorations of the Pacific, supported from his astillero del Carbón in Tehuantepec and his ­control of the excellent harbours at Huatulco and Acapulco further to the north.37 Mendoza and the royal administration’s relative lack of money also hamstrung more direct efforts to compete in the race for Cíbola. In 1537, for instance, ­during the urgent early posturing to stake a claim to precedence in the ­venture, Mendoza sought to launch a relatively small reconnaissance 35 Elliott, Imperial Spain, 180. 36 Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 651; Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 2003), 33–36; and Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 107. 37 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 692–93.

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­expedition costing only an estimated 4,200d–4,800d. Since Mendoza could not finance the mission himself, he was forced to ask the crown to let him fund it from the royal treasury, arguing, unconvincingly, that the cost could be covered by chasing up tax-evaders. It was an admission that Mendoza could not serve his king directly, like the lordly servant he imagined himself to be.38 The viceroy’s reliance on Cortés and the royal officials suggested that the polyarchic pattern established by the Second Audiencia might have continued; but subsequent events show that Mendoza’s personal ambitions drove him to seek to overturn this situation. When the viceroy and the Marqués finally met in June 1536, for the first time since Mendoza’s arrival in Mexico City, they did so in the most outwardly affectionate terms. In a festive atmosphere, they agreed on a code of conduct towards each other that placed them on a par: each would address the other as señoría and when they coincided in the street, in church, or in banquets, there would be no precedence of one over the other. Cortés was cooperating, which might have redounded to Mendoza’s favour as an administrator and that of the Marqués as a faithful servant of the crown. A  polyarchy of parallel authorities, each serving the crown autonomously, could have endured. But below the public displays of harmony there were hints that each chafed at being equated with the other: the viceroy and friend of monarchs at his equivalence with a rough Extremaduran upstart; the conquistador who had actually won the land in the first place, at the pretensions of the greenhorn courtier who occupied the position he deserved. A small row over which chair was a few inches in front of the other at church, anguish over whose banquet was more splendid, increasingly rancorous words expressed the underlying tension between the two.39 The contrasting genealogies of their legitimacy, the legacy of New Spain’s original sin, continued to haunt political arrangements in Mexico City. In order to enforce his supremacy over the magnates Mendoza had to gain access to a similar scale of resources as those under their control, while persuading the crown that concentrating power and wealth in his person served its interests. Other governors of New Spain, like Guzmán, had reached similar conclusions only to find that meeting both conditions simultaneously was very difficult. Mendoza planned to enrich himself and his allies from the start of his tenure, in conjunction with orchestrating a political campaign to co-opt strategic allies in New Spain and win over the crown. The viceroy’s household accounts have not been located but he seems to have increased his wealth very

38 39

cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.162, ‘Antonio de Mendoza to the Emperor’, 10 December 1537, 179. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento, 139.

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rapidly from a series of well-known entrepreneurial investments,40 the assignation of encomiendas or offices to his allies; and an association with the royal officials and the oidores that allowed him access to royal funds for personal objectives (discussed in detail below). By 1542 he had funded an expedition led by Fr. Marcos de Niza from his own resources, lent Alvarado money in 1541 and became the largest contributor to his client Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition to Cíbola. Even after these considerable outlays, he was still able to spend between 20,000d and 30,000d of his personal wealth to equip a large number of dependants for the campaign against the rebellious Caxcanes and Zacatecos in New Galicia that came to be known as the Mixtón War.41 His increasing power in New Spain allowed the viceroy to achieve more tangible services to the crown, associating his personal interests and initiatives with royal service, enhancing his reputation at the Castilian court as the most reliable and effective conduit for royal authority in matters of exploration or military activity. The ‘second theatre’, in Castile, was also decisive for the viceroy’s ambitions but it was less predictable. Aware of his material weakness, Mendoza first sought to court Guzmán in order to gain a counterweight to Cortés and some influence over New Galicia. Guzmán had been a fellow courtier in Castile, and was now a relentless enemy of Cortés in a precarious position: Spanish settlers were deserting New Galicia; his judicial problems were compounded by his isolation in the west and the animosity of powerful enemies at court that undermined his legitimacy. But he was still the official adelantado of New Galicia. In early 1537 Mendoza gave Guzmán a safe-conduct and hosted him honourably at the viceregal palace in Mexico City in the hope of making him a dependent ally. But the viceroy’s plans were undermined by an unexpected royal intervention. Without notice, earlier that year the crown dispatched ­Diego Pérez de la Torre to arrest Guzmán and conduct his residencia. Mendoza watched impotently as Pérez de la Torre burst into the viceroy’s palace and threw the governor in jail, despite Mendoza’s complaints, to await deportation.42 Furthermore, without even consulting its viceroy, the crown granted Pérez de la Torre the governorship of New Galicia, and he promptly marched there, taking his large household and retinue. The best bases for launching any expedition to the North-West were all in New Galicia, but the province had passed from 40

41 42

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain: government and private interest in the colonial bureaucracy, 1531–1550, trans. Julia Constantine; Pauline Marmasse (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2006), 116ff. ene, Doc. 236 and vea, Mendoza, Doc. 7. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, Ch. cxcviii, 537.

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the control of a weakened potential ally to a fully authorised new intimate representative of a faction at the Castilian court that was not Mendoza’s own. As Guzmán noted bitterly from prison, it was no coincidence that Pérez de la Torre was from Extremadura like his enemies Cortés and Fuenleal, as they were responsible for orchestrating every coup against him.43 In his long letter of December 1537 Mendoza openly asked the king to grant him the right to explore Cíbola in order to circumvent his rivals’ local power and, perhaps, to justify appropriating their resources. A letter, however, was a poor advocate at court where politic negotiations had the greatest bearing on royal judgements – particularly in matters relating to contested rights in a New World where clear precedents were scarce. As Socrates liked to point out, the written word cannot explain itself in dialogue, so the letter was accompanied by Mendoza’s own intimate representative, Juan de Aguilar, who would ‘explain in person’.44 Effective representation at court was an essential element in the stability of viceregal authority, making the use of intimate representatives at court an essential feature of viceregal government. This practice continued under Velasco who sent and paid his criado Sálvago de Guzmán explicitly for the same purpose.45 These ‘intimate representatives’ can be considered as the ambassadors of the viceroys to Castile: those other settlers, Indios or magnates who could not afford them were at a severe disadvantage in presenting their case and relied on viceregal or mendicant networks to support them. Aguilar was instrumental in convincing the court to accept Mendoza’s bid for supremacy over exploration. His first success was to negotiate for Coronado, the viceroy’s close friend, to be appointed as visitador of New Galicia with powers to suspend Pérez de la Torre’s administration and conduct a residencia of the governor’s short tenure. The royal cédula to this effect was promulgated on the 18 April 1539, but by then de la Torre had died after a skirmish with rebellious Caxcanes near Tonalá, and before waiting to inform the crown Mendoza seized the opportunity to convert his own man, Coronado, into an amenable magnate by giving him the governorship of New Galicia with the income of eleven encomiendas to support him. The crown would eventually ratify this new arrangement as well.46 It is also highly likely that Aguilar initiated 43 44 45 46

cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.107, ‘Nuño de Guzmán to the King’, 13 February 1537, Hernán Cortés had a Bernardo de la Torre as a trusted dependant in Tehuantepec by December 1539. cdi, Vol 2, Doc. 2.162, ‘Antonio de Mendoza to the Emperor’, 10 December 1537 and 2.179, ‘Emperor to Mendoza’, 26 February 1538. cjv, ‘List of dependants of viceroy Velasco’, 216. López-Portillo y Weber, La rebelión, 306f; and Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 257.

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negotiations with Alvarado in Valladolid during the spring of 1538 under the auspices of Los Cobos, who was linked dynastically and economically to both viceroy and adelantado. When Alvarado received his new capitulación of 16th April 1538 it already included the provision that Mendoza could participate with one third of any expedition Alvarado wished to engage in: by implication Cortés was excluded from further exploration, despite his titles and offices. Mendoza’s early disadvantage notwithstanding, none of his rivals had been able to secure an undisputed claim to Cíbola either. With encouraging news from Castile and after the death of Pérez de la Torre, Mendoza felt in a position to fund Fr. Marcos de Niza’s scouting mission in late 1538 from his own resources. His instructions to the adventurous friar reveal the viceroy’s patrimonial intentions: ‘And although all the land belongs to the emperor, our lord, you will take possession of it in my name for his majesty’.47 With control of New Galicia under Coronado and a secret deal with Alvarado taking shape at court in Castile, Mendoza then went on to challenge Cortés directly. On the 24 August 1539, soon after Niza returned with promising reports regarding the size of Cíbola,48 Mendoza ordered that all ships and crews leaving and entering any port along the coast of New Galicia should be ‘inspected’ by his chosen representatives. This order effectively granted the viceroy’s men the right to sequester Cortés’s vessels in the area: which they did systematically over the next year as they docked along the coastline of New Galicia and, much as Nuño de Guzmán had done in the early 1530s, they arrested their crews, even, according to Cortés, torturing some of them to gain navigational secrets from them. Soon after dispatching the order that permitted these confiscations, Mendoza also sent his men to seize Cortés’s docks at Tehuantepec, beyond the borders of New Galicia, and obstructed those expeditions that were already in progress, as when, on the 4th of September, the viceroy and the audiencia refused Cortés permission to send a ship with 30 men to rescue Francisco de Ulloa, who was exploring Baja California. The legality of these actions was debatable and the crown would condemn them later; but by then it was too late for Cortés to dislodge Mendoza’s position in New Spain or to regain the initiative in the race for Cíbola.

47

López-Portillo y Weber, La rebelión, 332; and Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Porrúa 1973), 138–40, who has a fascinating analysis of this power-struggle from a Franciscan perspective. It suggests how and why the Franciscan allegiance had switched to Mendoza from Cortés over the preceding years. 48 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 733.

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Mendoza’s ensuing confrontation with Cortés was the most obvious result of the overlapping boundaries of authority within the Spanish administration, perhaps because for once there could be no accommodation. López de Gómara commented on the dilemma: ‘Cortés and Don Antonio de Mendoza quarrelled bitterly over the expedition to Cíbola, each claiming it as his own by the emperor’s order: Don Antonio as viceroy, Cortés as Captain General. They exchanged such words that they were never reconciled, although they had been close friends.’49 During the urgent struggle to enforce competing rights to exploration, Mendoza’s power over other administrators in Mexico City, and his increasing authority over both Spanish settlers and indigenous polities was decisive. Cortés was increasingly isolated in New Spain and as in 1527 he sought to re-establish his fortunes in 1540 by retreating to the fount of legitimacy at court in Castile; but on this occasion abandoning the field to his rivals would prove to be a decisive miscalculation. Within months of Cortés’s departure, Alvarado’s fleet was due to sail up the Pacific to New Galicia. Mendoza took the opportunity to visit Michoacán and New Galicia, ostensibly to see off the expeditions of his household companion Coronado and his maestresala Hernando de Alarcón; but also, almost certainly, to wait near the shores of the Pacific to finalise arrangements with Alvarado in person. In its combination of legalistic language and chivalric ceremony the contract between Mendoza and Alvarado exemplifies the complementary facets of the signatories as both servants of the crown and patrimonial magnates in their own right. Mendoza’s most trusted household ‘intimate representative’, the ubiquitous mayordomo mayor Agustín Guerrero, and his more recent ally don Luis de Castilla conducted preliminary negotiations with Alvarado at the coast. Alvarado then went inland to meet the viceroy in late November 1540 at the town of Tiripitío, in Michoacán – a polity that formed part of the encomienda granted to the former’s nephew, Juan de Alvarado – to finalise and sign the compact. Mendoza and Alvarado would cooperate in all future exploration, including the much anticipated navigation to the ‘Spice Isles’, and of course in the conquest of Cíbola: sharing the costs and benefits by halves and excluding all others from participating without their mutual consent. To that end Acapulco would have the monopoly as the point of entry and departure of any ship; the official dry-docks would be in Alvarado’s province of Guatemala. The captains of the present expeditions would be Alvarado, for one of its prongs, while the viceroy’s grandest and most trusted household appointees: Coronado, Alarcón and Tristán de Luna y Arellano would be given their chance of glory by leading the other advances. Indio noblemen that Mendoza 49

López de Gómara, Cortés, 407.

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favoured, and who were presumably keen to display their useful services further, were given the opportunity to participate voluntarily in the expedition, as explained by don Juan Tlecanen, the commander of the self-proclaimed Mexica conquistadores of Cíbola.50 The indigenous contingents provided most of the manpower, a testament to Mendoza’s sway over them by this stage. The rest of the army was made up of the many new arrivals from Spain that depended on viceregal largess at the palace in Mexico City for their survival. In a reproduction of the courtly system of confidences that had promoted men like Mendoza himself, these associations provided the best possible hope of controlling the expedition and ensuring its loyalty to the viceroy, even at a distance, something that had proved difficult for patrons of such ventures throughout the early Spanish expansion in the Americas. Mendoza and Alvarado finalised the terms and signed their compact in the name of the king and before his appointed secretaries Juan de León and Diego de Robledo; but the wording of the treaty hardly mentions Charles v at all and is remarkably patrimonial with regard to the two signatories. The provisions would be binding on Mendoza and Alvarado as well as their heirs for a period of twenty years and, as in Niza’s previous instructions, the signatories claimed the new lands personally, though in the name of the king. All future Spanish exploration of the Pacific would have to be mediated exclusively through Alvarado and Mendoza or their heirs. The final act in the compact and the most solemn, reveals most clearly the spirit in which it was intended: employing the ceremonial of the knightly order of Santiago to which he belonged, Don Luis de Castilla administered an oath to his brother knights, Mendoza and Alvarado, which bound them to uphold the terms of the coalition. Even the leading ship of the expedition was named the Santiago. The witnesses to the ceremony included familiar faces of the viceroy’s entourage and Alvarado’s: like Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra as well as Alonso de Maldonado, Peralmíndez Chirinos and Francisco de Marroquín, bishop of Guatemala.51 Only later, in a royal cédula dated 26th of July 1541 the crown ratified the compact retrospectively, adding only minor alterations: the Castilian court considered these two men the most trustworthy partners for the crown in the expansion of Habsburg dominion in northern America, the Pacific and Asia, and it was willing, for the time being, to grant them and their heirs concomitant rewards for the risks they were undertaking in this venture.52 50 51 52

For Cíbola in particular see López-Portillo y Weber, Rebelión, 365f; agi Justicia 258, testimony of don Juan Tlacanen. López-Portillo y Weber, La rebellion, 375–81. Vallejo García-Hevia, Juicio, Vol. 1, 500–01, n. 508.

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Once again, however, events on the ground rendered the crown’s pronouncements irrelevant: by the time the cédula was ratified in Castile, Alvarado had become the most famous casualty of the Mixtón war.53 With Cortés and Nuño de Guzmán in Castile, Soto wandering irrelevantly with his dwindling band towards the Mississippi, and the Montejos bogged down in Yucatán, Mendoza became more dominant than ever in New Spain. In Castile, Cortés and Nuño de Guzmán, along with Alvarado’s heirs, tried to stake their own legal claim to Cíbola. The official reply in May and July of that year invented the legal fiction that Mendoza had commissioned all the voyages of exploration to Cíbola, which was not in any of the old conquistadores’ ­jurisdictions and that in any case it all belonged to the king: effectively the crown backed ­Mendoza.54 Alvarado died without leaving an undisputed heir and so ­Mendoza, who already controlled New Galicia, immediately tried to make his ­authority felt in Guatemala as well, appointing his allies Francisco de La ­Cueva and Alonso de Maldonado as governor and oidor respectively in March 1542. This imposition contradicted local arrangements that had seen the Spanish settlers of Guatemala appoint Alvarado’s widow Beatriz de la Cueva and then bishop Marroquín as co-governors on their own initiative. Even when a royal instruction of May 1544 created the Audiencia de los Confines in Guatemala, Mendoza’s man Maldonado remained as its president. Meanwhile Maldonado had married the ageing Montejo’s only legitimate daughter, closing another circle of dynastic alliances that bound Yucatán as well into the viceroy’s web of patronage. No other viceroy would be able to concentrate so much unchallenged power to determine appointments, conduct exploration and determine political disputes as that which Mendoza achieved between 1541 and 1544 over the vast territory we can refer to as Greater New Spain, which ranged from Honduras and Guatemala to Pánuco and Guadalajara. In those years no other magnate could compete with the extent of the viceroy’s authority or resources. At this juncture Francisco, the viceroy’s son, came from Castile to share his father’s responsibilities in preparation for his planned succession to the viceroyalty.

53

Miguel León-Portilla, La Flecha en el Blanco: Francisco Tenamaztle y Bartolomé de las Casas en la lucha por los derechos de los indígenas 1541–1556 (México: Editorial Diana, 1995), 72. The cabildo of Mexico City certainly believed that the rebellion could easily spread to the rest of New Spain. See Orozco y Berra ed., Actas del Cabildo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Vol. iv, ‘De 1o de Enero de 1536 a 30 de Agosto de 1543’ (Mexico: 1859), entry for 5th July 1541. 54 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 732f for a summary.

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For all his dynastic aspirations, however, Francisco, later known in Castile as ‘el Indio’, would never inherit the title of viceroy. The viceroy’s triumph in New Spain coincided with political realignments at the royal court in Castile that began to undermine the foundations of his authority. They had a determinant impact on how the crown perceived Mendoza’s activities and the support they were willing to give him. Queen Isabella, who had expressed such personal confidence in Mendoza and animosity towards Cortés, died in 1540.55 That same year, Cortés returned to Spain seeking revenge against the viceroy. He followed the itinerant court, dispensed considerable largesse to members of the council and gained some access to Prince Philip’s circle, which, thanks to his efforts came to include his young son and heir Martín.56 Most importantly, the hegemony of Los Cobos at court began to decline after 1543 when Philip became regent of Castile with Gonzalo Pérez as his favourite. This shift brought new preferences to the court and new subjective criteria for judging the actions of the crown’s representatives.57 Even the appointment of Mendoza’s brother to preside over the Council of the Indies may have been a qualified advantage given that the two had quarrelled in the past over their father’s affections and then his inheritance.58 Unfortunately for Mendoza this change at court also coincided with ­devastating confirmation that Cíbola was an illusion and the expensive expeditions to conquer it had failed to achieve anything tangible. Coronado was completely discredited, and his fall affected the viceroy, his patron and friend, by association. Meanwhile, many of the resources originally allocated to exploration had to be diverted to fight the Mixtón rebels, delaying the search for access to Asia and a reliable round-trip route to the Philippines. The maritime expeditions he sent to explore the coast of California and to the Philippines were remarkable nautical feats that produced few tangible results. The latter failed to find a means of returning to New Spain across the Pacific and resulted in humiliating negotiations with its Portuguese captors for the release of its ships and crews. All of these were viewed by the less sympathetic court as the 55 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 4; Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 526. 56 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, Ch. xxii. Martín Cortés would grow up at court and become close enough to Philip ii to attend the new king’s wedding to Mary Tudor in England; Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 143. 57 María J. Sarabia-Viejo, ‘El príncipe Felipe y la nueva sociedad novohispana (1548–1558)’ in Felipe ii y el oficio de Rey: la fragua de un imperio, coords. José Francisco Román Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Jaime González Rodríguez (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2002), 355f. 58 Vázquez, Antonio de Mendoza, 19–20.

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ills and ‘inconveniences’ of Mendoza’s uncontested power. The viceroy and his regime began to lose credibility. At the same time Las Casas reignited the moral self-questioning of the Castilian imperial mission that made the ambitions of freelance conquerors and explorers increasingly suspect to the new sensibilities of the crown. Mendoza’s successful repression of the Mixtón rebels was not seen in the favourable light in which past conquests were regarded a decade earlier – rather the troubles were associated in part with the vexations that Coronado’s expedition had caused the natives. Cortés led and promoted a growing chorus of voices that recommended to the crown the need to send visitador Francisco Tello de Sandoval with full powers to investigate Mendoza’s administration and hold it to account. In Castile ‘when one wanted to overthrow a válido or a patron, he was accused of corruption, and the monarch was incited into organising a visita of the body controlled by said person … The true purpose of visitas was not to cure the administration, as we might say nowadays, but to change the group holding government power.’59 In New Spain, visiting judges like Tello de Sandoval, or Valderrama later with Velasco, were particularly effective because they acted like lightning rods for discontent and offered a chance for the opportunistic advancement of individuals that had lost out in the past. They represented direct and accessible royal justice, unimpeded by any established power structures already in situ. Tello de Sandoval occasioned a political crisis in Mendoza’s administration because the mere fact of his visita suggested royal displeasure and dishonoured the viceroy, undermining the foundations of his informal authority.60 Certain treasury officials and members of the audiencia began to cooperate less willingly or uniformly with Mendoza as they hedged their bets and manoeuvred for advantage once they sensed a change to the status quo: ‘because that black ambition to command meant that each oidor wished to be the most powerful and they devoted themselves to gaining friends rather than dispensing justice. Then there began discords amongst them that survive to this day.’61 Mendoza’s network of representatives at court still included Aguilar and ­Rodrigo Arias Mansilla. They were now joined by Agustín Guerrero as the

59

José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992), 20. 60 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 166 n. 62. 61 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6.

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­viceroy’s most recent representative, sent specifically in response to this ­crisis.62 In Castile these agents found support in the viceroy’s family, in particular Luis as president of the Council of the Indies, and a nephew, who now rallied to defend their dynastic honour. They managed to have Tello de ­Sandoval recalled and discredited, and his accusations were thrown out before they came to trial. Mendoza re-established his authority in Mexico City, whose ­friars, residents and officials realigned themselves behind his last political campaign: to convince the crown to allow the succession of his son Francisco as the second viceroy of New Spain. But Mendoza never again convinced the crown that his personal style of government and the power he had accumulated suited its interests. Coronado was deposed from his governorship of New Galicia and the title suppressed. In 1548 the crown appointed an audiencia in New Galicia instead and viceroys lost the ability to appoint its highest authorities directly. The same held true for the governorship in Guatemala. For Mendoza, a last opportunity for redemptive personal glory arose when news of Gonzalo Pizarro’s initially successful rebellion in Peru gave him the prospect of organising a large and well equipped expedition under the command of his son to rescue royal authority in the other great kingdom of the Indies. In an echo of Cortés’s frustrated expedition to Lima more than a decade earlier, news came of Pizarro’s defeat before the expedition even set sail – denying the Mendozas of New Spain their chance at becoming the saviours of royal authority. Instead Mendoza was appointed to govern Peru in 1550 in order to remove him from New Spain without dishonouring him too overtly. The viceroy pleaded illness to forestall his removal and to allow his son Francisco to rule as de facto viceroy for most of 1549, to a chorus of approval from his subjects expressed in several letters to the crown praising the Mendoza incumbency and begging for Francisco’s succession. But despite these manoeuvres Francisco would not inherit the viceroyalty or ever again be granted a position of authority in the Americas. Mendoza’s older brother Luis was forced to warn the viceroy to stop dragging his feet and promoting the idea of a hereditary viceroyalty because it was believed in Spain that he wanted to ‘rise up with the land’ against the crown. He urged Antonio to make the journey to Peru ‘even if only your bones get there’ to save Mendoza honour in Castile.63 The notion of the viceroy as merely a servant of the crown rather than an autonomous dynastic junior partner, in the manner of a titled lord, reasserted 62 63

agi Justicia 277, ‘recusación’, no. 7. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 154–55; Escudero Buendía, Don Francisco de Mendoza, Ch. vi.

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itself when Mendoza left willingly for Peru in 1550. But it had been political accident, not bureaucratic intention that provoked it and it was not inevitable. Paradoxically the crown would not have found it so easy to impose its new will over New Spain if Mendoza had not tamed the magnates in the first place to achieve his own, now frustrated, ends. The failure Mendoza’s dynastic ambitions contributed to the decline of traditional hopes for patrimonial lordship amongst Spanish settlers as well. The royal legislation that accompanied Velasco’s appointment sought to emphasise the crown’s absolute supremacy by limiting the agency of any autonomous magnate, and instead favouring the use of officials and judges whose salaries and appointments depended directly on the crown.64 The most obvious formal legacy of Mendoza’s triumph, however, would be that all subsequent viceroys added Cortés’s former title of Captain General of New Spain to their other honours. Concomitant changes were taking place in Castile. After 1550 the rents that Los Cobos had enjoyed from the royal hacienda in Mexico were taken from his descendants by royal decree.65 Favourites at the Castilian court no longer aspired to exert personal control over Spanish expansion in the ­Americas through their courtly networks of patronage like Fonseca and Los Cobos had done. Nevertheless the viceregal title, with all its ambiguities, was not supplanted. Velasco was chosen, like Mendoza, because he was a trusted and successful nobleman-courtier rather than a professional bureaucrat; and he travelled to New Spain with a large household in the manner of the great magnate he also considered himself to be. Behind the new definitions of authority in New Spain, Velasco’s ambitions and the local political logic he had to follow in order to exercise his power meant that his regime reproduced the practices of his predecessor and continued to combine his patrimonial and patronal interests with the discharge of his official duties. Velasco did not have to compete with magnates who combined both the degree of power in New Spain and the networks of support in Castile that Mendoza had faced – at least not until the last two years of his tenure. Only the marquesado remained an enormous centre of alternative patronage beyond Velasco’s immediate control. Martín, the new marqués, remained in Castile, but the viceroy was concerned enough to recommend to Philip ii that the

64 65

vea, Velasco, Doc. i. María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1978), 79.

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­ arquesado be deprived of its most strategically sensitive possessions in Tehum antepec, Oaxaca and Cuilapa in 1554 and again in 1560.66 Velasco also found it easier than his predecessor to access the funds of the royal treasury in order to finance his expeditions. In early 1564 Valderrama complained, for instance, that the planned expedition to the Philippines had taken seven years to organise with a cost of over 350,000d, and since it had not set sail, ‘it seems that money is spent with no purpose’.67 The expedition, under Miguel López de Legazpi, the viceroy’s secretary, would succeed in establishing a colony in the Philippines and discovering a means of returning to Acapulco across the Pacific. Velasco’s capacity to mobilise that level of resources illustrates the extent of his power. The second viceroy inherited the ambition of launching expeditions to Florida and the Philippines from Mendoza as well as more general brief to control New Spain’s expansion. After the discovery of rich silver deposits at Zacatecas in 1548, the untamed North-West frontier of New Spain became an essential arena for expansion. A more entrepreneurial than lordly echo of Cíbola was heard in the search for ‘Copala’, etymologically related to the former, where rich silver mines were said to lie undiscovered, and control of the mining frontier became the new siren-call. All eyes turned to this transformative frontier. Velasco’s objectives coincided with those of the beleaguered crown of Castile, which depended on silver remittances and the royal fifth to maintain its complicated lines of credit open in Europe. Furthermore, successful miners rather than encomenderos were rapidly becoming the wealthiest men in New Spain. The mountainous region north of New Galicia promised the greatest silver deposits; but the various semi-nomadic peoples of this ‘Chichimeca frontier’ resisted the encroachments of Spaniards while becoming increasingly attracted to raiding Spanish convoys, particularly those driving cattle, as they marched to and from their isolated mining settlements across the craggy landscape. Both the viceroy and the audiencia of New Galicia vied to pacify the land in order to exert some control over its settlers and the enormous wealth they were extracting. Such was the attraction that, despite the viceroy’s competencies as Captain-General, both the audiencia in ­Mexico City and that of New Galicia organised their own separate expeditions to the area, in competition with Velasco. At one point that of New Galicia began to conduct its ventures in alliance with Juan de Sámano, steward of the marquesado, and with visitador

66 67

García Martínez, El Marquesado del Valle, tres siglos de régimen señorial en Nueva España (Mexico 1969), p. 74. cjv, 143.

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judge Pedro de Morones.68 This potential realignment exacerbated p ­ revious tensions between Mexico City and Guadalajara over rights to appoint offices and determine disputes in New Galicia.69 Velasco’s solution was to play once more on the ambiguities of political legitimacy in New Spain. He encouraged his close associates, the Ibarra family, to use the enormous private wealth they had accumulated from mining and public service to fund various expeditions to locate Copala under Francisco de Ibarra: a newly arrived kinsman whom Velasco trusted because he had served at the viceregal court since 1550. In concert, the viceroy appointed Francisco as governor of any lands he might discover, and which the viceroy duly proclaimed as the ‘Kingdom of New Vizcaya’. Velasco hoped that the creation of this new political entity would put the disputed territory beyond the control of audiencia of New Galicia.70 Ibarra’s success in settling the new land allowed the viceroy to reclaim authority over other expeditions into the Chichimeca frontier. It also provided an opportunity for Velasco to recreate the political patronage that Mendoza had been able to exert in New Galicia but now using the Ibarras in New Vizcaya. All of this enhanced Velasco’s authority in the eyes of settlers in New Galicia who were not all convinced partisans of their audiencia. Control of New Galicia and the North-West remained a contentious but important prize for decades thereafter: part of the political reorganisation of New Spain that Martín Cortés proposed to the king involved the recommendation that the expensive and querulous audiencia of New Galicia should be eliminated in favour of appointing his half-brother Martín Cortés ‘el mestizo’ as governor ‘for being an old criado of your majesty’s and his father’s son and my brother’.71 The struggles for territorial control of Greater New Spain would go-on in different guises through to the wars of Mexican independence and the subsequent disputes between centralists and federalists seeking to form a new republic. In the mid-sixteenth century they resulted in hardening relations of power between the many officials that shared parallel competencies from the crown.

68 69 70 71

Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 458. Philip W. Powell, La guerra Chichimeca (1550–1600) (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1996), 100f. John H. Parry, The Audiencia of New Galicia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 53f and 70f; Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 32–35. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 458–60; Parry, The Audiencia of New Galicia, 88f. cjv, 338.

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Managing Officialdom

Mendoza and Velasco were able to challenge magnates, and other rival sources of authority in Greater New Spain, because they first won the acquiescence of high officialdom in Mexico City. As we have seen, the crisis of legitimacy after the Conquest and the ad hoc development of New Spain’s administration gave royal officials and oidores pretensions to authority in New Spain that exceeded the remit of their offices, resulting in violent factional dissent throughout the 1520s and early 1530s. These officials depended only on the crown for their appointment and salary. As the king’s criados, they were a parallel and autonomous authority to the viceroys and answerable only to the king. A viceroy, therefore, did not have an automatic discretionary right to dispose of funds from the treasury or to dispense justice in the manner of a king. According to a standard formula the royal officials could choose to ‘grant’ such and such a ‘request’ from the viceroys, or not; and oidores could decide a legal dispute without reference to their viceregal president or the need for his vote (which served to break deadlocks). The ‘vertical’ relationship to the crown that these officials and oidores enjoyed, preserved their formal autonomy. Furthermore, as the king’s criados there was scope for their authority to extend beyond the formal bounds of their office: they had a duty to serve their royal lord’s best interests, even if that meant opposing the viceroy or appropriating new faculties for themselves. In the context of New Spain’s polyarchy, oidores and royal officials could wield such autonomous authority that we should consider them as ‘magnates of the administration’. These administrative magnates were aware that they, or their peers, had at times come to govern New Spain, which stoked their presumptions of authority. Like all criados of the monarch, they transcended the formal limits of their office. The greater the services they could lay claim to the greater the rewards they might expect: In 1552 one royal official remarked of the resultant competition that ‘the ambition of many to rule the land is extreme in both temporal and the spiritual matters. They do everything to achieve this for the great credit given to them if they provide for many matters [of government] as they please and, under the excuse of zealous service, they ask for many things …’72 Viceregal government lasted, with few interruptions, for almost 300 years in New Spain, so it is easy to forget that the crown had other options for how to govern; or that the practice of viceregal government changed over the course of the sixteenth century. During Velasco’s regime and the four years of instability that 72

agi Gobierno México 323, 2nd bound section, 1st letter, 2 March 1552, Alonso de Sosa, Antonio de la Cadena and Juan Velázquez de Salazar.

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followed his death, administrative magnates posed the greatest threat to viceregal authority, culminating in calls for the suppression of the viceregal title altogether; in the recall of viceroy Gastón de Peralta after only a few months in office; and the fractious rule of an audiencia presided by visitadores Carrillo and Alonso Muñoz. As Cortés had noted, ‘by governing the land through a diversity of authorities, like the [Caribbean] islands, [New Spain] will end up in the same [disastrous] state that they are in.’73 The crown tried to encourage agreement without ceding formal supremacy to any individual: viceroys and audiencia were expected to decide matters together in a real acuerdo, but there was no legislative, elective or bureaucratic mechanism to enforce a unitary decision if the different administrative magnates and the viceroy disagreed on the interpretation of the royal will. In order to coordinate the royal administration the viceroys found it necessary to link the personal interests of the administrative magnates to their own as closely as possible. They came to rely on unofficial, but traditional, courtly strategies to create the alliance of interests that would allow them to achieve their objectives. Mendoza, like Guzmán before him, was fortunate in that he was personally acquainted with many of the royal officials in Mexico City. The factor Gonzalo de Salazar recalled during Sandoval’s visita that he had known Mendoza ‘for over thirty-five years’ since their shared youth in the Alhambra, where they grew up as the first handful of Christian infants to reside there, and later they began their career in royal service together, working alongside Los Cobos under Mendoza’s father and older brother.74 These associations, which centred on Eastern Andalusia and Los Cobos, remained important in New Spain, sometimes for generations as in the case of the Mendozas and Salazars: Ruy Díaz de Mendoza, a member of Mendoza’s household and previously a principal citizen of Granada, married Catalina de Salazar, the factor’s daughter, establishing a successful lineage. Such links continued into the second generation when Juan Velázquez de Salazar, Gonzalo’s son, married a daughter of Alonso de Mérida, another member of Mendoza’s original household. The crown allowed Juan and his brother, Hernando de Salazar, to inherit in turn the office of factor from their father and that of veedor from the fellow Granadino, Peralmíndez Chirinos.75 On the other hand, contador Rodrigo de Albornoz, 73 74

75

Hernán Cortés, Cartas de Relación, ed. Manuel Alcalá (Mexico: Porrúa, 1993), 215. agi Justicia 258, testimony of Gonzalo de Salazar; Hayward Keniston, Francisco de los Cobos: Secretary of the Emperor Charles v (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1960), 18. agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 1st booklet in pencil, 17 January 1551, ‘Oficiales Reales’.

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who was not part of this clique and remained hostile to the Salazars since their disagreements in the factional struggles of the 1520s, received few rewards from Mendoza; which led to a simmering enmity that finally boiled over during Tello de Sandoval’s visita.76 Velasco could not count on a common patron like Los Cobos to help align officialdom behind him. Nevertheless, the viceroy was still able to exploit similar dynastic and courtly associations that harked back to Castile. Velasco promoted Hortuño de Ibarra to the offices of factor and veedor (pending royal approval, which was eventually granted) because he knew and trusted him from their time together in the service of the Constable of Castile, Velasco’s kinsman Pedro Fernández de Velasco y Tovar. Hortuño was also related to the richest mining entrepreneur in New Spain, Diego de Ibarra which, as we have seen, offered the prospect of a crucial strategic alliance for controlling the mining frontier.77 In New Spain, this relationship became even more entrenched after Diego’s marriage to Velasco’s daughter and the dynastic association between the Velascos and the Ibarras became so close that the viceroy spent his last months at Hortuño’s house in Mexico City while the new viceregal palace was restored.78 At the time of their appointment viceroys enjoyed greater confidence and intimacy from the crown and court than other members of the administration, whose incumbency associated them with the discredit of the previous regime. One practical consequence of this attitude was that the crown instructed each new viceroys to conduct residencias of sitting administrators – a mechanism that first became a routine of government in Castile after the comunero revolt. Both viceroys used this prerogative as a means of enhancing their authority or to promote their own men of confidence to key positions in the administration. To achieve this the viceroys used trusted members of their household or other allies that permitted them to keep control over this judicial process. Mendoza appointed his mayordomo Agustín Guerrero to supervise the residencia of the previous regime’s officials and oidores.79 Velasco repeated the same strategy, prompting treasurer Juan Alonso de Sosa to explain that Velasco was helping his investigators to extend their commission despite the absence of any royal instructions to this effect: ‘in order for [the investigators] to become perpetual contadores, which is what they have always wanted … in order to enjoy always that pre-eminence that they have and have had from being 76 77

agi Justicia 258, testimony of contador Rodrigo de Albornoz and Bernaldino de Albornoz. John F. Schwaller, ‘The Life of Luis de Velasco’ in Estudios de Historia Novohispana 29, (Jul–Dec 2003). 78 Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 471. 79 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 55f.

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contadores, and to have me in a state of discredit with Your Majesty by implying that there are grave charges against me … the viceroy helps them in this because he believes that by [helping them extend their commission] he has extended his own over them.’80 The crown’s early confidence in their new ‘intimate representatives’ also offered a window of opportunity for the viceroys to position their closest adherents in positions of influence and authority without fear of being considered corrupt. Apart from his supervisory role, Mendoza commissioned Guerrero, alongside oidor Ceynos, to the delicate task of auditing the accounts of the royal tribute books;81 then made Guerrero chancellor of the audiencia and put him in charge of the royal seal, without which no document could be considered legally binding.82 Guerrero was even made the bursar of the new College of Tlatelolco, which Mendoza eagerly supported with funds and endowments on behalf of the crown. The creation of the first royal mint in New Spain allowed Mendoza to appoint Alonso de Mérida, his household associate from Granada, as its treasurer. Having an ally as an administrative magnate allowed Mendoza to employ other household dependants in minor offices associated with the mint too, enriching his allegados with royal salaries. Mendoza was also able to justify Mérida’s purchase of conquistador Alonso Lucas’s half of the encomienda of Meztitlán in late 1535, by arguing that it was necessary to uphold the new Treasurer of the Mint’s dignity as a royal official.83 Another of the viceroy’s dependants could now join the, still potentially hereditary, elite of New Spain. Similarly, for example, Mendoza was able to grant treasurer Sosa valuable encomiendas that had belonged to the crown – a right that neither Guzmán nor the Second Audiencia had enjoyed – and he further allowed Sosa to extend his mining interests. Sosa’s daughter then married don Luis de Castilla a prominent nobleman who was increasingly associated with the viceroy. Sosa, who had originally aligned himself with Cortés, never became a full partisan of Mendoza, but he did not oppose him either, except briefly, for opportunistic reasons, during Tello de Sandoval’s visita before returning to the fold. 80 81

agi Gobierno México 323, Juan Alonso de Sosa to the king, July 1551. The appointment came on the 25th of July 1536. Guerrero continued to engage in this activity, along with his many other duties, until Gonzalo de Aranda’s visita of the treasury in 1544. See Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 72–73, but contrary to what Aiton believed, Guerrero was rewarded for his labours. See also Miranda, El tribute indígena, 110f. 82 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 62. 83 cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.162, ‘Antonio de Mendoza to the Emperor’, 10 December 1537, 192. The purchase of the encomienda led to a dangerous feud with Lucas’s widow and children.

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Mendoza won over the audiencia using similar methods. He first appeased the remaining members of the Second Audiencia by concluding their residencia with uncharacteristic speed and without charging any of them, despite some insistent accusations from the cabildo and indigenous polities around Puebla against Vasco de Quiroga in particular.84 Instead the viceroy gave two of the oidores prestigious new responsibilities: Quiroga, who also had connections to Granada, was to count the vassals of Cortés until he finally took up his post as bishop of Michoacán the following year and devoted himself to creating Utopia on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro, which he named, resonantly for any Granadino, Santa Fe. As mentioned earlier, the viceroy simultaneously appointed Maldonado to hold a residencia of Pedro de Alvarado in Guatemala. As we discussed above, the oidor arrived in Santiago de los Caballeros on the 16th of May 1536.85 This, at first, left only the young oidor Ceynos and the elderly, but newly-arrived, Loaysa sharing the royal palace with Mendoza. These two had the least experience in New Spain and in the intimacies of a shared residence the three soon established a comradely relationship, to the extent that Loaysa was soon tasked with representing Mendoza in meetings of the cabildo  – an invented prerogative of contested legality that the regidores resented and contested, but which served the viceroy well. In 1538 Lorenzo de Tejada arrived to replace Quiroga as oidor. The new oidor was also an eager, capable, and canny entrepreneur. His economic activities coincided with the viceroy’s own efforts to enhance his private wealth, leading to a close and profitable collaboration that did much to increase the viceroy’s wealth and his capacity to compete with the territorial magnates for authority.86 After Ceynos returned to Spain in 1546, Mendoza, possibly with the help of his brother Luis, who had become president of the Council of the Indies, ensured the selection of their relative Rodrigo de Quesada, who already resided in Mexico City, as his replacement.87 This reinforced the viceroy’s association with the audiencia at a time when Sandoval’s visita had divided the Spanish settler-elite of New Spain.88 Until 1544 there were no other audiencias in any of the provinces of Greater New Spain, and Mendoza’s alliance with the oidores in Mexico City meant a high degree of co-ordination between the viceroy and the highest judicial 84 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 57. 85 Vallejo García-Hevia, Juicio, Vol. 1, 29f. 86 Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain, esp. 93 for an overview of their shared economic interests. 87 Escudero Buendía, Don Francisco de Mendoza, 76. 88 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6.

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institution in a vast territory extending from Honduras to the northern frontier of New Galicia and Pánuco. This co-ordination became crucial in the struggle for legitimacy over rights of exploration that we described earlier, as the audiencia consistently ratified Mendoza’s actions and recommended them to the crown. In all these cases of collusion, the interests of the oidores were tied directly to New Spain through encomienda grants or direct land-ownership; as well as by royal policy, which at the time favoured long or even perpetual terms of office in New Spain. These informal links cemented Mendoza’s position as patron of the administrative magnates and they reciprocated with legal cover for his political projects. After the crown rejected Mendoza’s patrimonial pretensions it tried to limit ‘horizontal’ allegiances within New Spain, while emphasising the autonomy of individual salaried officials or oidores and their ‘vertical’ links to the crown. It also prohibited officials and oidores from engaging in private entrepreneurial activities or the accumulation of private property in New Spain: ‘because experience has shown the harm and inconvenience that follow when those that govern in the Indies are involved in land-ownership and discoveries’;89 the crown also rotated oidores throughout Velasco’s reign more frequently than in the past. Mendoza had not acted illegally at the time, but these adjustments were designed to restate that the crown was the exclusive patron of New Spain’s royal administration, and not the viceroy. The crown’s judgements did not imply that it was adopting modern bureaucratic practices – Velasco was another courtly ‘intimate representative’. Furthermore, Mendoza’s political arrangements were never discredited or considered illegitimate in New Spain, where both the Spanish and indigenous elites campaigned vociferously for Mendoza to remain as viceroy or for his son to succeed him. The local population retained the same attitudes and expectations it had held under Mendoza; and Velasco faced similar obstacles to establishing his authority over New Spain’s polyarchy, which remained unreformed. The contradictions between royal legislation and local norms left Velasco with an ambiguous legacy when he arrived in Mexico City. As long as Velasco retained the crown’s confidence he was able to take advantage of the stricter royal regulations that the crown sought to impose on the acquisition of patrimonial wealth by salaried officials. The new viceroy was able to convince the crown to increase his own salary to 20,000d over the years, while the salaries of other officials remained stagnant for 40 years despite the general inflation of prices in New Spain. The viceroy became r­ elatively much 89

vea, Velasco, Doc. i.

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wealthier than the administrative magnates, who, deprived of the possibility to own land or engage in entrepreneurial activities in New Spain, claimed that they could hardly maintain themselves without the viceroy’s disbursements.90 Velasco could also appeal to the letter of the law in order to undermine anyone in the old administration who opposed him, while turning a blind eye to the irregularities of his own allies. For example Velasco persuaded the crown to replace Sosa in 1553 and Velázquez de Salazar in 1558, both of whom had held on to their posts from the previous administration. Their wealth, entrenched interests and dynastic contacts in New Spain had given them too much influence making them intractable antagonists of Velasco’s authority. As relics of the previous regime these officials were suspect in the eyes of the crown,91 so that Velasco was able to justify replacing Sosa with the more malleable and grateful nobleman Fernando de Portugal, and Salazar with the viceroy’s old ally Hortuño de Ibarra. The same held true for oidores Santillán and Tejada, both of whom had accumulated a great deal of wealth and property from the long tenure of their offices and their association with Mendoza.92 The repayment of debts and the escheatment of property or tributary rights to the royal coffers that accompanied the prosecution and persecution of these administrative magnates helped Velasco’s political standing in Castile. Unaware of the political realignment Velasco was undertaking under the cover of royal legislation, Philip ii repeatedly expressed support for his zealous viceroy and provided the necessary instructions to ratify his actions and appointments.93 Velasco’s intentions and preoccupations, however, remained similarly patrimonial to Mendoza’s. Simultaneously to persecuting the overmighty administrative magnates, Velasco used his predecessor’s unofficial strategies to circumvent the legal restrictions imposed by the crown to co-opt newly arrived officials and to promote his own allies to lucrative offices as they became available. While Velasco could not enrich his favoured officials or oidores directly, as Mendoza had done, he could reward their close relatives or associates. Like Mendoza, he relied on the system of quitas y vacaciones or the appointment to corregimiento (which I will discuss in detail in the following chapter). It did not take long for visitador Valderrama to identify these strategies, which he described in some detail and tried to relay to the crown: for example the substantial rewards that the viceroy granted to the dependents of the treasurer don Fernando de Portugal and Hortuño de Ibarra, or various members of 90 91 92 93

agi Gobierno México 323, Hortuño de Ibarra et al., 10 September 1564, 2nd letter. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 105–08. Ibid., 52–57. Ibid., 88f.

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the M ­ ontealegre and Villanueva clans, whose leaders were royal officials and oidores that Velasco had elevated to those positions.94 Velasco managed to enrich his family and to insert members of his household into the elite of New Spain to such an extent that within a generation they became amongst the most preponderant inhabitants of the kingdom: two branches of the Velascos were amongst the first criollos of New Spain to gain entailed titles. The Velasco family’s wealth and their consequent networks of patronage offered the greatest bulwark to Velasco’s authority, which became evident as they rallied an identifiably ‘viceregal party’ during the crisis occasioned by the return of the new Marqués, Martín Cortés, to New Spain in 1563. Cash reserves were particularly valuable in this period because New Spain was not very well monetised but coin was essential for the acquisition of valued products from Europe. The royal treasury in Mexico City probably accounted for the largest concentration of coin in Mesoamerica because, although most of the tribute was paid in kind, it was sold in the markets of Mexico City for coin before it was transferred to the royal coffers.95 Immediate access to capital, therefore, often involved contracting debts against the royal treasury. The viceroy and officials allowed individual or collective indebtedness to the royal treasury because debtors easily became dependants: Hortuño de Ibarra for instance was careful to keep a list of the many towns and people that had been allowed to owe money to the royal coffers.96 However, some of the prime beneficiaries of access to loans from the royal coffers were the royal officials themselves and the viceroy. After Guerrero and Ceynos completed their audit of royal finances in April 1537, it turned out that all the officials owed money to the royal coffers. Rather than punish them, Mendoza allowed them to refinance their debts with continued borrowing. In this way the royal officials became politically, as well as financially, indebted to Mendoza and more willing to cooperate.97 This strategy could get out of hand: Hernando de Salazar died in 1551 owing the enormous sum of 250,000d to the treasury, causing the greatest scandal of the early years of Velasco’s reign. Hernando had been ‘wellloved throughout the land’ and in order ‘to avoid dissent and scandals in the land’ Velasco and prosecutor Sedeño arranged for his brother Juan Velázques to inherit the office of factor in exchange for guarantees that he and other 94 95 96 97

cjv, Docs 28–33. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 2; Miranda, El tributo indígena, 99. agi Gobierno Mexico 323, one of the last loose documents in the legajo after the bound sections list of towns and people that owed money to the royal coffers, dated 1556. ene, Doc. 173; Sarabia-Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 104–09.

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named individuals would stand surety for the debt. These other individuals included ‘ten of the most prominent individuals’ in New Spain, like the mineowner Cristóbal de Oñate. Rather than placing the viceroy in a difficult position, the unofficial collusion that existed between him and the royal officials allowed him to use this scandal to place 10 of the most prominent Spaniards of New Spain under obligation.98 Collusion between viceroy and treasury officials proved beneficial to both parties. The officials believed that they could not maintain themselves properly without the viceroy’s patronage and the viceroy needed their support to dispense royal funds freely and govern effectively.99 Their community of interests allowed the viceroys almost unfettered access to the cash reserves of the royal treasury, legitimised by the seal of approval of the royal officials, and without fear of disputes that might result in complaints to Castile. In February 1564, a newly arrived Martín Cortés observed to the king that he: Marvelled at [the Royal Officials] because they are always so much in agreement with the viceroy and they never exceed his will, even when it is not convenient for the service of Your Majesty, nor do they know any other king than him because … he grants them mercedes and gives them lands and livings. And they have believed until now that there would be no-one to make a reckoning of their actions, and that if, in collusion, they and the viceroy wrote [to Castile] in support of each other, that Your Majesty would give them great credit.100 At the time of Velasco’s death six months later, in the midst of Valderrama’s visita, it emerged that the viceroy had left an outstanding debt of c.23,142 d. Fernando de Portugal and the other officials who had authorised this debt explained that the viceroy had borrowed it against his salary and had needed it ‘for the furniture of his house … to pay for what is left over of the salaries owed to his dependants and for other little debts … in this we were serving your majesty because of how important it is to govern in liberty without depending on anybody.’ They added that in any case the viceroy had been waiting for remuneration from the crown for all his voluntary services and suggested that these debts should be wiped clean altogether and not transferred to his son

98

agi Gobierno, Mexico 323, 2 April 1562, (6th bound collection of letters) 1st bound section within the largest booklet, in pencil 17 January 1551; Sarabia-Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 105. 99 agi Gobierno, Mexico 323, Ortuño de Ibarra, 10 September 1564, 2nd letter. 100 cjv, 331.

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in recognition of the said services.101 The effectiveness of such arguments, on either side, in determining whether such collusion was corruption or a strategy for ‘good government’ did not depend so much on bureaucratic procedure or the letter of the law, but on courtly persuasion. Velasco was never able to associate the audiencia of Mexico City with his aims to the extent that Mendoza had achieved.102 Furthermore, Velasco had to contend with audiencias in Guatemala and New Galicia, whose distance from the viceregal palace afforded them even greater autonomy. The crown’s more frequent rotation of oidores made any informal arrangements in New Spain less stable, while disputes over jurisdiction and the personal ambition of the oidores led to disagreements over the viceroy’s policies or his ability to dispense patronage. Even so until about 1560, the crown sided with Velasco almost invariably in any dispute that arose between him and any audiencia. Simultaneously his standing and alliance with other elements of New Spain’s administration and from friendly oidores, Quesada, Zorita and Villanueva, gave him enough support from within the ranks of the administration to allow him to govern. Nevertheless, in the worsening disputes between the audiencia and the royal officials over matters of precedence, the viceroy generally sided with the royal officials: as in the latter’s right to arm their black servants, ostensibly to assist in their tax-collecting duties, or the insistence of the royal officials on scrupulously charging the oidores for all sorts of dues to the crown.103 After 1560, Velasco faced a more adverse political situation. Complaints from the scrupulously legalistic new oidor Vasco de Puga, in conjunction with other enemies of the viceroy, prompted the crown to appoint Valderrama as visitador (who reached Mexico in the summer of 1563). Another worrying sign was that Philip ii seemed to hold Martín Cortés in ever greater favour: with a single cédula the king settled all the disputes over tributary and seigniorial rights of the marquesado in Martín’s favour and against Velasco’s explicit advice – something Hernán Cortés had fought for bitterly since the 1530s and never accomplished.104 Until then, Velasco’s authority had not faced a magnate who combined comparable resources to his own in New Spain with support from Castile. Ominously when Valderrama reached Mexico City he chose to reside with the Marqués rather than the viceroy. The subsequent factionalism and 101 agi Gobierno México 323, Hortuño de Ibarra and Fernando de Portugal to the Crown, 10 September 1564, 2nd letter. 102 Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 93; Schwaller, ‘The Life of Luis de Velasco’. 103 agi Gobierno, México 323, Royal Officials to the crown, 2 April 1562, 6th bound collection of letters. 104 Martínez, Hernán Cortés, 647.

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the four years of instability following Velasco’s death suggest the importance of the delicate balance of informal arrangements the viceroys guaranteed for the creation of stable authority in New Spain and how easily these could be disrupted by the crown’s interference. Conclusion Velasco’s more subtle methods of dynastic aggrandisement, more in tune with the ethos of his times, brought him closer to achieving the aim of perpetuating his dynasty’s success than Mendoza. Velasco died in Mexico City, unlike Mendoza, and his son returned to as viceroy on two separate occasions before he was finally rewarded for his services with a coveted title of marquis near the end of his life, in 1617. Less than a year earlier Philip iii granted the first title to a criollo in Mexico: the Count of Santiago de Calimaya carried both Mendoza and Velasco blood, as well as descending from don Luis de Castilla and even from a cousin of Hernán Cortés.105 Such outcomes suggest the endurance of informal bonds and the role they played in associating the royal administration and the population of New Spain. The title of viceroy of New Spain would never become hereditary as Mendoza hoped and viceregal supremacy remained vulnerable to royal interference. The more enduring achievement of the first two viceroys would be to enfranchise leading members of the Spanish and Indio populations, leading to the formation of what contemporaries called the Spanish and Indio ‘republics’ that composed the Kingdom of New Spain and upheld viceregal authority. 105 Rubio-Mañe, El Virreinato, Vol. 1, 229.

chapter 4

Republic of Spaniards When Mendoza reached New Spain in 1535 its Spanish population tended to cluster together in casas pobladas. These ‘populated houses’ constituted the few Spanish settlements scattered amongst ancient Mesoamerican centres of population, on which they subsisted. These settlements presumed to recreate traditional Iberian municipalities, but the casas pobladas were the expression of a sui generis social dynamic. Motolinía noticed their effect on Mexico City, which held by far the greatest concentration of Spaniards and acted as a model for other settlements: ‘… it is clear that more is consumed in Mexico City alone than in two or three cities in Spain of the same size. The reason for this is that all the houses are very full of people and also that since they are all very comfortable and without necessity, they spend copiously.’1 Casas pobladas were a symptom of the parasitic nature of empire in Mesoamerica. Established settlers with a reliable income housed and fed in their houses deracinated relatives or useful strangers when they arrived in Mesoamerica without alternative means of sustenance or traditional bonds of community. These domestic arrangements sustained the bulk of the sedentary Spanish population, composed principally of Iberians, but including also other Europeans and a few emancipated Africans that were considered ‘Spaniards’ because they were free but not ‘Indios’;2 all were assumed to be Christians. In sustaining this deracinated population (which in this period never exceeded the 16,180 souls, including Guatemala, recorded in the first census of 1560)3 the casas pobladas became crucibles for new loyalties: principally to local patrons for reasons of contingent necessity.4 In doing so, they also reorganised the Spanish population 1 Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, Edmundo O’Gorman ed. (Mexico: Porrúa, 1973), 142f. 2 agi Justicia 274 and 273 for ‘African scribes’ Juan de Guinea and Juan de Zaragoza, and other various nameless black criados (not slaves). They merit further study. 3 Arthur S. Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham: Duke University Press, 1927), 100 note 46. 4 Motolinía, Historia, 17; Joaquín García Icazbalceta ed., Colección de documentos para la historia de México (México: J.M. Andrade, 1858–1866; 1980), Vol. 1, 484f. See also e.g. Gaspar Mejía’s letter of 1587: he relied on being ‘arrimado a un factor del rey’ and an acquaintance known as ‘la Romera’ ‘wished to do me a merced’ if his wife ever wants to come over and needs a place to stay, in Enrique Otte and Guadalupe Albi Romer, Cartas privadas de emigrantes a Indias, (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993), 212–34.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_006

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into networks of patronage under the heads of casas pobladas, creating social bonds that were very different to those of Castilian municipalities. Until the mid-1550s these heads were mostly encomenderos, and thereafter they also included many salaried officials and wealthy entrepreneurs without encomiendas. A Castilian sense of belonging to a native municipality; ancestral loyalty to a titled dynasty; membership of a kinship group; and devotion to local religious cults dissolved or acquired a different character in the imperial context of New Spain. In our period European settlers would even come to refer to themselves as the ‘republic of Spaniards’ rather than as Castilians or analogous forms of European identification. The justification for the social networks that developed in New Spain derived, distortedly, from the Castilian ethos of ennobling service. Spanish settlement in the New World was considered royal service in itself: few Spaniards chose to settle as merchants, farmers or craftsmen – the Second Audiencia’s failure in settling Puebla in this way was a signal failure. Like the penniless young escudero in Lazarillo de Tormes after he left his hometown, wandering Spaniards in search of their fortune sought a good patron to serve with their person and sword, while contemporary verses in Mexico confirm the feeling of entitlement of most recent Spanish immigrants.5 The same ethos made the cost of presiding over a well-armed casa poblada socially prestigious: wealthy neighbours of Mexico City boasted of their full houses as yet another vindication of their status as ‘principal men’ and a symbol of their service to the commonwealth in ‘populating the land’ and providing a pool of men at arms in case they were called to defend the monarchy.6 In 1535, encomenderos dominated the pinnacle of these Spanish networks of patronage. Tribute from about 767 indigenous polities went to enrich 506 different encomenderos in the period between 1521 and 1555, but reached only about 300 individuals at any one time. This income, combined in many cases with some additional prestige from their participation in the Conquest or early government of New Spain, made the encomenderos the natural leaders of Spanish population.7 The small 5 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 56; Salvador Novo ed., Mil y un sonetos mexicanos del siglo xvi–xx (Mexico: Porrúa, 1971), 189 quoted originally by Baltasar Dorantes de Carranza, Sumaria relación de la Nueva España con noticia individual de los conquistadores y primeros pobladores españoles (México: Impr. del Museo Nacional, 1902); Guillermo Díaz-Plaja ed., Lazarillo de Tormes. Vida del buscón don Pablos / de Francisco de Quevedo (Mexico: Porrúa, 1973), 42. 6 Fernando Benítez, The century after Cortés, trans. Joan Maclean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 35. 7 Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain New Spain 1521–1555 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 13.

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numbers of Spaniards in New Spain on the eve of Mendoza’s arrival meant that 300 or so encomenderos may have had to sustain no more than twenty Spaniards each to account for the vast majority of the Spanish population of Mesoamerica.8 The urgency with which settlers clamoured for the king to ‘settle the land’ by converting the encomenderos into a hereditary elite had much to do with the settlers’ concern to guarantee the viability of these networks. In 1542, however, hopes that the king would make encomiendas hereditary ‘in perpetuity’ seemed to evaporate when representatives from the crown arrived in New Spain and Peru to proclaim the ‘New Laws.’ In New Spain there was great discontent: reportedly 600 settlers decided to emigrate at once,9 but they did not go as far as their Peruvian counterparts and rise in armed rebellion. Rather, as many Spanish settlers would enlist enthusiastically for an expedition to rescue royal authority in Peru in 1548, as emigrated in 1542.10 The discrepancy between the reaction of encomenderos in New Spain and Peru was down to the personal authority that Mendoza had attained as viceroy, rather than the institutional respect that his titles inspired: Blasco Núñez de Vela, who tried to implement the New Laws to Peru and was decapitated by furious settlers for doing so, also held the title of viceroy but no local authority.11 Over the years, Mendoza had gained the trust and loyalty of a critical mass of settlers. Unlike Núñez de Vela, who was a newcomer to Peru, the settlers of New Spain were able to appeal against royal legislation to the viceroy and they believed him when he offered to negotiate on their behalf and to suspend the legislation’s most egregious clauses. Even after Velasco finally implemented the full extent of the ‘New Laws,’ the Spaniards of New Spain remained loyal; once again diverging from their peers in Peru, where Francisco Hernández Girón raised another rebellion against the re-introduction of the legislation in 1554. In New Spain, the settlers trusted in the established routines and agreements of their viceregal government and that Velasco, as their patron and benefactor would allow for negotiation and redress at his court in Mexico City: as Suárez de Peralta noted, Velasco was enough of a ‘father to them.’12 8

ene, Doc. 186; cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 226, 541; with José-Luís Martínez, Hernán Cortés (Mexico: unam; Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990), 701. 9 José Miranda, El tributo indígena en la Nueva España durante el siglo xvi (Mexico: Colegio de México 2005), 197. 10 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 175–76. 11 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 98; Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 133; ene Vol. v, Doc. 256; agi Gobierno Mexico 68, R.12, N.34, Tello de Sandoval to Prince Philip, 19 September 1545. 12 Juan Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. T. Silva Tena (Mexico: conaculta, 1990), 161–62.

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Suárez de Peralta’s observation reflects the paternalistic approach that the viceroys employed towards the Spanish settler population. In order to establish their authority, the viceroys sought to use their position to become the greatest patrons in New Spain – the patrons of those patrons that headed the casas pobladas – and the most trusted intermediaries between the settlers and the crown. The strategies the viceroys followed were an extension of household government to as broad a range of settlers as possible. Their strategy relied on the ability to appropriate the means to distribute offices, money and other forms of patronage from the crown, and to deploy it at their own discretion.

Appropriating Royal Grace

Each viceroy travelled from Castile to New Spain with ‘very principal households of many criados-caballeros.’13 I have identified between thirty and fifty individuals in each case, drawn mainly from each viceroy’s ancestral seats: Granada and Guadalajara in the case of Mendoza; and Palencia, Navarre and the Basque country for Velasco.14 These newcomers would form the core of viceregal courts that aimed to reproduce the royal and lordly courts of Castile where the viceroys had grown up, but they also came to fit into the pattern of the casas pobladas of New Spain, and, in some aspects, of indigenous palaces. Other great patrons had travelled to New Spain with large retinues to help them establish their authority and carry out their commands. Hernán Cortés returned to New Spain in 1530 with close to four hundred followers (nearly as many as those that crossed with him in 1519 from Cuba) ‘to discharge the offices’ of the marquesado and to man the expeditions Cortés hoped to pursue as Captain General of New Spain. Similarly, Alvarado returned to Guatemala in 1538 with 250 men, many arms and munitions for further exploration, and several nubile young doncellas for his battle-scarred veterans, all at a cost of 30,000d.15 Apart from the networks they created, these retinues were one of the engines 13 Appendix A.II. 14 Appendix A. 15 Martínez, Cortés, 619. As Martínez pointed out this included minstrels and artisans, a specialist in silk, friars and nuns that he was sponsoring, along with candidates for 13 corregimientos that he needed to fill within the marquesado; Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España. (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), Doc. xxxi; José M. Vallejo García-Hevia, Juicio a un conquistador: Pedro de Alvarado (2 vols) (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2008), Vol. 1, 164.

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of migration to New Spain. Lesser encomenderos sought to maintain friends and relatives from Spain in greater dignity than they had been used to, or useful new acquaintances to help them as tribute collectors or merely to display their own importance.16 Like these other patrons it was understood that the viceroys would rely on, and give preference to, their household dependants: known generically by a variety of names, such as allegados, vasallos or criados that displayed the bonds of loyalty between them and their patron.17 None of these definitions implied formal servitude, and there was nothing institutional about their position. Indeed in all letters addressed to the king the signatories rather optimistically referred to themselves as ‘his majesty’s most loyal criados’ to suggest an idealised household proximity. The viceroys’ household dependants lived at the palace or were fed at the viceroys’ expense. I have not located either of the viceroys’ household accounts, but it seems clear from their own testimonies, and the evidence collected by the visitadores, that the viceroys used their salaries and the income from private economic activities, to sustain large numbers of dependants at the viceregal palace.18 Mendoza supported around thirty of the permanent members of his household with 2,000d that the crown had earmarked, notionally, for the upkeep of a viceregal Halberdier Guard. As one witness pointed out during Sandoval’s visita, despite the viceroy’s official list of guards, the only halberdiers he saw at the palace were those painted on the wall-paper on either side of the door leading to the viceroy’s quarters.19 The several lists that Mendoza produced detailing the changing members of his notional guard offers the closest information we have regarding the identity of Mendoza’s household dependants.20 Many, like the Peraltas, were relatives of the more successful clients that Mendoza promoted. Velasco’s salary was relatively large compared to the incomes of many other patrons while the private enterprises the viceroys engaged in became more profitable. For a very rough comparison, it should be noted that in 1560 Velasco enjoyed a salary of 20,000d, while, by then, the average encomendero (taking 16 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 16. 17 Nelly R. Porro Girardi, ‘Los criados en las indias del Quinientos: del Servicio privado a la función pública,’ in xi Congreso del Instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Investigaciones de Historia del Derecho, 1997), iv, 91–12; José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992), 17–21. 18 agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey,’ 19. 19 agi Justicia 258, testimony of Alonso Ortíz de Zúñiga, question 108. 20 Appendix A.II.

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into account that there were enormous variations and many had other sources of income as well) enjoyed tributary rents of 1,619d a year.21 In order to increase his ability to dispense the sort of direct rewards needed to elevate his favourites to prominence; to extend his patronage to a broader section of the Spanish population than his household; and to turn established patrons into his clients, Mendoza reformed the salaried offices of New Spain. The clearest example comes from the changes he instituted to the office of corregidor and his concomitant creation of the quitas y vacaciones fund. The Second Audiencia, following post-comunero Castilian precedent, had introduced 53 corregidores to administer the principal indigenous towns under direct control of the crown rather than an encomendero. Their term of office lasted one year and, like encomenderos, they were paid from the tribute they collected from the towns under their supervision, but they possessed even greater legal powers and no formal responsibilities beyond their administrative duties. This made many corregidores even more exploitative than the encomenderos they replaced. Furthermore, owing to Spanish emigration in the early 1530s, the Second Audiencia had to appoint many encomenderos as corregidores because there were not enough alternative candidates that were viable, reinforcing the power that those encomenderos could wield and frustrating the purpose of introducing corregimientos.22 From the start of his tenure, Mendoza was concerned by indigenous complaints against the corregidores and preferred, in any case, a direct relationship with largely autonomous indigenous lords instead of governing through salaried officials. His original suggestion for administrative reform, elucidated in his long letter to the crown of 1537, reveals his vision of New Spain’s administration: Mendoza wanted to eliminate the corregidores altogether and to replace them with far fewer (about 12) alcaldes mayores that would serve on a more permanent basis. The crown was unconvinced by Mendoza’s pre-emptive protestations that with this reform his intention was not to give himself ‘too much hand’ in the running of the administration.23 Mendoza’s plan would have allowed him to appoint household clients to the powerful alcaldías mayores, granting them authority over huge districts that would have made them more powerful than most encomenderos; and with their cooperation gaining 21

22 23

Hortuño de Ibarra calculated that the towns in encomienda produced about 485,658d excluding the diezmo (mostly still in kind) and there were around 300 encomenderos in New Spain; Miranda, El Tributo Indígena, 143. Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule: A History of the Indians of the Valley Of Mexico 1519–1810 (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1964), 82–83; cdi, Vol. 2, 179f. cdi, Vol. 2, 181f.

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access to part of the income generated by the towns under their jurisdiction for distribution at his own discretion. Although the crown rejected his proposal, Mendoza´s intentions are instructive because they illustrate the logic behind his subsequent reform of the office of corregidor, which aimed to achieve similar ends. In order to extend his discretionary authority over the administration and the resources of the royal treasury Mendoza created a system of ‘quitas y vacaciones’ – which he explained in some detail to his successor and was often commented on by officials, but has been largely ignored by historians despite its widespread use and importance as a means for the viceroys to distribute patronage.24 Mendoza standardised the salary of corregidores to around 240d or less, rather than granting them the total tribute assessment of the individual towns they were administering. This reduction was justified by enforced shorter terms, which meant the officials ‘vacated’ their office before the year was out. This vacation allowed the viceroy to both increase the number of corregidores he could appoint per year from 53 to 159 by 1546, and to use the balance that was left over from the total tribute collected to reward various other individuals for specific services, or merely to subsidise them at his discretion. Because this system did not affect the level of previous tributary income that went into the treasury, the distribution of these remaining funds did not, on the face of it, cost the treasury a single ducat. The difference was that now the viceroys could dispose of these funds as they saw fit, albeit with the approval of the royal officials, or, in specific cases, where the crown directly ordered a payment to particular individuals.25 Furthermore, other minor offices in the gift of the viceroys like alguacilazgos and alcaldías mayores may have become subject to similar forced ‘vacations.’ Velasco followed a similar strategy with regards to encomienda – an unintended consequence of the crown’s stricter prohibitions against encomienda. The new viceroy and the audiencia had the right to determine when encomiendas should escheat and when they could be inherited by the same family or transferred to another according to royal guidelines. In practice this involved the viceroy’s discretion in determining cases on an ad hoc basis. For example, the prohibition on encomienda staying in the same family for more than two ‘lives’ led to deathbed weddings of moribund old encomenderos to very young 24 25

vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5; agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 2 April 1562 (c. 6th bound collection of letters). Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain: government and private interest in the ­colonial bureaucracy, 1531–1550, trans. Julia Constantine and Pauline Marmasse (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2006), 97.

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brides because an argument could be made that, being of the same generation, a wife did not count as a separate ‘life’; similarly in the case of inheritance between siblings or relatives, and other manipulations of the letter of the law. The importance of Velasco’s judgement on such cases, in concert with an amenable audiencia, gave the viceroy enormous scope for helping his favourites and harming his opponents: his concession of an encomienda to Pedro de Castilla, for example, rather than its escheatment to the crown, was an obvious case of favouritism that withstood even the scrutiny of Valderrama’s visita.26 Velasco’s consequent influence over the encomenderos encouraged them to accept a crucial reform that redefined the very notion of an encomienda. Rather than extracting tribute in kind, money or labour dues directly from the towns of their encomienda, the encomenderos accepted the viceroy’s prerogative to collect tribute on their behalf and then assign his due to each e­ ncomendero – an amount that could be open to negotiation. This centralization of e­ ncomienda tribute collection freed many encomenderos to live in ­Mexico City without concern for either the care or coercion of their ­often-distant tributaries. Velasco’s redefinition of encomienda recalls the changes that Mendoza made to the corregimientos and is an indication of the ever-greater concentration of the means to dispense discretionary patronage that the viceroys sought to appropriate from the crown.27 Apart from longer tenures and greater social prestige, encomenderos became almost indistinguishable from corregidores and other salaried officials in terms of the mechanics of their income and their dependence on the viceroys. As with Mendoza’s reform of New Spain’s salaried officials, Velasco was able to add substantially to the discretionary quitas y vacaciones fund from the difference between the amount of tribute the viceroy actually collected from indigenous towns under encomienda and what he gave to their encomenderos and from the income of nominally escheated encomiendas that the viceroy felt should go to the treasury. A large portion of these new discretionary funds was assigned to assist impoverished settlers that Velasco considered deserving and worth subsidising, or those pretenders to encomienda rights that the crown had dispossessed, as well as the viceroy’s favourites. Velasco’s selective welfare system made an even greater proportion of the Spanish settlers than under Mendoza dependent on his good will. Securing the viceroy’s favour became even more important for an increasing segment of the old encomendero class. 26 27

cjv, 144. María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1978), 224–29.

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In 1569 there were 155 corregimientos available a year, with more than one person occupying each position in that period.28 Although the funds available to the viceroys from quitas y vacaciones varied annually, they were considerable and increased with the escheatment of encomiendas. When Velasco died on 31 July 1564, over 45,000d – more than the total salaries paid to all ­corregidores, which amounted to about 38,750d per annum – had already been assigned from this fund for the following year and more remained to be distributed.29 This source of viceregal patronage became even more important when price inflation took hold because salaries in the royal administration remained constant while Spanish immigration increased so that officials soon relied on viceregal disbursements or loans to subsist.30 With these reforms the viceroys extended significantly their capacity to dispense patronage at their own discretion, and approximated the degree of access they enjoyed to the royal coffers and their control over the selection of local officials to that of a monarch. These resources afforded the viceroys much greater possibilities for patronage that enhanced their authority and their capacity to govern effectively. At the most basic level, both viceroys were known for, and advertised, their generosity to impoverished conquistadors or other recent arrivals that were fed and even housed in the viceregal palace – in effect making it the most populous of the casas pobladas. This direct patronage over newly acquired dependants was an expected element of lordly behaviour, which displayed the viceroy’s power and virtue and encouraged other Spaniards to emulate the sort of behaviour that promoted Spanish immigration, as when they joined the viceroy in the effort to house and feed the 300 survivors of Soto’s expedition.31 Gonzalo de Salazar, who had gone to Spain during a period of discontent and emigrations under the Second Audiencia, returned to Mexico in 1538, and hardly recognised the place because ‘this city [Mexico] is turned into a great court, because the voice of the viceroy has carried and sustained many people.’32 The viceroys’ magnanimity transcended the private sphere and was crucial for their public ambitions, most obviously in providing a considerable pool of dependant men to act as manpower for expeditions, or as partisans in Mexico City. Many of the Spaniards in Coronado’s venture, for example, were 28 Miranda, El tributo indígena, 157. There were 13 corregimientos in the marquesado; see Pérez de Bustamante, Los origenes, Doc. xxxi. 29 agi Gobierno México 323, 8 March 1565. 30 agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 2 April 1562 (c. 6th bound collection of letters). 31 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 50. 32 ene, Vol. iii, Doc. 186, 238f.

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newcomers whom the viceroy had housed and fed at his palace.33 By the end of Mendoza’s tenure, Andrés de Tapia calculated the viceroy provided sustenance for 250 Spaniards at the palace daily, and Velasco seems to have supported slightly fewer, but more regularly, even indebting himself heavily to maintain this routine.34 Alonso Vázquez described the sort of individual sponsored by Mendoza: ‘[the viceroy] has and has had in his house and at his table many poor caballeros and other people whom he has fed … sometimes they are a hundred, sometimes less and this witness does not know if they are paid a salary but know that he has given silk and material to clothe them and shoes … he has seen no other guards except for these people he keeps in his house and who follow him around.’35 Amongst these could be the relatives of useful individuals that helped the viceroys establish strategic networks across New Spain; as was the case with Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s son who lived at Velasco’s court and helped established at least an epistolary link, at most one of implicit patronage, between Velasco and an influential citizen in distant Guatemala.36 For the viceroys, deciding who to appoint to offices like corregidor or who deserved largesse from the treasury was not a choice between practising capricious nepotism or favouritism and recruiting qualified bureaucrats. It was between, on the one hand, non-specialists, some of whom were the viceroy’s men of confidence or who possessed some legitimate claim to preferment and, on the other, settlers whom the viceroy did not know or trust so well or who had no particular allegiance to him. The viceroys assigned offices or granted benefices to relatives, friends and members of their household in imitation of the ‘intimate’ style of courtly government they knew from Castile. Royal instructions to the viceroys are full of injunctions to choose ‘men of confidence’ to carry out the most delicate tasks of the administration. Both viceroys defended their choices along the same lines: ‘and in this I did what I had to and what I considered to be most convenient for the service of your majesty and the good government of the land.’37 Patronage was the easiest way for the viceroys to act autonomously without infringing on the formal limitations of their office. Agustín Guerrero illustrates the extent to which the distinction between household duties and official services was blurred. Ostensibly Guerrero was 33 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 124 n.16. 34 Pérez de Bustamante, Los origenes, Doc. xxvii. 35 agi Justicia 258, Alonso Vázquez, regidor de Veracruz, question 108. 36 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, J. Ramírez Cabañas intro. (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 604–05. 37 agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey,’ 19.

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the mayordomo mayor of Mendoza’s household and captain of the guard, but he also acted as the viceroy’s most important ‘intimate representative’ carrying out a remarkable array of missions: from overseeing the review of the treasury books between 1536 and 1544 to running the viceroy’s wool-making enterprise with Gonzalo Gómez, a task that was beneath the dignity of the viceroy but was essential for the private wealth that allowed him to run the viceregal household and maintain its dependents. Guerrero was also involved in other delicate missions such as brokering the deal over Pacific exploration with Alvarado, and as the viceroy’s primary lieutenant in the Mixtón War; he even acted as bursar to the College of Tlatelolco. Most importantly for the operation of government in Mexico City, Guerrero organised the viceregal court and controlled access to the viceroy.38 When Guerrero finally left New Spain it was to represent Mendoza at the Castilian court following the accusations of Tello de Sandoval’s visita. Mendoza rewarded Guerrero with corregimientos from 1540 to his return to Spain after 1545; not surprisingly, he was continually rewarded from the quitas y vacaciones fund in recompense for specific governmental tasks as well. It seems highly probable that Guerrero acquired his own patronage network, delegating some responsibilities and sharing rewards with his trusted associates within the viceroy’s court. This included kinsmen, like his nephew Juan Martínez Guerrero (Agustín himself did not have children in New Spain). Mendoza allowed Juan to enjoy the encomienda that came to him as his wife’s dowry, even though she was an illegitimate mestiza making the transfer of dubious legality, and Agustin left his nephew such a store of wealth when he returned to Castile that the latter came to live in one of the grandest houses in Mexico City. Juan’s descendants remained encomenderos into the 17th century, when they were able to establish a mayorazgo with entailed property near modern-day Dolores Hidalgo.39 There were other more specific duties that required trusted dependents with positions in the administration to help strengthen the viceroy’s hand. Pedro Varela, for instance, became Mendoza’s agent at Veracruz where he looked after the viceroy’s personal commercial interests at the gateway to Europe, and ensured, amongst other things, that the viceroy was supplied with the rare provisions he needed. Of particular importance were the supplies from Castile needed for the viceroy’s expeditions of exploration and to deal with the emergency of the Mixtón War and the relief of Peru.40 Mendoza 38 39 40

Appendix A.II. Georges Kubler, Mexican Arquitecture of the 16th century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), Vol. 1, 193f. agi Justicia 259, vea, Mendoza, Doc. 7.

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provided Varela with the necessary offices, including that of factor of Veracruz, and several corregimientos to carry out this preferential trade for the viceroy. Similarly, Mendoza made use of Martín de Peralta as corregidor from 1536 to the latter’s death in 1543 and with these powers he became an agent, at times, for the distribution of the viceroy’s patronage, most significantly in arranging land swaps, grants and purchases of oidor Tejada in the area of Chalco.41 Peralta, a ‘very honourable’ hidalgo from Santa Fe near Granada, was the sort of desirable individual the crown hoped to encourage to settle in New Spain: who demonstrated his commitment to settle in New Spain by bringing his entire family with him. Mendoza considered Peralta a trusted dependent and a ‘good republican’ (in the sense of usefully active citizen or support of the state),42 whose help in carrying out the viceroy’s wishes had benefited the land and consequently the viceroy felt justified in rewarding him with an encomienda as well as offices for his services.43 The viceroys tried to convert their most trusted allies and dependants into powerful figures in their own right in order to rely on them as bulwarks for viceregal authority in the burgeoning kingdom. But the crown and other Spanish settlers in New Spain would have considered promotions that were completely arbitrary as illegitimate and intolerable; so in order to justify the rise of these ‘men of confidence’ Mendoza and Velasco gave them the best opportunities to shine in royal service on their own merit. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, for example, first made his name in New Spain after Mendoza entrusted him with the responsibility of suppressing a conspiracy to rebel, in which runaway slaves plotted with slaves conscripted to work in mines.44 Mendoza sent ‘some men from [his] household’ under Coronado’s command, to deal with the ‘king and … lieutenants’ of the runaway slave community that was at the head of the conspiracy. Enhancing their reputation, and that of the viceroy, across the land, these household dependants then also warned the mine owners across New Spain after their prisoners confessed to the existence of a wider conspiracy. The trumpeting of Coronado’s success led to an advantageous marriage for the viceroy’s friend and gave Mendoza a justification for appointing him to various other offices. As we have seen Mendoza was determined to build up Coronado as a magnate in the increasingly important North-West frontier, and the kudos 41 42 43 44

Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos, 214; agi Justicia 261; Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain, esp. 93 and 180–81. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 8.19 and 7.1. agi Justicia, 259, ‘descargos del Visorey,’ AGI Justicia 258, evidence of Alonso Ortiz de Zuñiga, ‘Item 57.’ agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey,’ point 19.

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he had gained in disarticulating the slave-rebellion acted as a platform for his appointment as governor of New Galicia with copious encomiendas to support him. From his stronghold in the West, Coronado represented the viceroy and supported the great projects of exploration of the Pacific North-West, until the actual poverty of Cíbola made the paltry returns from his expedition north seem like a disaster by comparison to what was lost, and ended the favourite’s career, when all the indications had been that he would become one of the magnates of the monarchy. The noblemen don Luis de Castilla and don Tristán de Luna y Arellano had originally travelled to New Spain as part of the entourage of the marquesa Juana de Zúñiga in 1530, but in both cases returned to Castile, disillusioned with Cortés, their overbearing patron. They chose to come back with Mendoza, who valued settlers of recognised nobility over self-made adventurers and consequently supported both of them with funds and offices.45 Mendoza also granted them opportunities for service through special commissions: Castilla was sent to represent the viceroy in the arrangements with Alvarado, along with Guerrero, and in the launching of Alarcón’s expedition. Castilla was instrumental in the delicate matter of negotiating, supplying and paying indigenous Michoacáno conquistadores who accompanied Coronado during the decisive period from 1539 to 1541 (like oidor Tejada who dealt with the Mexica contingent).46 Castilla was elevated to the cabildo of Mexico City by the king and became an encomendero by marrying the daughter of Alonso de Estrada, but he used his authority and judicial powers as corregidor to develop important private mining interests which would make him, in time, one of the richest inhabitants of Mexico City. Luna y Arellano became an essential strongman of the Míxe frontier in Oaxaca after his marriage to the widow of Francisco de Maldonado. This union gave him possession of Maldonado’s rich encomiendas of Tecomastlaguaca to which he added his own nearby holdings at Justlaguaca – both near the unsubdued Míxe lands. With this patrimony he acquired the consequent responsibility of pacifying the turbulent frontier.47 In 1548 and 1550 Luna y Arellano successfully defeated two uprisings in the area amongst the Tequipans and the Zapotecs;48 in 1551 he strengthened his position in the area further when he 45

José López-Portillo y Weber, La Rebelión de la Nueva Galicia (Saltillo, Coahuila: Escuela Normal Superior, 1981), 433; Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 47–48, 86, 166 and 175. 46 agi Justicia 258, testimony of ‘don Ramiro principal de Michoacán’ and ‘don Alonso principal de Pátzcuaro.’ 47 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Oaxaca.’ 48 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 174–75.

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became governor of the marquesado, which had many holdings in Oaxaca. Velasco continued to rely on Luna y Arellano and to rewarded him: most spectacularly by appointing him to command the expedition to conquer and settle a new governorship in Florida, which, had it succeeded, would have turned Luna y Arellano into another powerful territorial magnate associated closely with the viceregal court. Noblemen from illustrious dynasties, like Castilla and Luna y Arellano were also valuable to the viceroys for the prestige of their noble names and their dynastic networks on both sides of the Atlantic. Both were also related to the marquesa, which explained why Luna y Arellano was appointed governor of the marquesado in 1551.49 Castilla’s direct descent from a royal line (and his marriage to the daughter of a reputed royal bastard) brought added charisma to his person. Mendoza justified giving him offices, in part at least, because of this legitimising attribute: ‘he is very honourable and a caballero and he is worthy of this [status] because he has given a good account of himself in the offices he has been charged with …’50 Castilla’s influential brother Diego de Castilla was lord of various towns in Castile and equerry to Charles v, so that Luis had a powerful ally at the heart of the Castilian court. Finally, Luis would come to be related by marriage to both Mendoza and Velasco after his niece Ana de Castille, Diego’s daughter with Beatriz de Mendoza, married Velasco. Figures like Castilla and Luna y Arellano stood at the nodal centre of networks that linked the viceregal court to the royal court of Castile and ensured a degree of continuity and coordination between one viceregal administration and another. There were other useful individuals in New Spain whom the viceroys favoured for strategic reasons. Along with Luna y Arellano in Oaxaca, Mendoza and Velasco relied on another noble adventurer, don Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra y Córdoba as a strongman in north-western Michoacán, on the increasingly important ‘Chichimeca frontier’ (see Fig. 11). Bocanegra had established a fruitful alliance with Fernando de Tapia, the Otomí godfather of New Spain’s conquest and colonisation of the frontier north of Xilotepec, including, most famously the foundation of Querétaro. Mendoza empowered Bocanegra by granting him an encomienda at Acámbaro in the region – Fernando de Tapia’s wife was a native of Acámbaro – and elevating him to regidor ordinario of Mexico City and perhaps more relevantly, given the developing pastoral economy of the area under his influence, alcalde de mesta. In a further affirmation of their alliance Bocanegra represented the viceroy in an important purchase of cattle-breeding ranches in northern Michoacán. Both viceroys also used him as a military 49 50

Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos, 186. agi Justicia 259, ‘descargos del visorrey,’ point 19.

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commander: Mendoza in the Mixtón war and Velasco in an attempt to pacify the increasingly violent Chichimeca raiders that were disrupting access to the new silver-mining centre of Zacatecas.51 As silver-mining became increasingly important in the later 1540s and throughout the government of Velasco, both viceroys sought to form important ties with the new silver-mining entrepreneurs who were rapidly becoming the wealthiest settlers of New Spain. Mendoza had already established associations with Cristóbal de Oñate and Miguel de Ibarra when he was seeking to secure his authority over New Galicia in the 1530s and 1540s: first through Vázquez de Coronado and subsequently during his tour of the area. Mendoza maintained links with the Ibarras in Mexico City through Hortuño de Ibarra, who became Juan Alonso de Sosa’s lieutenant treasurer in the late 1540s, and by promoting other relatives like Pedro de Ibarra whom the viceroy ­recommended for a canonry.52 Oñate married Catalina de Salazar, widow of Mendoza’s household retainer don Ruy Díaz de Mendoza and daughter of Mendoza’s ally Gonzalo de Salazar. The relationship became closer after the Mixtón War, from which both Oñate and Miguel de Ibarra emerged with great credit. Ibarra was given corregimientos both before the war in 1541 and after it in 1543, while the viceroy heaped praise and honours on Oñate who became the de facto governor of New Galicia and was trusted enough to be appointed as Francisco de Mendoza’s maestro de campo for the proposed expedition to Peru in 1547.53 These families became important beyond New Galicia after the discovery of the rich silver-deposits in Zacatecas. Their ties and loyalty bound them closer to Mexico City than to the new audiencia of New Galicia in remote Compostela. Velasco inherited many of these alliances. He had very close ties to the Ibarras from allegiances that traced their origin to Castile: the future viceroy had served with Diego de Ibarra under Velasco’s kinsman the Constable of Castile early in their careers. Velasco travelled to New Spain with Diego’s nephew Francisco de Ibarra as a page in his retinue, but the alliance in New Spain was cemented dynastically after the viceroy’s daughter married Diego de Ibarra. Later, as we have seen, Velasco and Diego de Ibarra supported the expeditions of Francisco de Ibarra, which saw him become the governor of New Vizcaya. Elevating powerful allies into the elite of New Spain helped the viceroys to extend their influence over other potential rivals for authority in New Spain. 51

Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos, 215; Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain, 121–22; Powell, La guerra chichimeca, 76, 84. 52 ene, Vol. 5, Docs 270 and 274. 53 Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 176.

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The Roman knight Luis de León Romano crossed to New Spain with Mendoza at the request of Charles v and continued to serve under Velasco. As an unmarried and childless Italian outsider he had few natural bonds with other Spanish settlers, making him a particularly trustworthy agent for the viceroys on a number of delicate assignments. Both viceroys gave Romano various offices including corregimientos and sent him as their ‘intimate representative’ on specific missions, like limiting the damage caused by cattle on indigenous lands in Oaxaca; to investigate sites to plant wheat; or entrusted him with delicate responsibilities like overseeing the supply of essential food-stuffs into Mexico City – where speculation amongst the members of the cabildo, who had controlled the supply in the past, had driven prices up even higher than in the rest of the kingdom.54 Romano’s education made him useful in less obviously administrative activities that were nonetheless crucial to viceregal authority, like designing the town-plan for new Spanish settlements in Michoacán and Oaxaca for which he was rewarded from the quitas y vacaciones fund by both viceroys, and arranging great courtly feasts and pageantries to dazzle the viceroys’ subjects (see below). In his will Romano would leave much of his fortune to Velasco, as well as to educational and religious institutions for Indios.55 During visitas, royal officials named the beneficiaries from the quitas y vacaciones fund and gave brief justifications for the viceroy’s disbursements. They included Velasco’s noble courtesan doña Margarita Pacheco56 or his huntsmen, like the peerless Pedro Romero or Alonso de Nava, whom Suárez de Peralta believed to have received a salary of 2,000d; along with doctors, barbers, musicians and others who made courtly life more pleasant and charismatic.57 54 55

56 57

agi Gobierno Mexico 168, ‘Velasco to Philip of 20 April 1553’; vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5 ‘Oaxaca.’ agi Justicia 258, Relación sacada de los libros de la contaduría. For his will, see Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 204–05. For more on this enigmatic character see e.g. agi Gobierno Mexico 96, ‘Carta de Luis de Leon Romano, San Juan de Ullua 1555’; ene, Vol. vi, Doc. 348, esp. 156–61; Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, La vida michoacana en el siglo xvi. Catálogo de los documentos del siglo xvi del Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de Pátzcuaro (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1999), esp. 221f; Patricia Lopes Don, ‘Carnivals, triumphs, and rain gods in the new world: A civic festival in the city of México‐Tenochtitlán in 153’ in Colonial Latin American Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (June 1997), 17–40; Nicholas Cheetham, New Spain, the birth of modern Mexico (London: Gollancz, 1974), 74f. cjv, 249. cjv, various entries, 205–57. For the hunters in particular see 223 along with Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 160.

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More intriguingly Valderrama mentioned several individuals, including Gerónimo del Mercado, whom ‘in Mexico they call alumbrados.’ As Valderrama’s comment suggests at the time the term was used differently in Mexico than in Castile, but he did not elaborate. We can infer, nonetheless, certain of its distinguishing characteristics. Mexican alumbrados were not necessarily religious mystics but they did eschew formal administrative hierarchies in New Spain in favour of their unmediated relationship with the viceroy: they benefited from direct viceregal patronage without necessarily holding an official position in the administration; instead they were often associated with the friars, as in the case of Agustín de Las Casas, who was a ‘deudo’ of Bartolomé de las Casas and whose daughter married Diego Ramírez, the viceroy’s appointee as visitador to New Galicia. According to Valderrama, Agustín was ‘one of those’ charged with finding ways to reduce the levels of tribute paid by indigenous polities. Such unofficial agents were instrumental in the viceroys’ policy for dealing with the indigenous polities. The evidence suggests that they advocated the cause of Indio polities on ideological, rather than purely practical grounds, and advocated viceregal supremacy in New Spain when it coincided with this ideology. Their indifference to royal legislation, like the changes to tributary assessments that Valderrama was trying to implement, or presumed hierarchies seems to offer the best explanation for why they were called alumbrados.58 Family ties became increasingly important after royal attempts to reduce the viceroys’ personal economic involvement in New Spain. Velasco famously used his brother Francisco and other relatives, such as the Viveros and the Ibarras to circumvent the restrictions that royal legislation imposed on his acquisition of private wealth in New Spain. Valderrama’s visita identified several individuals in official posts as ‘criados of don Francisco …’59 and others that the viceroy’s brother was able to maintain as a large and identifiable client network. This network was sustained from salaried offices; disbursements from the quitas y vacaciones fund; the encomiendas the viceroy bestowed on his brother; and eventually Francisco’s copious private estates. Francisco’s patrimonial wealth created loyal patronage network that formed of a ‘Velasquista party’ that overcame the ambitions of Martín Cortés and his partisans, as well as Valderrama, the new oidores and those clamouring for the end of viceregal government after the viceroy’s death in 1564. 58

59

cjv, 206–07 and 211. For Iberian alumbradismo, see e.g. Alastair Hamilton, Heresy and Mysticism in sixteenth century Spain. The Alumbrados (Cambridge: James Clarke & co., 1992), 115–16. cjv, 206–45.

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Influence over the encomenderos

Suárez de Peralta’s salient memory of Mendoza’s powers, when compared to those of his successors, was that he was free to allocate encomiendas according to his will – including the alienation of certain royal towns to encomenderos if he considered the recipients worthy of the merced.60 Guzmán had enjoyed similar powers to apportion encomiendas, but Mendoza was able supplement that power with the forms of patronage he accrued from his administrative reforms. This combination meant that the viceroy could avoid the scale of arbitrary confiscation or redistribution of encomienda grants that had made Guzmán and, for different reasons, the Second Audiencia’s administrations so unstable, and to soften the effects of dispossession by offering alternative compensations. Mendoza relied on the flexibility that the system quitas y vacaciones gave him, to raise the number of corregidores he could employ and still be able to assign 11 crown towns to private encomenderos.61 Most of these new encomiendas went to the viceroy’s closest associates without alienating existing encomenderos. By the end of Mendoza’s first year in office, three members of his household had become encomenderos: Martín de Peralta was granted a new encomienda and Alonso de Mérida was re-assigned one after the death of its holder; while Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was allowed to acquire one as part of his wife’s dowry. All three were the type of trusted principal men that Mendoza envisaged at the head of his kingdom and who the settler elite hoped to consider as their peers. Both viceroys encouraged marital alliances between their adherents and members of the encomendero elite, which created personal bonds between them and propagated the belief that the viceroys would stand with the encomenderos against the many opponents of encomienda in Castile and New Spain. As Mendoza’s capacity to dispense patronage increased he acquired the mantel of sponsor and representative of the interests of an increasing proportion of encomenderos, which old conquistador captains had forfeited when they chose their own dynastic interests over those of their previous comrades in arms. As the viceroy acquired this status, he also found that conquistadores and settlers with claims to encomienda, but who had been dispossessed in previous factional conflicts, or as a result of royal policy, also courted his patronage. Based on certain clauses in the instructions the crown had given him in 1535, Mendoza and most settlers assumed that the crown would soon 60 61

Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 150. Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain, 97.

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command him to enact a final repartimiento (in accordance with a royal cédula of 5 April 1528 that had never been put into effect) to determine which individuals would be granted an encomienda in perpetuity. Mendoza supported the idea of perpetual and hereditary encomienda, with the proviso that these rights were ultimately dependent on the crown and not held autonomously by the encomenderos as if they were feudal titles.62 This chimed well with his aim of creating a stable and ordered kingdom governed by himself and his descendants, where the encomenderos should be at the pinnacle of a hierarchical Spanish ‘republic.’ Furthermore, so long as the settlers believed that Mendoza’s final repartimiento was imminent, they would compete for the viceroy’s favour. In accordance with the expectations for a final repartimiento, for example, Mendoza presided over an assembly of aggrieved encomenderos and dispossessed conquistadores who elected Miguel Díaz de Aux and Francisco de Vargas (two of their number) to petition the king in Castile for the restoration of their just rewards. These delegates hoped to sail to Castile as representatives of their assembly and with the viceroy’s support. However, while they retained the viceroy’s backing, existing encomenderos who were worried about their own holdings, infiltrated and then hijacked the assembly in 1537, imposed their own agenda and stopped Díaz de Aux and Vargas from leaving New Spain. The established encomenderos’ disruption of this initiative illustrates the insecurity they felt about their rights and the consequent fractiousness that divided them and their less fortunate would-be peers. The viceroy remained sympathetic to the deserving but unrewarded conquistadores: he continued to compensate the two frustrated delegates consistently for their loss of encomienda with corregimientos and other forms of viceregal grace, winning over this disaffected element in society as his clients. In a letter to the crown Díaz de Aux contrasted the abusive encomenderos that had disrupted his plans to visit Castile, with the viceroy who was able to judge the final repartimiento ‘better than anyone else.’63 The gathering of dispossessed encomenderos in 1537 illustrates the viceroy’s willingness, and ability, to summon a variety of assemblies in order to secure the consent and support of prominent settlers for a variety of ventures. In 1547, for example, the viceroy summoned what Jerónimo López described as a ‘parlamento’ to garner support for the proposed expedition to restore royal authority in Peru against the rebellious encomendero class there.64 These viceregally sanctioned assemblies were never institutionalised, but participation in 62 63 64

vea, Mendoza, Doc. 2. ene, Vol. v, Doc. 182, esp. 230f. ene, Vol. v, Doc. 263.

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them was a sign of enfranchisement. The viceroys lent such gatherings a legitimacy that raised them above more traditional forms of political association. Since the Conquest cabildos, particularly that of Mexico City, acted as the most effective official forum where Spanish settlers could express their views to the crown. This assembly of a town’s municipal authorities could decide on property rights in their jurisdiction, elect individuals to municipal office (although the crown reserved the right to make such appointments too) and, as occurred during the Conquest or in the wrangles between Alvarado and Montejo over Honduras, lend legitimacy to an individual’s political claims. Mexico City contained the greatest number of Spaniards in Mesoamerica and its cabildo included some of the richest and best connected members of the settler elite. As the case of Díaz de Aux and Vargas illustrates the interests of the more established sort of encomenderos who constituted the cabildo of Mexico City did not always represent those of the Spanish population at large. Nevertheless, the eminence of Mexico City’s cabildo made it a potential focus for dissent, and Mendoza acted with determination to emasculate its autonomy and appropriate its prerogatives. Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia was a well-connected conquistador and encomendero who entrenched his influence in New Spain through membership of Mexico City’s cabildo, where he enjoyed a long-standing ascendancy due to his effective defence of its autonomy against the presumptions of Cortés in the 1520s and subsequently through astute dynastic alliances.65 He took up the defence of his cabildo once more against Mendoza’s ambitions; and the accusations he levied against the viceroy during Tello de Sandoval’s visita, although they should be treated with scepticism, provide an illuminating insight into the informal strategies Mendoza employed to subdue his opponents. According to Vázquez de Tapia, Mendoza concentrated his efforts on creating a viceregal ‘party’ amongst the regidores and alcaldes that formed the ranks of the cabildo in order to block any measures that might be opposed to the viceroy’s interests. Mendoza’s partisans in the cabildo included many of his usual ‘men of confidence’: don Luis de Castilla, Juan Alonso de Sosa, Gonzalo de Salazar, Hernando de Salazar, Juan Velázquez de Salazar, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Antonio de Carvajal and Hernán Pérez de Bocanegra. Furthermore, Mendoza instituted the irregular practice of making oidor Loaysa preside over all meetings of the cabildo. As Vázquez de Tapia explained the cabildo was soon cowed ‘because, as the lic. Loaysa came to the ayuntamiento and there were other regidores who were very good friends of the said viceroy and of his party, the others were very suspicious of saying anything in the cabildo relating to the 65

Himmerch y Valencia, The Encomenderos, 70–71.

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viceroy because they would report it to him …’ Fear of displeasing the viceroy meant that many regidores were willing to concede some of their institution’s prerogatives to his determination: like deciding on the distribution of lands in the hinterland of Mexico City; or the right they had extracted from the crown to conduct an official visita of the royal mint, which was run by Mendoza’s allegado Alonso de Mérida, that the viceroy stopped them from enacting despite a royal cédula to this effect: ‘in this it became evident that the viceroy wanted the power to provide for [everything] high and low.’66 In one particularly injurious instance of the viceroy’s hubris, Vázquez de Tapia claimed that Mendoza burst into the chamber where the cabildo was meeting and insulted the regidores for refusing to vote as he intended them to. Vázquez de Tapia immediately complained but the latter replied, chillingly, that he was not acting merely as president of the audiencia, like some letrado blindly following the law, ‘but as viceroy and if you don’t hold your peace I will gag you, put you in prison, and send you to Castile in chains.’ Finally Vázquez de Tapia accused the viceroy of tampering with the mail, which was collected at the viceregal palace before it was sent to Castile. He alleged that the viceroy’s creatures, like Agustín Guerrero, tampered with this fragile line of correspondence with the crown in order to hide the cabildo’s concerns from the king. In sum, the viceroy’s power seemed so unassailable that ‘for this reason [the regidores] have no liberty to discuss things that it is necessary to discuss and to write to your majesty about’ and they lamented ‘… the grievances done to us by the removal of our preeminence and the denial of what we used to be able to do.’67 Paradoxically for Vázquez de Tapia, Tello de Sandoval’s visita did not seek to restore the cabildo’s prerogatives beyond portraying Mendoza as a tyrant. In a sense, the visitador’s original mission to promulgate the New Laws was diametrically opposed to much of what the members of the cabildo, along with their encomendero class desired most from the crown: the right to pass on their encomienda grants to their descendants in perpetuity. On the other hand Mendoza demonstrated his solidarity with the encomenderos most clearly when convinced Tello de Sandoval to suppress of the clauses that were most egregious to the encomenderos, and he promised to intercede on their behalf for their complete repeal. New Spain’s encomenderos did not rebel and in 1550 a delegation reached the royal court in Castile, to be joined there by another from Peru, to argue for grants in perpetuity.68 Towards the end of Mendoza’s tenure even Andrés de Tapia, a partisan of Cortés that had criticised the viceroy in the past, 66 67 68

agi Justicia 258, Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia, 17 May 1546, questions 39–56, esp. 53. agi Justicia 258, esp. answers to questions 39 and 52. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 587–89.

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conceded that Mendoza was the patron that Spanish settlers most desired; and he lobbied the crown vigorously to allow Francisco de Mendoza to inherit his father’s title in order to propagate a desirable status quo.69 Despite New Spain’s campaign, the crown proved adamant in its determination to reform both viceregal government and encomienda to make them less patrimonial. Even before Velasco reached Mexico City settlers like Andrés de Tapia and Jerónimo López were worried that the new viceroy would be too ‘severe’ with regards to the sui-generis even ‘secret’ (as in personal rather than confidential) arrangements of the Mendozan period.70 Velasco was charged with implementing the full extent of the New Laws, which constrained him from following the more positive approach that Mendoza had employed at the start of his tenure. Paradoxically, however, in Velasco’s hands the ­implementation of the crown’s anti-encomienda legislation helped to foster the new viceroy’s association with, and patronage over, New Spain’s encomendero elite. Velasco redefined the nature encomienda: in exchange for the viceroy’s protection from the unmediated application of the crown’s legislation the encomenderos consented to becoming little more than pensioners to the viceroy: dependent on his favour to determine the extent of their incomes.71 Possessing an encomienda remained socially prestigious. Velasco repeatedly argued in favour of inheritance of encomienda in perpetuity along the lines of the negotiations of 1546; or, failing that, the extension of inheritance rights for three generations rather than two. The crown eventually denied these requests as well, but they illustrate Velasco’s desire to associate himself with the (reformed) cause of the encomenderos, like his predecessor. Dynastic alliances helped to coalesce a devoted viceregal party amongst the encomenderos and to perpetuate it. Ascertaining their extent formed an ­important part of this period’s visitas.72 When Mendoza arranged his sister María de Mendoza’s marriage to Martín de Ircio, for example, the viceroy not only associated himself with a wealthy conquistador, but also with the powerful dynastic network headed by comendador Leonel de Cervantes, whose d­ aughter María was married to Martín’s brother, Pedro de Ircio. The link to the viceregal court continued in the following generation when Luis de Velasco, ‘the ­younger,’ ­married Martín de Ircio’s daughter and heir María. Their encomienda and e­ states eventually formed part of the Velasco family’s trans-Atlantic ­marquesado de Salinas. Similar associations between encomenderos and members 69 70 71 72

Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes, Doc. xxvii. Ibid. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 231–59. agi Justicia 258, questions 48 and 49 specifically.

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of both viceregal households acted as bulwarks for viceregal authority and limited the disruption that a transition of authority from one administration to the next could engender. Through an identification between viceroys and members of the settler elite, the notion that the viceroy was the patron of the encomenderos’ cause survived despite their need to implement royal legislation.73

Appropriating Public Ceremonial

Both viceroys also sought to reinforce the sense of their role as patrons of the Spanish population through public ceremonial. Suárez de Peralta had no doubt about the importance of such regalia and went so far as to recall the claim of a friend during Velasco’s reign that ‘…“I swear to God that if the king sent orders to remove all the towns [in encomienda], that the viceroy would yet console [the encomenderos] and make them forget this damage, by sounding the music for a feast in the streets, so much do people love them.” And he was right’ the author commented ‘because the land was very good and quiet.’74 For Suárez de Peralta and other citizens of Mexico City, Velasco fulfilled the expectations of lordly behaviour by ‘spending his income, very much as a lord should’ which gave him ‘the most principal house that a lord ever had and spent much in honouring the land.’ ‘Viceregal hunts’ recalled European ‘royal hunts’ the most dazzling was one that commemorated Mendoza’s triumph over the Mixtón rebels and involved 15,000 people sweeping the highland plains between Xilotepec and San Juan del Río known as El Cazadero.75 More commonly races, tournaments of cañas, jousts, and bullfights on holy days were arranged so as to reinforce the sense of a viceregally-sanctioned social hierarchy: As Suárez de Peralta recalled, Velasco, who was a fine horseman, ‘played cañas himself, which honoured the city so much that I knew gentlemen do everything possible to participate in the fun; and those who took part felt they had a knightly habit about their chests, so honoured were they. Merchants didn’t even think 73 74

75

Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 236–37; cjv, 230. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 162; José R. Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Jaime González Rodríguez eds., Felipe ii y el oficio del rey: la fragua de un imperio (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001), 484f. Luis Weckmann, The Medieval Heritage of Mexico (New York: Forham University Press, 1992), 125; Alonso de Zurita, Historia de la Nueva España (Madrid: Librería general de V. Suárez, 1909), 205–07.

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of participating …’76 Public displays helped to establish an unwritten norms that associated viceregal patronage with the defence of the Spaniard’s insecure sense of social hierarchy.77 Díaz del Castillo remembered that the first serious sign of rivalry between Mendoza and Cortés came when both sought to appropriate festivities in honour of the peace of Aigues Mortes in 1538. Mendoza and Cortés competed to outdo each other and the patrimonial intentions behind their patronage of the event were evident, down to the appearance of each patron’s insignia stamped on the sweets that were distributed freely during the feast-days. According to Díaz del Castillo, Mendoza and Cortés agreed to host great banquets for the settler elite on consecutive days. With the help of retainers who were accustomed to regal entertainments, like Guerrero and Romano, the viceroy proved to be much defter at representing the glamorous spectacle of kingship, to a population that yearned for its proximity and was deeply attracted by its displays, than Cortés, whose homo novus overstatement made him look somewhat ridiculous.78 These kinds of patrimonial displays also evoked the ambiguity of the viceroy’s status, however. Mendoza’s enemies in Mexico City’s cabildo, for example, complained to the crown about festivities that the viceroy ordered to be held in honour of his brother Bernaldino, who, as Captain of the Galleys of Castile, had won a remarkable victory over the Turks at the battle of Alborán in ­October 1540. The cabildo objected to the overtly patrimonial tenor of celebrations that glorified the house of Mendoza too exclusively for their liking. Alonso de Mérida, whose family had been criados of Mendoza’s father, orchestrated the grandiose festivities and to make matters worse they were funded, in part, from the royal treasury.79 Public display that was far less obviously patrimonial would prove enough to discredit Martín Cortés and his followers as traitors and conspirators to the crown in 1565. The viceroys’ interest in appropriating public ceremonial as a means of attaching a royal glamour to their person could lead to serious disagreements, not least because public ceremonial provided a public platform through which to express discontent with the viceroys. On another occasion some regidores of Mexico City refused to attend a public ceremony that Luis de Castilla and Juan Alonso de Sosa organised to glorify Mendoza’s reign; and they alleged that 76 77 78 79

Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 160. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, 159–62; Weckman, Medieval Heritage, 116–25. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, Ch. cci; Lopes Don, ‘Carnivals, triumphs, and rain gods,’ 20f. For Mérida see agi Justicia 258, testimony of Alonso Ortíz de Zuñiga, question 2; for royal funds see Weckman, The Medieval Heritage, 22.

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the viceroy was so angry at this affront to his, in their view, overbearing dignity that he exclaimed publicly that had the matter been more serious he would have forced the disobedient regidores to attend by dragging them through the gutter.80 Conversely, Velasco found Martín Cortés’ displays of lordly selfaggrandisement intolerable because they signalled an alternative source of patronage. Conclusion Mendoza claimed that when he took up his post in 1535, he could not find enough viable candidates to fill all the offices at his disposal, but only two years later there were too many deserving candidates.81 This change was due to a rise in the number of Spaniards willing to settle in New Spain and a sign of the growing appeal of viceregal patronage. As Spanish settlers began competing for preferment the natural arena became the viceroy’s court in the palace of Mexico City. There the viceroy negotiated accords, distributed favour and rewards according to his own criteria. During Tello de Sandoval’s visita Jerónimo López gave an illustrative account of his attempts to gain access to viceregal grace at court. He was complaining, like so many conquistadores, of not being given an adequate encomienda as a reward for his services: [I] first thought of writing to the marqués del valle because he knew how this witness had served his majesty, or perhaps to appeal to certain friars, since [I] had been unable to convince the viceroy and was seeking to remedy the situation favourably in some other way. Eventually [I] thought of talking with Agustín Guerrero, mayordomo of the said viceroy to ask a price of him in exchange for being favoured and so that the said enterprise could be settled as his majesty had intended in the first place.82 With this anecdote López illustrated how royal grace and justice could only be achieved through viceregal patronage, as well as attacking Guerrero for abusing the system for his own corrupt advantage. Vázquez de Tapia claimed that the pressure to conform to the viceroy’s standards and expectations affected people’s behaviour: ‘if lic. Loaysa [did and said all this] it was to serve and 80 81 82

agi Justicia 258, Bernaldino de Albornoz, 24 November 1546, 39; and Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia, 17 May, 39. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5. agi, Justicia 258, testimony of Jerónimo López.

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please the said viceroy … because the said Loaysa and everyone in this land wish to please and keep happy the person that governs so that he may favour them and that their affairs might flourish.’ Each viceroy’s unofficial techniques of government even seemed to mould the attitudes and behaviour of the diverse population of Spanish settlers. Mendoza and Velasco grounded their rule on the practical benefits they could bestow on the Spanish population they aimed to govern. They appropriated the ability to dispense patronage in the form of offices and direct disbursements, approximating their powers to those of a king. The viceroys tried to benefit and sustain as many Spaniards as possible through disbursements of private and public funds. Simultaneously, the logic they applied to deciding which individuals deserved the greatest rewards responded to their own individual patrimonial interests, administrative strategies, and ideology rather than to an abstract bureaucratic or legalistic logic, or even the exclusive interests of the crown. Conquistador Andrés de Tapia commented with regard to Mendoza: ‘He honours everyone … and harms no one. If anything, he does more for some than for others. He is very poor because I understand that he feeds more than 250 [people] who are destitute.’83 Apart from silver-miners, most patrons in New Spain were competing for diminishing resources, as the indigenous population declined and inflation increased the price of prized European goods erratically. In this context, the Spanish population became used to depending on viceregal patronage for their wealth and status. As long as there was no viable alternative for securing royal grace, the viceroys’ court and its logic of legitimacy became the ­medium for practical advancement in New Spain. The consequent competition for ­access to viceregal favour enhanced the viceroy’s authority. Meanwhile, g­ rateful members of the new elite, who depended for their status on sui generis ­viceregal ­arrangements, defended each viceroy’s personal authority. The relative failure of alternatives to viceregal government both before Mendoza’s tenure and after Velasco’s death showed the effectiveness of the viceroy’s sui generis arrangements. At first some of the settlers who had not enjoyed viceregal grace saw an advantage in using the visitas to discredit the viceroys; or regarded Martín Cortés as a ‘prince across the seas’ who had finally returned to champion the Spanish settlers over the Indios, particularly over the matter of encomienda. The charisma of the Cortés name appealed to the more ancient legitimacy claimed by the true conquistadores: the halfforgotten sense that they and their descendants should be the feudal lords of New Spain as heirs to the imperial lords of Motecuhzoma an in accordance 83

Pérez de Bustamante, Los origenes, Doc. xxvii.

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with the promises of Hernán Cortés to make them ‘counts and dukes of New Spain’ if they fought on. This had been their motivation or that of their parents, not to submit to the leadership of some new-comer viceroy and his cronies who saw them as mere ‘principal men’ of a ‘Spanish republic’ with equal status to that of leading Indios in their parallel ‘republic.’ Martín Cortés’ had the rare combination of power in New Spain, where he could harness the wealth of his marquesado and count on the support of visitador Valderrama, and in Castile where he had grown up a well-connected courtier and a personal friend of Philip ii. Matters came to a head after the viceroy’s death when the resultant power vacuum led to the formation of factions that coalesced around newly fractured sources of patronage: the Velasquista ‘party’ on the one hand; the second marqués, visitador, oidores and a resurgent cabildo on the other. This last group, unshackled, went so far as to propose the suppression of the title of viceroy forever on 31 August 1564 only a month after Velasco’s death. The crisis that started in the summer of 1564 exposed the fragility of the unofficial, courtly and sui-generis political solutions that underwrote viceregal authority; but also how indispensable these local arrangements had become for the stability and successful governance of New Spain: As Suárez de Peralta observed ‘[Velasco’s] death was the cause for the perdition of the land, and of the marqués.’84 Without an established viceroy for the four years following Velasco’s death (and without a new ‘Peru’ to absorb discontented emigrants) the underlying factionalism of Spanish settlement emerged in the violent strife and arbitrary repression of the mid-1560s. Loyalty to a viceroy as patron of New Spain above his role as a royal representative, and an adherence to the negotiation and agreements that his authority permitted, had come to override the polyarchic loyalties that otherwise divided the fractious Spanish settlers of Mesoamerica. After Velasco’s death, an orphaned viceregal party could only urge the king to appoint a new viceroy as soon as possible ‘because it is important and necessary for this land that it should have a single head whom, in your majesty’s name, everyone respects and complies with.’85 84 85

Suárez de Salazar, Tratado, 179. agi Gobierno, México 323, Royal Officials, 8 March 1565, 2nd letter.

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Republic of Indios For the truculent old conquistador Jerónimo López, Spanish authority in Mesoamerica seemed to hang ‘by a thread of wool’ in the summer of 1541.1 On the 4th of July rebellious Caxcan communities that lived along New Spain’s north-western frontier defeated a relatively large Spanish force led by Pedro de Alvarado, then the most experienced and celebrated Spanish commander in Mesoamerica, who died in the subsequent retreat. Following this unexpected victory, the uprising gained large numbers of new adherents from neighbouring communities and acquired a millenarian tone with avowedly anti-Spanish and anti-Christian aims. As the invigorated insurgents advanced towards the Spanish outpost of Guadalajara they dispatched emissaries to instigate corresponding rebellions in the heart of New Spain.2 Despite the bluster about Spanish feats of arms during the Conquest, it was clear to most Spaniards in Mexico City that they would not survive if the great indigenous polities of central Mesoamerica took up arms against them. Contrary to López’s fears, however, the Caxcan uprising of 1541, known to posterity as the ‘Mixtón War,’ never spread south of Xuchipila – the seminomadic rebels’ craggy stronghold – into the settled polities at the core of New Spain. Instead, when the viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, announced his intention to lead an expedition to subdue the uprising, the response of most indigenous authorities resembled that of don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli, prince of Tlalmanalco and hegemon of the polities of Chalco – the granary of Mexico City:

1 ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236 2 Actas del Cabildo de la Ciudad de Mexico, Vol. iv, ‘De 1o. de Enero de 1536 a 30 de Agosto de 1543’, Orozco y Berra eds., (1859), entry for 5th July 1541; Jerónimo López, letter of the 20th October 1541 who claimed the nahuales or holy men of the Caxcans had been identified in Tlaxcala, quoted in José López-Portillo y Weber, La rebelión de la Nueva Galicia (Saltillo, Coahuila: Escuela Normal Superio, 1981), 454; vea, Mendoza, Cargo xxxv, Item, 132f; ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236. For modern commentators who have emphasised this link see Miguel LeónPortilla, La Flecha en el Blanco: Francisco Tenamaztle y Bartolomé de las Casas en la lucha por los derechos de los indígenas 1541–1556 (México: Editorial Diana, 1995), 5–12; and José Martínez Millán coord., Carlos v y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530–1558) (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001) Vol. 4, 15f.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_007

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I, Don Francisco de Sandoval, cacique and lord of this city of San Luis Tlalmanalco, having received the news that the lord viceroy don Antonio de Mendoza who resides in the great city of México and royal audiencia, needed to go to war in the land of the Chichimecas of Xuchipila, went to the said city and begged the lord viceroy to grant me the honour (merced) of going with those of my province of Chalco to serve in this war, and His Lordship thought it good that we should go to this war. When I returned to Tlalmanalco I readied all the people from this province of Chalco for the said war … and all of them of their own good will accepted to go and serve in the said war.3 The ‘Mixtón War’ proved to be New Spain’s largest rebellion in the sixteenth ­century, and is sometimes cited as evidence of generalised indigenous resistance to Spanish domination.4 But the response of indigenous lords like Acazitli suggests a different conclusion. Without the sort of coercion that characterised Nuño de Guzman’s much smaller muster for the ‘conquest of New Galicia’ in 1531, tens of thousands of indigenous warriors flocked to the viceroy’s ­banner in the summer of 1541 (along with an almost full levy of around 1,000 ­Spaniards, which did not include an indisposed López) (see Fig. 10).5 Remarkably, this army – possibly the largest raised on Mesoamerican soil in the nearly three hundred years between the fall of Tenochtitlan and Miguel Hidalgo’s sack of Guanajuato in the autumn of 1810 – assembled within a month of Mendoza’s call to arms and it remained on duty for around six months (­different 3 Gabriel de Castañeda, ‘Relación de la jornada que hizo don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli, cacique y señor natural que fue del pueblo de Tlalmanalco, provincia de Chalco, con el señor visorey don Antonio de Mendoza cuando fue a la conquista y pacificación de los indios chichimecas de Xuchipila,’ Pedro Vázquez trans., in Joaquín García de Icazbalceta, Colección de documentos para la historia de México, Vol. 2 (Mexico: J.M. Andrade, 1858–1866; 1980), 307ff, (henceforth: ‘Relación Acazitli’). Chichimeca literally meant ‘son of dog’ in Nahuatl. The settled polities of central Mesoamerica used it like the term ‘Barbarian’ to describe the semi-nomadic tribes of the north. Xuchipila was another name for the region surrounding the Mixtón hill. 4 E.g. Martínez Millán, Carlos v y la quiebra del humanismo, Vol. 4, ‘Nueva Roma: del señorío indígena novohispano y su asimilación política.’ León-Portilla, La Flecha en el Blanco, 4; Susan Schroeder ed., Native resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 32–38. 5 Numbers vary from 20,000–60,000. See Ida Altman, The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524–1550 (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 2010), 165–70; Laura E. Matthew and Michael R. Oudijk eds., Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 159f; LópezPortillo y Weber, La rebelión, 450, 459 and 465.

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Figure 10 Tlaxcalans represented themselves more effectively than any other polity as the most steadfast allies of the Spaniards. In this scene from the Lienzo de Tlaxcala they recalled their services to Mendoza in suppressing barbaric-looking Caxcan and Zacateco ‘rebels’ at Xuchipila during the Mixton War in 1542. reproduced with permission from Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, nmhm.

c­ ontingents disbanded voluntarily at different times thereafter). Military campaigns of this sort could be very expensive and were not undertaken lightly. Acazitli’s account, and other descriptions, suggest that during this period each lord raised his own contingent from those vassals who owed them military service, ‘like continos,’ according to Spanish witnesses – the standing guards of the Castilian crown, akin to the French gendarmes of the same period – that were fed but not paid or equipped directly by their lord.6 Although we have no figures for the cost that individual indigenous polities bore for the campaign, some Spaniards were said to have spent 1,286–2,572d each, while the viceroy spent about 25,714d of his personal fortune in supplying various individuals from his household.7 6 ‘Relación Acazitli’; Pedro Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas tramontanos’ in Tlalocan Vol. v (México: unam, 1966), 115–17. 7 ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236, p. 177.

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Figure 11 ‘All the towns that have crosses belong to the government of Mexico’ wrote Hernando Martínez de la Marcha, the visitador that Mendoza sent to the region in January 1550. The other towns fell under the jurisdiction of the new audiencia of New Galicia. Beyond the settled portion of New Galicia’s complicated north-west frontier lay the barbaric and pagan ‘Chichimeca’ tribes, who can be seen performing bloody rituals and burning frontier towns. reproduced with permission from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Indias, MP-México, 560.

A voluntary – rather than coercive or mercenary – mobilisation of the magnitude that Mendoza achieved was an enviable accomplishment by contemporary standards in Europe or anywhere in the Americas. It speaks to the degree of consensual authority that the viceroy had attained in Mesoamerica by 1540. This was not an isolated, or merely opportunistic, act of indigenous allegiance to the viceregal regime. Over the course of Mendoza’s administration (1535– 1550) and that of his successor Luis de Velasco (1550–1564), the Nahua, Otomi, Purehpecha, Mixtec and Zapotec polities that occupied a cross-shaped succession of fertile highland plateaus ranging from Tula to Oaxaca and from the Pico de Orizaba to the lakes of Michoacán, became the loyal ‘heartlands’ of the viceroyalty (see Map 1). These polities constituted the richest, most densely populated and culturally influential portion of Mesoamerica; and their relative peacefulness after 1535 was in marked contrast to their previous fractiousness: both before the Conquest and in the turbulent 15 years that followed it. The

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1.

2.

CHICHIMECA FRONTIER

JALISCO 3. MICHOACAN

5. 6. OTOMI MARCHES 4.

COLIMA 7.

GULF OF MEXICO

BASIN OF MEXICO TOLUCA 8. VALLEY

TLAXCALA9.PUEBLA

12.MORELOS

10. VERACRUZ

11.

MIXTECA HIGHLANDS OAXACA 13.

N

MIXES FRONTIER

14. PAC I F I C O C E A N 15.

17. VERAPAZ

TEHUANTEPEC

SOCONUSCO

Map 1

16.

The ‘heartlands of New Spain.’ 1. Zacatecas, 2. Panuco, 3. Guadalajara, 4. ­Valladolid, 5. Queretaro, 6. Ixmiquilpan, 7. Colima, 8. Mexico-Tenochtitlan, 9. Tlaxcala, 10. ­Veracruz, 11. Huaquechula, 12. Taxco, 13. Oaxaca, 14. Acapulco, 15. Huatulca, 16. Soconusco, 17. Verapaz. author’s composition.

region’s transformation during the early viceregal period was also exceptional in comparison to other parts of the Castilian empire in the sixteenth century: in Peru, Manco Inca’s insurrection (especially his campaign of 1536–37), and the establishment of a rump Inca kingdom at Vilcabamba (1539–1572) posed far more serious threats to the survival of Spanish ascendancy in the Andean region than anything the viceroys faced in Mesoamerica. Even the moriscos of Granada, who were far more vulnerable to Castilian coercion, appear more restive in this period than the Indios of the heartlands of New Spain. Comparing the incidence and scale of indigenous insurrection is an obtuse way to measure the success of an imperial regime, but it does have the merit of being both quantifiable and suggestive of general indigenous attitudes. Unless we suppose that the new viceregal regime was more effective at repressing ­dissent than its predecessors in New Spain, or its peers in other parts of the ­empire, then force does not offer a complete explanation for the relative concord after 1535. In the last two chapters we discussed the viceroys’ ascendancy over a fractious population of no more than about 16,000 Spanish immigrants;

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however, without the consent of most of the indigenous polities in this heartland, none of those achievements, let alone the survival of New Spain as a political entity of the Castilian crown, would have been possible. To understand why indigenous polities came to accept viceregal authority we must look at the practices of government that Mendoza instituted and his successor adopted as they applied to the indigenous population; and ask how such practices helped to resolve some of the most pressing indigenous concerns that the aftermath of the Conquest – New Spain’s original sin – had generated.

Alliance with the Friars

Mendoza warned his successor in 1550 that without the support of the friars ‘one can only accomplish little.’ Their cooperation, however, could not be assumed ‘and for this reason I have tried to favour them always and to honour them and love them as true servants of God and His Majesty and if Your Lordship follows this he will see the advantages that come from it, not only in spiritual matters but in temporal ones as well, and I have found this very advantageous, even though it seemed wrong to some.’8 Velasco heeded this advice and persisted in fomenting an alliance that he clearly found sufficiently beneficial to make him ignore, or resist, the growing opposition of those to whom it ‘seemed wrong.’ During his tenure these included powerful forces, from the grumbling encomenderos to the powerful new archbishop of Mexico City, Alonso de Montúfar, backed by Spain’s ecclesiastical hierarchy and the crown, which, newly imbued with Tridentine prejudices, persistently called for the curtailment of the mendicants’ authority after 1554. The entrenchment of this contentious and unofficial association – for the participation of friars in the administration of New Spain was neither anticipated in European practice nor warranted in royal legislation regarding the administration of New Spain – over the course of two viceregal regimes, suggests that the friars were indispensable to viceregal government. Their importance lay in two related activities: their propagandistic advocacy for the supremacy of the viceroys’ authority and autonomy in New Spain – as royal alter egos in a Kingdom composed of two republics; and their function as trustworthy intermediaries between the indigenous authorities and the viceroys. The Franciscans – more so than the Dominicans or Augustinians – had enjoyed a long cohabitation with their indigenous hosts by the time Mendoza ­arrived. Their quotidian interactions, which centred on the performance of communal rituals, were characterised by an inventive cultural permeability as each 8 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, no. 2.

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tried to demonstrate their willingness to associate with, and appeal to, the other (see Fig. 13). The year of his arrival, Mendoza might thus have witnessed the strange spectacle of an indigenous procession heading towards the Franciscan convent of Mexico City to smash their ‘idols’ or burn their ‘books.’ A group of Franciscan friars, peculiarly clad in new habits dyed by their Nahua hosts in the blue tint once associated with Huitzilopochtli (though now ostensibly recalling the mantle of the Virgin Mary), would have waited for them in an unfamiliarlooking atrium of their convent, where an enormous cross (possibly the tallest structure in the city), crafted from an Ahuehuete tree that had once been sacred to Tlaloc, towered near a fountain over both the congregation and a remarkable monolith, carved earlier that year under the direction of the friars to represent a distinctly Mexica eagle perched on a globe. This last artefact was intended to portray, in the unique figurative language then emerging in New Spain, the notion of Mexico as an imperial ‘New Jerusalem.’9 With time such displays became ever more commensurably intelligible to both parties, though this did not mean that either one understood every additional aspect of the other’s culture particularly well: Zumárraga and other friars were always dismayed by reports that baptised natives persisted in polygamous practices or idolatry in the late 1530s, as much as the individuals who practiced them were surprised at the severity with which their unintended transgressions were sometimes punished.10 Rather, such displays and sui generis practices were an indication that certain elements of indigenous societies, usually the political leadership and the friars that lived amongst them, identified themselves with certain common ends. Above all this implied an adherence, however nominal or misunderstood, to Christianity and a consequent acceptance that the friars retained the authority to explain what that implied, especially in terms of acceptable or necessary behaviour. It also meant a dedication to the autonomy and success of the indigenous polity, its governing nobility, and to those of its norms that did not impinge on inviolable Christian tenets. As we have already suggested this always allowed for a ­degree of negotiation and re-definition as a balance was struck between making Christianity seem attractive to the natives while avoiding its distortion beyond acceptable limits.11 The friars’ mendicancy helped to underpin this identification: in a literal sense they were entirely dependent on the patronage 9

Solange Alberro, El águila y la cruz: Orígenes religiosos de la conciencia criolla. México, siglos xvi–xvii (Mexico: Colegio de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999), 59–63. 10 Patricia Lopes Don, Bonfire of Culture: Franciscans, indigenous leaders, and the Inquisition in Early Mexico, 1524–1540 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010), 173–74. 11 The Rhetorica christiana of the Tlaxcalan mestizo Fr. Diego Valadés (Perugia, 1579) is the fullest expression of this commitment. See Esteban J. Palomera, Fr. Diego Valadés, O.F.M.:

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of indigenous authorities that provided them, voluntarily, with the means to sustain their friaries; the resources to build their convents; and through this charity the legitimacy to occupy a public role in their host-polities. All parties in New Spain could derive from this situation that the friars’ self-interest would reinforce their general ideological predisposition and rhetorical claims to act on behalf of their indigenous hosts. The mutual identification between mendicant-Christianity and politypatriotism was strengthened during the repeated defence of both against ‘unrighteous’ Spanish enemies: originally the abusive demands of the First Audiencia and its unrestrained encomenderos; but later, and throughout our period, in the campaign against the perpetual grant of encomienda rights to Spanish dynasties and in resistance against the imposition of the diezmo (tithe) on indigenous communities, which ecclesiastical authorities sought to implement in the 1550s and 1560s. Naturally the same cooperation applied against heathen or recalcitrant Indios either in the polities themselves, or on the barbarian periphery. Despite occasional frustration on both sides, the degree of their identification routinely scandalised Spanish observers, who felt, or at least considered it credible to proclaim that the mendicants’ loyalties had become alien and even contrary to the king’s interests. On the 23rd of July 1543, for example, the cabildo of Mexico, taking advantage of the arrival of visitador Tello de Sandoval from Castile, claimed that Fr. Cristóbal had delivered a sermon where he condemned the Spaniards for being ‘disgraceful traitors to the land, who deserved to be decapitated’ while Fr. Jacobo de Testera (‘from Bayonne’ they pointed out), wanted to ‘free the Indians’ in accordance with the wishes of the king of France.12 In the mid-1560s Valderrama portrayed the friars as irredeemably compromised by their corrupt dependence on the largesse of indigenous ­nobles – to the detriment of both indigenous macehuales and the spread of ­religion – and made their deviant ‘alumbradismo’ with regards to indigenous autonomy one of the main criticisms of Velasco’s administration.13 Until 1535 the nexus between the agents of a Universalist religion and the custodians of a particularist patriotism had faced either the indifference or the hostility of the imperial Spanish authorities in Mexico City. Now Mendoza sought to co-opt both to the cause of his political project and in doing so he strengthened the alliance between friars and indigenous authorities. Mendoza Evangelizador humanista de la Nueva España El hombre, su época y su obra (México: Universidad iberoamericana, departamento de historia, 1988). 12 Alberro, El águila y la cruz, 76. 13 cjv, 68–69.

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Figure 12 Fr. Diego de Valadés, who may have been a mestizo, was interested in explaining to Europeans the sui generis techniques that his fellow Franciscans employed to convert their indigenous charges to Christianity and civility. The parallels between the novel uses of a convent’s atrium in New Spain that Valadés illustrated in this print, and the representation of Nezahualcoyotl’s ideal palace in the Quinatzin Map (Fig. 1) are suggestive.

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Figure 13 Catholic Christianity was understood and practiced heterogeneously in Mesoamerica, as it was in Europe. We should not assume that those Indios who professed an identification with their new faith, at least as they understood it in the mid sixteenth century, were insincere in doing so. reproduced with permission from Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

had become favourably disposed towards the mendicant mission in New Spain since meeting Zumárraga during the latter’s return to Spain (from 1531–1534) to defend himself from the formal accusations of the First Audiencia. Within two months of taking office the viceroy granted the bishop an encomienda for his sustenance, and soon after they formally inaugurated together the ­Imperial School of Santa Cruz at Tlatelolco with a substantial endowment ordained by viceregal fiat and controlled by Agustín Guerrero, the viceroy’s mayordomo and closest collaborator.14 These early examples of viceregal patronage presaged a mutually beneficial political alliance. They also suggest Mendoza’s intention to transform the friars into intermediaries between his government and indigenous authorities. The emphasis on schools like Santa Cruz shows that the 14

Arthur S. Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham: Duke University Press, 1927), 107; Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain New Spain 1521–1555 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), 266.

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objective was to convert the Indios to a better form of ‘polity’ (policía) as well as to Christianity.15 The Franciscans were natural allies of this policy. Sensitive to the concerns of Indio authorities and the preferences of his fellow Franciscans, Zumárraga had repeatedly argued for the idea of separating the ‘blameless’ natives of the New World from the influence of Spanish settlers, whose imperfect Christianity and alienating abuses might inhibit the evangelical aims of their mission. For the friars the notion of acting as the main intermediaries between indigenous nobles and the viceroy was an ideal solution for sidestepping the ambitions of secular Spanish encomenderos and officials.16 The political practices that arose from this principle would lead to the promotion of separate indigenous and Spanish ‘republics’ under a single viceregal authority. As this practice was implemented, the friars gained in standing and became more integrated in the political life of their host-polities: Indio authorities came to refer to certain prominent friars as ‘guardians’ and occasionally ‘governors’;17 friars began to influence princely succession and the composition of Indio nobility in their host polities, not least through the recognition of legitimate offspring or the certification of virtuous actions.18 Conversely indigenous authorities would employ the friars in a range of sensitive missions to represent their interests: like Fr. Pedro de Torres’ embassy to Castile on behalf of Tlaxcala in the fraught year of 1550; the negotiation of land re-distribution in Huexotzinco (see below); or using trusted friars like a young Fr. Bernardino de Sahagún to act as interpreters during judicial proceedings in Mexico City.19 Meanwhile the viceroys saw the friars as expert advisers on the history, ­conditions and concerns of the indigenous world, commissioning them to produce works explaining indigenous history and customs, like the Relación de Michoacán (probably) compiled by Fr. Jerónimo de Alcalá (see Fig. 14).20 In the early 1560s, Valderrama

15 Palomera, Fr. Diego Valadés, 300. 16 José R. Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Jaime González Rodríguez coords., Felipe ii y el oficio del rey: la fragua de un imperio (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001), ‘Poder e iglesia en la Nueva España: La disputa del diezmo,’ 838. 17 E.g. Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 153 and 157. 18 Lopez Don, Bonfire of Cultures, 175–91. 19 Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in The Sixteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952), 165–67; For Sahagún’s participation see agi Justicia 260. 20 Jerónimo de Alcalá, La Relación de Michoacán, intro. and notes Francisco Miranda (Mexico: conaculta, 1988), 42.

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thought that the friars’ influence over Velasco in matters pertaining to the government of the natives was like that of ‘absolute lords.’21 From external pulpits in their convents’ adapted atria, where the natives preferred to assemble as they had done in the patios of their princes’ palaces before the conquest, the friars also conveyed the viceroy’s instructions (see Fig. 12). By the 1550s around 802 friars were active in New Spain (380 Franciscans, 210 Dominicans, and 212 Augustinians)22 and their networks had become the most effective conduits for transmitting viceregal commands to the provinces. They were more effective than official Spanish administrators like corregidores, or influential figures like encomenderos because indigenous authorities trusted the friars, in general, while they were often suspicious of unknown Spaniards: too many unscrupulous officials – and even opportunistic vagabonds – had exploited indigenous confusion as to their status or credulity as to the demands of Mexico City.23 On the other hand the viceroy could rely on the mendicants to transmit his instructions faithfully and that the intended audience would consider those commands as genuine. Even Valderrama, perhaps the staunchest critic of the friaries’ influence, was forced to rely on mendicant networks as the only reliable means to disseminate the news of his arrival and to proclaim the requirements of his visita in the provinces.24 Just as important to viceregal authority was the friars’ use of their pulpit to exalt the justice, good will and effectiveness of the viceroys to their audiences. They urged their flock to appeal directly to the viceroys’ court for redress of their grievances and indigenous petitioners duly sought out the viceroy’s mediation.25 In the first instance, it was the friars that made the viceroys’ personal style of courtly government appealing and viable; but if viceregal government had not used the interactions that the friars facilitated to create routines and practices that resolved the most pressing concerns of the native polities, viceregal authority would not have endured.

21

James Lockhart, Los Nahuas después de la conquista (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999), 296–97; cjv, 140–43 on their influence over the viceroy as being like that of ‘señores absolutos’; José Miranda, El tributo indígena en la Nueva España durante el siglo xvi (Mexico: Colegio de México 2005), 154–55; María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1978), 334–42. 22 Alberro, El águila y la cruz, 50. 23 Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 286–89. 24 cjv, 30. 25 vea, Doc. 5; Gutiérrez, Martínez Ruiz, González Rodríguez, eds., Felipe ii y el oficio del rey, 842; Phelan, Millenial kingdom, 39–51.

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Personal and Courtly Government

Both Mendoza and Velasco were careful to guarantee representatives of indigenous polities direct access to their persons. When the viceroys were in residence at the palace in Mexico City they assigned specific times to deal exclusively with indigenous petitioners (Mendoza: all of Monday and Thursdays and Velasco: on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings) although both emphasised that they could be sought out at any other time if the need arose (see Fig. 16).26 Mendoza even claimed that he did not like to walk around with a halberdier guard in part because the Indios were naturally timid and ‘so that they would have more recourse to seek me out by night or day in search for justice, and I always keep my doors open at all convenient hours and I have instructed my porters not to impede them so that they can come before me freely.’27 Similarly,­viceregal progresses and visitations in the provinces made them seem directly accessible and the judgements they enacted on these occasions left lasting memories of their authority: as when, in August 1549, ­Mendoza, accompanied by the Tenochca interpreter don Hernando de Tapia, resolved a complicated dispute while on tour in Ocuituco.28 Princely government from a palatial seat fitted well with pre-Conquest traditions of government – the polities of Colhua, as we mentioned in Chapter 1, sent their delegates to the hegemonic palace of Tenochtitlan and those of Acolhua to Texcoco. Conversely, many palaces within indigenous polities, even one as relatively close to the viceregal palace as Tlatelolco, were equipped with chambers to host the viceroy or his representatives on prolonged visits.29 Other old patterns of Mesoamerican authority also endured: Nahuatl remained the most common language of Mesoamerican empire, as most indigenous ­petitioners used it when communicating with authorities in Mexico City. Spaniards, like Antonio Ortiz, Francisco de Triana and Marcos Romero tended to learn Nahuatl in order to serve as interpreters at the court rather than viceversa: indigenous interpreters like Hernando de Tapia were rare and extremely valuable as a result.30 This may explain the Spanish adoption of Nahuatl nomenclature when describing other Mesoamerican cultures like the ‘Tarascans’ 26 27 28

29 30

vea, Doc. 5, Section 15: ‘oir los Indios,’ and Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 25f. agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey,’ no. 17. Feliciano Barrios coord., El gobierno de un mundo–virreinatos y audiencias de la ­américa hispánica (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004), 307ff; ­Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 383f. Georges Kubler, Mexican Arquitecture of the 16th century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 202f and 212f. agi Justicia 260, Pieza 1.

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Figure 14 Friars became essential intermediaries between Indio polities and the viceregal administration. In this guise, Fr. Jerónimo de Alcalá, or one of his Franciscan brothers, produced the Relación de Michoacán in collaboration with Purehpecha informants to explain the ‘ceremonies, rites, population and government’ of the Indios of Michoacán to Mendoza. The frontispiece to the Relación shows a Purehpecha delegation, headed by a friar, delivering the work to the viceroy in the familiar courtly setting that the artist had come to expect. reproduced with permission from the Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, España.

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or dismissing nomadic northerners as ‘Chichimeca.’ A striking example of such imperial continuity appears in the Relación de Michoacán where don Pedro recalled that Purehpecha (Tarascan) lords finally agreed to negotiate with the Spaniards after they recognised several Tenochca lords amongst the forces commanded by Olíd.31 Mendoza’s letter of advice to his successor contains a series of recommendations on how to approach negotiations with polity representatives when they visited the viceroy’s court: Mendoza made clear that they were ‘neither simple and innocent nor full of vice but just like any other race and should be treated as such.’ On the allotted days the interpreters (nahuatlatos) of the audiencia brought in all the indigenous petitioners ‘and I hear them all’ before trying to rule on as many matters as possible himself while delegating other matters to oidores, friars, crown officials (both Spanish and Indian) or other ‘intimate­ representatives’32 (see Fig. 15). From other documents we can learn that some more experienced petitioners like the Huexotzinca lords arrived at the palace with a formal petition already written out in Spanish using the rhetorical linguistic codes and formulas of legitimacy that the Spaniards recognised, but felt the need to present themselves before the viceroy in person to strengthen their case as well: ‘Don Cristobal de Guebara and Don Calisto Moscoso and Juan de Alamonte … in our name and voice and that of all the native inhabitants of the said town of Huexotzinco we appear before your illustrious lordship and supplicate and say to him …’; then at the end of the document all the recognised authorities of the town signed and dated it in Huexotzinco 20 April 1554. On the same day, in Mexico City, Antonio de Turcios wrote on behalf of the viceroy: ‘… seen by the most illustrious lord Don Luis de Velasco, viceroy, … the contents of the petition from this part, presented by don Cristobal de Guebara, governor of the said town of Huexotzinco ….’33 Indigenous petitioners could be canny negotiators, often exploiting the relative ignorance of the viceroy by seeming to abandon a matter that had gone against them, only to present it again in a different guise and as if it were a new petition: most cases relied heavily on witnesses and a polity’s ‘painted books,’ which were open to interpretation. The potential for retrials and confusion had persuaded Mendoza to keep a note of all the judgements and proceedings he and the audiencia had ruled on.34

31 Alcalá, Relación de Michoacán, 103. 32 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Tocante a Indios’ and ‘oir a los Indios.’ 33 Carrasco, ‘El Rango Tecuhtli,’ 146 and 149. 34 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Diferencias de indios.’

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Mendoza emphasised the importance of granting access to as many representatives of a polity as possible when an interpreter read out a judgement; otherwise the principales with privileged access to information could distort the viceroy’s intention when they represented it to their communities.35 The direct interaction between viceroys and indigenous petitioners allowed for negotiations and judgements that addressed the specific concerns of each individual polity on an ad hoc basis rather than through blanket rulings encompassing all ‘Indios’ – one of the common errors of the Council of the Indies or its newly arrived representatives. Mendoza insisted on this approach to his successor time and again: ‘… and this should be ruled upon with full knowledge of the quality of the people involved and the particular business at hand.’36 The viceroys encouraged access to their person. Their purpose in doing so was to emphasize how indispensable was their role as arbiters of justice and legitimacy in New Spain, which enhanced their individual standing. This held even when they felt that indigenous petitioners were trying to exploit their privileged ­access for their factional or personal advantage: as Mendoza explained to his successor, ‘some believe that I turn them into liars by not punishing them: but it would be a worse fault to make them fear me so that they stopped coming to me with their concerns, than wasting my time with their games.’37 According to Mendoza, what mattered for the creation and propagation of viceregal authority was that negotiations were carried out under his auspices and that his final judgements were obeyed. It was a way of making the polity authorities clients of the viceroy rather than any other authority in New Spain. The type of negotiations that the viceroys were so diligent at fomenting, and the accords that they produced, endured because they addressed the most important concerns of the polities: tribute, and unresolved political conflicts both among a polity’s governing class and between neighbouring polities. Tribute As visitadores from Castile discovered to their dismay, tribute was not assessed per capita. The assessment of indigenous tribute, which was one of the prerogatives of the viceroys, was generally conducted as a process of negotiation between polity authorities, the friars, the encomenderos (though their role diminished with time) and the viceroys: to paraphrase a term used in Athens’ classical empire, the polities were assessed at what they could persuade the 35 36 37

Ibid., ‘En el negocio de Indios dejar entrar a todos.’ Ibid., ‘11. Tratamiento de Indios.’ Ibid., ‘15, oir los Indios.’

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viceroys to assign.38 The polities sent ‘argumentative’ representatives to reside at the viceregal court in Mexico City for this purpose: ‘[they] learn more than well-informed Spaniards about this in order to be sent to this audiencia … and they hang around here with a multitude of Indios to serve them and much money to spend.’39 When Spanish authorities tried to extract tribute from a polity without reaching a prior agreement with its authorities, they faced all sorts of obstructions. In one instance when a corregidor was due to arrive in a province, an Indio lord climbed to the pulpit of the convent (suggesting at least the tacit acquiescence of the friars) to explain to his assembled polity and visitors from neighbouring towns ‘what they had to say in word and using their painted books …’ to minimise the assessment ‘[and] they say this to the letter’ the bemused official noted. And he went on to note that they used similar tactics to deceive royal officials into making excessive demands on rival polities: ‘although those witnesses in favour of one town one day can be against [their neighbours] on another.’40 In Mexico City it was a commonplace to assume that ‘without [the principales] it is impossible [to collect tribute] well and without great difficulties.’41 Courtly negotiation assured that a compromise could be reached regarding the assessment of tribute. Negotiation allowed for flexibility and adaptability because it took into account variable circumstances of individual polities, like recent participation in onerous martial services or the effects of epidemics on the local population.42 This arrangement created conventions within New Spain that were not officially recognised or even referred to the Council of the Indies. One example were the tributary exemptions that Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlan enjoyed in exchange for providing manual labour for the viceregal palace and as compensation for Spanish appropriation of lands and rights around the valley of Mexico that had belonged to the Mexica imperial elite before the Conquest. Most disturbing for Castilian official like Valderrama was the engrained custom in New Spain of exempting the Indio nobility from tributary obligations 38

39

40 41 42

cjv, 66–69 and 156–57. For the Athenian empire see the ‘Chalcis Decree’ in Russell Meiggs and David M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the end of the fifth century b.c. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), Doc. 52. agi Gobierno México 323, ‘Cargos y expedientes de oficiales reales de México.’ Second bound section, 1st letter, 2 March 1552, signed Alonso de Sosa, Antonio de la Cadena and Juan Velazquez de Salazar. Ibid 2nd para., 3. agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 6 December 1565. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘El provecho y renta principal es la que dan los Españoles’; and Doc. 7, 268f; Toribio de Benavente o Motolinía, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España, E. O’Gorman ed. (Mexico: Porrúa, 1973), 136.

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along with the thousands of landless terrazgueros who worked the palacenobility’s­fields as ‘vassals.’ Particularly egregious in their eyes was that the viceroys ratified this exemption with letters patent that seemed of questionable legality to Castilian letrados.43 In many cases such exemptions were a means of justifying the reduction of the total tribute paid by a polity, since the lords contributed to tribute payment from palace reserves in any case. Lowering a polity’s overall tributary obligations carried other advantages for the lords, however. Apart from the obvious good will of their present subjects, a lower tributary burden encouraged immigration from nearby polities that were more heavily afflicted by tribute. Any additional labour was precious after the generalised­losses from epidemics, repression and internecine strife, but since most of the landless immigrants often settled to work the entailed or patrimonial land that belonged to the palace or nobility, this kind of immigration was especially beneficial to the elite.44 Up to a third of a polity’s population was sometimes considered noble according to viceregal criteria, although the more usual proportion was of two to ten per cent, a distribution that was curiously similar to Spain’s at the time. Charles Gibson has calculated that on average a polity paying 1000 pesos to the Spanish regime (crown or encomenderos) might be paying 4,000 to 8,000 pesos to their noble elite.45 The nobility was therefore in direct competition with the crown and encomenderos for the surplus wealth of their polity and consequently the nobility had a direct interest in limiting the amount of tribute that went to Mexico City. The viceroys de facto appropriated the royal prerogative of establishing the rate of tribute by basing tribute assessments for individual polities on ad hoc negotiations at their court and turning such assessments into a ­further instrument of their personal patronage: a reduction in tribute was a redistribution of wealth back to those indigenous elites whom the viceroy favoured. Observers believed that Indio tribute negotiators that came to Mexico City from the polities were acting principally ‘at the cost of the macehuales but to their own benefit and that of the principales.’46 Mendoza highlighted with some regret these subtleties to his successor,47 but accommodating the 43 Miranda, El Tributo Indígena, 67–68 and 151f; for de facto arrangements in New Spain, 169f, for the provinces that paid disproportionately little, 143–44. 44 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 157–58; Gibson, Tlaxcala, 164–65; and agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 5 December 1565. 45 Charles Gibson, ‘The Aztec Aristocracy in Colonial Mexico’ in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 2, No. 2 (January 1960), 182–84. 46 agi Gobierno Mexico 323, Second bound section, 1st letter, 2 March 1552. 47 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5 ‘En blanco’ talking principally about methods for reducing the exploitation of macehuales by their lords.

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principales was essential for securing viceregal objectives: ‘it is impossible that these services [to the principales] cease entirely if there is to be Christianity and good government amongst them because the day that there ceases to be principales amongst them there would be great troubles.’48 New Spain’s courtly government depended on the assumption that the arrangements that viceroys reached with Indio negotiators would be upheld by both sides. Given the effects of the Conquest on political legitimacy in the polities, guaranteeing the pre-eminence of those individuals that the viceroys had accepted as legitimate noblemen or polity-authorities was of paramount importance. Therefore, when Valderrama attempted to reform the tributary system and denounced what he perceived as the illegitimacy of Indio noble privileges, Velasco immediately sided with the Indio lords against the visitador, as did the friars. Velasco considered the need to abide by the agreements he had established with individual polities that at one point he rode out in person to warn Indio authorities in Chalco to send people into the hills to reduce the numbers present when Valderrama’s agents were due to conduct a census.49 As resistance to his tributary reforms increased, Valderrama would soon reach the conclusion that he would be unable to collect any tribute by coercion or by using Spanish agents alone, and he was forced to conduct a volte-face.50

Mediation of Disputes

An unusually well documented and illustrative example of how indigenous elites used viceregal mediation to resolve problems of political legitimacy in their polities comes from Huexotzinco. In 1550 Mendoza admitted to his ­successor that in his eagerness to do good by that faithful polity, and with the support of Fr. Antonio de Ciudad Rodrigo, he had made an error of judgement in earlier years when he ratified the claims of certain Huexotzinca noblemen to appropriate allegedly ‘unoccupied lands’; but the result of this judgements caused grave damage to that ‘república.’51 Mendoza’s eagerness to please the Huexotzinca elite is understandable: the polity had been one of the first and most steadfast allies of the Spaniards and amongst the most obviously Christianised, but had been mistreated by the First Audiencia, despite Zumárraga’s

48 49 50 51

agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 8 March 1565. cjv, 86. The friars also complained that Valderrama had not consulted them in these negotiations, 126. cjv, 136–37. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Tierras de Guaxocingo.’

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intercession.52 Since Mendoza arrived, the Huexotzinca had begun building a new town around their new convent of San Miguel, they had helped in the construction and sustenance of the fledgling Spanish settlement of Puebla and had served in Mendoza’s army during the Mixtón war. Mendoza had understandably considered that the polity’s leadership deserved every consideration. Huexotzinca representatives sought an audience with Velasco to ease the concerns that Mendoza’s warning had raised. In Mexico City on 13 April 1554, they persuaded the viceroy to accept a change to the way in which their lords were chosen: from traditional election within a kinship group to a system of direct inheritance by primogeniture that characterised Castilian mayorazgos, and following a ceremonial reminiscent of that which Mendoza devised for his ‘Order of Knights Tecle.’53 Still uneasy, the representatives returned a week later, asking Velasco to support their plan to redistribute some land back to dispossessed ‘macehuales’ in exchange for of a quarter of the land’s produce in tribute, as recognition of their vassalage to the existing lords of Huexotzinco. They sought out Velasco ‘as vassals of His Majesty and Your Lordship [Velasco] in his royal name, we come to Your Lordship and implore your authority and humbly beseech that you confirm this agreement and authorise it.’54 To assuage any further concerns, the Huexotzinca lords asked that Fr. Juan de Alameda, prior of the convent of San Miguel, should oversee the redistribution. The viceroy granted his support for all of these requests as this ‘emphyteutic’ solution was familiar from similar cases in other polities suffering from social tensions.55 Both viceroys acted to entrench the lordly status of the Huexotzinca petitioners and ensured their ability to transmit these lands and lordly rights to their direct heirs by allowing them to adopt more ostensibly Spanish norms on inheritance, which protected their patrimony from the uncertainties of a ­communal election. By linking their lordship to the viceroy’s judgement and authority, these Huexotzinca principales had hoped to make their lordship unassailable both within their polities and in the eyes of the Spanish administrators in Mexico City. By September of the following year, however, the situation had deteriorated and the authorities of Huexotzinco returned to the viceregal palace urging the viceroy to confirm Fr. Juan de Alameda’s desperate call from the pulpit for a general amnesty ‘for the peace and tranquillity 52 53 54 55

Miguel León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún. Pionero de la antropología (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 1999), 66f. Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 150–53, the written confirmation for this came a day later than for the land re-distribution. For the ‘Knights Tecle’ see below. Carrasco, ‘Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 155. Ibid., 146–49.

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of our town and the salvation of everyone … of our own free will, we come and present ourselves before Your Lordship.’56 They finally admitted that in the past Huexotzinco had succumbed to a bloody factional conflict in which their ancestors had killed their enemies and dispossessed them of their lands and more importantly their lordship and palaces before becoming committed allies of the Spanish. Subsequent Spanish administrations had protected these lords’ newly won supremacy – almost certainly because these usurpations had occurred during the Conquest – and they reminded Velasco that Mendoza had ratified the status quo. Old wounds were re-opened when Velasco sent oidor Quesada to supervise the enactment of the previous viceregal mandates and Quesada had discovered that there were unoccupied lordly palaces, presumably those that of the defeated faction, which should be filled by election before the transition to Spanish style direct inheritance could apply to them. The latest Huexotzinca delegation hoped to avoid civil war and an amnesty that would give time for enacting an equitable restitution, not only of property, but of lordship as well.57 Perhaps tellingly Velasco commuted the level of tribute for Huexotzinco in November of the following year to its lowest level since he took offices and he then visited that polity along with several others in 1557.58 Viceregal mediation fulfilled one of the functions of empire: the external arbitration of disputes. Similar cases abound throughout the period, for example the Tlaxcalan elite made very large restitutions of ‘usurped’ lands, vassals and moveable treasure to their dispossessed rivals during Lent in 1539; or the civil strife in Tepeaca and Cholula in the 1570s that led to similar settlements.59 Representatives of weaker polities that wanted to liberate themselves from their stronger neighbours sought redress in appeals to the viceroys as well. Mendoza was generally willing to interfere on behalf of weak polities that had been annexed in pre-Conquest times by members of the Triple Alliance, prompting Motolinía to comment that only these ex-imperial polities of the ‘Triple Alliance’ had lost something from the viceregal administration of New Spain, while all the others had benefitted.60 But Mendoza advised caution to his successor, warning him that altering established arrangements could lead 56 Ibid., 158. 57 Ibid., 153f. 58 Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 337 and 385. 59 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 64 quoting from the letter of fr. Antonio de Ciudad ­Rodrigo, of 1539; Margarita Menegus Borneman and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: unam, 2005), 28ff. 60 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 213. For a survey of the nobility of these formerly imperial polities see María Castañeda de la Paz, Conflictos y alianzas en tiempos de cambio: Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Tenochtitlan y Tlatelolco (siglos xii–xvi) (Mexico: unam, 2013).

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to trouble (not least because this impacted not only polity identity but encomienda grants as well).61 Disputes over Tlatelolco’s claims to sovereignty over Ayatitcla, Tolpetlac, Acalvaca and Xoloc, for example, continued throughout Mendoza’s tenure.62 On the other hand, the most powerful and able polities like Tlaxcala managed to expand their territory in this period.63 The polities that suffered the most were those that refused to engage with the viceregal system altogether. The polity of Tamazulapa, for instance, decided to abandon its settlement rather than obey its encomendero Francisco Solís or appeal for protection from the viceroy. When its members tried to return they found that their more accommodating neighbours in Coixtlahuaca and Tequesistepec had appropriated their lands. Too late they sought redress from the viceroy, and the audiencia found against them.64 This kind of cautionary example doubtless encouraged others to seek the protection of viceregal resolutions for mediating their disputes.

Political Patronage

Direct Viceregal patronage could help determine an individual’s status in his polity and even as part of the Habsburg monarchy. During the visita conducted against Mendoza by Tello de Sandoval, the viceroy was forced to defend his approach to governing the Indio polities by explaining: Being, as I am, viceroy and governor by the grace of his majesty, I have the authority to provide for matters relating to the governance of this land as best suits God and his majesty … it seemed to me, as a result of the personal experience I have of what my father and the marquis, my brother, did with the moriscos of the kingdom of Granada, that it was convenient to distinguish between some Indians and others, because, although it seems to some people that these native Indians are bestial and so assume that there is no distinction between one and another, this is only because they don’t understand them. But I, who have dealt and conversed 61 62

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vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Sobre eximir el sujeto de la cabecera’; ene, Doc. 236, 157f. cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 2.99, 1 February 1537; Emma Pérez-Rocha and Rafael Tena eds., La nobleza indígena del centro de México después de la conquista (Mexico: inah, 2000), ‘Letter of don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli to the Emperor’ (in Latin), 1 December 1552, 168f and ­‘Letter of Juan Cano to the Emperor Charles v’, undated but probably late 1540s, 151–56. Peter Gerhard, A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 325. Susan Schroeder ed., Native resistance and the Pax Colonial in New Spain (Lincoln: ­University of Nebraska Press, 1998), 36–38.

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with them personally, find many of them of good judgement and with the characteristics of gentlemen (hombres de bien) eager to serve his majesty. Those that govern in his royal name do so with love and have demonstrated this in works and words and so it is right to gratify and honour them in order to keep them grateful and more obliged, since it is in such ways that men are won over and virtue is fostered.65 Mendoza’s argument highlights the most salient elements of his style of government. He was concerned to identify which Indios deserved to be recognised as meriting authority. The second was to keep them ‘grateful and more obliged’ in order to foster their ‘virtue’ through viceregal patronage. The viceroy would judge these matters; but the negotiation implicit in this personal style of government also gave Indio petitioners an opportunity to influence his decisions.66 Viceregal recognition allowed agonistic indigenous elites to aspire to higher status, which in turn could be translated into greater wealth and opportunity to serve the viceroy in exchange for even greater rewards. Lordship remained their most pressing issue and viceregal patronage affected this vexed question. Previous Spanish administrations relied on the cooperation of what they called caciques. Their support for these allies had led to distortions in the balance of power in many polities as the Spaniards remained oblivious of regional idiosyncrasies. Mendoza, by contrast, claimed to have tried to ensure that local traditions and ‘ancient laws’ dictated the succession of princes, and he ­always retained the right to remove those that proved themselves u ­ nworthy.67 Princely succession and noble rights were contentious issues, especially since most evidence of legitimate claims to lordship came from the testimony of witnesses or ambiguous ‘painted books.’ Mendoza accepted that he would, on occasion, need to interfere in the election of indigenous princes, but he reserved this right only for himself. In 1539 Mendoza designated don Diego de Alvarado Huantzin – Motecuhzoma’s nephew – as the tlatoani of the Indio polity of Tenochtitlan, reinstating the old royal line, but not that of Motecuhzoma ii’s direct descendants (see Fig. 17).68 This was not alien to I­ ndigenous ­notions of 65 66

67 68

agi Justicia 259, Descargos del Visorrey. For the notion of the viceroy as ‘judge’ see Andres Lira González, ‘La actividad jurisdiccional del virrey y el carácter judicial del gobierno Novohispano en su fase formativa’ in Barrios, coord., Un Gobierno de un mundo. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Sobre las elecciones de los caciques y gobernadores.’ Pérez-Rocha and Tena eds., La nobleza indígena, 41f; Barbara E. Mundy, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015), 99–102. For a case study of Motecuhzoma’s descendants see Francisco Jiménez Abollado and Verenice Cipatli Ramírez Calva, Pretensiones señoriales de don Pedro Moctezuma Tlacahuepantzin

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Figure 15 Mendoza and Velasco developed a personal style of government that allowed them to mediate disputes, determine merit and distribute enfranchising patronage to enfranchised Spaniards and Indios. In this scene from the Codex Osuna, Indio authorities recalled the moment, witnessed by a Nahuatlato, when viceroy Velasco granted them staffs of authority, guaranteeing their enfranchising status. CÓDICE OSUNA, FOLIO 472/10, reproduced with permission from the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

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Figure 16 In another scene from the Codex Osuna, enfranchised Indio authorities present themselves to Velasco in order to negotiate rights and responsibilities in a direct, courtly setting. CÓDICE OSUNA, folio 500/38r, reproduced with permission from the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

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inheritance, but Mendoza’s influence was determinant in the final decision. A similar ambiguity occurred with regards to don Diego de Mendoza (Austria y ­Moctezuma), whom Mendoza supported in his contested claim to descent from ­Cuauhtémoc and his consequent right to the lordship of Tlatelolco. The viceroy first appealed to the crown to grant don Diego official recognition of his lands and lineage around 1545, but even though the crown was not forthcoming­for several­years the viceroy nonetheless treated him as de facto ‘cacique and señor natural.’ It is possible that Mendoza was the young don ­Diego’s godfather, and that the viceroy felt an obligation towards Diego because of the latter’s services in the expedition to Cíbola and the Mixtón War; and because the crown and oidor Tejada had appropriated many of the lands that had belonged to Tlatelolco before the conquest.69 Similarly Mendoza won over the firm loyalty of Michoacán, his favourite province, when he redeemed the royal family of the Cazonci in 1537, raising the younger of his sons, don Antonio (possibly another godson) at his side in the viceregal palace, and leaving his other son don Francisco, to govern in the meantime with the help of don Pedro, architect of the original alliance with Cortés.70 Conversely Mendoza could depose legitimately appointed princes if they were shown to have acted against the interests of his regime: as in the deposition and execution of don Carlos Ometochtzin the Chichimecatecuhtli of Texcoco in 1539 for idolatry. The friars then influenced the succession to the important Texcocan throne towards their favoured candidates71 The viceroys also appropriated the related power to create new hereditary princely dynasties from homines novi that displayed virtues that most appealed to their standards of merit. Fernando de Tapia, Nicolas de San Luis Montañes and Pedro Martin de Toro were Otomí paladins who founded powerful and long-lived dynasties that secured the northern Chichimeca frontier and offer the best example of the aggrandising potential that came with direct access to the viceroys for members of a previously excluded or subordinate group. In their probanzas and artistic endowments, like the murals at the convent of

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Yohualicahuacatzin : desafíos y vicisitudes de un mayorazgo, 1528–1606 : estudio y fuentes documentales (Hidalgo, México: Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, 2011). Rebeca López Mora, ‘El cacicazgo de Diego de Mendoza Austria y Moctezuma: un linaje bajo sospecha’ in Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El Cacicazgo, 203–21; and María Castañeda de la Paz, ‘Apropiación de elementos y símbolos de legitimidad entre la nobleza indígena. El caso del cacicazgo tlatelolca’ in Anuario de estudios americanos 65, no. 1 (2008): 21–47, esp. 28–29. vea, Mendoza, Doc 7; J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacán (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 244–45. Fernando Benítez, The century after Cortés, trans. Joan Maclean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 112; Lopes Don, Bonfires of Culture, 185–91.

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San Miguel Arcángel at Ixmiquilpan, they glorified their appealing attributes as Otomí-Christian crusaders: their role as soldiers, city builders and pacifiers of the marches north of Querétaro (see Fig. 19). The viceroys bestowed on them lordships, lands and honours, which the crown duly ratified and increased.72 Mendoza’s most influential administrative reform in the polities was his universal introduction of gobernadores into their official administration. The office had no equivalent in Spanish or indigenous tradition and it illustrates Mendoza’s recognition that the polities were more than just the equivalent of Spanish municipal units. The hereditary princes retained their patrimonial wealth and unofficial auctoritas as heads of the noble tribes they led: Acazitli boasted of being a ‘cacique’ not a gobernador; and gobernadores were appointed in theory for only one or two years.73 Furthermore the princes were allowed a seat and a vote in what the Spaniard’s termed a polity’s cabildo, which often met in their palaces in any case. However the gobernadores were paid from part of the polity’s tribute that was then discounted from the tribute destined for Mexico; creating another conceptual link between the office and viceregal grace. The administrative responsibilities of a gobernador included many of the functions that until then the princes performed, most importantly judicial functions, the collection of tribute and a role in appointing lower administrative offices. The viceroys had to ratify the election of the gobernadores and increasingly they addressed instructions to them as the highest authorised power in the polity, or at least the most reliable agent of viceregal authority.74 The governorship was ‘a further position of local authority, one created and endorsed by the viceroyalty …’75 The link between this new office and viceregal endorsement underpinned its authority in a polity and its powers made it highly coveted. Of particular interest within the polities was the right of the gobernador to appoint lesser municipal officials, something that occurred in a ‘courtly air’76 at the polity’s principal palace and allowed for internal patronage similar to that which the viceroys enjoyed at a grander level. It amounted to the transmission of viceregal authority through patronage networks down to allies and 72

Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El Cacicazgo, 37f; Juan Luis Pérez Flores and Sergio González Varela, ‘Los murales del Convento de Ixmiquilpan, México, y la imagen de guerra occidental’ in Colonial Latin American Review, Vol. 22, No. 1 (2013), 126–47; Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza, 177f; Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas ed., Cacicazgos y nobiliario indígena de Nueva España (Mexico: Instituto Bibliográfico Mexicano, 1961), Docs 28, 34 and 35. 73 James Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards: postconquest central Mexican history and philology (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 30. 74 Ibid., 51–54. 75 Gibson, ‘The Aztec Aristocracy,’ 178. 76 Lockhart, Los Nahuas despues de la conquista, 67.

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clients.77 Possessing a Spanish-sounding title became a legitimising element both within the polities and in the eyes of the viceregal regime. The Huehuehtlahtolli adapted to encompass these office holders in their didactic verses: in an ‘exhortation’ addressed to a polity’s ‘alcaldes and regidores’ they warned: You have arrived at lordship, you have approached nobility; but take care not to inebriate yourselves with it, don’t become proud; answer with meekness … you will do your duty calmly and you will establish yourself peacefully. Answer the lord who has lineage, with meekness and cheerfulness; with the words of the common people. That is how you will take the land; the hills; it is how you will make your lordship, your nobility. Never create disputes amongst the lords, amongst those with lineage anywhere; don’t ruin the matting, the place of honour.78 These office holders could be considered ennobled or aspire to nobility in the uncertain hierarchies of Indio polities after the Conquest. The increasingly common practice of appending ‘don’ to their Spanish names further suggests the link they felt between office-holding, services to the polity and ennoblement.79 This aggrandisement, with all it entailed was in the hands of the gobernadores.80 In some cases holding the title of gobernador helped to consolidate the authority of princes like Diego de Mendoza (later also called Austria y ­Moctezuma),

Figure 17 A ‘genealogical cactus (nopal)’ traced the continuity of Mexica claims to lordship in the valley of Mexico back to the fourteenth century. The cactus supported a church bearing the Habsburg arms, implying that the continuity of Mexica lordship in the legitimate line, which according to this document the Conquest does not seem to have interrupted, now served to uphold the Habsburg Monarchy and the Catholic Church. reproduced with permission from the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia. 77

vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5 ‘Alcaldes Indios’ and ‘Alguaciles Indios’ and Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 57ff. 78 Miguel León-Portilla, Huehuehtlatolli: Testimonios de la antigua palabra (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), 181. Probably composed after 1547; León-Portilla, Bernardino de Sahagún, 96f. 79 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 63. 80 Ibid., 67; vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Alcaldes Indios’ and ‘Alguaciles Indios.’

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mentioned above, who was able to hold both a hereditary title and a new ­Spanish office in Tlatelolco from 1549 until his death in 1562. In other more ‘complex’ polities, like Tlaxcala,­the introduction of the governorship helped to resolve inherent political tensions of their previous political arrangements: until 1545 viceregal favour had fallen disproportionately on the Maxixcatzin clan of the polity Ocotelulco, some of whose most able members Mendoza had first met in Seville on their way to Mexico in 1535. This clan monopolised the governorship, together with the Xicotencatl of Tizatlan, who maintained strong links with the Spanish conquistador Alvarado’s family at least until 1545. There are hints of growing resentment at this favouritism in Tlaxcala during that p ­ eriod when the constituent polity of Quiahuiztlan seceded from the Tlaxcalan confederation in disgust at their exclusion. After a presumed negotiation in 1545, which may have resembled the Huexotzinca case cited above, ­Mendoza sent oidor Gómez de Santillán to mediate a solution whereby four princes from the four dominant polities could sit in the cabildo and each polity would elect a gobernador that would serve for two years in a specified order of rotation amongst the polities.81 The agreement quickly became a sacrosanct routine. When Velasco intervened in 1556 to depose the gobernador don ­Martín de ­Valencia of Quiahuiztlan, his angry kinsmen recalled that their p ­ olity had temporarily seceded from Tlaxcala once before and might do so again if this injustice was not remedied.82 The link to viceregal authorisation implicit in holding the office of gobernador (and those of the other municipal offices), threatened the authority of those hereditary lords who did not also possess these offices. The quick turnover of officials allowed increasing numbers of able macehuales or individuals with an ambiguous social status or differing dynastic affiliations to hold these positions. It was an indication that the hereditary nobility was losing their exclusive hold on patronage and government. This trend was exacerbated by the general decline in population, as this increased the bargaining power of the macehuales and lowered the tributary income of the princes while the salaries of the gobernadores and officials remained unaffected because they were determined by the viceregal administration. Although many hereditary lords complained, this institutional access to status helped to release some of the pressure to avoid generational derogation that periodically affected political stability in the polities, and this valued purpose contributed to its endurance.83 Viceroys also appointed Indios to delicate positions in the administration of New Spain that were independent of their native polities. 81 Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards, 25–31; Gibson, Tlaxcala, 105ff. 82 Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 296f. 83 Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo, 224 with notes, following the analysis of Alonso de Zorita on the matter.

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Hernando de Tapia, for example, served as an interpreter – rather than merely a translator – for the viceroy and audiencia in mediating their interactions with indigenous petitioners from a variety of communities. As the son of Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuh, Motecuhzoma’s Cihuacoatl (chief minister) and governor of San Juan Tenochtitlan until his death in 1530, Hernando enjoyed a considerable degree of inherited status, at least in Mexica society. Unusually he also enjoyed prestige amongst the Spaniards because during his sojourn in Castile between 1532 and 1537, during which time he may have visited Rome, both Charles v and Pope Clement vii rewarded him with honorific knighthoods.84 Tapia’s prominence is instantly visible from a large house that appears marked as ‘casa de Tapia’ in the so-called Uppsala Map of Mexico City (also known as the Santa Cruz Map; it was almost certainly painted by Tlatelolca artists in 1550) at the spot that later documents, from a legal case involving his heirs, describes it (in my view the modern site of the Centro Cultural ‘Casa Talavera’). The legal case also reveals that Indio authorities from around the valley of Mexico saw his house as ‘a common house where we assembled for public matters and stored the things of the community; and where we performed our dances and feasts,’ while his descendants argued instead that the palace was their private p ­ roperty.85 It appears that Tapia became an unofficial patron to many Indio authorities, guiding their negotiations at court ‘­because the Indios of Mexico … do all their negotiations through this witness [Tapia] and discuss all matters with him’ and his palace may therefore have served both private and public functions during his lifetime.86 Tapia fulfilled a similar role when he travelled with the viceroys on their tours outside the capital, as we mentioned in the case of Ocuituco, or when the viceroy ‘sent him to gain information [about a dispute] secretly.’87 He even had a role on military campaigns, like the Mixtón War, which included combat; relaying commands like an aide de camp; the delicate matter of looking after the coveted enemy prisoners that Agustín Guerrero placed in his custody.88 Mendoza favoured Tapia from the quitas y vacaciones fund;89 granted him a licence to ride a horse in 1538 and another to carry a sword and dagger in

84 85 86 87 88 89

Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, 39–40; agi Indiferente, 422, L. 16. F. 52V (1) and 1962, L. 5, F. 105, ene, Vol. ii, Doc. 114 ‘Second Audiencia to the Empress’, 10 July 1532. agn Instituciones Coloniales/ Tierras/16031/vol. 37 exp. 2 fs. 125. agi Justicia 260, testimony of Hernando de Tapia, question 37. agi Justicia 260, testimony of Hernando de Tapia, question 36. agi Justicia 258, testimony of Jerónimo López. agi Justicia 258, ‘Relación sacada de los libros de la contaduria … 18 dias del mes de ­Agosto 1546’. Where Tapia can be seen to have been paid an additional annual stipend of 62d from 1541 onwards.

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public three years later;90 and granted him an estate on the western outskirts of Mexico City. Meanwhile, oidor Tejada (who may have sailed to New Spain with Tapia in 1537) was known as the interpreter’s close friend and business ­associate.91 In his career Tapia spanned Mendoza’s ‘two republics’ more successfully than anyone else; not least in his marriage to a Spanish and possibly also a mestiza wife. His descendants chose to identify with either the Indian or the Spanish ‘republics’ and remained prominent for generations in both. Indian juices gobernadores were also appointed directly by the viceroys and prided themselves on being royal officials with a remit beyond the limits of their polity. Their primary task was to conduct judicial inquiries into polities other than their own, carrying a staff of justice, that remarkably common symbol of authority across time and cultures, as representatives of royal authority. Often their role was that of external but culturally expert intermediaries in a dispute: Mendoza explained to Velasco that after an audience with petitioners he might delegate to ‘Indian judges to go and explore their differences, and nominate those as agreed by both parts.’92 By the 1550s these judges had become more common; they were selected from amongst well-regarded noblemen and often took over as gobernadores of the polity they were visiting for the duration of their c­ ommission  – like visitadores in Castile. They seem to have been particularly active in X ­ ilotepec and Querétaro, the bases for the expanding ‘Otomí-Chichimeca’ frontier. The best known judge was don Esteban de Guzmán, lord of Xochimilco: a w ­ ell-integrated participant of the viceregal system, who defended the precedence of indigenous officials over Spanish ones when it came to judicial authority within the polities.93 Don Esteban effectively governed Mexico City from 1554–7 and then Tlatelolco while he conducted the residencia of don Diego de Mendoza.94

Indio Chivalry

As early as December 1537, Mendoza informed the king that he had created the ‘Order of Knights Tecle,’ derived from the Nahua term tecuhtli and whose 90 91

92 93 94

agi Justicia 258, ‘Relacion e memorial’, copied by Antonio de Turcios. Ethelia Ruiz Medrano Reshaping New Spain: government and private interest in the colonial bureaucracy, 1531–1550, trans. Julia Constantine and Pauline Marmasse (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2006), 163. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Oir los Indios.’ Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, ‘Don Esteban de Guzmán and Indio authorities of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to King Philip ii’, 19 December 1554, 194–97. Ibid., 43; Lockhart, Los Nahuas, 55–56; Barrios ed., Un Gobierno de Un Mundo, 304ff.

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members would be considered ‘like caballeros’ in Spain.95 Their insignia included imperial motifs, like the ‘Plus Ultra’ columns of Charles v on their cloaks or at the entrance to their houses, which spoke of their association with the king or Christianity as well as their polity. Mendoza would have been aware that the emperor had extended membership to the order of the Golden Fleece to great noblemen throughout his European domains, for example (and lesser orders like the Pontifical ‘Golden Spur,’ which both Titian and Hernando de Tapia received in the same year) to propagate a common allegiance to his imperial mission above local loyalties in his multifarious empire (see Fig. 18). As a comendador of the order of Santiago, and as a public man in tune with the ethos of his king, Mendoza understood the importance of chivalric ideals in creating a unifying ethos of service. The viceroy devised for the tecles an overtly crusading Christian ritual followed by an oath of loyalty to the king and the defence of Christianity. These ideals were arguably more immediately resonant than in Europe because the frontier of Christianity lay not only on the borders of New Spain but also in the Indio polities.96 Unlike the lordly tecuhtli, the tecle specifically ‘carried no tribute or seigniorial rights’ with their title. Like a European chivalric order, they bound the knight to the lord that had knighted him – in this case Mendoza – with personal bonds of loyalty. Mendoza’s defence of his personal government rested on the argument that it was more immediate and practical than the handful of royal grants of coats of arms to Indio lords the crown granted before 1535. However the order of Knights Tecle was controversial. In instituting it, Mendoza was appropriating for himself rights that could rival the Castilian crown’s efforts to monopolise these prerogatives since the late 15th century. Overt references to the ‘Order of Tecles’ disappeared from official Spanish sources and indigenous proofs of merit, probably as a result of the discredit of Mendoza’s political project in the eyes of the crown. It seems also that indigenous lords understood it as just a Christianised ritual for the election of a tecuhtli, which is why the Huexotzinca lords, in the dispute mentioned earlier, adopted the ceremony of the tecles as the official ceremony for accession to polity lordship in 1554. But Mendoza’s underlying intention in creating such honours survived in other titles like that of conquistador that Velasco bestowed upon don Nicolás de San Luis Montañes for example.97 It also endured in viceregal­licences allowing individual noblemen to own and carry Spanish 95

96 97

cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 162, 201–02; Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El Cacicazgo, 21–22; and Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli’, 133–39; Martínez Millán coord., Carlos v y la quiebra del humanismo, Vol. 4, 15ff. Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El Cacicazgo, 20–24. Fernández de Recas, Cacicazgos y nobiliario, Doc. 35.

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Figure 18 Prominent members of the ‘republic of Indios’ adopted hidalgo ideals of noble service and found its aesthetic, slightly modified to fit with their tastes, congenial to displaying their enfranchised status in New Spain. In this instance the Mexica interpreter Hernando de Tapia claimed that he was using his father’s heraldic animals to blazon his escutcheon. author’s representation after the description in Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas ed., C­ acicazgos y n ­ obiliario indígena de Nueva EspaÑa (Mexico: I­ nstituto Bibliográfico Mexicano, 1961), 230 and plate 16.

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weapons or ride horses openly, or to display royal insignia and personal coats of arms on their cloaks and outside their houses – privileges that were granted to those Indios that the viceroys trusted the most. Mendoza first issued these licences in direct contravention of royal instructions and in the teeth of Spanish settler opposition, as early as the spring of 1536.98 It is another indication of his early conception of creating a ‘Republic of Indios.’ This initiative became one of the key accusations raised against him during the visita of Tello de Sandoval, leaving us with a an illustrative record of the grants that Mendoza made with the dates in which his licences were issued and sometimes even a brief description of why they were issued (see Map 2).99 After Mendoza was forced to abdicate as viceroy of New Spain, the king conceded his successor’s right to issue such licences.100 Both viceroys justified these grants on the basis of the exceptional services that the beneficiary performed to further the common good of New Spain and Christianity: loyalty in war or government, or for leading exemplary lives of virtue. All the recipients were described as caciques, lords and governors. The geographic spread of these licences traces the cross-shape of the heartlands of New Spain and indicates that direct viceregal authority over indigenous lords reached even remote areas like Soconusco and Guatemala but not yet the fledgling advances in Yucatán: it surpasses the extent of the Tenochca Empire, particularly with regards to the valley of Puebla and large areas to the West and North, but it traces that empire’s main strategic routs South remarkably closely, suggesting that the viceroys had similar strategic considerations as those of the Tenochca in areas like Tehuantepec, Soconusco, or the valleys that connect central Mexico­ to Oaxaca. The lords who received these grants governed polities that were under royal stewardship and those held by encomenderos and even magnates, .

98 99

ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236, Jerónimo López to the king, 25 February 1545, esp. 159–66. Mendoza’s defence (quoted earlier) was in response to this specific accusation; agi ­Justicia 258, question 71 to the witnesses Tello de Sandoval interviewed leading to the 18th charge against him. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 8. agi Justicia 258, Antonio de Turcios, ‘Relacion e memorial de los Indios que han recibido licencia de portar armas y montar a caballo.’ It was included after the last witness statement of Bernaldino Vazquez de Tapia dated 17th May as part of a series of ‘cargos’, ‘cedulas’ etc. that Antonio de Turcios was asked to copy for the visitador. This is an unpublished and much longer list than that transcribed in vea, Mendoza, Doc. 7, which comes from Mendoza’s defence against the accusations of Tello de Sandoval and downplays the extent of his grants. See Appendix A.I for the list. 100 Fernández de Recas, Cacicazgos y nobiliario, Doc. 35. The viceregally appointed title of conquistador bestowed the right to carry appropriate weapons; Juan Suárez de Peralta assumed without any indication of controversy that the viceroy issued these licences to the Indians. See his Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. Silva Tena (Mexico: conaculta, 1990), p. 64.

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like Cortés and Alvarado; suggesting that viceregal patronage of the Indio elite extended into the domains of the magnates. The unofficial use of horses and Spanish weapons had spread quite generally amongst the indigenous polities. However the viceregal recognition implicit in possessing one these licences mattered a great deal. It allowed indigenous lords to display openly Spanish-linked symbols of authority and trust that likened them to Spanish hidalgos they saw wandering the streets of Mexico City. On the other hand, unofficial use of Spanish weapons could lead to trouble and the disapproval of viceregal authorities: as in the case of a nobleman from Chalco in early 1536 who had several swords confiscated from his house by a hostile Indian alguacil because he did not have a licence to own them; or the indignity of having to hide their weapons whenever an alien official appeared in the area, as happened to Mixtec lords known to Suárez de Peralta who had otherwise become expert hunters with the harquebus.101 Viceregal licences did not determine whether Indians were armed or not, they ­symbolised that they were trusted and enfranchised. Indigenous lords valued these displays of status highly: Acazitli’s ‘Chronicle’ for instance begins with a detailed description of his intermingled indigenous and Spanish martial regalia, including his sword.102 Suárez de Peralta recalled the impressive image of Indio lords who had received such viceregal licences in his chronicle: wearing their cloaks embroidered with eagles, carrying Spanish weapons and riding in saddled horses.103 Competition for viceregal patronage became an important factor in establishing viceregal authority over New Spain. Tlaxcala had an early advantage for her role in the Conquest: ‘It is reasonable that they be favoured’ explained Mendoza to the King ‘for their part in winning this land, and for my confidence in finding in them all protection and assistance if by chance any uprisings in the land made it necessary.’104 However, Tlaxcala ‘found early and expert imitators. In the sixteenth century other Indian towns resented Tlaxcala not because, as the twentieth century has tended to feel, they were traitors for turning on the “Aztecs” but because they seemed to be getting all the credit for doing the same thing everyone else was doing all over the country.’105 The search for legitimizing 101 cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 35, 16 February 1535 (though from the context should be 1536); Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento, 64. 102 Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico (Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 2003), 52–54; Gibson, ‘The Aztec Aristocracy,’ 181–84; Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 62. 103 Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento, 64. 104 cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 162, Mendoza to the king, 10 December 1537, 181f. 105 Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards, 25; agi Justicia 258, Antonio de Turcios, ‘Relacion e memorial’, 31 December 1537 (though from the context it should be 1536) ‘se dio licencia

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chapter 5 Prominent cities: 1. Valladolid 2. Mexico-Tenochtitlan 3. Tlaxcala 4. Oaxaca 5. Soconusco

A

Regions (see Appendix A.i): A. The West: Jalisco-Michoacan. B. Center and North: Basin of Mexico, Toluca Valley and The Northern Frontier. C. The East: Tlaxcala and Puebla Valleys. D. The South: Oaxaca, Tehuantepec and Verapaz.

B 1. 2.

C

GULF OF MEXICO

3. D 4.

N

PA C I F I C O C E A N 5.

Map 2

Distribution of viceregal licences allowing prominent Indios to carry European weapons, ride horses or carriages. author’s composition.

viceregal favour motivated indigenous lords to act according to viceregal expectations in government and war. By far the greatest concentration of licences was amongst the populous Nahua polities: those areas with easiest access to the viceroy and the greatest sense of participation in viceregal New Spain. Díaz del Castillo described their lords in the 1560s: ‘in Tlaxcala and Texcoco and in Cholula and in Huexotzinco and Tepeaca and other big cities, when the Indios form a cabildo … they perform justice with as much skill and authority as amongst us … and apart from this most caciques are rich and own horses … they go around … with pages and followers and they play cañas and on feasts they bullfight.’ Elsewhere he commented: ‘… most sons of principales tended to be gramáticos (knew Latin)… and

a tres principales de Tlascala que vinieron con su senoria de españa que se dicen Don Diego, don Martin e Sebastian’ (espadas).

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many sons of principales know how to read and write and compose books of song …’106 Conclusion Contemporaries recognised the personal nature of viceregal authority. Jerónimo López, who openly disliked Mendoza, admitted, for example, that the viceroy was personally responsible for the salvation of New Spain when everything had ‘hung on a thread of wool’ during the Mixtón War: ‘I certify to your majesty that he once again won the land with only his own person,’ he grudgingly admitted, before expressing the hope that ‘it please our lord to give him health because it is convenient for the good of the land, even though I have been unlucky with him.’107 While indigenous authorities may have despised many Spanish settlers – not least encomenderos like López – as parasites and competitors, it was evident that they nonetheless identified with the viceroys and recognised their authority as legitimate. Such identification and recognition was neither inevitable by the mere ostentation of the viceregal title, nor even automatically transmitted from one viceroy to the next (let alone from Velasco to the various officials that feigned to govern after his death). Both viceroys had to convince indigenous authorities to rely on them as arbiters in political negotiations, and as conduits for patronage. Stephanie Wood has pointed out how important representations of Mendoza and Velasco became to a variety of indigenous records of collective p ­ olitical memory, even decades after those viceroys’ deaths. Indigenous documents produced during our period often incorporated both of them into an indigenous identity, along with their acknowledged agents, like the friars, while other Spaniards were described as alien parasites.108 The viceroys, for instance, were not just called ‘visorrey’ but also ‘tlatoani’ while members of the audiencia were often referred to as the viceroy’s ‘tecuhtli’ (lords) subordinates. They were also depicted with name glyphs, somewhat like those pertaining to indigenous lords represented in pre-Conquest palaces alongside its governing prince.109 At least by the time of the Mixtón War, the Indios had appropriated 106 Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 296 or 694–95. 107 ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236. 108 Wood, Transcending Conquest, 33, 37–38, and 39 esp. 40–43 and 132–33. For Spanish rivals and encomenderos, 45 and clothing, 52–53. 109 Miguel León Portilla, Earl Shorris, Sylvia Shorris and Ascensión H. de León-Portilla, Antigua y nueva palabra : una antología de la literatura mesoamericana, desde los tiempos

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Mendoza’s name, probably pronouncing it ‘Metuza’ as suggested by the glyph they associated with his image in their pictograms: a maguey plant Metl and a mountain dog or Tuza. They were so familiar with his ubiquitous mayordomo mayor and ‘intimate representative’ Agustín Guerrero that they referred to him as the viceroy’s ‘Ytachi’ or honoured father.110 The practice of courtly government reinforced three key notions that underscored the concept of a Republic of Indians as a constituent part of the Kingdom New Spain. Negotiation defined which polities the viceroy recognised as legitimate political entities – often called repúblicas – and safeguarded their autonomy, which was professedly greater than that of the Iberian municipalities with which Spaniards liked to compare them (see Fig. 21). Secondly, a legitimate polity’s representatives enjoyed the right to gain access to the person of the viceroy and to expect that the fruits of their negotiations with him would be upheld. These principles implied the acceptance of a legitimate governing class in the polities, endowed with hybrid attributes of status: privileges and responsibilities that could transcend the nobleman’s polity and applied to the kingdom of New Spain as a whole.111 These rights included exemptions from tribute and an expectation of their obligation to serve the king in governing their polities fighting for the kingdom, and converting it. Finally, the efficacy of viceregal government at solving the gravest concerns of indigenous polities underpinned an indigenous identification with its political authority. This involved, in turn, indigenous adherence to viceregal commands and the sui generis political culture that emerged to justify them. precolumbinos hasta el presente (Mexico: Aguilar, 2004), 309, quoting the Historia ToltecaChichimeca; Juan Bautista, Anales de Juan Bautista: Cómo te confundes? acaso no somos conquistados? ed. Luis Reyes García (Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios, Superiores en Antropología Social, 2001). In the Codex Osuna the audiencia members are shown attached to their indigenous name-glyph. 110 León Portilla, La Flecha en el blanco, 85 makes reference to the Códice Talleriano Remense. agi Justicia 258, Jerónimo López, second ‘descargo,’ regarding the Mixtón war. Other important Spaniards that commanded the loyalty of indigenous altepeme had their identity similarly appropriated, like Cortés as Malinche and Alvarado as Tonatiuh. López translated the word as father which would have been ta’tli but ytachi sounds more like a transliteration of ta’tzin, the reverential form of address, suggesting the importance of Guerrero, the viceroy’s chamberlain and therefore his courtly style of government, in indigenous eyes. 111 For indigenous conceptions of New Spain as a political entity see Ch. 7 (below).

part 3 ‘Another Jerusalem’

∵

Rome had originally been founded by force of arms; the new king now prepared to give the community a second beginning, this time on the solid basis of law, custom and observance. titus livius, Ab urbe condita libri, on the reign of numa pompilius

...

… the dawn of a most happy age, [when] Nerva Caesar blended things irreconcilable, sovereignty and freedom. tacitus, Agricola, 3

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Political Ideals Before departing for Peru in 1550, Mendoza warned his successor not to expect servility from the inhabitants of New Spain: It is true of people in every station that they have an opinion about issues that are not their own, rather than their own business. But above all they concern themselves with the government of the land and they especially love to change and judge everything that is done in it. Everyone is from somewhere different and they want to have this land governed according to the tradition of their own land and nation, their only criteria being their own aims and their own interests and ideas … If ever those in charge try to contradict them or explain otherwise, they immediately complain, call him arrogant etc. and say his plans will end in doom. Worse, they set up committees and write letters according to their own fancy.1 Mendoza’s warning exhibited the frustration of a political leader unable to dictate matters according to his will. Curiously, though surely unintentionally, his first two sentences bring to mind Pericles’ boast in the ‘Funeral Oration’ that ‘we [in democratic Athens] do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all’; though Mendoza meant it regretfully. Contrary to prevailing perceptions of New Spain as a subjected colony run by the unreflective bureaucracy of an increasingly centralised ‘Early Modern’ state, the kingdom exhibited, throughout our period, a participatory political culture that encompassed polemic and disagreement. In a sense the viceroy’s frustration was indicative of his regime’s political success: in the course of his 15 years in office the fractious inhabitants of New Spain came to identify the viceregal court as the primary arena where political disagreements could be aired, negotiated and resolved. This courtly forum replaced the sort of antagonistic, often violent, factional conflict that had tended towards the disarticulation of unified political authority in Mesoamerica during the 1520s and early 1530s. In order to understand the intention behind the ideas expressed in the polemics that occurred at the viceroy’s court, we should bear in mind two linked considerations: the stigma of political illegitimacy with which New Spain’s 1 vea Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘todo estado de gente.’

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_008

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‘original sin’ continued to taint its society; and the competition for viceregal patronage we discussed in preceding chapters. Mendoza expressed some frustration at the range of political expectations he encountered from rival negociantes at his court, nevertheless the fact that they chose to argue their cases under his auspices at all, and that their principal aim was to convince the viceroy to support their particular causes, created a dynamic that disciplined the terms of political debate in New Spain. We can identify how the discriminating gaze of the viceroy affected the development of certain rhetorical tropes and benchmarks of legitimacy that gained general acceptance in this period, creating a coherent, and sui generis political culture in New Spain. As befits a society that was only partially literate, one of the most illuminating interventions in New Spain’s political debates comes from the report of a performance, rather than a political tract. Motolinía transcribed, in his Historia, a fellow Franciscan’s account of the celebrations held in Tlaxcala during the feast of Corpus Christi 1539, to commemorate the previous year’s peace treaty of Aigues Mortes between Charles v and Francis i.2 The principal spectacle was the performance of the ‘conquest of Jerusalem’ – a crusading ambition that the inauguration of peace in Europe, as it often did, elicited amongst enthusiasts – which occured in the newly traced square that would serve as the Tlaxcala’s new civic centre. Figurative performances allow audiences to identify analogies, affinities and similarities between different instances of the same concept. Building on recent scholarship about the intent behind Indio public spectacle and ceremonial, I propose to look at the Tlaxcalan performance of 1539 in the broader political context that we have been discussing and the polemics about legitimacy that it prompted among and between Indios and Spaniards.3 Seen together 2 Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, Edmundo O’Gorman ed. (Mexico: Porrúa 1973), 67f. 3 Patricia Lopes Don, ‘Carnivals, triumphs, and rain gods in the new world: A civic festival in the city of México‐Tenochtitlán in 1539.’ Colonial Latin American Review 6:1 (1997), 17–40, esp. 18 and 35 for political motivations outweighing religious purity, although at 29f she argues for too much Spanish misunderstanding and concludes by characterising such plays as a lamentable desacralisation of ancient religious rites rather then, as I will argue, their role in the conscious affirmation of a new political culture. See also Viviana Díaz Balsera, ‘­Celebrating The Rise of a New Sun: The Tlaxcalans Conquer Jerusalem In 1539’ in Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 39 (2008) for the influence of Franciscan millenarian ideas in the reinterpretation of the Conquest as a conversion in Tlaxcala and Huaquechla as exhibited in these spectacles and other media, esp. 313, 323–24 and 327–28, with Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest, 146; Louise M. Burkhart, Holy Wednesday: Nahua drama from early colonial Mexico (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), describing how such spectacles served

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with other evidence, the spectacle appears to affirm the terms of an emerging language of legitimacy that framed New Spain’s emerging political culture. At the level of political rhetoric, the Indios and Spaniards that were enfranchised by their interactions with the viceregal court, would have understood the intent of the performance in much the same way. In their spectacle, the Tlaxcalans portrayed ‘Antonio de Mendoza’ as the commander of all the indigenous forces of the New World. The viceroy’s army was divided into contingents that hailed from various naciones of the Americas. The Nahua, explicitly Tlaxcalans and Mexica, occupied the most prominent roles, ahead of other units from New Spain and, at the bottom of the martial hierarchy, were generally ineffective Caribbean and Peruvian warriors. Simultaneously ‘Antonio Pimentel,’ Count of Benavente – in reality more a patron of many Franciscans like Motolinía (who first changed his name from Toribio de Paredes to Toribio de Benavente) than a military commander – led equivalent European forces, similarly divided into national units, of whom soldiers from the various Spanish kingdoms, like the Nahua contingents, were portrayed as the most courageous. Both armies were under the command of Charles v, whose headquarters were in the ‘camp of Santa Fe,’ where the Emperor brought newly allied French and Hungarian forces to help in the siege. In turn, the emperor and his allies were subordinate to the Pope in Rome who opportunely sent bishops and friars to place the Christian armies in a state of grace before their attacks on Jerusalem. Remarkably, however, the Emperor’s armies failed to capture Jerusalem by force. Christian victories on the battlefield were always reversed by ‘Turkish’ counterattacks. Even when the Pope united all Christian forces in prayer, which induced St. Hippolytus (on whose day Tenochtitlan had fallen) to appear in aid of the New World armies while St. James did the same for the ­Europeans, as a means for Indios to celebrate and ‘self-legitimise’ their perceived achievements through didactic dialogue akin to the rhetorical tradition of the Huehuehtlahtolli, see esp. 44–48. These works argue against (in my view correctly) the view that these spectacles were in essence an attempt by friars and Spaniards to impose their ‘cultural hegemony’ over the Indio world: e.g., Linda Curcio-Nagy, ‘Giants and Gypsies: Corpus Christi in Colonial Mexico City’ in Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance: Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico ed.­ William H. Beezley, Cheryl English Martin and William E. French (Wilmington: sr Books, 1994); or that they served as a convoluted code for representing resistance to the Spanish conquest or merely an assertion of Tlaxcala’s micro-patriotic pride, or a dig at Cortés and Alvarado: e.g. Max Harris, Aztecs, Moors and Christians: festivals of reconquest in Mexico and Spain (Austin, tx: University of Texas Press, 2000), Ch. 14; Matthew Restall, Seven Myths of the Spanish conquest (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 120–21. Coded mockery may have played a part for some spectators and performers but it was not the primary intention.

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J­erusalem resisted the Christian onslaught. It was only when the archangel Michael­appeared and made a powerful speech form the highest tower of ­Jerusalem’s walls that ‘Cortés’, the ‘Great Sultan of Babylon and tlatoani of ­Jerusalem,’ and his vizir, ‘Pedro de Alvarado,’ decided to convert voluntarily to Christianity and become vassals of the ‘Roman emperor, beloved of God.’

Conquest as Conversion

Although the Tlaxcalans portrayed themselves as part of the Christian army in the Corpus Christi play, they intended, simultaneously, to identify with the story of the ‘Turks.’ In the context of the polemics of the 1530s this connection became obvious at the climax of the performance when ‘Cortés’ justified his capitulation to ‘Charles v’ as a voluntary conversion, rather than a forced submission resulting from military defeat: We have seen clearly how God has sent you [the Christian forces] favour and help from heaven; before I saw this I thought I would hold my city and my kingdom and to defend my vassals and I was determined to die for it; but since God in heaven has illuminated me and I know that you [Charles v] alone are captain of his army; I recognise that the whole world must obey God and you who are his captain on earth. Therefore we place our lives in your hands and we beg you to settle near this city that you may give us your royal word and you may grant us our lives, receiving us with your continual clemency as your natural vassals. Your servant, the great Sultan of Babylon and tlatoani of Jerusalem. The play showed an obvious equivalence: as the ‘Turks’ are now, so the Tlaxcalans and other Indios were twenty years earlier, when they first encountered the Spanish conquistadores – undefeated but converted. The intention behind the representation of Cortés and Alvarado as Turks was unlikely to have been some thinly veiled attempt at vindictive mockery of the conquistador captains, as is commonly supposed (even if some in the audience could have interpreted it as such).4 The real Cortés had close connections to the Maxixcatzin of Ocotelulco, and Alvarado to the Xicotencatl of Tizatlán: the two dominant dynasties of Tlaxcala after the Conquest.5 These dynasties were instrumental in the 4 Harris, Aztecs, Moors and Christians, 120–21. 5 Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press 1952), 55; Matthews and Oudijk, Indian Conquistadors, 127ff; Hugh Thomas, The Conquest of Mexico (London: Hutchinson, 1993), 491.

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polity’s much vaunted conversion and the consequent re-shaping its urban, social and political arrangements, all of which had served the polity well in its relations with the Spaniards and turned it into a model for other indigenous polities to follow. Publicly, Cortés was still on friendly terms with the viceroy and enjoyed immense prestige amongst the Franciscans, who were influential in Tlaxcala (as the content of this performance illustrates). Furthermore the characterisation of the conquistador captains identified them with indigenous polities: ‘Cortés’ was ‘tlatoani’ of Jerusalem and ‘tyrant’ of a Babylonian empire – the first title was an indigenous term; the second the sort of Biblical allusion that Franciscans, like Motolinía, used in reference to the unrighteous pagan empire of the Mexica; finally ‘Cortés’ chose to become a ‘natural vassal’ of Charles v – the designation given to the indigenous lords of New Spain in recognition of their legitimate authority in their polities. The willingness of the ‘Turks’ to allow Christians to settle in their land for the purposes of perfecting their own conversion, mirrored and justified Spanish settlement in the lands of indigenous polities not as a result of the Spaniards’ military triumph but as a means of attaining pious indigenous objectives. While the play evoked an idealised allegory of the origins of New Spain, it simultaneously represented its recently converted Indios directly, fighting at the forefront of Charles v’s empire to conquer Jerusalem: its greatest, to some even eschatological, undertaking. The physical Jerusalem was little more than a remote name to Mesoamericans (and an increasingly impracticable objective for Europeans). But the Tlaxcalans were able to latch onto another, more accessible, meaning of ‘Jerusalem’ as a notion that could be applied to any righteous crusading venture. The obvious parallel can be found in Iberian claims dating back to the 12th century of a crusading iter per Hispania that transmuted the real Jerusalem into the soil of Iberia under Moorish occupation, elevating ‘conquista’ (or Reconquista as it has been known since the 19th century) to the level of a crusade.6 In the sixteenth century the Christian inhabitants of Mesoamerica, most coherently the mendicant community, often equated Jerusalem with Mexico City: If Jerusalem was the omphalos of the universe, Tenochtitlan was the tlalxico of the New World. The parallels between the siege and destruction of Tenochtitlan and the fate of Jerusalem in Josephus’ De Bello Iudaico were irresistible to those versed in the classics. They are evident not only in the ‘­Aztec auguries’7 indigenous pupils at the College of Santa Cruz described in the ­

6 Patrick J. O’Banion, ‘What has Iberia to do with Jerusalem? Crusade and the Spanish route to the Holy Land in the twelfth century’ in Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 34, no. 4 (December, 2008): 383–95. 7 Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘“Aztec” auguries and memories of the conquest of Mexico’ in Renaissance Studies Vol. 6, No. 3–4 (1992).

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­mid-1550s about the run-up to the Conquest; but also extended to the retrospective accusation that both Tenochtitlan and Jerusalem had provoked their own terrible ruin by supporting uncompromising zealots like Cuauhtémoc and John of Giscala respectively, over traditional leaders like Motecuhzoma and Josephus. The conversion of Tenochtitlan was portrayed as a precursor to that of Jerusalem, linking the fate of both. The former’s redemption, as Motolinía’s exhortation made clear,8 had already turned it into ‘another Jerusalem’: the head of a crusading kingdom chosen by providence to convert the Americas as a precursor to the redemption of the real Jerusalem that would presage the conversion of the whole world. In their performance, therefore, the Tlaxcalans proudly recalled their primary role in helping to conquer – in the sense of a crusading reconquista – and convert the Mexica, as well as all of the other indigenous naciones – even the Peruvians, whom they fought under Alvarado – that formed part of the New World army under ‘Mendoza’ in the siege of ‘Jerusalem.’ They had done so to the glory of their polity and in the name of Charles v’s universal imperial pretentions as the instrument of God: ‘Even though you [Tlaxcalans] are new to the faith’ the ‘Pope’ explained after a set-back against the ‘Turks’: God wanted to test you and wanted you to be defeated that you may know that without his help you are worth little; but now that you have been made humble, God has heard your prayers and in your favour will come your advocate and patron Saint Hippolytus on whose day the Spaniards, with you the Tlaxcalans, won Mexico. Representing the Conquest as a conversion offered a solution, albeit polemical at first, to New Spain’s ‘original sin.’ We can gauge its effectiveness by how generally the notion came to be adopted by anyone wishing to make a polemical intervention in New Spain’s political wrangles. It was prevalent earliest amongst indigenous lords seeking at once to justify their place in a Christian New Spain and undermine the competing claims to encomienda or lordship of Spanish rivals. In 1555, for example, the lords of Huexotzinco, where the murals of the convent of San Miguel attest pictorially to the importance of the idea of creating another Jerusalem in Mesoamerica (see Fig. 20), expressed their own

8 The dating of various parts of Motolinía’s history are disputed but this section probably comes from the early 1540s, or earlier, certainly before the terrible plagues that began in 1545. Motolinía, Historia de los Indios, 142.

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polity’s past in a way that resembles closely the explanation that ‘Cortés’ presented during Tlaxcala’s Corpus Christi performance: … we were baptised and made Christians and received the faith and Christian customs with the most complete free will, which, when we compared them with our previous style of life, we found that our former life was all lies and trickery … knowing this great equality, truth, honesty and goodness of Christianity we are determined to subject ourselves to it and keep it and work for it …9 Meanwhile indigenous noblemen like don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli believed that Charles v and his representatives would find it flattering to be portrayed as the: Greatest defender of the Christian faith, indefatigable fighter against the assaults of infidels and heretics … always engaged in fighting barbarous nations, infidels and idolaters of demons … In pacifying the defeated, ­illuminating them and finally winning them for Christ, which Your ­Majesty has done amongst us … This very thing gives us the greatest consolation encourages us to be in good spirits and convinces us that there is no reason to fear addressing Your Majesty by letter.10 Even the defeated Mexica whose sorrow, like that of the Judeans in Josephus, for their ‘broken spears’ and ruined city permeated their representation of the  conquest, could find solace and advantage in embracing conversion as New Spain’s origin myth. Motecuhzoma’s descendants and courtiers willingly proclaimed that the huey tlatoani had converted and submitted to Charles v ­after Cortés arrived and that they had kept faith with this conversion and ­continued to aid the Spaniards despite Cuauhtémoc’s murderous usurpation.11 9 10

11

Pedro Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli entre los Nahuas tramontanos’ in Tlalocan, Vol. v, No. 2 (1966), 146. Emma Pérez-Rocha and Rafael Tena eds., La nobleza indígena del centro de México después de la conquista (Mexico: inah, 2000), Doc. 14, ‘Letter in Latin of don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli to the Emperor, 1 December 1552’, 167–68. Margarita Menegus Borneman and Rodolfo Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo en Nueva España y Filipinas (Mexico: unam, 2005), 17. Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuhtzin claimed to have always supported the Spanish cause, see Guillermo S. Fernández de Recas ed., ­Cacicazgos y nobiliario indígena de Nueva España (Mexico: Instituto Bibliográfico Mexicano, 1961), 230.

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These assertions intended to legitimize the old tlatocayotl (lordship), emphasizing continuity with the Mexica’s imperial past. Lists of Mexica governors routinely spanned the time before and after the Conquest without any seeming rupture; and the wise ‘grandfathers and grandmothers’ of the Mexica were rendered, in another echo of Jerusalem, as ‘prophets’ of the coming conversion.12 Meanwhile the Mexica cooperated with the friars and civic authorities to add ­Christian meaning to the Mexica’s ancestral iconography, slightly modified. The glyph for Tenochtitlan, with its imperial eagle on a fruitful cactus, remained the emblem of Mexico-Tenochtitlan but instead of symbolizing the power and rapaciousness of the polity, it acquired an association to Christian resurrection, ­assuring its survival and propagation in civic ceremonial, architecture and public sculpture: most revealingly as the monolith of an eagle perched over a globe in Mexico City’s Franciscan monastery that symbolized the city’s rebirth as the capital of a crusading kingdom.13 The sense of continuity that conversion permitted, and the equation of Mexico with Jerusalem, was reinforced in hybrid literary productions. The most popular were often performed as public rituals, like the Cantares Mexicanos or the Christianized ­Huehuehtlahtolli that Sahagún collected, and then used as the basis for his most sophisticated and influential work: the Psalmodia Christiana. This psalter, written in Nahuatl, allowed old indigenous rites of song and dances after mass, but substituted previously suspect hymns with lyrics that were acceptable to both the Mexica and the strictest ecclesiastical authorities.14 The ‘Second Psalm’ for the 13th of August asserts once again the message we have been describing: As through a miracle God saved the sons of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, on the ninth day of the month of March, Just so, through a miracle, God saved us, the people of New Spain, from The hands of devils on St. Hippolytus’ festive day … And God sent his Warriors so that the devils and their befrienders were conquered. This miracle, by which we, we the people of New Spain, were saved, was Wrought on the feast day of God’s beloved St. Hippolytus.15 12

Solange Alberro, El águila y la cruz: Orígenes religiosos de la conciencia criolla. México, siglos xvi–xvii (Mexico: Colegio de México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1999), 67–68. 13 Ibid., 60; Motolinía, Historia, Bk. 3, Ch. 6; Codice Osuna, 47. 14 Alberro, El Aguila, 67–68. 15 Lorenzo Candelaria, ‘Bernardino de Sahagún’s Psalmodia Christiana: A Catholic Songbook from Sixteenth-Century New Spain’ in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 67, No. 3 (Fall 2014), 676–77.

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The converted also presented themselves as crusading agents of the New Jerusalem. Don Jerónimo del Aguila from Tacuba, a founding member of the imperial triple alliance, claimed in 1564 to have spent forty years destroying idolatry wherever he found it, often endangering his life, in particular when he served with viceroy Mendoza in the Mixtón war. This was reminiscent of part of the oath of the knights Tecle, by then superseded but clearly still resonant in the language of legitimacy: ‘And as regards my person I will pursue and destroy the sacrifices and idolatries. In the same way I swore to be a loyal vassal to the emperor Don Carlos, king of Spain …’ to which don Jerónimo was possibly referring when he mentioned that this lifelong quest was the result of ‘a certain selection that was made of my person to accomplish this.’16 Similar ideals are evident in the Otomí murals at Ixmiquilpan, which glorified the dynasty of San Luis Montañes as crusaders expanding the norther frontier of New Spain. We can find them, too, in didactic titulos primordiales that Indio leaders produced and recited in public, like a performance, to explain the Conquest to their subjects as a conversion and a liberation.17 Even the mention of acts such as Sandoval Acazitli’s emphasis on his role in fighting the heathen Chichimeca but also in forging alliances with their chiefs and cementing them with song and dance to inaugurate Christmas illustrate the importance of this legitimizing trope.18 Spanish settlers also enveloped themselves in the legitimising mantle of conversion in order to assert their own claims. Once again the mendicants provided a useful conceptual framework. As the Tlaxcalan play suggested, the justification for Spanish settlement was that they would provide a good example of Christianity to new converts. If the Spaniards wanted to be seen as virtuous, they would have to present their actions in accordance with this end: 16 17

18

Pérez-Rocha and Tena eds., La nobleza indígena, Doc. 33, ‘Letter of Don Jéronimo del Águila to King Philip ii’, 26 February 1564, 287; Carrasco ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 133–34. Robert Haskett, Visions of paradise: Primordial titles and Mesoamerican history in Cuernavaca (University of Oklahoma press: Norman 2005), esp. 17 and 21; ‘Conquering the Spiritual Conquest in Cuernavaca’ in Susan Schroeder ed., The conquest all over again: Nahuas and Zapotecs thinking, writing and painting Spanish colonialism (Brighton: Sussex Academic press, 2011), 226f. ‘Living in Two Worlds: Cultural Continuity and Change among Cuernavaca’s Colonial Indigenous Ruling Elite’ Ethnohistory, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Winter, 1988), 34–59. Gabriel de Castañeda, ‘Relación de la jornada que hizo don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli, cacique y señor natural que fue del pueblo de Tlalmanalco, provincia de Chalco, con el señor visorey don Antonio de Mendoza cuando fue a la conquista y pacificación de los indios chichimecas de Xuchipila,’ trans. Pedro Vázquez, in Joaquín García de Icazbalceta, Colección de documentos para la historia de México. Vol. 2 (Mexico: J.M. Andrade, 1858–1866; 1980) (henceforth: ‘Relación Acazitli’), 318.

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Figure 19 The Augustinians began their convent at Ixmiquilpan in 1550, after Christian Otomí warriors managed to assert their control over the region’s pagan population. The Otomí decorated the convent, which was appropriately dedicated to the warrior archangel St. Michael, with murals glorifying the battles they fought to secure the northern marches of New Spain for the crown and Christianity. author’s photograph with permission from inah, Mexico.

Mendieta, for example, refashioned the idealized portrayal of Cortés from that of classical military hero to ‘Moses of the New World.’ Even a classicising humanist like Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, who was an admirer of Cortés and dependant of the entrepreneur Alonso de Villaseca, appropriated this justificatory notion in his didactic Latin dialogues set in Mexico City in 1554. In the first dialogue, ‘Gutiérrez,’ a recent arrival from Spain expressed the stereotypical view of the Spanish settlers in Mexico when he entered the new University: ‘Is there a place for wisdom in a place where greed reigns?’ The University, however, and in subsequent dialogues the disposition of the whole city, were portrayed as converting that original greed into virtue. By the end of the third dialogue another Spanish visitor concludes after walking Mexico City and then observing it panoramically from the hill of Chapultepec that it seems as if ‘both worlds find themselves reduced here and included, and that it is possible to say of Mexico what the Greeks said of man, calling it a Microcosmos ... Oh what great fortune the Spanish arrival has afforded the Indios, for they have

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passed from [pagan] misfortune to their present happiness, and from former servitude to true liberty!’19 Appealing to the notion of conversion allowed Spanish conquistadores and settlers of New Spain to cleanse the bloody stains their reputation had acquired in the process of Spanish expansion in the Americas. Julius Caesar proudly boasted in his account of the Gallic Wars that he had killed one million Gauls; Bernal Díaz del Castillo defensively devoted three chapters of his ‘true history’ to detailing the benefits that the indigenous population accrued from the Conquest in terms of their evangelisation, new political systems, trade and technical skills that they learnt from Europe.20 Truculent old conquistadores, like Jerónimo López, referred to the violence of the Conquest as a ‘pacification’ of the land, implying Motecuhzoma’s voluntary submission as the origin of New Spain. Similarly the oidor Alonso de Zorita presented his project to ‘pacify’ and settle the Chichimeca in ideal terms, worthy of the empire expected from ‘another Jerusalem.’21 Conversion is a capacious term. In the same year as the Corpus Christi performance in Tlaxcala, Zumárraga condemned don Carlos of Texcoco, until then an exemplar of the sort of converted indigenous prince that the play’s rhetoric was meant to describe, to be burnt at the stake for apostasy. The indigenous population did not always interpret the ideals they claimed to be converting towards in the way that Europeans might have expected. Conversion in New Spain was more a matter of what Tamar Herzog has called ‘identification’ with certain customs and ideals that developed a particular meaning from polemics taking place in New Spain, which, nevertheless, allowed for ‘the processes through which people claimed to be or were identified as members of the community.’22 Despite the Tlaxcalans’ adoption of a Pauline type of revelation as the deus ex machine that converted the Turks, it should rather be said that Mendoza’s regime played more the part of Numa Pompilius (in Livy): 19 20 21 22

Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, México en 1554 y túmulo imperial, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Porrúa, 1972). Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), Ch. ccviii–ccx. Alonso de Zorita, Relación de los señores de Nueva España, ed. Germán Vázquez (Madrid: Historia 16, 1992), ‘Introducción.’ Tamar Herzog, Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 6. For an interesting legacy of this, whose origins I see in the polemics of this period, see Peter Villella, Indigenous elites and Creole identity in colonial Mexico, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

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establishing­norms and routines for a previously fractious community rather than changing souls wholesale.23 In any case, Tlaxcalan lords, and their mendicant allies, could expect that the allusions in the Corpus Christi day performance would be intelligible to their audiences, and coincide with accepted benchmarks of legitimacy in Mexico City.

Liberty, Tyranny and Piety

‘Santa Fe,’ the emperor’s headquarters in the Corpus Christi performance, was an emblematic name that conjured, in the minds of those familiar with Granada, the ‘ideal’ grid-iron shaped castrum that Christian forces occupied during the final siege of the last Muslim stronghold in Iberia. Vasco de Quiroga (who spent part of his legal career in Granada) gave to his experiments in Mesoamerican Utopia the name of Santa Fe; while the grand civic centre of Mexico City that Mendoza was in the process of remodelling, as well as the burgeoning urban landscape of the ‘City of Tlaxcala’ around the square where the performance was taking place, followed the same classicising principles of urban design. From this resonant ideal of a crusading castrum, ‘Charles v’ commanded equal Amerindian and European armies against ‘Jerusalem.’ Several Tlaxcalan lords had met Charles v in person, so they were aware of whom they were representing;24 but the emperor’s position as the point of intersection between the two discrete armies was an obvious transposition of the principle, not yet enshrined in royal legislation but safeguarded in the practice of viceregal government, that New Spain was a kingdom composed of two autonomous republics: one of Indios the other of Españoles. At its head, occupying a position analogous to that of the emperor in the play, was the viceroy. Of course, all of these allusions were united by the literal meaning of Santa Fe: indisputably in the play’s representation of hierarchy – perhaps embarrassingly so to those versed in ancient European controversies regarding temporal sovereignty, rekindled by the reformation – Tlaxcala regarded the Church’s ecclesiastical 23

24

Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, Bk. 1, Ch. 21; See with Mark Silk, ‘Numa Pompilius and the idea of Civic Religion in the West,’ Journal of the Academy of Religion, Vol. 72, No. 4 (December 2004), 863–93. James Lockhart, Nahuas and Spaniards: postconquest central Mexican history and philology (Stanford: Stanford University Press), 25; agi Justicia 258, Antonio de Turcios, ‘Relacion e memorial’, 31 December 1537 (though from the context it should be 1536), ‘se dio licencia a tres principales de Tlascala que vinieron con su senoria de españa que se dicen Don Diego, don Martin e Sebastian’ (espadas).

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Figure 20 Huexotzinco new urban centre grew around the Franciscan convent of San Miguel, in the mid-sixteenth century. On the bottom left of this mural we can see a representation of the City of God, an ideal that inspired New Spain’s urban transformation and its language of legitimacy. author’s photograph, with permission from inah, Mexico.

­ ierarchy, which in the play had a heavy mendicant presence, as superseding h the emperor’s authority as the representatives of God. As the performance indicated, conversion did not make the indigenous polities of Mesoamerica independent; rather it implied their need to accept a legitimate hierarchy of authorities and the Christian principles that justified it. The layered hierarchy that the Tlaxcalans and others in New Spain identified was, in practice, ill-defined and undermined both by the difficulty of long-distance­ communication, and the importance of religious conversion in its justification. This meant that the inhabitants of New Spain could appeal to a range of secular authorities to pursue their claims, or they could circumvent them altogether by seeking justification in Christian principles or the judgement of ecclesiastical authorities. These alternatives explain the sense of entitlement to engage in polemics that Mendoza warned Velasco about. They underscored the particular variants on classic ideals of liberty that operated in New Spain. Indios and Spaniards came to express their notion of political liberty as a function of their enfranchisement by the crown. Offices and other mercedes that allowed them to participate in the public life of New Spain made them the direct criados and vasallos (creatures and vassals) of the king. The

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apparent­paradox, to modern eyes, can be dispelled by analogy with the way in which demagogues speak of being the ‘servant’ of the notional ‘people’ in self-professed democratic nation states.25 Liberty, as expressed in the language of courtly intimacy, implied the crown’s recognition that an individual merited the king’s trust and therefore deserved to become enfranchised into the kingdom’s ‘small political nation.’26 The crown recognized this view in a cédula from 1558: ‘those who are from the Indies and live there …[are to] give account to our viceroys and audiencias of events and on what they think should best be implemented for the good government of those lands and of the grievances they might know about that are committed against the Indians …’27 but in practice, the sort of participation that the cédula encouraged already formed an integral part of New Spain’s political culture. Jerónimo López was proud that the king had asked for his advice in the 1520s: ‘continuing the command your majesty gave me, to always write to your majesty from these parts and to inform your majesty of whatever I deemed convenient for the royal service of your majesty that you should be informed.’28 Díaz del Castillo hoped that his insistence on recounting his years of suffering in service to the crown in conquest and administration29 demonstrated his virtuous liberty and lent credence to his bluff assertions of speaking ‘muy verdaderisimamente’ (very extremely truthfully). In his view this virtue should also have allowed him his ‘ardent ambition to serve the king in your own household as a true and humble criado.’30 Obviously he did not necessarily expect to move to Castile and to live in the royal household, but to be considered as having a direct, ­personal and vassalic connection to the king like a trusted friend and advisor. 25

26

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28 29

30

Nelly R. Porro Girardi, ‘Los criados en las indias del Quinientos: del Servicio privado a la funcion publica,’ in xi congreso del instituto Internacional de Historia del Derecho Indiano, (Buenos Aires: Instituto de investigaciones de historia del derecho, 1997), iv, 91–123. A useful term from Fernández-Armesto used in the context of the nobility and town councils of Castile, in: Raymond Carr ed., Spain a history (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 122. Provisiones Cedulas Instrucciones para el gobierno de la Nueva España por el doctor Vasco de Puga: Obra impresa en Mexico, por Pedro Ocharte, en 1563 y ahora editada en facsimil (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1945), Fo. 204. ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 220, 64; Isabel Arenas Frutos, ‘Jerónimo López: un conquistador entre la reivindicación y el arbitrismo’ in Anuario de Estudios Americanos, Vol. 58, no. 2 (2001). E.g. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 594f, claimed to have fought in no less than 119 battles. In terms of the emphasis on administrative merit, Bernal had held amongst other positions that of visitador of ‘Guazacualco and Tabasco’ and had served as regidor in the cabildo of Santiago de los Caballeros amongst other services, 615ff. Ibid., 640.

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Even ­bureaucrats hoped that the king would read their letters and answer them because: ‘as faithful criados of your majesty we wish to accomplish c­ orrectly your royal will in everything.’31 As faithful criados they also had the duty to ­oppose damaging royal commands: ‘after having obeyed with all due reverence and acceptance, they said that there were certain difficulties and great inconveniences that meant that if everything in the said decrees were to be kept and implemented in full, that the said decrees would actually redound in notable damage and prejudice for the royal treasury.’32 It was this sense of enfranchisement that explains the participatory pretentions of the inhabitants of New Spain that Mendoza warned his successor about. A fundamental problem was determining who deserved to be enfranchised and what standing they should enjoy. Although the viceroy was not the king, one of his most important duties, because it was an essential feature in the enactment of royal justice, was to determine this question and either express a recognition of merit himself, or transmit recommendations to the king. This feature of viceregal government was significant enough to form an integral part of the Corpus Christi play. ‘Emperor, semper augusto: Your Majesty will know how I came with the army to Jerusalem’ wrote ‘Mendoza’ to ‘Charles v’ in a ‘letter’ that was presumably read out to the spectators, ‘your vassals of New Spain did things very well defeating many moors …’ whereas ‘the squadron from the islands’ was defeated ‘in great shame’ – as were several European contingents allied to the Spanish. In turn Charles v called Mendoza his ‘beloved kinsman and great captain,’ while the American armies were addressed as ‘knights and soldiers.’ Such exchanges mirrored the letters, reports and probanzas that enfranchised Indios and Spanish settlers employed to advertise their merit; and the viceroy’s role in this process. In New Spain one of the underlying polemics at the time was the extent to which conquistadores and other Spanish settlers should possess lordship over the Indios. Friars, since the early days of Spanish Caribbean expansion, had argued that it was necessary to separate Indios from the bad example and abuses of secular Spanish for the success of their evangelizing mission. The crown, provided a fillip to this view, and the germ for the conception of two parallel republics, in 1518 when they proclaimed to a judge in Hispaniola that: ‘amongst 31 32

agi Gobierno Mexico 323, Royal Officials, April 1562 (c. 6th bound collection of letters). agi Gobierno Mexico 323, 3 March 1556, king to the royal officers and then they to the king – first letter in first booklet. In conjunction with Baldassare Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, George A. Bull (London: Penguin, 2003), 131; and Benjamin Gonzales, ‘La formula “Obedezcase pero no se cumpla” en el derecho Castellano de la baja edad media’ in ahde, 50 (1980), 469–88.

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the native Indios there are many with such natural capacity and ability that they might live politically in their towns and amongst themselves, in the way that Spanish Christians live, and serve us as our natural vassals without the need for them to be under encomienda.’33 However, nothing except the articulation of a notion came of these proclamations because the Caribbean Indios and their mendicant allies were unable to assert or defend them. As the Tlaxcalan play suggests, in New Spain the Indios and their allies were powerful enough to defend their autonomy in practice and to articulate its justification convincingly by tracing the origins of their autonomy to the polity’s voluntary conversion during the Conquest. Even the cabildo Indio of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, for example, appealed to the king as ‘the fount of our protection’ and they begged him to obviate a plan to ‘take away our right to administer justice in our republic and give it to Spaniards … so that we would remain perpetual slaves deprived of our ancient and natural jurisdiction.’ After the Franciscans intervened on their behalf, the viceroy judged in their favour; but the cabildo members wanted to reaffirm their explicit link with the king’s grace and legitimacy: ‘that the attempt to take away our right to administer our republic should have no effect whatsoever. If there is concern over our ability [as administrators] then give us just laws that are necessary for the good of our republic and if we don’t match up to implementing them, then punish us, but don’t deprive our successors of their lordship. And if our loyalty is in question then here and now we render homage in our name and that of our descendants.’34 The indigenous argument for autonomy relied on the notion that they were free men who understood virtue, the public good and royal service. Their insistence on a voluntary conversion spoke in favour of these qualities, and, if they were accepted, it made them reliable members of the political nation whose voluntary service could be recognised as deserving of reward. Indigenous lords therefore, were keen to highlight their free-will in polemic appeals for recognition. Indigenous testimony from Tello de Sandoval’s visita emphasises their voluntary participation in the expeditions to Cíbola: ‘[Tejada] informed them that [the viceroy] was sending people [to Cíbola] that if some Indians wanted to go of their own free will they should seek him out because he did not want to force them or take them against their will like Nuño de Guzmán had done … and they said that they did want to go and that and they went there of their 33 34

cdi, ultramar, Vol. 9, 92–93, Queen Juana and Charles to juez de residencia in La Española, Zaragoza, 9 December 1518. Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, Doc. 17, ‘Don Esteban Guzmán and Indio authorities of Mexico-Tenochtitlan to King Philip ii’, 19 December 1554, 195.

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own free will ….’ When they found the viceroy in Jalisco ‘[he] asked them if they were going on their own free will or whether they were forced to go and they answered that they went of their own free will and not through force.’35 Similarly, the Codex Osuna portrays Indio lords sitting on their icapilli (reedthrones) in open conversation with the viceroy, depicted sitting on his sella curulis, on the terms of their voluntary participation in the expedition to Florida. Their subsequent dispute over the compensation they received was a result of the contractual nature of the negotiation that led to their participation.36 In the context of New Spain, where royal justice was so remote, virtuous free men were vulnerable to the abuses of illegitimate ‘tyrants.’ In a letter composed in such fluent Latin and displaying such familiarity with classical concepts that it could have been understood by Cicero as well as Charles v, don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli reserved his most rancorous phrases to attack doña Isabel Moctezuma over her insistence on tributary rights over a region claimed by his polity of Tacuba: ‘although [doña Isabel] was of our blood and fatherland, she nevertheless proved so alien to common humanity that instead of the natural piety and love with which people of a common land are to be held, she exerted her tyranny (tyrannidem exercuerit) over us, who were born of famous and noble fathers, and she held us back in a place of slaves (servorum tenuerit).’37 In another instance, during the period of near social unrest in Huexotzinco in 1555 that we discussed in other chapters, the avowedly Christian lords of Huexotzinco declared to the viceroy that unlike their tyrannical ancestors ‘who wanted everything for themselves’ they now believed in ‘charity to help the poor’ and ‘helped by divine grace’ they had decided to grant lands to the poor and dispossessed.38 The moral imperatives these Huexotzinca lords chose to appeal to suggest the degree to which mendicant predication shaped

35 36 37

38

agi Justicia 258, fol. 605: testimony of Juan Tlecanen. Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico (­Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 2003), 54–55. Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, ‘Letter (in Latin) of don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli to the Emperor, 1 December 1552,’ 168f; see with Andrew Laird, ‘The teaching of Latin to the native nobility in Mexico in the mod-1500s: contexts, methods results,’ in eds. Elizabeth P. Archibald, William Brockliss and Jonathan Gnoza, Learning Latin and Greek from Antiquity to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 146 (as we discussed in previous chapters the lords of Huexotzinco had usurped the properties and appropriated the lordly rights of their rivals in the polity, and they needed to convince mendicants and the viceroy of their worth in order to reach an accommodation that would not penalise them too severely, but would still stave off a civil war).

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the terms of political debates about merit, however disingenuous such statements may have been. The main target of indigenous accusations of tyranny, however, were their Spanish rivals – especially the encomenderos who were ‘competitors of the provincial [indigenous] authorities and clergy in the pursuit of local influence’ and tribute. Indigenous depictions of encomenderos showed them as violent tyrants, oppressing indigenous communities or cheating them of their land: Gonzalo de Salazar, for instance, was named and depicted memorably holding the decapitated head of an Indio along with horrors performed by other encomenderos or their slavish, occasionally African, dependents who administered the collection of tribute more directly.39 The principales of Xilotepec were equally keen to list the names of all the Spaniards whose cattle invaded their community’s agricultural plots.40 Perhaps the most daring use of the trope of tyranny as a rhetorical device against Spanish pretensions came from don Francisco Tenamaztle, a prominent Caxcan rebel leader in the Mixtón uprising, who became a cause célèbre in Castile after arriving during an intensification of the debate there surrounding conquistador demands for perpetual encomienda during the mid-1550s. In a remarkable letter co-written in Castile by Las Casas and Tenamaztle in 1555, the latter presented himself as a truer vassal of the king than the tyrannical Spanish encomenderos of New Galicia, such as the otherwise much lionised Cristóbal de Oñate and Miguel de Ibarra. Tenamaztle admitted he had risen in arms against bullies and tyrants but: ‘This natural act of fleeing and defending oneself … the Spaniards call and have always called, abusing such language throughout the Indies, ‘rising against the king.’41 The implication was that while Tenamaztle’s actions were natural, those of the encomenderos were a tyrannical offence against justice even when they used force to suppress the rebellion. Although Tenamaztle was not a slave, despite his earlier rebellion, Indio slaves in Castile were known to make similar appeals to assert their rights and identity in the sixteenth century.42 Such indigenous depictions played into the stereotype of conquistadores as avaricious: tyrants, after all, were self-serving and slaves to their irrational impulses, making them untrustworthy and disloyal subjects of the crown and 39 Wood, Transcending Conquest, 45. 40 agi Gobierno Mexico 96, ‘Cartas y expedientes de personas seculares 1545–1559’, letter of the ‘principales de Jilotepec’, 1551. 41 Miguel León-Portilla, La Flecha en el Blanco: Francisco Tenamaztle y Bartolomé de las Casas en la lucha por los derechos de los indígenas 1541–1556 (México: Editorial Diana, 1995), 33. 42 See Nancy E. van Deusen, Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in SixteenthCentury Spain (Durham, nc: Duke University Press, 2015).

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c­ ommonwealth. It is in this context of competition that Spanish accusations of indigenous drunkenness, listlessness, laziness, heterosexual and homosexual ­lasciviousness – even of effeminacy caused by a diet composed of New World, rather than European, staples – should be understood.43 Rather than claiming rights over the natives exclusively as a result of their military exploits, the Spanish settlers in the early viceregal period tried to argue that they were more virtuous than their indigenous rivals. The Indios’ purported moral flaws were reiterated to lend credence to accusations that indigenous lords tyrannised and abused their vassals, and that it was only because their mendicant allies profited from this exploitation that they defended them. This became the main theme that Valderrama developed during his three years as visitador: ‘most of the lands that the principales hold, are usurped … and because the principals were stronger and were favoured by the friars they usurped many [more] lands.’44 Spaniards enjoyed an obvious cultural advantage over the Indios, when they engaged in such polemics, in that they spoke Castilian and had been born Christian (though this could sometimes be disputed in challenges to an individual’s pureza de sangre). If the role of the Spaniards in New Spain was to act as an example for the proper conversion of the indigenous population, however, then too rapid or effective an indigenous education could undermine the Spaniards’ role, and negate any advantage the Spaniards hoped to attain thereby. Jerónimo López complained, therefore, that since the promulgation of the New Laws ‘which [the Indios] have translated in their own tongue’ the indigenous lords had felt vindicated in their attacks on the encomenderos because it seemed that even the king did not recognise encomendero claims: ‘[the friars] tell them that they are so free that even if they rebel the king will not enslave them. All the towns now come and complain about their encomenderos and bring suits against those who they used to see as fathers and now see as enemies.’45 Even more pernicious was teaching the natives Latin. López wrote prodigiously in Castilian, but he couldn’t speak Nahuatl, the lingua franca of Mesoamerica, or Latin, the common language of education and the Church in Europe. Like other unsophisticated conquistadores, he felt that Latin initiated 43

44 45

David Lupher, Romans in a New World: Classical Models in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), 304; Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 41. cjv, 68–69. Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), Doc. xix.

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Indios into a community with political and social standing to which he was excluded, breeding in those Indios a new self-confidence and even arrogance towards his ilk that was dangerous for Spanish authority.46 Worse still – in López’s confused interpretation of Iberian history, that perhaps betrays a conflation of his own understanding of the situation in New Spain with his fears for the future – Latin speaking Indios could learn about the Spaniards’ own pagan past and their submission to the Romans but ‘that we were converted to Christianity and rose in arms and rebelled’ against that unrighteous empire. Education also alerted Indios to the wars in Europe, the petty squabbles and unrighteousness of the European Christians. Since so much of the political discourse in New Spain dealt in ideals, it is not surprising that López believed that evidence of how far short Europeans fell from the ideals they claimed to represent would undermine the authority of the Castilian monarchy in general.47 Indios did not deserve the same consideration as Spanish settlers, according to López and the strand of polemic discourse he represented, because they were recent converts and new vassals of the Castilian monarchy, making them inherently less trustworthy in matters of public service. However, like other Spanish settlers, López justified his concerns using local Mesoamerican precedent to undermine the dangerously untested notion of two republics. For him the ‘natural order’ would have been to follow the precedent of Mexica lordship over Mesoamerica and regard Spanish conquistadores as heirs to ­Motecuhzoma’s lords. Instead friars undermined the legitimate claims of the conquistadores where it hurt them most; by denying that the latter enjoyed the virtues inherent in true nobility that would have made them worthy of authority: ‘they used to acknowledge [that the Spaniards were lords] and they did so because that had been their custom, but they were told by the friars that we were not lords but macehuales, which means common people and that the lords remained in Spain.’48 Disputes regarding political authority ultimately returned to questions of good government and the protection of the governed: in particular the mass of indigenous commoners. As the royal officials wrote in 1552, ‘in this land some have planted the idea that to serve the king one must do good to the Indios and harm the Spaniards.’49 Even Valderrama the ‘scourge of the Indios’ claimed continually that his attempts at reducing the power of the friars and indigenous­ 46 47 48 49

ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 233. ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 236. Ibid. agi Gobierno Mexico 323, second bound section, 1st letter, 2 March 1552, by Alonso de Sosa, Antonio de la Cadena and Juan Velázquez de Salazar.

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lords, his support for the encomenderos and the increase he proposed in the level of tribute, were all designed to help the ‘poor macehuales’: ‘in the macehuales there is no resistance [to abuse by the friars and their nobility]… they are lost and destroyed … it is a matter of great shame.’50 The ‘poor macehuales’ became the fundamental symbols of victimhood in this strand of the dialogue of legitimacy, to which all had to pay at least lip-service. The consensus about the need to protect the indigenous population would play an important part in the development of New Spain’s internal framework of legitimacy through righteousness. Indigenous lords found it expedient to identify with their vassals and other indigenous groups generally as the ‘Indios’ of Spanish rhetoric to highlight a common identity as innocent victims, apportioning the blame for their ‘destruction’ on the generic ‘Spaniards’ as well: ‘… we suffer everyday so many needs and we are aggrieved so much every day that soon we will be finished, as every day we are consumed and finished …’51 The success of indigenous presentations of their victimhood encouraged secular Spanish settlers to adopt a similar turn of phrase for their own purposes: Gonzalo de Salazar argued in favour of perpetual encomienda, by claiming that without it there would be ‘such discontent and so little possibility of remedying it [that it would lead to] our destruction and the destruction of the land ….’52 Like many Spaniards he worried about the survival of the Spanish settlers, and the ideal-type of the starving and impoverished encomendero unable to sustain himself or his household became commonplace. Even royal officials, from the viceroy down, adopted the terminology of aggrieved victimhood: Velasco for instance repeatedly asked to be allowed to return home to die because he was poor and miserable, as early as 1553. He subsequently received the higher salary he had been asking for and stayed in Mexico City.53 Similarly, Zorita asked to be relieved of his office for his alleged blindness, but this was before the opportunity arose to lead an expedition to the Chichimeca for which he lobbied vigorously, despite his apparent ailments.54 50 51

cjv, 58. Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, Doc. 18, ‘Letter of the lords and principales of New Spain to Emperor Charles v’, 2 May 1556, 199; R. Jovita Baber, ‘Categories, selfrepresentation­and the construction of Indios’ in Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (March 2009). 52 ene, Vol. iii, Doc. 186, ‘Gonzalo de Salazar to the King’s sercretary Juan de Sámano,’ (c. December 1537), 238f. 53 Jorge I. Rubio Mañe, El Virreinato. Vol. 1 Origenes y jurisdicciones, y dinámica social de los virreyes (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005), 210. 54 Zorita, Relación, 14.

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The tradition of displaying worth through suffering for the royal cause existed in Castile; but the stakes in the rhetorical tradition of New Spain became much greater as hardship became related to the argument that the Spaniards might be forced to abandon New Spain altogether if they were unable to sustain themselves. News of the promulgation of the New Laws prompted claims that the Spaniards would be forced to emigrate from New Spain or ‘kill their wives and daughters lest they go to a life of shame’ and the king ‘would lose New Spain to the great loss of the faith and the Crown.’55 Mendicant polemics, dating back to the earliest days of Castilian expansion in the Atlantic, provided the terms in which members of New Spain’s political nation chose to express their virtue. The mendicants were not part of the formal apparatus of royal government, but they were close to God. As such adhering to the morality they preached provided a route to a higher justification that could circumvent temporal authority, including that of the secular church. In a highly polemical sermon delivered in Hispaniola on the Sunday before Christmas 1511, Fr. Antonio de Montesinos appealed to conscience rather than law, and it had a galvanizing effect on early Castilian debates about the nature of their empire. Less well known, but linked to the sense of direct access to the ultimate source of legitimacy, is the tradition of mendicant radicalism in Castile; where it was Franciscan and Dominican brothers operating in communities around Zamora and Toledo that first rebelled against the clumsy impositions of the new king Charles in 1520, inaugurating the comunero revolt and subsequently nourishing the insurgent’s sense of righteousness.56 In New Spain mendicant morality attained a greater and more sustained relevance in political debates than it ever achieved by ‘unarmed prophets’ like Montesinos in the past, because rather than ‘crying in the wilderness’ their promise of direct access to divine justification resonated with the political interests of powerful indigenous lords. By the time of Valderrama’s visita in 1564, the term alumbrado began to take on sui generis connotations in Mexico, where it was used to describe individuals like Gerónimo de Mercado: ‘[who] was sought out to lower tributes, and is one of those who in Mexico are called alumbrados.’57 As in many other instances of the term in the Spanish speaking world, it probably had no formal links to traditional alumbradismo in Spain;58 55 56 57 58

Arthur S. Aiton, Antonio de Mendoza: First Viceroy of New Spain (Durham: Duke University Press, 1927), 98 n. 43. Aurelio Espinosa, The Empire of Cities: Emperor Charles v, the Comunero Revolt, and the Transformation of the Spanish system (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 64. cjd, 211. Alastair Hamilton, Heresy and Mysticism in sixteenth century Spain. The Alumbrados (Cambridge: James Clarke & co., 1992), 115–16.

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except that its use referred to the ambiguous relationship that Castilian mystics had to established hierarchies, given their claims to direct contact with the divine. This disregard for temporal hierarchies took early root in New Spain: Zumárraga and many other early Franciscan missionaries held decidedly Erasmian attitudes, modified by the circumstances of New Spain, with regards to the sufficiency of an individual’s piety.59 Later the secular clergy in Mexico resented oidor Zorita for what they considered to be his peculiar, almost mystical religiosity;60 while viceroy Gastón de Peralta’s instructions cautioned him to expel friars that had ‘apostatised’ and to punish ‘ungovernable friars’ more loyal to their local arrangements with the Indios than the instructions of European royal and ecclesiastical hierarchies.61 The irreverent mendicant presence in New Spain provided a parallel source of legitimation that indigenous lords could use to defend their interests against local rivals, and royal government. Valderrama complained to the crown, for instance, that generalised opposition in New Spain to his planned increase in the level of tribute – particularly amongst the mendicants, Indios and v­ iceroy – was due to ‘the doctrine they suckled from the bishop of Chiapas’: Bartolome de las Casas.62 An illustrative example of how adept indigenous lords became at challenging the operations of royal government or influencing royal policy by appealing to the higher authority represented by the mendicants, comes from the early 1550s. Philip ii’s imminent succession combined with the prospect of a royal bankruptcy encouraged encomenderos from Peru and New Spain to lobby once more for perpetuity of encomienda. Velasco, who was still relatively inexperienced in his role as viceroy, vacillated in implementing the New Laws and instead attempted to appease the encomenderos in other ways. This prompted the indigenous lords from the polities that had constituted the formerly imperial triple alliance, those who had lost the most from the Conquest, to make an urgent plea to the king: firstly ‘we and those under our care need protection and succour from your majesty for the many grievances and molestations that we receive from the Spaniards because they live amongst us and us amongst them.’63 The solution, they proposed, was for the king to send Fr. Bartolome Las Casas to New Spain ‘so that he can take up the role being our protector’ because ‘in order to remedy our concerns we have 59

Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa, Miguel León-Portilla and Silvio Zavala, La Utopia Mexicana del Siglo xvi: Lo bello, lo verdadero y lo bueno (Mexico: Grupo Azabache, 1992), 54. 60 Zorita, Relación, 18f. 61 vea, Peralta, Doc. 1, 36 and 43. 62 cjv, 45. 63 Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, Doc. 18, ‘Lords and principales of New Spain to the Emperor Charles v,’ 2 May 1556, 199.

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Figure 21 In the frontispiece to the Lienzo de Tlaxcala the lords of Tlaxcala’s four constituent altepeme emerge from their palaces to approach viceroy Velasco and the Spanish authorities that preceded him. Together they contemplate the cross that stands at the foot of the hill representing the Perillustris Civitas Tlascalensis (the distinguished polity of Tlaxcala) which, in turn, supports the Habsburg arms. In this way the Tlaxcalan lords who commissioned the Lienzo represented their enfranchisement into the Habsburg Monarchy as leading members of the ‘republic of Indios’; and in the rest of the Lienzo went on to list the services that justified their status. reproduced with permission from inah.

great need of someone who would be our protector and reside continually in this court.’ Mention that the two populations lived intermingled amounted to a reproach at Velasco’s new administration for failing to safeguard the Mendozan-­Zumárragan principle of two discrete republics. Their solution is indicative of the lords’ sophistication at employing the terms of imperial discourse. After Las Casas’ debates with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1551 he had become synonymous with opposition to secular Spanish authority in the Americas. Appointing the bishop of Chiapas implied that the viceroy was not up to the task of protecting the Indios; and neither was Alonso de Montúfar, the new Archbishop whom the mendicants disliked for his attempts to assert Episcopal authority over them in line with the resolutions of the Council of Trent (the last person to hold the title ‘protector of the Indians’ had been Archbishop Zumárraga from 1528–30).64 Philip ii ruled against the encomenderos 64

Ethelia Ruíz Medrano, ‘Poder e iglesia en la Nueva España. La disputa del Diezmo,’ in c­ oords. José R. Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Jaime González Rodríguez, Felipe ii y el oficio de Rey: La fragua de un imperio (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001).

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and Velasco changed his attitude towards indigenous autonomy to the extent that the same Mexica lords would hail him as ‘pater patriae’ on his death a decade later.65 Viceroys The Tlaxcalan decision to portray Mendoza in the Corpus Christi play carrying a standard bearing his personal coat of arms as he commanded an Amerindian army against Jerusalem, was the sort of display that could either win the viceroy praise for the approbation he had achieved from his charges; or leave him open to accusations of usurpation of royal authority and of treating New Spain as his lordly patrimony. Viceroys played an ambiguous role in the Habsburg monarchy: between mere avatars of the king and autonomous agents with personal authority. The Tlaxcalans meant to flatter the viceroy in their play by identifying with his authority; however, to many Spanish settlers in particular, a viceroy’s personal autonomy and power were, instead, an impediment to their notional proximity to the crown. As Mendoza warned his successor, accusations of ‘arrogance’ were used to undermine the viceroy’s political arrangements. ‘Arrogance,’ was the fundamental attribute of the ‘tyrannical man’ from classical notions of hubris to the biblical unrighteousness of self-regarding rebels from Lucifer to Absalom. Tyranny was the antithesis to legitimate power; consequently if a viceroy acted tyrannically it constituted a form of rebellion against the king and his justice. The first consequence of tyranny was the destruction of liberty, and without liberty an individual could not be virtuous or trustworthy as he would be subjected to the tyrant’s whim, rather than seeking the common good in service to the crown. Apart from anything else, therefore, a tyrannous viceroy risked destroying the viability of royal government in New Spain and making the land’s inhabitants his personal slaves instead. The accusation of tyranny, or at least its insinuation, was also a way of discrediting a viceroy’s judgements and political arrangements. Paradoxically, at first glance, this could even apply to royal legislation or commands that were damaging for New Spain but that a tyrannous viceroy had implemented for his own purposes. A true servant of the crown 65

In this context see Rolena Adorno, Polemics of possession in Spanish American narrative (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), for a discussion on the how the Las CasasSepulveda acted as a ‘matrix’ that created the ‘framework for debate’ on indigenous rights through rich reviews of major authors of the sixteenth century (though mainly from the imperial ‘centre’ rather than Mexico City, as in my emphasis).

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would have identified the faults with royal legislation and advised against their implementation. Visitas presented the enfranchised inhabitants of New Spain with a common forum in which to express their views before a judge that, being appointed recently, was presumed to represent the will of the monarch.66 As such, visitas provide some of the most accessible evidence for the enfranchised inhabitants of New Spain’s beliefs, rhetorical norms and terms of political debate regarding the nature of viceregal government. Criticism of the viceroys during these judicial enquiries aimed at disqualifying them from the right to hold their office by demonstrating how their moral and personal failings made them unworthy for such responsibilities; or merely to exert pressure on the viceroys to recognise the particular claims or their accusers. In a prologue to the testimony he delivered before visitador Tello de Sandoval, Vázquez de Tapia summarised the link between what he wished to portray as Mendoza’s tyrannous excesses and how they suffocated the liberties of the inhabitants of New Spain to the detriment of royal justice and good government.67 ‘[B]ecause your majesty is in lands that are so different and distant from this one, the people who govern here are absolute lords.’ According to Vázquez de Tapia’s reasoning, viceregal power, absolved by distance from royal grace and justice, led to tyrannous abuses: ‘[A]nd they cause grievances to the citizens (vecinos) and because the remedy is so distant, the citizens suffer it and don’t dare to complain, if they did, having already received a grievance or bad deed they would then [by complaining] receive many others.’ I have translated the term ‘vecino’ as ‘citizen’ because it signified the participation of ‘free men’ in the vocabulary of the municipal entities, which composed the basic blocks of Iberian political organisation:68 free men who should have been protected from tyrannous abuses by royal justice and allowed to participate freely in the political nation. Instead these citizens were reduced to the condition of dependence on the whim and caprice of the passions of the viceroy and those supposedly royal servants who were in fact his adherents: ‘… And because they have so much power, if one of those that govern has a particular hatred or indignation against a citizen, he can destroy him under the pretence of doing justice and this is a great charge on the conscience of your majesty …’ Terms like ‘hatred (odio)’ and ‘indignation (indignación)’ aimed to imply that 66 67 68

José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992), 20. agi Justicia 258, testimony of Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia, 17 May 1546. Helen Nader, ‘The Spain that encountered Mexico’ in Michael C. Meyer and William Beazley eds., Oxford History of Mexico (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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the viceroy was morally corrupt because he was himself a slave to his passions and self-love; whereas someone with authority should be ‘serene’ and rational to be truly free and trustworthy: a viceroy should represent the will of the king rather than his own wilfulness. Fear of such inherently unjust irrationality in those that held ‘absolute’ power drove the citizens down the well-known progression from dependence to fearful slavishness: ‘There is no-one who doesn’t fear speaking out against [the governors] to avoid making them angry, so your majesty can guess who will dare testify or tell the truth in something that will prejudice them.’ Selfcensorship,­caused by fear of retribution was yet another recognised indication of the loss of liberty: an un-free individual’s words and actions were no longer trustworthy because they were conditioned by his fear at the retribution of his master and he consequently lost the virtue that justified his participation as a citizen. Vázquez de Tapia and others were careful to point out that they had only testified reluctantly after their fears had been allayed by guarantees from the visitador. The implication was that the king’s attempts at finding the truth or guaranteeing justice through his visitas or any other means would not prosper unless the ‘tyrants’ were removed from office first. The king could not govern New Spain justly if he lent ‘tyrants’ authority through misguided legislation: ‘They have many tools with which to [oppress the citizens] as a result of the ordinances regarding those that have Indians in encomienda or who have mines and other enterprises.’ Evidence of corruption was the final confirmation of the viceroy’s unreliability as a royal representative because it demonstrated once again the supremacy of his personal ambition over royal justice and true service to the king: ‘Furthermore those that are his friends he favours and makes rich as is public and well known.’ The enrichment of officials was generally accepted in sixteenth century Europe. The more relevant question was whether such enrichment served the personal interests of those officials instead of the interests of the commonwealth and crown. According to Vázquez de Tapia, Mendoza’s promotion of his own trusted criados was not beneficial to the king and commonwealth, in the way that the king’s appointment of trusted courtiers could be. The majority of the 117 questions Tello de Sandoval posed to each one of his witnesses attempt to establish tyrannous or corrupt attributes that could be pegged to the viceroy and the oidores. These included unjustified favouritism towards certain individuals, their self-interest and their unwillingness to implement royal instructions and legislation.69 Apart from discrediting the 69

agi Justicia 258, esp. questions 1–6, 9, 21, 23, 32, 35, 39, 48–9, 52, 56–60, 80–91 and 108–117 establishing dependence on the viceroy and partiality in the distribution of o­ ffices or

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viceroy, hostile witnesses could use the opportunity to name and disqualify those individuals on whom the viceroy had bestowed the greatest favour. They were portrayed as unworthy in different respects: in relation to the requirements for office and rewards stipulated in royal legislation, (such as not being married or being too young or too recently arrived); for cruelty to their charges; for violence towards other Spaniards or abuse of their women; and for slavish subservience to the viceroy rather than the true service of the king. Spanish settlers were particularly vulnerable to accusations of unworthy dependence on the viceroy because so many of the offices depended on his gift; many of the more favoured individuals formed part of the viceroy’s family or household; and as time passed an increasing number of Spaniards subsisted directly on disbursements arranged by the viceroys. The viceregal regime of New Spain, with all its sui generis practices and notions, could arouse a great deal of suspicion in Castile. Mendoza and Velasco became associated with those practices and notions and consequently their reputations, and the attacks they suffered, should be seen in the context of ongoing polemics about the type of government that the crown should institute in the New World. Lorenzo de Tejada, an oidor who was closely aligned with Mendoza, wrote to the Duke of Mondéjar explaining that Tello de Sandoval ‘had ill-will towards the viceroy and wanted him thrown out of his offices and government, and what is worse to take away his reputation by making him out to be a tyrant,’ in the hope of taking over the government of New Spain himself.70 Almost twenty years later, Valderrama, the judge charged with conducting a visita of Velasco’s administration, would adopt a similar approach, claiming that the viceroy ‘throws down many more roots than are good if others are to live in freedom.’ The viceroys’ power was also to blame for ‘many inconveniences … since he is free to distribute everything there is to give in this kingdom. He distributes [these benefices] amongst his relatives and the allegados of the oidores. They depend on the viceroy every day, and depending on him, a man needs to be especially upright to contradict the viceroy in his presence.’71 Valderrama, made a point of demanding the suppression of the office of viceroy, which he saw as unnecessary and harmful, more openly than his predecessor. He proposed that an archbishop and a letrado could replace

70 71

a­ pplication of justice and on atrocities and injustices committed against Indios in pursuit of selfish ambitions of conquest and colonisation. ene, Vol. 5, Doc. 260. cjv, 75–77.

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the viceroy as president of the audiencia like in Granada or Valladolid, so that one could keep an eye on the other.72 The polemical terms in which the viceroys defended themselves from these accusations reveal some of their political ideals and the extent to which they coincided with those of their fellow inhabitants of New Spain. Claims of civic service for the common good of New Spain served as counter-arguments to the allegations of tyrannical corruption. Mendoza justified appointing his rich ally don Luis de Castilla to so many offices instead of distributing them to some other impoverished conquistador ‘because [Castilla] is very honourable and a caballero and he is worthy of the post because in discharging the offices he has been granted he has comported himself very well and I have known him to have particular love for the Indians, favouring them and treating them well.’73 In the ambiguity of what constituted inherent worth and merited rewards, it was best to include all possible advantages: birth, services and civic virtues, combined with pious attributes such as the protection of the Indians, in particular the macehuales. Both viceroys justified ignoring specific royal legislation by appealing to their experience to discern the best course of action for the good of New Spain. Mendoza explained his controversial approval of Juan Martínez Guerrero’s marriage to the illegitimate daughter of conquistador Rodrigo Gómez, and his inheritance of the latter’s encomienda, in terms of pleasing a worthy conquistador and to ensure the ‘population and settlement of the land’; added to which Guerrero had in him the usual attributes: ‘the qualities, especially good intention towards the Indians’ that the king looked for in an encomendero.74 These qualities could legitimise the contested legality of the marriage because they served the greater good. He went as far as to ignore the unquestionable illegality of distributing licences to carry Spanish weapons and ride horses to select members of the indigenous population. In Mendoza’s view the Indios ‘are neither simple and innocent nor full of vice but are just like any other race and should be treated as such.’ What counted in deciding whom to reward, as in so many of his justifications, was experience: ‘this can only be sorted out with knowledge of the people and business involved.’75 He distributed swords because ‘as I am viceroy and governor for your majesty I have the faculty to provide for matters of governance as best fits service to God and your 72 73 74 75

agi Gobierno Mexico 68, R.12, N.34, Tello de Sandoval to prince Philip, 19 September 1545; cjv, 75–77. agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey’, item 19. agi Justicia 259, point 25. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5.

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majesty’ even if it meant acting against a specific, but misguided, law. He only gave weapons to the individuals he trusted and who had shown themselves, in his view, to be morally worthy: ‘Some people might think that these Indians are bestial and they assume there is no difference between them because they don’t understand them, but I who have dealt with them and spoken to them find many to be of good judgement and with the attributes of gentlemen and a willingness to serve your majesty and he who governs in his royal name with love and they have shown it in words and actions and it is right to gratify them … for in this way are men won over to virtue.’76 Mendoza defended his private entrepreneurial activity in New Spain with similar appeals to the good of the commonwealth: the hostile witnesses who claimed this was corruption or abuse of power were confused ‘because they were referring to governors and judges appointed for specific time’ and not, as he saw himself, ‘perpetual governors and judges.’ Any settler in New Spain should be encouraged to engage in economic activity in order that they ‘become rooted to this land’; and it was particularly important for the viceroy to do so because it was ‘useful for the republic in the provisioning of armies and expeditions.’77 Mendoza felt he was fashioning, with his judgements, a kingdom with its own internal logic of legitimacy. Both Indians and Spaniards complained during Sandoval’s visita that Mendoza’s collaboration with Tejada had fostered the latter’s entrepreneurial activity to the detriment of Indio communities and the impartiality of his legal judgements. Mendoza, the interpreter Hernando Tapia and others defended the viceroy’s support for Tejada’s entrepreneurial activity by claiming that not only were the lands Tejada owned previously the patrimony of Motecuhzoma – and therefore eligible for viceregal distribution or sale rather than a violation of the rights of communities or individuals – but also ‘because it was good for the governance of the land. Because he is a good republican and entrepreneur who has persuaded and encouraged many others to do the same and thanks to them this republic is now well provided for and supplied of all it needs for its sustenance.’ Mendoza went on to explain that Tejada’s appointment was notionally perpetual and he had committed to settling in New Spain. This meant that he had no interest in acting to his new homeland’s detriment because by damaging it he would have damaged himself: ‘especially since he is a judge in perpetuity and therefore enjoys and will enjoy that which the other neighbours of this city and of New Spain enjoy.’78 Tejada echoed Mendoza: ‘not only 76 77 78

agi Justicia 259, point 18. Ibid., point 16. Ibid., point 43.

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do I not offend anyone but I serve God and his majesty [with his entrepreneurial activities] even more than with my office because so many have followed my example and have made for themselves very rich estates, the land has been populated and grown and this city has been ennobled and supplied …’ Those that best served the crown and commonwealth were entitled to the greatest rewards: ‘the judge that is appointed by the will of the prince without a limit to his tenure should consider it in perpetuity and should be allowed to own property and businesses like in other audiencias … otherwise it is to be understood that those that govern … would live in need and poverty with their salaries alone and our children would remain unprotected and would emigrate … and that they and their fathers would be in worse condition for having served your majesty.’79 The viceroys encouraged the particularist notion that their power and authority guaranteed moral righteousness, freedom and justice in New Spain. In the opinion of most members of New Spain’s political nation, the viceroys’ arrangements and the justifications behind them were not an imposition but the result of negotiations. As such they identified with those arrangements, and viewed their sui generis nature as an attribute rather than a fault, however much they differed from royal legislation or the expectations of visitadores. The viceroys themselves became associated with claims of autonomy for New Spain against unwarranted external impositions. Even opponents of the viceroy like Jerónimo López defended the practice of viceregal government that guarded this autonomy: ‘there was found [during Tello de Sandoval’s visita] little memory and obedience of his majesty in this land or of the fulfilling of his commands; and even though I have come out the worst from [the implications] of this charge, I think it was wrong to make [the accusations against the viceroy] because I have always known the viceroy to be of such great rectitude and firmness and loyalty in the service of your majesty and with such wishes for [this land] to increase with all his will and his life, I have known nothing else from him.’80 Far from enslaving the Spanish settlers Mendoza claimed that ‘the regidores never had so much freedom in their cabildo as when I came to this city,’ not least because he only interfered ‘when there is discord between them and they appeal to me,’81 a claim which other favourable commentators echoed.82 The royal officials agreed that ‘were it not for the favour and help that the viceroy gives us for the collection and ordering of the royal funds, it would 79 80 81 82

ene, Vol. v, Doc. 27. ene, Vol. iv, Doc. 233. agi Justicia 259, ‘Descargos del Visorrey’, point 4. ene, Vol. v, Doc. 260.

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only be collected with difficulty’ because their many enemies in the audiencia ‘intend for us not to have the liberty we have and must have.’83 Local prohibitions on public gambling, the constant attempts to limit drunkenness84 and the insistence on hiding the misdemeanours of friars85 are all examples of attempts at enforcing a high level of public morality for both Spaniards and Indians. As to the Indio population, Cristóbal de Benavente thought that thanks to the viceroy ‘in temporal matters these natives are placed in good order and political organisation … they have their alcaldes, regidores, alguaciles and ministers of justice and they understand it and practise it so well that we have little advantage over them because they understand the liberty and grace that every day your majesty and his royal intention make for them.’86 A similar emphasis on civic justifications governed Mendoza’s attitude towards the enfranchising of the indigenous elite. Already by 1538, the crown had warned Mendoza not to allow Indians to call themselves ‘lords (señores)’ of their towns but ‘principal men (principales)’ only. Yet Mendoza actively sought to recognise the authority of the ‘legitimate’ nobility of New Spain and to encourage them to govern themselves through the adoption of recognisable offices.87 Indigenous lords generally advocated in favour of viceregal authority more openly than Spaniards,88 perhaps because the mendicants tended to exalt the viceroys in indigenous eyes. Petitioners from Huexotzinco addressed the viceroy as ‘Your lordship, in His royal name, is our peace and tranquillity and the salvation of our souls.’89 Indio lords from the central valleys who gathered in Mexico to accompany Velasco’s coffin to burial in 1564 bestowed the titles of ‘pater patriae’ and ‘protector of the Indians’ on the dead viceroy.90 These titles were at once a display of affection and a pointed criticism of the reforms proposed by Valderrama who was dubbed instead the ‘afflictor of the Indios.’ Spaniards also exalted viceregal authority, especially in cases of unwarranted royal interference in local arrangements. When López sought to convey to the king why Mendoza and his son were indispensable to the government of 83

agi Gobierno México 323, Hortuño de Ibarra et al., 2 April 1562, 6th bound collection of letters. 84 María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1978), 66; vea, Mendoza, Doc. 7, ‘Cargo, xliv’ and Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, Ch. 2. 85 vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6. 86 ene, 1505–1818 (México: Porrúa, 1939–42), Vol. iv, Doc. 226. 87 Menegus Borneman and Aguirre Salvador coords., El cacicazgo, 23f. 88 Wood, Transcending Conquest, 39–43 and 119f. 89 Carrasco, ‘El Rango de Tecuhtli,’ 146. 90 Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, 473.

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New Spain, for example, he explained how well the viceroy knew the land and its ‘secrets’ and the importance of such internal knowledge: ‘others … would not know [these secrets] or the land or the people here because the language here is another and it is essential to understand it and know it.’91 Similar reasoning justified the many appeals for Mendoza to remain in New Spain and for his son to succeed him after 1548  – both were statements in support of the lordly autonomy many envisioned for New Spain. Even those who had attacked the viceroy like Andrés de Tapia or even Vázquez de Tapia ultimately defended viceregal autonomy against the less subtle legislation that Castile sought to impose.92 They were echoed in the defence of Velasco’s tenure after his sudden death and in support for the appointment of a new viceroy, rather the abolition of the title that the visitador, Martín Cortés and other recent arrivals from Castile were advocating.93 These justifications appealed to the sense that the viceroys had a superior authority to that of new arrivals from Spain who came with a more recent royal licence but little understanding of the ‘secrets’ or internal negotiations of New Spain. The greater experience of the sitting viceroys implied that they were able to act in good faith for the service of God, the king and the common good. By virtue of their experience, the argument ran, the viceroys were the most adept of the king’s vassals at governing the land in ways that fulfilled the most basic principles of the royal will: guaranteeing justice and ‘good governance.’ These arguments verged on a more ancient lordly autonomy that both viceroys attempted to practise, and which sought to establish their indispensability as arbiters of New Spain’s political arrangements. In the most daring defence of viceregal autonomy, Mendoza complained bitterly to the king of Castilian meddling in the affairs of New Spain: ‘what does your majesty expect that will happen [with this continual interference] at two thousand leagues distance if not that everything will end in ruin?’ Almost treasonably, Mendoza argued that all that was needed were well meaning and just people to be left alone to administer the land.94 During those years when the viceroy was in favour, his mere assertion of an individual’s ability to carry out the duties of his post was legitimisation enough. When Velasco appointed Hortuño de Ibarra, his friend 91 92 93 94

ene, Vol. v, Doc. 256. Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes, Docs. xxvii and xxiii. agi Gobierno Mexico 323, Hortuño de Ibarra, Fernando de Portugal et al., 10 September 1564, second letter. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6; F.J. Francisco J. Escudero Buendía, Don Francisco de Mendoza: protomonarca de México y Perú, comendador de Socuéllamos y capitán general de las Galeras de España (Guadalajara: aache Ediciones, 2006), Ch. vii.

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and relative through marriage, to the office of contador in 1555, a post previously filled by a crown appointee, he justified his decision by explaining that ‘and as there is knowledge of the quality and sufficiency of Hortuño de Ibarra, and that he is a person in which I have full confidence and for the experience that he possesses in the matters of the royal hacienda and his good discharge of his offices so far.’95 As long as the virtue of the viceroys was accepted in Castile, their greater experience could be trusted more than the dictates of Castilian letrados or opportunists at the royal court. Conclusion During the administrations of Mendoza and Velasco the enfranchised inhabitants of Mesoamerica conceived of New Spain, at least in their polemical rhetoric, as a providential appendage to the Habsburg monarchy: more virtuous than the kingdoms of Europe or other parts of her American empire. New Spain’s Franciscans presented Cortés rather than Columbus was the central figure in New World History: the ‘Moses of the New World’; or Mendoza (not Las Casas) as the ‘true father of the Indians.’ More prosaically it seemed to them that manners and civility in New Spain was more refined than that exhibited by recent arrivals from Castile.96 Díaz del Castillo, meanwhile, blamed the brutality of Peruvian encomenderos for the bad reputation of the institution in Castile;97 Mendoza sighed to the emperor in 1551 that there was more potential in New Spain than in Spain, but that too much interference was ruining everything.98 Juan Suárez de Peralta similarly claimed that ‘She [New Spain] was unique and unrepeatable, before we find another Mexico and her land we will all meet … in the final judgement.’99 The indigenous population also adopted this rhetorical trope. Despite their traditionally regionalist political identity, the most active indigenous lords regularly expressed the concept of New Spain as a kingdom within Charles v’s universalist Christian empire,

95 96 97 98 99

agi Gobierno México 323, ‘Luis de Velasco, 26 August 1555.’ John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 28 and 50; Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes, 121. Díaz del Castillo, Conquista, 588–89. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, Ch. xxii.

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and Indio lords identified themselves with the newly expanding horizons that this entailed and its cosmic mission.100 In proclaiming New Spain as an autonomous political unit, imbued with a providential mission, the enfranchised inhabitants of the kingdom reflected common political ideals that justified the political arrangements that were negotiated at the viceregal court. Understanding the ideals of New Spain’s political nation and how they related to the practice of viceregal government through enfranchising patronage illuminates the intentions of those political actors and the nature of the Kingdom of New Spain. 100 Pérez-Rocha and Tena, La nobleza indígena, Doc. 27, ‘Lords of New Spain to King Philip ii’, 10 March 1562; with Francisca Perujo, ‘La nueva identidad de Don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli’; and Elke Ruhnau, ‘Titlaca in nican Nueva España (Somos la gente aquí en Nueva España): la historia novohispana según los historiadores indígenas (siglo xvi y principios del xvii)’ in eds. Karl Kohut and Sonia V. Rose, La formación de la cultura virreinal 1. La etapa inicial (Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2000–2006).

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Constructing New Spain ‘Hunc librum legi, Mexico, year 1539’ announces a final scribble in an annotated volume of a 1512 edition of Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria. A note in the lower margin of the front cover reveals the reader and proclaims his title: ‘It belongs to Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy.’1 Mendoza grew up subscribing to conventional humanist precepts in a bastion of Castile’s fleeting ‘caballero renaissance’ at his father’s court in the Alhambra – within view on a clear day of the ideal castrum-turned-municipality of Santa Fe.2 As a young man he fought against the pretensions of comuneros to municipal autonomy, before returning to the Alhambra for Charles v’s wedding in 1526 in time to see Pedro Machuca’s plans for the erection of a rusticated Renaissance palace to dominate its Nasrid structures. Later, as a courtier and ambassador, Mendoza visited cities and princely courts in Flanders, England, Germany, Italy and as far as Hungary. Before ever seeing New Spain he was imbued with the importance of urban architecture, and as part of his new responsibilities he considered it indispensable to ‘[take from Castile] with him many master craftsmen to ennoble his provinces, especially Mexico,’ as well as his copy of Alberti.3 Amongst a wide range of advice that he might have noticed in the De re aedificatoria was Alberti’s assurance that architecture was a function of town planning and towns expressed the politics and constitution of society.4 Mendoza revealed his interest in urbanism almost immediately after his arrival in Mexico City. First, he commanded that the simple plan drawn up by Alonso García Bravo – Cortés’s ‘good geometrician’ – to retrace the axial avenues of Tenochtitlan, should be reoriented according to the rationale of cosmographers like Alonso de Santa Cruz – the viceroy’s friend and correspondent in Castile. Nor did the viceroy’s ideal urban plan brook any incidental nostalgia: he requested, and received permission from the crown in a royal cédula 1 Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa, La ciudad de México y la Utopía en el siglo xvi (Mexico: Seguros de México, 1987), p. 71ff and his ‘Antonio de Mendoza y el urbanismo en México’ in Cuadernos de arquitectura virreinal 2:2–19, (Mexico: unam, 1984). 2 Helen Nader, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance 1350–1550 (New Brunswick, nj: Rutgers University Press, 1979) Ch. 6, passim. 3 Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés the life of the conqueror by his secretary, ed. and trans. Lesley B. Simpson (Berkley: University of California Press, 1965), 405. 4 Franco Borsi, Leon Battista Alberti (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977), 14.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_009

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dated 23rd August 1538, to dismantle the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan that Cortés had left standing, though desecrated, ‘for memory’ – perhaps as a future bell-tower adapted from its original purpose, like the Giralda of Seville, which had been a minaret.5 Instead the viceroy’s master craftsmen and teams of indigenous builders would produce ‘the most perfect city of its day, according to the prevailing aesthetic.’6 Recent arrivals from Europe admired Mexico for its straight and wide avenues, squares, water supply and buildings of uniform height. The City’s setting in the lake of a highland basin, ‘mountain crowned,’ most spectacularly by the snow-capped volcanoes to its south-east, added to its majesty.7 Urban reconstruction was costly: Motolinía described the restoration of Mexico City as the seventh plague to afflict its indigenous population.8 Despite the evident sacrifice, however, the conversion of Tenochtitlan into the Mendozan Mexico City acted like a template that the leaders of indigenous polities and new mixed settlements across New Spain could use to demonstrate their conformity with the viceregal administration. The exceptional scale of urban reconstruction in New Spain during the mid-sixteenth century, and the similarity of its physical results throughout the kingdom, speak to a sustained common purpose that went beyond the Renaissance ideals of an educated viceroy.9 If Alberti was right in thinking that towns reflected the politics and constitution of a society (as at least some of his contemporaries believed), then the scale and nature of New Spain’s urban transformation reveals, quantifiably, the extent to which the kingdom’s population intended to adhere to the norms of its viceregal government. Indigenous leaders relied on the help of friars and a host of experts, like the ‘Roman knight’ and viceregal agent, Luis de León Romano, who directed part of the urbanistic effort in Michoacán and Oaxaca.10 5 6

Tovar y de Teresa, ‘Antonio de Mendoza y el urbanismo en México,’ 19. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ‘Latin America’ in Peter Clark ed., The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 370. 7 Francisco Cervantes de Sálazar, México en 1554 y túmulo imperial, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Porrúa, 1972), ‘2nd dialogue,’ for example, suggests as much. See Barbara E. Mundy, The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015), for elements of Mexico City as a manifestation of utopian Franciscan ideals, 116; and it as a ‘New Rome,’ 121–27. 8 Toribio de Benavente or Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de Nueva España, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Porrúa, 1973), 17. 9 Mundy, Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, 122–25. 10 Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, La vida michoacana en el siglo xvi. Catálogo de los documentos del siglo xvi del Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de Pátzcuaro (México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1999), esp. 221f.

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Contemporary European cities, where one might expect the greatest enthusiasm for Renaissance ideals, could rarely muster resources or political will to attempt transformations to their existing urban infrastructure on a similar scale to Mexico City and its imitators in New Spain. Seville’s ambition of becoming a ‘New Rome’ through architectural innovation after hosting Charles v’s wedding in 1526, faltered after the royal court departed; leaving only a few architecturally incongruous and incomplete results, like the marble ayuntamiento or a new residence in the Alcázar, amongst its haphazard accretion of structures and the narrow streets that wound around them.11 Even European cities that, like Tenochtitlan, were damaged by war were rarely rebuilt as idealistically as was the Mendozan capital of New Spain – with the possible exception of Valletta after the siege of 1565. Renaissance innovations in major ­European towns tended to amount to ad hoc initiatives to rebuild individual palaces and churches or, exceptionally, individual neighbourhoods, like the ones that grew around the via Giulia in Rome or the strada Nuova in Genoa. The most notable examples of ‘ideal cities’ in Europe were newly built and small in scale: defensive outposts or provincial experiments like Sabbioneta and Sforzinda in Italy, Zamość in Poland and Santa Fe in Andalusia. Unlike Mexico City, Seville and Rome were never conquered in this period and appended to a new monarchy (though Rome was sacked severely in 1527 for about a month leading to a decrease of its population from around 55,000 to 10,000). But this difference does not explain the extent of Mesoamerica’s urban transformation either. Conquest rarely leads to such a rapid transformations. As the giralda and its frequent counterparts in other Andalusian towns suggest, Castilian kings of the Reconquista were unable to transform reconquered towns to the same degree as occurred in New Spain – in part due to their policies of forced depopulation of Muslim inhabitants, which had no parallel in Mesoamerica. After New Spain, Peru was the next most densely populated territory of Castile’s American monarchy in the sixteenth century and its urban development offers a an illustrative contrast. The rectilinear layout that Francisco Pizarro drew up for his proposed capital at Lima (then known as Ciudad de los Reyes) followed the practical logic of the military castrum rather than the precepts of Alberti and Vitruvius: as one might expect from a functionally illiterate conquistador whose experience was limited to planning (if not constructing)

11

Vicente Lleó Cañal, Nueva Roma: mitología y humanismo en el Renacimiento sevillano (­Sevilla: Diputación Provincial, 1979).

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other settlements in the Caribbean.12 Like most earlier Spanish settlements in the Americas, but unlike Mexico City, Lima was a new city that stood on the sea-shore to guarantee maritime access to Europe: in Mexico’s highland basin, rivers flowed inwards to feed its lakes; and the only other main exception to this pattern was Santa Fé de Bogota, whose various re-incarnations, however, despite being away from the shore-line, stood near the Magdalena river, which at the time was navigable all the way to the Caribbean.13 The difference in intention between building a castrum and refashioning a city along renaissance lines mattered: Lima was the product of practical strategy, whereas Mexico City represented a conversion. Unlike New Spain’s urban transformation, which has been described as ‘organic,’ Peru’s Spanish authorities were forced to recognise that their attempts at compelling the ‘reduction’ or ‘congregation’ of indigenous polities beyond Lima into urban units that Spaniards might recognise as towns had failed by the 1570s.14 Societies tend to adopt and enact new ideas only in so far as they correspond to their practical needs – especially if they are as costly as urban transformation. In New Spain those needs were political: after the violence of the Conquest and the illegitimacy of its early political arrangements – New Spain’s original sin – political actors sought to redeem their status or the political coherence of their communities in order to ensure stability and social peace. The builders of New Spain’s converted urban centres were the same indigenous leaders and preponderant Spanish settlers who established its consensual political practices as they sought enfranchisement into the viceregal regime. Like their buildings, their adherence to the viceroys’ authority created political norms that deviated from the various political traditions of their ancestors. It was not a pure understanding of political theory or Albertian ideals that gave content to the form of viceregal government or the buildings that rose under its tutelage, but rather the quotidian practices of the viceroys’ court and the loyalties it generated. 12

13 14

Francisco López de Gómara certainly believed that the castrum was the underlying model for American settlement, see his Cortés the life of the conqueror by his secretary, ed. and trans. Lesley B. Simpson (Berkley: University of California Press, 1965), 405. George Kubler, ‘Mexican Urbanism in the Sixteenth Century’ in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 24, No. 2 (June 1942), 160–71, esp. 162, n. 21. Peter Gose, ‘Converting the Ancestors: Indirect rule, settlement consolidation and the struggle over burial in colonial Peru, 1532–1614’ in Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton eds., Conversion: Old Worlds and New (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2003), 149–50. See also Mundy, Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, esp. 99–103.

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The converted urban centres of New Spain were a physical expression of its coherent political culture. When indigenous artists (almost certainly from Tlatelolco) drew a map of Mexico City – known today as the Uppsala Map – they represented the Indio and Spanish sections of the city as distinct, but living peacefully side-by-side, like the two republics into which the viceroys liked to divide the population of New Spain.15 Unsurprisingly, the map-makers represented the city’s convents with particular prominence: especially their own Santiago de Tlatelolco, shown with a disproportionately large ‘atrial space’; though notable too are others, like San Francisco with its cross made from a sacred ahuehuete that towered above any other structure in the city (see Fig. 22). Authors like Cervantes de Salazar, and especially Fr. Diego de Valadés described, in loving detail, the singular nature of New Spain’s conventual atria – so reminiscent of a pre-Conquest tecpan’s courtyards in style and purpose – and explained to European strangers how they enclosed various didactic and communal activities, while their open-air chapels hosted unprecedented forms of Christian devotion, suited to indigenous devotional expectations (see Fig. 12).16 Grand houses belonging to unnamed Spaniards and named indigenous lords – ‘casa de Tapia,’ ‘Casa de don Pablo’ -17 appear in the Uppsala Map as more similar to each other than to the mass of huts that dot the city’s Indio districts. Inside such new-fangled palaces and civic buildings, bordering broad squares across New Spain, prominent indigenous families re-affirmed their old status and ‘new men’ from Castile sought to assert their newly-won dignity. Neither native nor European, but referring to both, these architectural expressions speak to the idealism of New Spain’s culture and to its privileged participants’ awareness that they were converts in the midst of creating ­something better than either their Iberian or Mesoamerican precedents (see Fig. 23). Like the usurping, ‘agonistic,’ Italian tyrants of the 15th century that Jacob Burckhardt identified as driving the Renaissance forward out of self-interest, New Spain’s viceregal regime and its collaborators sought to redeem their political illegitimacy behind a state conceived ‘as a work of art.’18 15 16

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Richard L. Kagan and Fernando Marías, Imagenes urbanas del mundo hispánico 1493–1780 (Madrid: Viseo, 1998), 111. Cervantes de Sálazar, México en 1554, 50–51; Carmen J. Alejos-Grau, Diego Valadés, educador de la Nueva España: ideas pedagógicas de la Rethorica Christiana (1579) (Pamplona: Ediciones Eunate, 1994). The ‘casa de Tapia’ almost certainly refers to the house of the indigenous interpreter Hernando de Tapia whose location is described in agn, Instituciones Coloniales/Tierras/16031/vol. 37 exp. 2 fs. 125. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (London: Penguin, 1990), ‘Part 1: The state as a work of art.’

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Law, Tribute and Bureaucracy

New Spain’s precocious urban transformation also illustrates the frequent primacy of ad hoc local arrangements over royal legislation in determining the nature of the Castilian monarchy in Mesoamerica. It was not until 1573 that the crown issued coherent ‘urban statutes’ that defined the grid-iron plan as the standard layout for Spanish settlements in the New World; and not until the early seventeenth century that it did the same for indigenous towns. It issued these statutes because most of its American settlements failed to conform to an ordered layout; except in New Spain, where ‘the greater part of the actual work of urbanization had already been achieved when the famous urban statutes were devised in the last third of the century.’19 New Spain’s urban conversion occurred independently of royal legislation. Nor is it obvious that without New Spain’s example – especially the much vaunted qualities of Mexico City – the crown would have insisted on extending that particular ­urbanistic ideal to its other American domains. Recent arrivals to New Spain, with metropolitan expectations about the workings of its administration, found the political and judicial practices they encountered strikingly peculiar. In the mid-1540s, Tello de Sandoval, for example, concluded that ‘20 leagues outside Mexico there is little justice or none at all … I am told that there are parts where the Indios consider as kings the señores (local Indian lords) and encomenderos of their towns and know no other king.’20 Contrary to traditional historiographical conceptions of the ‘Spanish Empire,’ New Spain was never a blank slate where the crown ‘starting from scratch’ was ‘better placed than in the Iberian Peninsula, with its accretion of historic municipal privileges and corporate rights, to create a system of government directly dependent on imperial control.’21 Far from confident, the royal administration in Castile was often confounded by the unprecedented problems thrown up by its overseas expansion, and by the diversity of new-fangled rights and practices that its various subjects demanded. Most of the population of New Spain, for most of the time, lived and operated under ancestral legal norms and political traditions of their specific indigenous polities. As we have seen in preceding chapters their autonomy was greater than that of Iberian municipal units; and so was the variety of ancestral customs that the viceroys 19 20 21

Kubler, ‘Mexican Urbanism in the Sixteenth Century,’ 164. agi Gobierno Mexico 68, R.12, N.34, Tello de Sandoval letter to prince Philip, 19 September 1545. John H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492–1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 127.

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Figure 22 Much praised by Spanish visitors, Mexico was ‘the most perfect city of its day, according to the prevailing aesthetic.’ In the Uppsala Map artists, almost certainly from Tlatelolco, display their pride in its new layout; their convent of Santiago de Tlatelolco and the grand palaces of its principal citizens – Spanish and Indio. reproduced with permission from Uppsala University.

accepted. Indigenous polities trusted primarily in the unofficial authority of mendicant friars, and in personal negotiations with the viceroy to link them meaningfully to the Castilian monarchy. The viceroys and their agents respected their autonomy so long as it did not conflict overtly with loyalty to the crown, as defined by the viceroys, or Christianity, at least in its adapted Mesoamerican form.22 Even their Spanish subjects made unusual demands based on titles like conquistador or encomendero and poblador whose meaning changed over time and bore little relation to archaic eponymous titles in Castile. If we look beyond later theoretical tracts that described Castile’s domains in terms familiar to jurists from Roman imperial precedents,23 we can see instead that New Spain’s legislative and political practice was largely self-contained. 22 23

María J. Sarabia Viejo, Don Luis de Velasco, virrey de Nueva España, 1550–1564 (Seville: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1978), 27. For a recent survey see e.g. Anthony Pagden, The Burdens of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), ‘Introduction.’

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Figure 23 Mexico City’s new urban aesthetic served as a model for the urban conversion of polities that wished to demonstrate their adherence to New Spain’s political culture in the sixteenth century. reproduced with permission from the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin.

Nor does the classification of New Spain as merely an appendage of Castile, and therefore governed by the same laws – unlike Habsburg brother-kingdoms such as Naples that were governed by the aeque principaliter – represent its

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actual practices.24 Laws in the Castilian Monarchy did not exist in the realm of ‘the state’ independently of the king or the individuals he authorised to represent his authority: there was no neat division between the ‘Spanish state, the colonial bureaucracy and society.’25 The viceroys were not senior civil servants sent merely to implement laws promulgated in Castile and to manage a Weberian modern bureaucracy defined by its bureaucratic rules,26 nor did they see themselves as such. Mendoza and Velasco had attributes that were primarily political, not legalistic or bureaucratic. Their main struggle was to create for themselves a position of consensual authority in New Spain that the Castilian crown would recognize as legitimate. The fate of the so-called New Laws of 1542 is illustrative of the importance of Mendoza’s political role in New Spain. Here was a rare occasion when the crown formulated a coherent legislative package with a clear intention of imposing a particular course of action. In Peru the legislative programme was due to be implemented by a new viceroy, Blasco Núñez de Vela, who enjoyed no local authority. The result was Gonzalo Pizarro’s armed insurrection at the head of furious encomenderos who defied royal authority for four years. When the crown promised to suspend the most egregious clauses of the legislation, Pizarro’s forces first dwindled in numbers, and were then defeated in battle. In New Spain, by contrast, Mendoza was able to forestall any violence by suspending the most offensive clauses of the New Laws while further negotiations proceeded with the crown.27 These negotiations dragged on for the next two decades, but by the time the crown came to rule against the encomenderos, Velasco had reached an accommodation­with them, whereby he would compensate them directly from the treasury, in exchange for their abandonment of pretensions to lordly autonomy. The underlying principle behind the much quoted practice of obeying the law but not complying with it was that a lex inusta non est lex. In New Spain the 24

Javier B. Grandon, ‘El cursus de la jurisdicción letrada en las Indias (s. xvi–xvii),’ in coord. Feliciano Barrios, Un gobierno de un mundo: virreinatos y audiencias en la América hispana (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004); Lara Semboloni, ‘La Construccion de la autoridad virreinal en Nueva España, 1535–1595,’ 2 vols, (PhD diss., Colegio de México, 6 November 2007), Vol. 2, p. 4. 25 Horst Pietschmann, El estado y su evolución al principio de la colonización española de América (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989), 182; Alejandro Cañeque, The king’s living image: the culture and politics of viceregal power in colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge, 2004). 26 Max Weber, Economy and Society, eds. Günther Roth and Claus Wittich (London: University of California Press, 1978), 212ff. 27 Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World, 132.

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justice of a case was discovered in the negotiations carried out at the viceregal court. The burgeoning kingdom’s original sin and its diverse, often antagonistic, populations meant that there were no common ancestral norms or judicial practices that the entire population recognised as legitimate. Furthermore, the abstract legislation that distant Castilian jurists composed in the name of the king was not an effective substitute to a common legal adherence. In this sense, the ‘spirit’ of the law in New Spain can be said to resemble more the ‘common law’ tradition of deferring to the wisdom of previous judgements by recognized authorities, than the universalising assertions of Roman law. This is what Jerónimo López meant by stating that Mendoza knew the land’s ‘secret’ arrangements, and Motolinía by stating that ‘The viceroy and the audiencia who reside in Mexico represent the person of the emperor and great monarch Charles v, guiding and governing the land and administering justice.’28 Recent studies demonstrate that viceregal commands from Mexico City were far more numerous and relevant than those issued by the crown in Castile, confirming the largely self-contained nature of justice in New Spain.29 In accordance with this spirit, Mendoza established a practice, which his successors adopted, of recording his commands in books that were kept on hand at the palace. (Most of Mendoza’s commands are lost, but those of his successors survive, probably, as the ‘ramo de mercedes’ in Mexico City’s Archivo General de la Nación).30 The record of previous negotiations prevented the viceroy from ruling on the same matter twice and served as a precedent for his dealings with specific polities, regions or ethnic groups.31 The varying fortunes of what Lewis Hanke named Spain’s ‘struggle for justice in the conquest of America’ suggest how important was the participatory political process that developed under the viceroys in generating consent and compliance amongst the principal citizens of New Spain.32 Mendicants had spoken out against the outrages that Spanish settlers committed on native populations since the establishment of the first Castilian settlements in the Canaries. They often persuaded the crown to legislate in their favour, as in the ­promulgation of the Laws of Burgos (1513) after Fr. Antonio de M ­ ontesinos 28 29 30

31 32

ene, Vol. v, Doc. 256; Motolinía, Historia, 142. Semboloni, ‘La construcción de la autoridad virreinal,’ ‘Conclusiones.’ Rodrigo Martínez Baracs, ‘Los libros de gobierno de don Antonio de Mendoza y don Luis de Velasco’ in Michoacán en el último libro de gobierno novohispano de don Antonio de Mendoza, 1550 (Mexico: Yeuetlatolli, 1998). vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, ‘Diferencias de indios.’ Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949).

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accused the encomenderos of Hispaniola of un-Christian abuses. But distance and local interests made it difficult to implement and enforce such legislation over unwilling settlers and rightly suspicious natives. The indigenous population of Mesoamerica was denser than anywhere else in the New World, which would have allowed it to better resist Spanish attempts at domination, but without a political solution, this would have implied a continual recourse to violence. More importantly, unlike other parts of Castile’s monarchy in this period, New Spain’s enfranchised Indios and their sympathisers were able to assert their rights and defend them effectively at the viceregal court without having to risk a violent rebellion. The viceroys were bound to honour and uphold any agreements they reached under their aegis, at least for the sake of their future authority and often out of conviction. As a matter of practicality Mendoza concluded that the Indios ‘are neither simple and innocent nor full of vice but are just like any other race and should be treated as such’:33 anticipating Las Casas’ more famous neo-stoic assertion that ‘all the peoples of the world are human,’34 though Mendoza concluded from this that their concerns ‘can only be resolved with knowledge of the people and business involved.’ In 1555 even Las Casas conceded, grudgingly, that ‘the only place where cruelties have diminished is in Mexico: there we find justice and public inhumanities are not tolerated, though tributary exactions are still immense and unbearable, but homicides are not frequent.’35 A decade later Valderrama complained that ‘more is given to [the Indians] here than Las Casas asks for there.’36 In a furious letter against the generalising accusations of Las Casas, Motolinía, who had long participated in his adopted land’s political process, unlike the absentee bishop of Chiapas, wrote that he remembered well ‘in years past, after Your Majesty sent don Antonio de Mendoza, the lords and principal [indigenous] men of this kingdom assembled and solemnly and of their own free will again gave their obedience to Your Majesty for being in our holy faith, free from wars and sacrifices, and in peace and justice.’37 It was not the Castilian crown’s good intentions that made the difference, but the enfranchisement of 33 34

vea, ‘Mendoza,’ Doc. 5, ‘Tocante a Indios.’ Bartolomé de Las Casas, Obras Completas, Vol. 7, ‘Apologética Historia Sumaria ii,’ ed. Vidal Abril Castelló (Madrid: Alianza editorial, 1992), 536–37. 35 George Kubler, Mexican Arquitecture of the 16th century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 23, from Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Yndias (1552). 36 cjv, 68. 37 Motolinía, Historia, ‘Carta de Fr. Toribio de Motolinia al Emperador Carlos v. Enero 2 de 1555,’ 211.

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Indio p ­ rincipal citizens and their mendicant allies into the political process of viceregal government that upheld indigenous rights.38 Nominally the crown employed judicial procedures like visitas and trials of residencia to hold its officials to account. In practice these procedures were subsumed under political ends both in Castile and New Spain. The whole tenor of a visita had less to do with demonstrating a particular official’s adherence to or violation of particular laws than with determining either the benefits or disservice of their actions to the good of the crown and commonwealth. For those that the visitador involved in the process, participation became a political act in itself as they were granted an opportunity to air their grievances and promote their agendas before a direct representative of royal justice. Nuño de Guzmán, for example, declaimed the political motivations that lay behind such nominally judicial proceedings: ‘I beg that you do not look at the surface of what appears in these charges’ he pleaded with the king from prison in 1537 ‘but to the manner which has been followed in taking them, and the animus that existed in taking them … and the nature of this land where if a hundred witnesses are needed to condemn one, they can find them, and the same again to save him.’39 Hortuño de Ibarra explained in a letter to the crown that the attacks he suffered for his friendship with Velasco and his recent appointment as veedor and factor instead of García de Albornoz, were part of a competition for preferment in New Spain that Valderrama’s visita had exacerbated.40 In discharging the duties of his office, a viceroy or any other official could discriminate in favour of family and friends, and could even use their position to enrich themselves. These actions became objectionable only when they were shown to have been committed purely for personal gain and to the detriment of the crown, in which case they were classified as corruption. It was this form of corruption that visitadores and judges in trials of residencia tried to prove. Inevitably the judgements they made in this regard had to do with the intentions, merits or faults in an individual’s actions; like the reasons for why the viceroy chose to appoint an individual to an office and the consequences of such an action. In other words visitadores judged the discharge of an indi38

39 40

For richly detailed works on indigenous influence on the development of royal legislation in the Americas see: Jovita Baber, ‘Law, land, and legal rhetoric in colonial New Spain: A look at the changing rhetoric of indigenous Americans in the sixteenth century’ in Saliha Belmessous, Native claims: indigenous law against empire, 1500–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); 41–61. Yanna Yannakakis, ‘Indigenous People and Legal Culture in Spanish America,’ History Compass, Vol. 11, Issue 11 (November 2013), 931–47. cdi, Vol. 2, Doc. 107, 13 February 1537. agi Gobierno México 323, 1 May 1562, Hortuño de Ibarra, ‘Cargos y expedientes de oficiales reales de México.’

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vidual’s duties according to political criteria – analogous to how electorates judge the choices of their politicians – and not based on their adherence to the letter of royal commands or the evolving norms of Castilian law. This form of oversight had an effect on the political ethos of New Spain. Favouritism was an inescapable aspect of the viceroys’ courtly style of ‘government by confidence.’ Despite his youth, for example, Francisco de Ibarra was given enormous scope to carve out an autonomous governorship in New Vizcaya because the Ibarra were close to Velasco, much to the chagrin of old conquistadores like Diego de Colio who had carved out the North-West frontier in New Galicia.41 However the viceroys were not sovereign. Their authority was informal and consequently it was fragile, mitigating many of the excesses that are still associated with fully-fledged autocrats – and which the recovered works of Tacitus, and to some extent the extinction of many Italian republics by usurping princes, had brought into contemporary political discourse. Mendoza elevated Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from a courtier to the governor of New Galicia and captain of the most prestigious expedition of the time. It was only the latter’s failure in that expedition which undid him and damaged the viceroy’s reputation. It was always possible for rival royal officials and magnates of New Spain (whose direct dependence on the viceroy gave them a theoretical autonomy), or Castilians at the royal court to challenge viceregal authority – particularly during visitas.42 To avoid presenting their rivals with any obvious vulnerability, viceroys needed to justify their preferences both to the touchy, competitive members of New Spain’s elite, like Colio, and to the suspicious crown across the Atlantic. Viceroys, therefore, went to great effort to show that their favour served the interests of the crown in New Spain (if not necessarily the letter of its legislation) and not just their own. Favourites were shown to deserve their rewards because their contributions to their particular ‘republic’ were greater than those of other potential claimants. After all a viceroy’s household dependants, like Guerrero, were not supplanting professional bureaucrats in these offices, but rather what their accusers in the visitas considered more ‘deserving’ individuals, like ‘true’ conquistadores or their families. The members of viceregal entourages were at least as able to discharge administrative offices as conquistadores and needy settlers that their accusers suggested should have occupied these positions instead. For the viceroys, selecting household dependants and other trusted individuals served a dual 41 42

John H. Parry, The audiencia of Nueva Galicia: a study in Spanish colonial government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 89f. Frank J. Moreno, ‘The Spanish Colonial System: A Functional Approach’ in Western Political Quarterly 20 (June, 1967), 308–20.

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function: they could be more certain that these individuals would carry out their instructions; and it allowed them to enfranchise their collaborators as principal citizens of New Spain. This not only fulfilled the viceroy’s obligations as patrons but also proved expedient for the exercise of their power. There was a risk that viceregal favour could become excessively restricted when those whom the viceroys judged to be ‘good republicans’ received the best opportunities to perform further meritorious services, justifying the best future mercedes to the exclusion of others. In practice, the fact that the viceroy’s authority could always be contested mitigated such excesses: In the words of Andrés de Tapia, Mendoza could sometimes ‘do more for some than for others’ but he had to ‘honour everyone … and harm no-one,’ meaning that he could not ignore the basic ‘treasury of merit’ accumulated by conquistadores and only reward his adherents – or for that matter the rights of nobles, indigenous lords, officials and clergy – if he wanted to avoid trouble.43 Some studies of this period have concluded that the flexibility with which New Spain’s administration and society regarded royal law amounted to a form of corruption: an inevitable companion to any imperfect human institution, however modern the intention, with the added sting that: ‘… corruption in America took on the character of a system and it will be necessary to explain it in terms of a more or less permanent tension between the Spanish state, the colonial bureaucracy and colonial society.’44 However, this judgement is anachronistic: the royal legislation did not aim to create a framework for statebuilding; nor did it seek to create rules for a modern bureaucracy: there was no dichotomy between bureaucracy and society. Instead royal legislation was one benchmark amongst others for establishing the legitimacy of competing ­political agendas and ideas about justice and good government. The intentions of the crown might not always accord with the local perception of the merit of the accused and its logic often responded to the political interests of the Castilian royal court. This discordance was even a problem in Castile, where the resentment against what was perceived as unjust royal interference was best expressed in the popular expression las cuentas del capitán (‘the captain’s reckoning’), which denoted the crown’s unfair suspicion of a faithful vassal, and derived from the politically motivated trial of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba

43

Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España. (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), Doc. xxvii. 44 Pietschman, El estado y su evolución, 182.

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‘el gran capitán’ in the early sixteenth century.45 A similar resentment is e­ vident in New Spain following Tello de Sandoval’s visita. ‘In 15 years of service,’ complained Mendoza from Peru in a letter of 1551 that some have judged as bordering on treasonable, ‘the manner of government has been altered three times, each so different from the other that one has been opposite to the other.’ The enfranchised inhabitants of New Spain agreed and bemoaned the instability that royal interference caused in their body politic: according to Bernal Díaz del Castillo ‘in this way we go on like a lame mule from bad to worse; from one viceroy to another and from governor to governor.’46 Some of Mendoza’s fiercest critics during the visita – encomenderos like Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia or Andrés de Tapia – who had not benefited from Mendoza as much as they believed they deserved – eventually turned on the visitador and participated in a last epistolary campaign intended to vindicate Mendoza and assure the nomination of his son Francisco, ‘el Indio’ as his successor.47 These appeals proved unsuccessful. The crown used the visita to deny Mendoza and other high officials in New Spain the unwritten Castilian precedent that certain offices could be held in perpetuity and even inherited to descendants: as Tejada had argued salaried officials and oidores could consider their ‘benefice as if it were perpetual with the rights of a citizen (vecino) and can therefore own property and businesses like in other audiencias and councils.’48 Valderrama’s visita would have had similar consequences for Velasco, had the viceroy not died before its completion. Instead, it succeeded in discrediting the mendicant orders whose influence declined after his visita and creating the conditions for the disorders and violence of the mid-1560s.49 Viceroys and the audiencias could launch judicial visitas and residencias of their own in New Spain, which replicated the crown’s political intentions, but for their own courtly ends. Mendoza and Velasco oversaw the trials of the administrators that had preceded them and used the opportunity to stamp their authority in the land. Equally, proceedings like the one Mendoza attempted against Alvarado and Pérez de la Torre or more dramatically the manoeuvrings and conflicts occasioned by Lebrón de Quiñones’ visita of New Galicia were 45 46 47 48 49

Guillermo García Valdecasas, Fernando el Católico y el Gran Capitán (Granada: Comares, 1988), 23f. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 6; Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Conquista de la Nueva España, intro. J. Ramírez Cabañas (Mexico: Porrúa, 1974), 589. Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes, Docs xxiii and xxvii. ene, Vol. v, Doc. 260, lic. Tejada to the marqués de Mondéjar president of the council of the Indies, 24 April 1547, 27ff. John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 39.

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viceregal attempts at asserting their dominance over the distant reaches of their kingdom or affecting royal policy.50 As with much else in New Spain, however, such internal judicial ­proceedings acquired a character that was particular to New Spain’s political culture. A ­ lonso de Sosa and other royal officials explained, for example, that corregidores ­tended to act in the interests of the indigenous towns they were sent to administer, rather than the royal treasury, because ‘they aimed to keep the Indians happy for anything that they might need from them and because they might ask for their support in their residencias and for this reason they are always their partisans and favour their affairs.’51 The residencias of the corregidores did not prompt an enforcement of the bureaucratic rules, but rather fostered the p ­ olitical culture of New Spain. The main incentive for the corregidores was to ensure that the viceroys considered them to be ‘good republicans,’ which would have been difficult without the goodwill of their indigenous charges. They presented their actions in accordance with the perceived attitudes of the viceroy and the friars in their role as intermediaries with the indigenous population. Sosa, like others, argued that the administration could do without corregidores altogether and with far fewer – ‘three or four’ – o­ fficials to ­oversee greater districts.52 However, no viceroy could dispense with all these offices because they needed them to reward, or at least maintain, a large number of deserving Spaniards. Sosa was ignored, illustrating how New Spain’s viceregal regime did not strive for bureaucratic efficiency but for viable political ­arrangements that satisfied local needs. The extraction of tribute from the nominally subject indigenous population of New Spain has often been touted as an archetypal feature of Castile’s imperial government. As we discussed, a local political logic rather than bureaucratic norms determined the level of tributary assessments and its subsequent distribution. The crown’s failed attempt to reform how tribute was assessed in 1558 illustrates how its bureaucratic commands were ineffective if they did not count on local consent.53 After Velasco’s death in 1564 Puga and Valderrama felt unimpeded in their efforts to implement the royal reforms, but, as the deceased viceroy had warned them, and his surviving allies continued to 50 Parry, The audiencia of New Galicia, 72–87. 51 agi Gobierno México 323, Alonso de Sosa, Antonio de la Cadena and Juan Velázquez de Salazar to the Crown, 2 March 1552. 52 Ibid. 53 See, e.g., Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, ‘Quelle fut la stratification sociale au Mexique­durant la première moitié du XVIe siècle?’ in Annales. Économies, Sociétés, C ­ ivilisations. 18ᵉ année, N. 2, (1963), 226–58.

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insist, any attempt at imposing these changes without gaining the consent of the indigenous nobility was doomed to failure. Soon after the letrados tried to impose the crown’s new tributary measures, indigenous principales, claiming that they had been ‘made to feel like macehuales,’ refused to collect any more tribute.54 Powerfull lords of polities whose cooperation was essential began taking to the hills to avoid punishment or merely refused to cooperate with the letrados in the face of this betrayal of past agreements. It did not take long for Puga and Valderrama to realise that their tributary income was falling, while the risk of a violent indigenous rebellion was increasing. The oidores admitted defeat and accepted that there was no way to collect tribute according to the royal dictates of 1558, or to maintain the ‘good government and Christianity’ of the polities without the cooperation of the indigenous nobility.55 Indigenous tribute (in kind, money or labour) was essential for the survival of New Spain as a polity – even experiments in self-sufficiency like Puebla came to rely on the labour of neighbouring indigenous polities to survive; while miners or other entrepreneurs thrived, initially at least, thanks to assigned indigenous labour.56 The viceroys had always known that they could only determine an acceptable rate of tribute in negotiations with indigenous principals. Such flexibility was particularly important because it took account of unpredictable circumstances like the toll that recurrent bouts of epidemics had at various times and on different regions of New Spain (particularly as they were followed by agricultural desolation, migration and economic dislocations); or exceptional needs of the viceregal administration, such as funding a war.57 Valderrama, however, also identified a political faction under Velasco’s aegis who were ideologically committed to reducing the rate of indigenous tribute.58 Tribute was still paid primarily in kind but it was given an estimated monetary value by officials in Mexico City, where it was either consumed or sold at market to convert it into coin.59 As the amount of tribute diminished, however, its monetary value increased in response to a rapid price inflation.60 This ­explains the apparent rise in tributary income that officials registered 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

agi Gobierno México, Hortuño de Ibarra, 8 March 1565. cjv, 136–37, agi Gobierno México 323, 6 December 1565. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5; agi Gobierno Mexico 323, three consecutive letters from Mendoza to the King in defence of miners. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5, El provecho y renta principal es la que dan los Españoles. cjv, 211f. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 2. Ibid.

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­throughout the period: less produce was arriving in Mexico City but its monetary value was greater. By the end of our period royal officials claimed that the prices of some products had risen four-fold during the span of 42 years in which their official salaries had remained unchanged.61 Officials, indigenous lords, and encomenderos all complained of decreasing incomes that were inadequate to their perceived status. As we have seen, the viceroys made up the shortfall with extra-official disbursements and more salaried positions. Mendoza claimed that within a few years of his government there were more worthy claimants than offices available to reward them with.62 As the royal officials also noted, ‘corregidores and alcaldes mayores especially … could not support themselves for more than half the year on their salaries and given their necessity the viceroy supplements their income from the quitas y vacaciones fund, as he also grants mercedes and subsidies to the sons and wives of worthy but impoverished conquistadores and settlers …’63 Viceroy Peralta noted the nexus between office-holding, sustenance and viceregal grace as one of the exceptional features of New Spain: ‘and as the people of this land are in much need they do not wait for a man to come looking for them for this office [in the viceregal bodyguard] and that they be given a salary but rather they come to one’s presence and beg every day to be received.’64 Montaigne restated a commonplace, which had shaped people’s imagination regarding wealth since classical times when he wrote that ‘no profit is ever made except at somebody else’s loss.’65 More recently this view has been described as a zero-sum game. The political nation of New Spain was aware that it was living through a situation that was even more desperate and consequently their competition for a share of tribute became increasingly desperate. The king’s S­ panish vassals in New Spain already enjoyed exemption from tribute payments as a reward for their implicit services in settling in the New World: further viceregal disbursements to them could only be justified as the reward for military, civic or administrative merits. Alternatively if a ­deserving individual­was poor, or married with offspring the viceroy could justifiably 61 62 63 64 65

agi Gobierno México 323, Hortuño de Ibarra, 8 March 1565. vea, Mendoza, Doc. 5. agi Gobierno México 323, 2 April 1562. vea, Peralta, Doc. 2, Memorial 23 March 1567. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, 22. ‘One man’s profit is another man’s loss’, trans. M.A Screech (London: Penguin, 1991), 121. Montaigne seems to have used Seneca’s De Beneficiis as the principal source for this essay and quoted Lucretius as well. These references illustrate how ancient and deeply engrained was the notion of living in a ‘zerosum­game’ world throughout the western conceptual tradition arguably until the intellectualization of the industrial revolution.

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grant them mercedes for their sustenance. Wealth on the other hand could disqualify others from these rewards: regarding Velasco’s arrangements, for example, Valderrama complained that ‘[O]f those mentioned [in the list of office holders he drew up] most could be excused from office, some because they have very good Indians [in encomienda] and others because they are incapable …’66 Indio elites, and the mendicant communities they sustained, accrued their wealth from private estates and the remainder of the tribute generated by their community after subtracting whatever proportion they owed the crown (or, for part of our period, their encomendero). This corresponded to some extent to pre-Conquest imperial traditions in Mesoamerica. It also meant that the tributary incomes of the Spanish and indigenous elites were inversely proportional to each other and since they both depended on tribute for their sustenance, this inverse proportion encouraged competition between and amongst them to secure the viceroys’ favour. This competition should be seen as part of the more general definition of boundaries between the Indio and Spanish ‘republics.’ The dynamic it produced became a pillar of viceregal authority in Mesoamerica.

Principal Citizens and Viceregal Preponderance

Alberti advised that an orderly society was necessarily stable, hierarchical and specialised, with each individual playing a teleological role in it. A town’s buildings should echo this division and reinforce it in permanent structures: ‘A certain type of building is convenient for the whole community, another for the principal citizens and another for the people … these division are drawn from the first rudiments of the philosophers.’67 The Conquest and its immediate aftermath deprived New Spain of uncontested social and political hierarchies, but subsequent negotiations at its viceregal court gradually determined who would be considered a ‘principal citizen.’ If the ‘first rudiments of the philosophers’ played any part in this process, it was only in so far as the viceroys interpreted them in the context of local debates about political legitimacy, whose terms had been framed by New Spain’s original sin. In 1566 the new viceroy, Gastón de Peralta, marquis of Falces, observed some of the effects of his predecessors’ redemptive style of courtly government. Soon after taking up his post, Peralta wrote to the king observing, with some 66 67

cjv, 20. Leon Battista Alberti, L’Architettura [de re aedificatoria], trans. Giovanni Orlandi (Milano: Il Polifilo, 1966), Bk. iv, 270.

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surprise, how solicited he was by members of New Spain’s indigenous and Spanish elite. He considered the numbers of salaried officials excessive, and noted that even encomenderos asked for offices paid from the royal treasury. Indigenous lords petitioned him for changes to their polity’s tribute assessments; and pretentious friars, whom he considered díscolos, even apóstatas, for their unusual religiosity, expected more consideration of their views on government than he felt they deserved.68 Only two years had elapsed since Velasco’s death, during which time New Spain’s society fell into increasingly violent political instability. Juan Suárez de Peralta recalled that the heirs of Hernán Cortés and Velasco’s surviving relatives formed factions that competed for authority over New Spain, with recurrent brawls breaking out on the streets of Mexico City. Rumours of a supposed conspiracy centred around the Cortés and Ávila brothers to overthrow royal government in New Spain led to the appointment of two judges from Castile (the infamous Carrillo and Muñoz), whose excessive legalistic zeal in a society accustomed to exceptions and negotiation led to unprecedented abuses, persecution and repression. When Peralta, no doubt influenced by the stream of petitioners at his door, attempted a more conciliatory approach the judges convinced the crown to depose him. The indigenous diarist Juan Bautista, also noted that during this turbulent viceregal interregnum his duties as a tribute collector were plagued by violent resistance from the indigenous polities of Mexico City.69 New Spain came to be most fully realised as a political unit in the negotiations that took place at the viceroy’s court in Mexico City’s royal palace during the thirty years that preceded Peralta’s arrival. In a dialogue entitled Mexicus Interior, Cervantes de Salazar imagined that Alfarus, a newly arrived Castilian, would admire the site of these defining courtly encounters as ‘more like a city than a palace.’ Alfarus and his local companions marvelled at the Vitruvian columns that adorned the palace’s external façade, and the ‘sumptuous stone arcades … around several patios and gardens … and areas large enough that even horsemen can exercise’ inside. Like Axayacatl’s tecpan, on which it then stood, the palace encompassed a variety of private and public spaces: it housed the viceroy, oidores, treasury officials and their respective household dependants; hosted the royal mint and contained a jail (the royal palace moved to the 68 69

vea, Peralta, Doc. 2, Memorial del marqués de Falces sobre las condiciones en México, 23 March 1567. Juan Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. Silva Tena (Mexico: conaculta, 1990), 180–220; Juan Bautista, Anales de Juan Bautista: Cómo te confundes? acaso no somos conquistados? ed. Luis Reyes García (México: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios, Superiores en Antropología Social, 2001).

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site of Motecuhzoma’s new tecpan, known in our period as the casas nuevas of Cortés where Mexico’s current National Palace stands, after 1565). In its arcaded corridors and halls ‘litigants, agents of various affairs, attorneys, scribes and others’ gathered in groups to discuss affairs, before pursuing their various objectives so energetically that, according to Cervantes de Salazar’s Castilian newcomer, ‘they almost seem like madmen.’ Before these negociantes could reach the viceroy, either in the Sala del Real Acuerdo (Hall of Royal Accord) or in the viceroy’s personal chambers beyond, they had to go through a room lined with rows of benches, where busy scribes sorted through paperwork under the supervision of an individual that one of Cervantes de Salazar’s characters called the ‘tabellariorum praefectus.’ This officer is commonly translated as the master of the post but, in my view, he was the courtier in charge of sorting through written petitions and transcribing viceregal determinations, with the help of a team of scribes; making copies for the viceroy’s records and for the litigants to take home as evidence and justification. He was probably the same officer in charge of the ‘chambers of the secretaries [that assist the viceroy and the oidores],’ that the same author described in his Crónica, and who worked in the chamber that Zorita called ‘offices of the secretaries of government and crime.’70 According to Cervantes’ characters the viceroy could be found in the Hall of Royal Accord, ‘sitting on a velvet cushion’ atop a curule chair flanked by oidores, where they heard cases before a hierarchically arranged and disciplined audience. A passageway to the side led to the viceroy’s chambers. We know from incidental witness testimony in Tello de Sandoval’s visita that frescoes representing halberdiers flanked this entrance, and mayordomos, like Agustin Guerrero, controlled who could enter.71 Zorita described these chambers as the setting of less formal negotiations: ‘a very broad corridor, of twenty arches over a large and beautiful garden, where the viceroy likes to go and give audience to the petitioners (negociantes).’72 In these various chambers New Spain’s principal citizens came to regard Mendoza and Velasco as preponderant arbiters in resolving political disputes and guarantors of those agreements, especially those related to redeeming their original sin. Viceregal patronage legitimised the status of its beneficiaries and became a form of enfranchisement into New Spain’s political nation. Simultaneously, these courtly negotiations enhanced the authority of the 70 71 72

Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, Crónica de la Nueva España, ed. Manuel Magallón y Cabrera (Madrid: Atlas, 1971), Ch. 24. agi Justicia 258, testimony of Alonso Ortiz de Zuñiga to question 108. Alonso de Zurita, Historia de la Nueva España (Madrid: Librería general de V. Suárez, 1909), Ch. 12, 176.

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viceroys­as autonomous agents of government. For the inhabitants of New Spain the viceregal court in Mexico City served as a practical substitute to notions of the royal court as the ‘fount from which flowed all grace.’ The viceregal court’s importance in creating political legitimacy in New Spain meant that it played an even more decisive socio-political role than traditional European courts.73 Courtly routines developed a type of ‘identification’ between New Spain’s political nation and their viceroys. At the court ‘local actions and everyday interactions that classified people’ took place ‘allowing some to enjoy the benefits of the community while excluding others’: We need to abandon the quest for “identity” and examine instead processes of “identification,” that is, the processes through which people claimed to be or were identified as members of the community ... [T]he exercise of rights, rather than legal enactments or official declarations, defined the boundaries of early modern communities.74 In the space of the viceregal court, above all, the leaders of Mesoamerica’s two ‘republics,’ and the viceroys that headed them, identified with the idea that New Spain was their kingdom within the Habsburg monarchy. As López de Gómara observed ‘Mendoza would have preferred to remain in Mexico, with which he was now familiar; nor did he wish to leave the Indios, with whom he got on very well (they had cured him of the gout by means of baths and herbs) nor did he wish to give up his estates, cattle and other interests ….’75 Viceregal government became both desirable and increasingly indispensable for the elite of New Spain. In 1547 Alonso de Montemayor had argued from New Spain that were it not for ‘[Mendoza’s] good government and prudence and great guile that he has shown in everything I think that the land would be lost and worse in New Spain than in Peru.’ He suggested that all the Indies should be ruled by viceroys with good salaries and many mercedes to keep their dignity so that ‘no inhabitant believes he is more powerful than the oidores and the viceroys,’ but most importantly ‘may it please God that the viceroys and the oidores and the royal officials and your majesty’s criados were settled here and deeply rooted here and their sons and descendants too …’ because otherwise ‘the head and government of the república’ would be in the hands of ‘defective 73 74 75

José Martínez Millán ed., Instituciones y élites de poder en la monarquía hispana durante el siglo xvi (Madrid: Ediciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 1992), 17. Tamar Herzog, Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 6. López de Gómara, Cortés, 406.

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and self-interested men’ who would only want to make money and return to Castile.76 Jerónimo López never secured the encomienda he wanted from Mendoza, but even he advised the king that: ‘no-one equals [Mendoza] in public matters, he achieves more than anyone else here with his good judgement and his great experience …’77 New Spain’s principal citizens were more given to political polemic than political theory. However an unusually sophisticated document from the Archivo General de Indias, which has never been discussed, to my knowledge, suggests how the viceroys’ de facto supremacy spurred ideas (in this case fairly radical ones) about how New Spain should be organised.78 The authors of this undated and unsigned letter may have been friars, or people writing on their behalf, as they write of ‘religiosos’ and their praiseworthy service to God and king in the third person plural. Their missive is divided in two parts, entitled ‘On just titles and in favour of the indios’ (N. 208) and ‘On what your majesty should deal with in order to rescue the indios from the vexations they currently suffer’ (N. 209), each written in a different hand (the second is exceptionally neat, possibly because it is the report (un parecer) produced by the ‘letrados of New Spain’ (specifically not those of Castile) that is mentioned at the start of the first part). In the last sentence of the first part the authors also claim that what they have written so far was ‘what [the indios] now offer Your Majesty through us.’ Off-hand remarks in the texts suggest that the letter was written in the late 1540s, when the future of encomienda and the rights of indigenous lordship dominated political debate after the suspension of the New Laws and Gonzalo Pizarro’s uprising in Peru. The authors based their argument around the period’s recurrent concern to determine merit and resolve the political illegitimacy that resulted from New Spain’s original sin. The authors’ proposals reflect the appeal of Mendoza and Velasco’s gradual appropriation of powers and are an attempt to convince the crown to formalise and extend it. The king, they argued, should ‘place in his royal crown all the land of New Spain and all its vassals …’ rather than allocate any tribute or lordship to individuals, particularly encomenderos whose claims they regarded as entirely illegitimate. According to the authors’ calculations a moderate general tribute, based on thorough surveys of the population, would yield sufficient revenue to reward all of the kingdom’s most deserving inhabitants, whose relative merit would be determined after proper investigations 76 77 78

agi México 96, Don Alonso de Montemayor, 21 January 1547. ene, Vol. v, Doc. 256, 3. agi México 280, N. 208 and 209, ‘Sobre los justos titulos y en favor de los indios’ and ‘Lo que con su magestad se devia tractar para rescatar en algo a los indios de las vexaciones que se les hacen, es.’

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into their claims, directly from the royal treasury. In addition the crown could appoint them to ‘titles and honourable offices, such as regimientos or alcaldías in the capitals of the different kingdoms, which would be very convenient because so many would regard this as such a principal thing and merced that they would accept it without any salary beyond the recognition that the office brings,’ and with ‘granting them titles as guardians of the royal state (guardias del stado real) or something similar to continos (Castile’s royal guard) or whatever Your Majesty prefers.’ We can recognise in these proposals and their justification some of the fundamental practices of viceregal government and the problems they aimed to resolve. The viceroys appropriated control over the treasury through collusion with its officials and the development of the quitas y vacaciones fund in order to subsidise needy but deserving or useful settlers, while regulating the amount that each indigenous polity had to contribute. They also used the distribution of titles or offices to legitimise or ‘honour’­their most loyal and useful adherents, justifying their salary and enfranchisement into the political nation. The authors of this letter also echoed the viceroys’ strategies of employing adapted chivalric display and other signs of social stratification to foster a vassalic sense of loyalty with little financial cost, like Mendoza’s creation of the knights Tecles: the crown should grant ‘habits of Santiago or membership to other military orders … which [New Spain’s inhabitants] would take as a great merced from Your Majesty, and it would substitute easily for a good proportion of the income from the treasury that such individuals could lay claim to.’ In particular, the reforms that the authors of this letter proposed would render encomenderos, like other individuals with lordly pretensions, as no more than pensioners of the royal treasury in Mexico City, without any autonomous judicial or administrative rights, a feat that, as we have seen, the viceroys achieved in practice during this period as well.79 Crucially, such a centralisation of wealth and the capacity to appoint individuals to honours, offices and titles ‘as criados of Your Majesty’ would ‘oblige those that hold them to look to (acudir) your viceroy in every instance with all loyalty and in this way Your Majesty will be more powerful in this land, and justice and all the other concerns of this land will be treated with much greater respect than up till now.’ The reforms the authors proposed are exceptional for their comprehensive approach and because they were also intended to apply to Indio ‘caciques and natural lords … in order to free all towns and vassals from tyranny’ and ‘because Your Majesty is more obliged to safeguard and provide for what is good for [the Spaniards] and Indians rather than only what they desire with their disordered avarice.’ The crown could justify centralising these faculties on its 79

Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 134ff.

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Figure 24 In this enconchado panel, Motecuhzoma invites Cortés to occupy one of two equal thrones under a coat of arms, whose iconography was derived from the indigenous glyph for Tenochtitlan, and portraits of its former rulers. The scene foretells that New Spain would become a Kingdom composed of two parallel republics: of Indios and Spaniards; both headed by the viceroy from his seat at the same restored palace in Mexico City, in the name of Spain’s Catholic Monarchy. reporoduced with permission of the Prado Museum.

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Figure 25 A way of understanding New Spain is as Mexico City’s sub-empire. In this image Mexica forces march to conquer Florida under a flag bearing the arms that remain Mexico’s national emblem. CÓDICE OSUNA, FOLIO 470/8, reproduced with permission from the Biblioteca Nacional de España.

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viceroys based on the findings of a ‘report’ produced by the ‘letrados of New Spain’ that provided it with a ‘just and legitimate entitlement to collect servicio ordinario (direct tribute)’ from the Indios (suggesting that previous arguments by Castilian letrados had not resolved even that problem). The monarch was a ‘natural king [over the Indios] in the same way as he was over the Spaniards … because the land belongs to the Indios and they hold it ius gentium and people are free and neither the king nor the Pope can enslave them or turn them into vassals of some caballero that oppresses them, without committing a great injustice.’ Such observations recall the viceroys’ practice of operating as if he was the head (in the name of the king) of New Spain’s two autonomous republics. It followed that the Indios should be granted equal political rights and opportunities as those enjoyed by Spaniards to serve the crown in the expectation of rewards, including the right to own mines and private estates. Enfranchising the Indios brought practical benefits: ‘seeing themselves so favoured and protected by Your Majesty, the Indios, who are by nature so grateful, would gladly sell their property to serve Your Majesty and they would acquire such great love that they would contribute to the payment of tribute (sirvieran ordinariamente) with everything they had.’ With an example that suggests how untethered from Castilian precedent New Spain had become, they added: ‘by governing in this way, without giving any individual neither city, nor town, nor vassal, the Turk has all his land subjected and secure, and by appointing very well salaried governors …’ The authors of this document, like other members of New Spain’s political nation, considered themselves free participants of the Habsburg monarchy, able to shape its political and legal arrangements; not unreflective bureaucrats or impassive subjects, limited in their faculties to either obeying orders from an inaccessible monarch, or rebelling against them. Their radical view of viceregal government recalls that which Valderrama attributed to the so-called alumbrados of New Spain we discussed in a previous chapter. In 1563 the issues that concerned them – perpetuity of encomienda and indigenous tributary dues – returned to the fore at a juncture when: oidor Vasco de Puga turned against Velasco and attempted to enforce a more formal tributary assessment on the indigenous polities; Montúfar was conducting a campaign to substitute mendicant authority; Martín Cortés was making his presence felt as a rival magnate to the viceroy by courting the encomenderos; and the crown announced Valderrama’s visita. At this unstable juncture, the leaders of the Republic of Indios, showed themselves prepared to argue for their advantage as well: they proposed to Philip ii that in exchange for a servicio of 2,400,000d, to be paid over 5 years, all indigenous polities and lands still under encomienda would escheat to the crown to be administered directly by the viceroy. A friar (to be

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determined at a later date) and the sympathetic oidor Zorita would oversee the escheatment and guarantee the implementation of the various points of the contract.80 Like the authors of the unsigned letter they proposed to centralise power on the viceregal administration. The strategy of proposing a subsidy to the recurrently insolvent king echoed that of the encomenderos of Peru who had offered a bankrupt Philip ii a similar subsidy in exchange for perpetuity of encomienda in the mid-1550s. Indigenous interventions in the polemics over encomienda presuppose that their authors felt sufficiently enfranchised in the Habsburg monarchy to believe that they could influence royal legislation. In the context of other documents we have examined, the example mentioned above shows that many leaders of the Republic of Indios, like many in the Republic of Spaniards, followed a consistent political programme of supporting viceregal supremacy. The reason for this support was that the relationship between the viceroys’ authority and the status of New Spain’s principal citizens became interdependent in this period. On the one hand, without the consent of New Spain’s principal citizens viceroys lost their unofficial authority in New Spain. On the other it was the viceroys, through consensual and binding negotiations at their court, who determined status and enfranchisement. This interdependence meant that viceregal patronage could amount, in practice, to a form of ‘bastard feudalism’ that bound the viceroys to their principal citizens. Conclusion Castilian observers were suspicious of the de facto autonomy implicit in New Spain’s discrete arrangements. Tello de Sandoval, for example, argued that ‘under no circumstances should [indigenous] governors or caciques or principales be involved in the governance of their towns.’ As to the Spaniards, he argued that new officers he called alcaldes mayores de letras should oversee vast new provinces to reduce the number of salaried officials in the administration, and they should be ‘chosen from Castile for the said purpose and in no way should they come from over here.’81 What outsiders like Tello de Sandoval failed to 80

81

Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, ‘Poder e iglesia en la Nueva España: La disputa del Diezmo,’ José R. Gutiérrez, Enrique Martínez Ruiz and Jaime González Rodríguez, Felipe ii y el oficio de Rey: La fragua de un imperio (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe ii y Carlos v, 2001), 838f. agi Gobierno Mexico 68, R.12, N.34, Francisco Tello de Sandoval, letter to prince Philip, 19 September 1545.

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recognise, however, was that viceroys distributed offices and rewards according to political considerations rather than the rules of bureaucracy, tradition, or royal legislation because their priority was to redeem New Spain’s original sin. Enfranchisement underscored the sui generis operations of vicergal government; and the effectiveness of that government relied on garnering consent from those it enfranchised because the viceroys’ unofficial authority to settle disputes and to issue commands relied on that consent. By the 1560s the intentions, routines and practices of viceregal government produced principal citizens who evinced attributes that were different from those of elites in Europe or pre-Conquest Mesoamerica. We can characterise them broadly as parasitic noble and civic. Despite the novel elements in New Spain’s arrangements, contemporaries beheld the past before them. Notions of hidalguía and tlatocayotl continued to inform their ideals of life. Heraldic displays, an emphasis on lineage, exemption from tribute and social privileges characterised New Spain’s principal citizens. But their status was justified by criteria that related to civic virtues above other justificatory elements like blood, law or tradition. These civic virtues were determined by previously divergent Spanish and Mesoamerican ‘ideals of life’ and traditions that the preferences of the viceroys reinterpreted and combined: especially those aspects of the two that overlapped regarding personal service to the commonwealth in government and war. In this regard their sense of social privilege was more akin to that of Roman nobiles of the republican period, who could boast in their imagines maiorum a tradition of office holding that set them apart. They were parasitic because their enfranchised status implied claims on a proportion of New Spain’s tribute. These parasitic nobiles constructed Habsburg authority in Mesoamerica, shaped and sustained it beyond our period. But they did so through new affections for their notional republic in the kingdom of New Spain and their identification with the viceroys who guaranteed these arrangements. Their loyalties could not have arisen from Castile’s brute imperial domination; or through the ‘contractual’ agreements found in the modern, rule-bound bureaucracy of a multi-national company that some recent authors imagine to be a useful analogy for the Habsburg Empire.82 It is unlikely that New Spain would have survived as a viable political unit if it had adopted either of these models as they would not have addressed the preoccupations and ideals of New Spain’s inhabitants.

82

For the approximation to a multi-national company see Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492–1763 (London: Penguin, 2003), Ch. 11.

Epilogue: Cui bono? Less than a year after Velasco’s unexpected death on the 30th of July 1564, New Spain’s royal officials composed a joint letter urging the king to appoint a new viceroy as soon as possible ‘because it is important and necessary for this land that it should have a head, who, in your majesty’s name, everyone respects and complies with.’1 Their concerns were justified. Nominal power devolved for the third time since the Conquest on an audiencia, which soon exhibited the worst aspects of its predecessors. Within two years violent factionalism returned to Mexico City, driven by the resurgent power of magnates; while important Indio polities showed signs of unrest.2 Contemporaries blamed oidor Vasco de Puga, who led the audiencia, for his political obtuseness and stubborn adherence to the letter of royal legislation – of which he was an expert, having compiled all the royal cédulas pertaining to New Spain and published them in 1563. They recalled how, newly arrived, the oidor had clashed with Velasco and destabilised his regime by insisting on implementing the crown’s legislation of 1558 that reformed how tribute should be assessed, instead of accepting Velasco’s established practices and agreements. After Velasco’s death Puga, in conjunction with Valderrama and supported by Martín Cortés, tried to implement the legislation once more, only to outrage Indio lords who considered that their agreements with the viceroys were being ignored and refused to comply with the oidor’s demeaning dictates. Amid fears of a general rebellion in Mexico City’s hinterland, and in view of their inability to collect tribute without the cooperation of Indio lords, the audiencia relented within months and restore Velasco’s informal practice of assessing only what the Indios could convince the crown to assess.3 Puga was also compelled to abandon his opposition to Velasco’s practice of distributing patronage, particularly disbursements from the quitas y vacaciones fund, in a discretionary manner. As the royal officials argued when Gastón de Peralta became viceroy in 1566, the fund was indispensable for governing New Spain: ‘It should be noted that it matters to his majesty’s royal service that the viceroy be allowed to liberate funds from these quitas, because without them the viceroy will not have the funds to maintain and make mercedes to 1 agi Gobierno México 323, Royal Officials, 8 March 1565, 2nd letter. 2 The best chronicler of this crisis is Juan Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. Silva Tena (Mexico: conaculta, 1990), 181–3. 3 agi Gobierno México 323, 10 September 1564, Hortuño de Ibarra to the King; and Hortuño de Ibarra, 8 March 1565; cjv, 136–7.

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many who have served and serve, because as there are not enough offices for all those who are deserving, they are subsidised with this fund …’4 Puga had a similar approach to the fund, but executed his power to dispense patronage clumsily, alienating principal Spaniards and encouraging factionalism.5 Much to the disgust of the treasury officials, for example, Puga reneged on the allocations Velasco had made from the fund before his death to ‘people that were convenient for the fulfilment of the viceroy’s commands.’ Instead he channelled them to his own agents of government: ‘he now wants to compel us to pay and reward the people that the audiencia commands and to whom it wants to make mercedes, and because we do not wish to carry this out they show us hatred.’6 Employing the terms of New Spain’s language of legitimacy, Hortuño de Ibarra described Puga’s allies as ‘without merits and not of greater quality than those chosen by the viceroy, nor chosen from among those that could have been provided for more justly.’7 Simultaneously, Ibarra fretted that Valderrama exceeded his mandate as visitador by concerning himself with ‘matters of government’ while continuing an obvious collusion with the Martín Cortés. Cortés was promoting himself as a loyal vassal to the king by supporting the implementation of royal legislation on indigenous tribute, and simultaneously as an unofficial patron of Spanish encomenderos in Mexico City. The new Marqués displayed his resonant heraldic insignia whenever he walked the streets accompanied by armed dependants, and compelled anyone he came across to follow him as a mark of their deference: any objections were met with threats and even violence.8 Cortés also used his influence in matters like arranging marriages for his allies, such as forcing the elderly Pedro Paz to marry a lady in waiting to the marchioness two days before the former’s death in order to claim his inheritance for a dependant. Meanwhile he attempted to enlarge his holdings over crown lands in Matalcingo. His declared aim was for the king to make him a Duke for his services in New Spain, but he needed to extend his influence over New Spain to have the opportunity to perform sufficiently meritorious services.9 Ibarra concluded he was generally ‘looming large’ over the politics of New Spain.10 4 agi Gobierno México 323, 20 November 1566. 5 Ibid., Hortuño de Ibarra et al., second letter of two dated 10 September 1564. 6 Ibid., Hortuño de Ibarra and the royal officials to the King, 24 May 1565. 7 Ibid., Hortuño de Ibarra to the King, 10 September 1564; agi Gobierno México 323, Hortuño de Ibarra et al., 8 March 1565. 8 Ibid., 6 December 1565; Fernando Benítez, The century after Cortés, trans. Joan Maclean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 187f. 9 cjv, 340. 10 agi Gobierno México 323, 6 December 1565.

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263

As complaints flooded into the royal court, the audiencia’s authority disintegrated. Alonso de Zorita, who had never agreed with Puga, resigned from the audiencia and return to Castile in 1565. Meanwhile the crown recalled Valderrama and the deceased viceroy’s closest allies organised a resistance to Cortés amongst Spanish settlers. The core of these Velasquistas were the treasury officials Hortuño de Ibarra and Fernando de Portugal, in alliance with Velasco’s brother Francisco and son Luis; as well as the possible connivance of Ceynos, New Spain’s longest serving oidor who had collaborated with both Mendoza and Velasco. Matters came to a head in the so-called Ávila-Cortés conspiracy, which scholars have traditionally regarded as a first outburst of creole patriotism that intimated the Mexican war of independence 250 years later. However, the viceroys had long promoted a sense of patriotism for New Spain amongst enfranchised Spaniards and Indios because, like the animus that Martín Cortés stirred, it was not incompatible with loyalty to the crown. Rather, we should see the episode as the tragically violent outcome of factional competition for authority in New Spain, unmediated by the routines of viceregal government. The Velasquista faction launched a decisive pre-emptive attack against their rivals, using the extravagance of the celebrations to honour the birth of twins to Martín Cortés as a pretext to arrest, arbitrarily, key members of his faction. By the time the new viceroy, Gastón de Peralta arrived and tried to moderate the obvious injustice of the imputations against Martín Cortés, the Velasquistas could not risk any restraint or compromise. Rather they employed the oldest trick of New Spain’s political conflicts and seized control of communications with the crown. All the evidence was circumstantial or attained through threats and torture: even Peralta’s French ancestry was used to suggest a collusion between him and Cortés to hand New Spain to the French king. Conspiracy theories like these fed on royal fears of a general rebellion in New Spain that crown would have been even more helpless to repress than the synchronic Dutch revolt. The Velasquistas, however, overplayed their hand. The crown replaced Peralta with new visitadores, Alonso Muñoz and Luis Carrillo, who in their overzealous determination to find the traitors that the crown had ordered them to discover, were willing to use levels of violence and repression against Mexico City’s Spanish population that were previously unheard-of in New Spain. Velasco’s party, including some members of the Bocanegra clan and even don Luis de Castilla and his son Pedro were tortured or imprisoned along with adherents of Cortés and other neutral actors as the crown tried to reassert its threatened authority. Just as Valderrama and Puga failed to intimidate indigenous lords into accepting­their arbitrary tributary impositions, Muñoz and Carrillo failed to subdue the Spanish population. The new oidores were recalled in disgrace as

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complaints against them mounted. They ruled for so short a time that they shared a boat back Castile with Peralta. The experienced oidor Ceynos took control of the audiencia as interim president, pending the arrival of a new viceroy Martín Enriquez de Almanza in 1568.11 After Velasco’s death many in New Spain called on the crown to abolish the position of viceroy: Valderrama, for example, proposed that an archbishop and a letrado (presumably himself) should replace the viceroy as president of the audiencia, citing Granada and Valladolid as precedents to support his argument.12 Some recent scholars have agreed, concluding that the crown’s decision to make New Spain into a viceroyalty, rather than an audiencia, made corruption worse and more systematic.13 Contemporaries, particularly the enfranchised nobiles of New Spain, disagreed. The Castilian monarchy in America developed from the accumulation of experience and the outcome of political polemics between the crown and its enfranchised subjects in America. There was no past tradition that the crown could use as an example of how to govern a territorial empire overseas. It was only in 1568, in conjunction with its appointment of Martín Enríquez as viceroy, that the crown made a concerted effort to create a coherent legislative framework to act as ‘a complete revision of the imperial administration of New Spain.’14 This legislative programme had its origins in similar efforts made previously in Naples and Castile in 1559, but the outcome was different. The crown weakened the authority of the viceroys of Naples by instituting the ‘Collateral Council,’ which united the royal chancery, the royal audiencia and the Council for the Affairs of State: ‘its functions would evolve until they reached a degree of pre-eminence relative to the viceroy by 1559.’15 In New Spain, however, the divisive and oppressive government of the audiencias that followed Velasco’s death discredited the notion of rule by letrados. The result, as expressed in the legislative package of 1568, was an assertion of the supremacy of viceregal authority.­Care was taken to circumscribe a viceroy’s patrimonial or dynastic ambitions by limiting the length of time they could hold their office; 11 12 13

14 15

Suárez de Salazar, Tratado, 214–220. cjv, 75–77. Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, Reshaping New Spain: government and private interest in the colonial bureaucracy, 1531–1550, trans. Julia Constantine and Pauline Marmasse (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2006), ‘Conclusion.’ Antonio F. García-Abásolo, Martín Enríquez y la reforma de 1568 en Nueva España (Sevilla: Excma. Diputación Provincial de Sevilla, 1983). Carlos J. Hernando Sánchez, Castilla y Nápoles en el siglo xvi. El Virrey Pedro de Toledo: Linaje Estado y Cultura (1532–1553) (Valladolid: Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 1994), 197–8.

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265

but, during­their tenure, viceroys held better defined powers more formally, making it harder for rivals to challenge their authority. To those born in New Spain it appeared that ‘in this land there is no other king than the viceroy … the counts and marquises are his criados.’16 Mendoza or Velasco never enjoyed the same degree of security in their supremacy, but their successors never identified as closely with New Spain. After­1568 viceroys were more interested in furthering their careers at the royal court than in Mexico City, and less engaged with the inhabitants of New Spain. However most offices in New Spain still went to local nobiles based on similar criteria­and enjoying similar benefits as their peers under Mendoza and Velasco. Increasingly these nobiles sought to secure their status from one administration to the next through the acquisition of private estates (haciendas) rather than political competition and its official rewards. Over a longer period of time, too, the most successful members of the Republic of Indios identified more closely with their Spanish counterparts in a mutually beneficial effort to protect their status. In the documents I have surveyed pertaining to indigenous dynasties, it is the norm to find within their lineages varying degrees of Spanish blood in spite of their legal definition as Indios. Conversely many of these wealthy scions moved to their region’s cabecera (principal city) to live ‘as Spaniards’ – above all to courtly Mexico City. It has been estimated that at the time of Mexican independence, in the early nineteenth century, half of the families recognised as aristocratic in Mexico City (also the city with the greatest number of elite European immigrants) could trace their ancestry to indigenous nobility, despite their classification as ‘Spanish.’17 At least until the Bourbon reforms began to undermine the relative political autonomy of New Spain, the essence of royal authority over its inhabitants remained linked to political enfranchisement mediated at the court of the viceroys in Mexico City. A useful way to understand New Spain is as the expanding sub-empire of Mexico City (see Fig. 25). For most of its existence, the imperial city’s nobiles found it expedient to recruit from their local population to expand their influence northwards – through New Mexico up into the prairies of the modern usa – and into the Pacific, through the settlement and garrisoning of Guam, the Marianas and the Philippines. The Castilian crown tended 16

17

Quoted in Pilar Latasa, ‘La Corte Virreinal Peruana’ in coord. Feliciano Barrios, Un gobierno de un mundo: virreinatos y audiencias en la América hispana (Cuenca: Ediciones de la Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 2004), 346. Timothy E. Anna, The fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 9.

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to a­ pprove of these interests, but not always. When don Rodrigo de Vivero y Velasco, for example,­established a bilateral treaty to conduct direct commerce between New Spain and Japan in 1609 (following Vivero’s shipwreck off the coast of Onjuku, and before his return to Mexico City via Acapulco with the first Japanese delegation to cross the Pacific and then continue on to Europe) his foremost intention was to benefit New Spain. Determined opposition to the treaty from vested commercial interests in Castile and the Philippines wrecked the treaty, but Vivero’s effort is illustrative of the confidence and ambition of New Spain’s enfranchised elite.18 Providential myths and autochthonous cults exalted Mexico City and its sub-empire of New Spain in the reigns of Mendoza and Velasco. Franciscans presented Cortés rather than Columbus as the ‘Moses of the New World’ and Mendoza (not Las Casas) as the ‘true father of the Indios.’ Despite their traditionally regionalist perspective of identity, the most active indigenous lords identified with the notion of New Spain as their kingdom, which in turn formed part of a universalist Christian Empire.19 This attitude became generalised. The expressions of self-justification that survive speak to the emergence of a new identity as the most adaptable Indio lords embraced their expanding horizons and providential mission.20 In the Spanish ambit, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar used a Platonic metaphor to describe Mexico City as a microcosm of the world, an education to the Americas, and the capital of its conversion.21 Juan Suárez de Peralta similarly claimed that ‘She [New Spain] was unique and unrepeatable, before we find another Mexico and her land we will all meet … in the final judgement.’22 More prosaically, in this period, Mexico City’s nobiles

18

19 20

21 22

Roderigo de Vivero, An account of Japan, 1609, trans. and intro. Caroline Stone (Edinburgh: Hardinge Simpole, 2015); Juan Gil, Hidalgos y samurais: España y Japón en los siglos xvi y xvii (Madrid: Alianza, 1991), 158–165; Brigit M. Tremml, ‘The Global and the Local: Problematic Dynamics of the Triangular Trade in Early Modern Manila’ in Journal of World History, Vol. 23, No. 3 (September 2012), 555–586. See above Ch. 6. Francisca Perujo, ‘La nueva identidad de Don Francisco de Sandoval Acazitli’; and Elke Ruhnau, ‘Titlaca in nican Nueva España (Somos la gente aquí en Nueva España): la historia novohispana según los historiadores indígenas (siglo xvi y principios del xvii)’ in eds. Karl Kohut and Sonia V. Rose, La formación de la cultura virreinal 1. La etapa inicial (Frankfurt: Vervuert; Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2000–2006). Francisco Cervantes de Sálazar, México en 1554 y túmulo imperial, ed. Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico: Porrúa, 1972), 64–8, 167 and 171. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado, Ch. xxii.

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began a long-lived tradition of comparing themselves­to Iberians, almost invariably finding themselves to be more refined and virtuous.23 The tropes of the first thirty years of viceregal rule set the template for New Spain’s subsequent displays of patriotic righteousness. Examples abound of this characterisation. Apart from being the first art of globalisation and a symbol of New Spain’s reach across the Pacific, the 17th century ‘enconchado series,’ for example, idealised the Conquest as a legitimate endeavour by representing a prefiguration of parallel Mendozan ‘republics’ in their depiction of Motecuhzoma inviting Cortés into a room of his palace with two thrones that stood under the gaze of previous Tenochca kings and a painting of Tenochtitlan’s name-glyph: an eagle eating a snake on a fruitful nopal (see Fig. 24).24 In more ephemeral displays that greeted the arrival of each new viceroy, local nobiles learned to use allegories drawn from Mesoamerican and Classical history to educate their new administrators.25 Meanwhile, the same nobiles continued to describe Mexico City at various points as a New ‘Jerusalem,’ ‘Rome’ and ‘Athens’; or most elegantly to associate it with the allegory of ‘the Pegasus,’ whose statue was erected in fountain of the main courtyard of the viceregal palace: the constellation that dominates the city’s zenith, and the hybrid creature that was born from the blood that Perseus (the conquistadores) spilt after he decapitated the Medusa (the Mexica empire – a once beautiful nymph that had been corrupted by her demonic arrogance); and which, in kicking mount Parnassus to take flight, sprung the ‘hippocrene’ (the springs at the hill of Chapultepec that rose above ‘Tenochtitlan’ a word whose meaning, according to an erroneous etymology, meant ‘city of the springs’).26 Most importantly, Pope Benedict xiv confirmed, in a Bull entitled Non Est Equidem of 25 May 1754, local providentialist interpretations of the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe at Tepeyac that would play a role in the struggles for Mexican independence just over half a century later: Non Fecit Taliter Omni Nationi. Even the mixture of demands for autonomy and social justice in that struggle for independence has been regarded as ‘[t]he expression of Neo-Hispanic ­patriotism, 23

24 25 26

John L. Phelan, The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1956), 28 and 50; Ciriaco Pérez de Bustamante, Los orígenes del gobierno virreinal en las indias españolas: Don Antonio de Mendoza primer virrey de la Nueva España. (1535–1550) (Santiago de Compostela: Tip del Franciscano, 1928), 121. ‘Enconchado series,’ Prado Museum, inv. 00111. Alejandro Cañeque, The king’s living image: the culture and politics of viceregal power in colonial Mexico (New York: Routledge, 2004), 26f. Guillermo Tovar de Teresa, El Pegaso, o, El mundo barroco novohispano en el siglo xvii (Seville: Renacimiento, 2006).

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whose roots were in the pro-indigenist struggles of bishop Palafox and the utopian Franciscan projects of the time of Hernán Cortés.’27 Who benefited from the creation and perpetuation of New Spain? All empires are ruled by a defined group that considers itself distinct from its various subjects, so exploring this question can reveal defining features of the ‘Spanish Empire,’ as well as the particularities of New Spain. In terms of the worldly objectives of the Habsburgs – the propagation and prestige of their d­ ynasty – it can be argued that they and some of their favoured courtiers gained enormously from the wealth and unprecedented glory they accrued from their American domains; despite the eventual discredit they suffered from the perpetuation of the ‘Black legend.’ The great bulk of the Castilian population, on the other hand, paid a heavy price in wealth and manpower for the extent of their monarchs’ pursuit of glory that the American windfall permitted. Apart from the royal house, the other group that benefitted the most from Habsburg rule over Mesoamerica were those of its Spanish and Indio inhabitants who became enfranchised into New Spain’s burgeoning political nation. A trope of world history is to identify how some empires, like Japan, turn into nations. New Spain  – the sub-empire of Mexico City – was predicated on local participation, consent and shared interests between its nobiles and the crown. When the latter bond disappeared in 1821 so too did Spanish authority over ­Mesoamerica; the sub-empire of Mexico City became the Mexican nation. 27

Manuel Lucena Giraldo, Naciones de Rebeldes (Madrid: Taurus, 2010), 122–3; See also Sean F. McEnroe, From Colony to Nationhood in Mexico: Laying the Foundations, 1560–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

APPENDIX A

Prominent Courtiers i

Indigenous Recipients of Viceregal Licences to Bear European Arms or Ride Horses

The following names are taken from the memorial produced by Antonio de Turcios for visitador Francisco Tello de Sandoval, which survives in agi Justicia 258. This list is a longer version of the one that Lewis Hanke published as part of his collection of documents from Antonio de Mendoza’s administration (vea, Mendoza, Doc. 7, ‘cargo xviii’). The names that appear in both lists are marked with an asterisk (*). All the individuals in the memorial received the honorific style ‘don,’ but the list provides very little additional information about the recipient, beyond: their Christian name; the polity they belonged to (with all the idiosyncrasies of Spanish spelling of indigenous names); the date the licence was issued; sometimes their rank in their polities (principal, señor, gobernador, cacique); and occasionally a concise reason for the grant. For the sake of clarity I will give the standard names of the towns rather than the manuscript spelling unless the discrepancies are so great that I cannot be sure of the area they refer to, in which case I cite the original spelling in quotation marks. In cases where there is more than one polity with the same name I have noted the uncertainty, and I have assumed that the recipient of the grant originated in the most prominent polity or decided which was the most probable given other contextual references. ­Finally I assume that all names in the memorial were placed in chronological order, so when only the day and month were provided I have assumed that they correspond to the last year cited. Finally, I list the names alphabetically within one of four broad geographical regions. See Map 2.

i

The West: Michoacán, Jalisco and Colima

1. Antonio,* gobernador of the province of Michoacán: Sword, 10 February 1546. Son of the last Cazonci Tangáxoan ii. Antonio became gobernador of Michoacán after his brother Francisco Tariacuri (who had succeeded don Pedro Ponce in 1543, the courtier responsible for the original alliance with the Spaniards). Antonio governed until 1562 (see J. Benedict Warren, The Conquest of Michoacán (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 244–5). Considered a ‘good Christian since he was a boy,’ Antonio grew up in the viceregal palace, and then studied in the College of Michoacán where he learnt Latin. He ‘has always been treated like a Spaniard and is their friend.’

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_011

270 2.

APPENDIX A

Antonio, prince of ‘Matelango’: Sword, 21 November 1543. Probably Matalcingo, the Nahuatl version of Tarascan Charo and most common name used for the area in the 16th century. About 20 km east of Valladolid. (Matalcingo could also refer to the valley of Matalcingo part of the marquesado holdings in the Toluca region known for cattle-breeding.) 3. Bartolomé, son of the gobernador of Michoacán (presumably don Pedro Ponce). Carriage: 6 December 1542, ‘to allow him to travel in a carriage, as requested by the Bishop of Michoacán.’ 4. Cristobal, principal of Jalisco: Sword, 7 January 1544. 5. Francisco, lord of Tinhuindín in Michoacán. Sword, 26 July 1537. Possibly the last Cazonci’s older son don Francisco Tariácuri. Tinhuindín was part of the cabecera of the larger pre-conquest polity of Tepehuacán which had proved intractable at contact in 1522. About 170 km west of Valladolid. 6. Francisco, prince of Guaniqueo: Carriage, 6 December 1542. Another son of the gobernador of Michoacán Pedro Ponce. The bishop requested a carriage for him as well. About 50 km north-west of Morelia. 7. Hernando, gobernador of Amula (Amunla?): Horse, 20 May 1542. Amula was in southern Jalisco-Colima, towards the small Spanish settlement of Navidad about 375 km west of Valladolid. 8. Juan, nobleman of Cuiceo: Horse, 25 February 1542. Cuiceo was in the strategically sensitive northern region of Michoacán by a lake of the same name and before the Conquest had served as a Tarascan outpost on the Chichimeca frontier. About 32 km north of Valladolid. 9. Juan, of Taximaroa: Horse, 21 March 1545. Eastern Michoacán on the Purehpecha frontier with the Mexica dominions. Before the conquest the the Cazonci seems to have appointed military governors to protect this area from Mexica incursions. About 95 km east of Valladolid. 10. Juan, nobleman of Michoacán: Sword, 10 February 1546. 11. Luis, prince of Cuzamala: Carriage, 6 December 1542. Luis was possibly another son of the governor of Michoacán. The area was also called Apazingan, and, like Taximaroa, it was situated on the Purehpecha frontier with the Mexica dominions. About 212 km south-south-east of Valladolid. 12. Pedro, gobernador of Michoacán: Sword and Horse, 13 January 1537. Also known as Cuinierángari or don Pedro Ponce, he governed until 1543. Pedro was the son of a priest and he claimed that the cazonci Tangaxoan ii had considered him like a brother. He became the chief informant of the Relación de Michoacán where he presented himself as the first and chief architect of the settlement between Castilians and the Purehpecha. There is nothing to doubt his claims or the fact that he played an active and personal role in these events. He was tortured and imprisoned by Nuño de Guzmán but Mendoza restored him to grace and power.

Prominent Courtiers 13.

14. 15. 16.

ii 1.

271

Pedro Ponce,* gobernador of Cuiceo. Horse and sword, 28 November 1544 and possibly also 25 February 1542. Described elsehere as a ‘great friend of the Spaniards and treated as one himself: served from beginning to end of Mixtón war. There has always been much trust for him.’ He could either be Pedro Cuinierángari (see 12, above), who therefore did not die in 1543 as some modern authors claim, and was given the principality of Cuiceo to make way for the restoration of the Cazonci’s son Francisco to the government of Michoacán; or this homonymous character was one of his sons. About 32 km north of Valladolid. Pedro of Ucareo: Horse, 22 July 1542. About 65 km east of Valladolid. Pedro, prince of Necotlan: Sword, 28 September 1543. Necotlan was also known as Undameo. About 18 km south-west of Valladolid. Pero García, nobleman of Cinapécuaro: 10 February 1546, ‘To ride his father in law’s horse.’ About 50 km east of Valladolid.

The Centre: Mexico Basin, Toluca Valley and the Northern Frontier

Antonio of Cuitlahuac: Horse, 23 May 1542. Cuitlahuac was considered part of greater Chalco on the shores of Lake Xochimilco. The polity probably included the adjacent island of Xico. 33 km south-east of Mexico. 2. Carlos of Chimalhuacán: Sword, explicitly for ‘going to the war in Jalisco,’ 12 September­1541. On Chalco’s border with Acolhua; part of the encomienda of Juan de Cuéllar Verdugo (el Gitano) in 1547, who sold it to Blas de Bustamante. The polity had a long-standing border dispute with Ocuituco involving the village of Acacingo or Ecacingo. By 1535 Chimalhuacán had ‘usurped it.’ 22 km east of Mexico. 3. Cristobal, gobernador of Tenango: Sword, 12 November 1544. Probably Tenango del Valle or Teutenango in an important region that had been a dependency of Tlacopan. 70 km west-south-west of Mexico. (It could also refer to Tenango in Chalco, or near Veracruz.) 4. Diego of ‘Chalachila’ (?): Horse, 21 March 1545. North East of Querétaro. Possibly Chalchitlan or Chalchiguautl in the Otomí-Nahua area bordering the Huasteca, Pame and other Chichimeca groups in the Pánuco river valley. About 310 km north of Mexico. 5. Diego, gobernador of Mexico City: Horse, 30 October 1538. Full name don Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin, died 1542. Nephew of Motecuhzoma i (son of Tezozomoc Acolnahuacatl, Motecuhzoma’s brother, and therefore grandson of Axayacatl). At the time of the conquest, Diego was tlatoani of Ecatepec (later his cousin doña Leonor Moctezuma’s encomienda) and seems to have continued in this position. He asked for the estancias of Tizayuca, Acayuca and Tulcuayuca but did not get them as the first two were awarded to Tlatelolco in 1539 after a lawsuit with doña Leonor. The Second Audiencia had been willing to grant him

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only enough for his maintenance until Mendoza decided to reinstitute the ‘royal line’ as governors of Mexico City and he was elevated to the governorship. Don Diego formed a matrimonial alliance with his cousin Francisca de Moctezuma (Motecuhzoma’s daughter) and his daughter would marry don Antonio Cortés Totoquihuaztli, tlatoani of Tlacopan, maintaining pre-conquest dynastic links. His son became gobernador of Mexico City under Velasco from 1557–62 and his other daughter, Isabel, married the Indio humanist and future gobernador of San Juan Tenochtitlan, Antonio Valeriano, and later the chronicler don Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc. Diego and his dynasty were at the heart of the indigenous establishment of the early colonial period. 6. Diego, gobernador of ‘Tepeta’: Horse, 30 December 1536. Possibly Tepetaosto/ Tepetaostoque/Tepetlaostoc? Near Texcoco. In 1536 it was granted to Juan ­Velázquez de Salazar in encomienda after his father. 35 km north-east of Mexico. 7. Diego, gobernador de ‘Tetela’: Sword, 10 February 1546. Most likely Tetela del Rio in the frontier between the Mexica domains and the Purehpecha, near Cuzamala. It could also be a polity of northern Puebla that was a traditional rival of Tlaxcala. 8. Domingo, prince of Tlatiquipa: Sword, 28th September 1543. Probably Tlaquilpa which stood five leagues south of Pachuca near Cempoala and was a mixed polity with Pame, Otomis and Nahuatl speakers. Before the Conquest the area paid tribute to Texcoco, who appointed their calpixque. About 78 km north of Mexico. 9. Francisco of Tlacotepec: Horse, 2 January 1544. Almost certainly Tlacotepec on the skirts of the Nevado de Toluca, 68 km south west of Mexico. (Could refer to a polity by that name near Cuernavaca; in the northern Mixteca; Tepeaca; on border with Zacatula near the Pacific; or near Veracruz.) 10. Francisco,* prince of Tlalmanalco: Sword and horse, 20 March 1542. Described as ‘an honoured person, friend of the Spaniards who served in person and with the people of his province in the Mixtón war.’ Don Francisco Sandoval Acazitli, son of Necuametzin. Acazitli’s friend, Gabriel de Castañeda, composed an account of his services during the Mixtón war. 45 km south-east of Mexico. 11. Francisco, nobleman of Toluca: Sword, 27 January 1544. 64 km west of Mexico. 12. Francisco, gobernador ‘of part of Xochimilco’: Horse, 12 September 1541. Explicitly ‘for going to the war in Jalisco’ (Mixtón War). 15 km south of Mexico. 13. Francisco, prince of ‘Olaque’ (Olac): Horse, 7 October 1542. One of the three polities of Xochimilco along with Tecpan, Tepetenchi. 15 km south of Mexico. 14. Hugo, nobleman of Xochimilco: Sword, 12 September 1541. Explicitly ‘for going to the war in Jalisco’ (Mixtón War). 15 km south of Mexico. 15. Joaquín: Horse ‘to ride in the war of Jalisco,’ 27 August 1541. 16. Joachin, nobleman of Amanalco: Horse, 12 September 1541. Explicitly ‘to go to war in Jalisco.’ 115 km west of Mexico.

Prominent Courtiers

273

17. Juan, gobernador and prince of ‘Gipacoya: Horse, 28 November 1544. Almost certainly Xipacoya in southern Hidalgo. Otomí speakers inhabited the area at contact, but the elites of Tepexi and Xipacoya spoke Nahuatl. 70 km north of Mexico. 18. Juan, nobleman of Mexico: Sword, 28 November 1544. 19. Juan* of Coyoacan: Sword, 12 July 1542. Probably don Juan de Guzmán Itztlolinqui ‘el Viejo.’ Prince and gobernador of Coyoacan, ‘always treated like a Spaniard, he converses with them.’ One of the most distinguished participants in the Mixtón war. Son of a noble Mexica lady and Cuauhpopocatzin tlatoani of Coyoacan, who was allegedly killed by Mexica forces for helping the Spaniards escape the massacre of the Noche Triste. His brother went to Honduras in command of 400 men while Juan was educated by Franciscans. In 1536 Juan wrote to the King asking for his polity to be placed under the crown rather than as part of the marquesado. His request was turned down but his personal patrimony and lands were recognised and ratified very early on. Mendoza made him gobernador in 1540 after he had already been recognised as hereditary prince of Coyoacan. He became extremely wealthy and was granted coat of arms in 1551 dying in 1569 after ratification of his holdings and status from Martín Enríquez. His son, however, died indebted. Purehpecha and Spanish lines took over to form a mestizo dynasty that remained powerful into the 19th century. (See Emma Pérez-Rocha and Rafael Tena eds., La nobleza indígena del centro de México después de la conquista (Mexico: inah, 2000), 84). 11 km south of Mexico. 20. Juan of Malinalco: Sword, 20 March 1545. An important pre-conquest religious and political centre. 85 km south-west of Mexico. 21. Juan of ‘Ysquinquyteapilco’: Carriage, 22 Dec 1545. Iscuincuitlapilco in the modern-day state of Hidalgo towards Actopan and sometimes tied administratively to it. 105 km north of Mexico. 22. Juan of Zapotlán: Horse, 27 January 1544. Near modern Pachuca in Hidalgo. 90 km north east of Mexico. 23. Luis de Leon,* nobleman of Santiago (Tlatelolco): Horse and sword, 14 June 1543. An interpreter for the audiencia who ‘served in the journey to the new lands’ (Cíbola?). Due to ‘his drunkenness,’ however, the viceroy later denied him his sword and the position of interpreter. 24. Miguel, prince of Tlacomulco: Horse, 9 June 1546. Atlacomulco. 115 km northwest of Mexico. 25. Pedro of Toluca: Sword, 27 January 1544, ‘for having gone to war.’ 64 km west of Mexico. 26. Pedro of Xochimilco: Horse, 27 August 1541. Possibly don Pedro de Santiago who claimed he had participated in all major wars of New Spain. In 1563 he compared the assistance he and Xochimilco had given to the crown with that of Tlaxcala. He also claimed that of 30,000 inhabitants of Xochimilco in 1521 there were

274

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6–7,000 left after plagues and services in wars. This and the new offices introduced by the viceroys resulted, he argued, in the loss of authority of the dynastic lords over the macehuales. 27. Tapia,* nobleman of Mexico: Horse, 6 March 1538. Possibly Hernando de Tapia, son of Andrés de Tapia Motelchiuhtzin (cihuacoatl to Motechuzoma, denouncer of Cuauhtemoc in Honduras, and ruler of Mexico City 1525–1530 until his death during Nuño de Guzmán’s expedition to New Galicia). Hernando’s military service included the Mixtón war but his main occupation was as interpreter for the viceregal regime. ‘always treated like a Spaniard and married a Spanish woman and is currently married with the daughter of a Spaniard.’ 28. Tapia: Sword and dagger, 24 December 1538. Without any further information it is unclear which Tapia this refers to. His identification is uncertain as it could refer to Hernando de Tapia (see above, 27); Fernando de Tapia, the Otomí captain who founded Querétaro; or another Tapia.

iii 1. 2. 3.

The East: Tlaxcala and Puebla Valleys

Alonso, nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 24 April 1542. Buenaventura of Tlaxcala: Carriage, 22 December 1545. Diego,* nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 31 December 1537 (though probably 1536 from position in list), ‘licence was given to three noblemen of Tlaxcala who came from Spain with his lordship (Mendoza).’ This was almost certainly Diego Tlilquiyahuatzin who styled himself Diego Maxixcatzin. He went to Spain with lic. Juan de Salmerón, where the king confirmed him as gobernador of Tlaxcala in 1535, and returned with Mendoza to Mexico. He and his two companions were described as ‘good Christians and friends to the Spaniards.’ He had died by 1546. 4. Francisco of Tlaxcala: Sword, 12 September 1541, ‘for the war in Jalisco.’ Possibly Francisco Maxixcatzin, whose heir Juan Maxixcatzin received a similar licence in 1555. 5. Gonzalo, gobernador of Tlaxcala: Horse, 12 November 1545. 6. Hernando, prince of ‘Tlatlacotepeque’: Sword, 24 July 1542. Almost certainly Tlatlauhquitepec, a centre of tribute collection that Motecuhzoma conquered as part of his expansion in the region. At Iztaquimaxtitlan nearby the Mexica had kept a fortified garrison as part of their strategy against Tlaxcala. 124 km north-east of Tlaxcala. 7. Josepe, prince of ‘Çacotlan’: Horse, 12 November 1544. Almost certainly Zacotla or Zautla. 97 km north-east of Tlaxcala. 8. Juan, gobernador of ‘Atecalmachalco’: Horse, 5 April 1542. Tecamachalco in the province of Tepeaca, once a Mexica garrison town. 87 km south-east of Tlaxcala.

Prominent Courtiers

275

9.

Juan, nobleman of Huaquechula: Horse, 6 December 1545. In the prised valley of Atlixco. 76 km south-west of Tlaxcala. 10. Juan, nobleman of Tlaxcala: Horse, 25 February 1542. 11. Julián, nobleman of Tlaxcala: Horse, 24 April 1542. 12. Lucas, nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 25 February 1542 ‘for going to the war in Jalisco.’ 13. Martín,* prince of Huaquechula: Sword, 31 January 1538, for or ‘services in Guatemala as well as his notable Christianity.’ 76 km south-west of Tlaxcala. 14. Martín,* nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 31 December 1537 (though probably 1536 from position in list). Part of the extended Maxixcatzin clan. Second of the three noblemen of Tlaxcala who accompanied Mendoza back from Spain. 15. Pedro Elias, nobleman of Tecamachalco: Horse, 5 April 1542. 87 km south-east of Tlaxcala. 16. Sebastián,* nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 31 December 1537 (though probably meant 1536) and another for a horse, 29 March 1542. Part of the extended Maxixcatzin clan and the third of the three noblemen of Tlaxcala who accompanied Mendoza back from Spain. 17. Valenciano de Castañeda, nobleman of Tlaxcala: Sword, 31 June 1542.

iv 1.

The South: Oaxaca, Tehuantepec and Verapaz

Andrés, prince of Titicpac: Sword, 21 August 1543. Probabaly Teticpac, 25 south of Oaxaca (Antequera); however it could also be a polity near the mining town of Taxco. 2. Baltasar, gobernador of Soconusco: Sword, 9 October 1538. 3. Cristóbal, gobernador of Tlacachaguaya: Horse, 28 September 1543. Tlacochaguaya/Tlacuechahuayan was a Zapotec polity with a governing Mixtec minority. The region was part of the marquesado. 17 km south-east of Oaxaca. 4. Diego of ‘Talisteta’: Horse, 3 October 1543. Probably Talistaca 9 km east of Oaxaca. (There was another Talistaca in South-Eastern Hidalgo.) 5. Hernando, nobleman of Talistaca: Sword, 28 September 1543. (See Diego of ‘Talisteta,’ above for other possible Talistaca.) 6. Francisco of Guamelula: Sword, 2 August 1542. Near Huatulco the best harbour between Acapulco and Guatemala and just north of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. 204 km south of Oaxaca. 7. Gonzalo, prince of Tonalá: Horse, 27 January 1544. A cabacera of the Mixteca. 176 km north-east of Oaxaca. 8. Juan,* gobernador of the province of Tehuantepec: Horse and sword, 21 March 1545. Called Cosijipi ii he took the name Juan Cortés on accepting baptism. His mother was a Mexica princess. His alliance with the Spaniards since the

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APPENDIX A

Conquest helped to strengthen and increase his regional supremacy. Mendoza described­him as a ‘friend of Spaniards helping out any who travel around his land.’ 238 km south-east of Oaxaca. 9. Juan, prince of Cuyotepeque: Sword, 7 January 1544. 12.5 km south of Oaxaca. 10. Juan, gobernador of ‘Macinitlan’: Sword, 10 February 1546. Possibly this is Mazatlan near Tehuantepec. If so the region was populated by rival Chontal polities who were at war amongst themselves until Juan Cortés (Cosijipi ii), prince of Tehuantepec, and Pedro de Alvarado pacified the area in the 1520s. It would rebel again after the death of Juan Cortés in 1560s. About 290 km from Oaxaca. 11. Juan,* gobernador of Soconusco: Horse and sword, 28 April 1536. ‘He was honoured and a great friend of the Spaniards. He helped Spaniards in need and even put them up in his house.’ Had died by 1546. 12. Pablo, gobernador of ‘Miquitla’: Sword, 30 January 1542. Possibly Mitla in Oaxaca, which was the largest Zapoteca princedom with hereditary rulers. 40 km south east of Oaxaca. 13. Pedro of ‘Xoquinquitlapilco’: Horse, 12 September 1541, ‘for the war in Jalisco.’ Possibly Xochicuitlapilco a cabecera in the Mixteca region of northern Oaxaca. About 170 km north-west of Oaxaca. 14. Pedro of Tuitlapilco: Horse, 10 March 1542. Tuchitlapilco or Tuchcuitlapilco or Tuctla, this polity was also in the Mixteca, near Huajuapan. Its encomendero was an Indio gobernador called Juan Sánchez. About 170 km north-west of Oaxaca. 15. Pedro, prince of Verapaz: Horse, 2 May 1542. In the border between ­modern ­Chiapas-Guatemala – an area where Bartolome de las Casas apparently achieved a peaceful conversion and alliance of the Indians who had previously resisted military conquest. About 130 km north-east of Soconusco.

ii

Antonio de Mendoza’s Household Dependants

The following is an attempt to identify the members of Mendoza’s immediate household. It is worth highlighting the number of individuals or families that remained prominent in Luis de Velasco’s reign: Tristán de Luna y Arellano, Fernando de Portugal, the Ibarra clan, Luis de León Romano, Hernan Pérez de Bocanegra, for example.

i

List of ‘Bodyguards’ Taken from a Copy of the Memorial Produced by Antonio de Turcios Found in agi Justicia 259

The lists reflect appointments to the viceregal bodyguard made on twenty three different dates between 4 September 1537 and 4 January 1546. These included thirty individuals: 10 horsemen and 20 on foot. Agustín Guerrero was always named as captain of the guard. The viceroy had the right to ask for 2,000 ducats a year for their upkeep. As all witnesses insisted, and even the viceroy admitted, the ‘guard’ was essentially

Prominent Courtiers

277

composed of household dependents, both those that came with him and others he attached to the palace in New Spain. They hardly ever acted as a formal guard. The almost 200 different individuals named as having been members of the guard provide some of the best (if not extant) evidence for identifying who were Mendoza’s household dependents in these years. I have not included the rank (cavalry or infantry) or the date of appointment to the guard because my aim was to establish who formed a part of Mendoza’s household and to illuminate networks of patronage in this period. To this end I have only included the number of times they were named in brackets. I have added an asterisk (*) to the names of individuals named as the viceroy’s dependents elsewhere in the documentary evidence I have surveyed from the Archivo General de Indias. I have supplied the relevant information from these other sources with the following scheme of reference: Catálogo de Pasajeros a Indias (cpi); Justicia 258 (258); Justicia 259 (259); Quitas y Vacaciones whose records are in the ‘Relación sacada de los libros de la contaduria… 18 días del mes de Agosto 1546… relación del cargo de las quitas y lo librado en ellas’ from agi Justicia 258 (qv). 1. 2.

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Águila, Cristóbal del (2)* Alarcón, Hernando de (9): From Granada, came with viceroy had his own criados like Alonso de la Roa (cpi); maestresala in Mendoza’s court and considered his criado (258: Alonso Ortíz de Zuñiga; Francisco de Lerma). Most famous for his exploits in exploring Baja California and sailing up the Colorado river and his notoriously good relations with the indigenous groups he encountered. 116d in 1539 (qv). *Almaguer, Antonio de (7): From Corral de Almaguer near Toledo, came with the viceroy (cpi); Mendoza’s secretary viceroy arranged for him to marry the exwife of Hernando de Turcios (258); Mendoza claimed he was useful in matters of governance (259); In late 1536 was awarded 381d p/a for reviewing the treasury accounts, which he finished in 1544, receiving 2,556d (qv). Almaguer, Pedro de (1) Amberes, Nicolás de (4) Antón de (1) Arias de Mansilla, Rodrigo (5) Audelo, Antonio de (1) *Ávila, Gaspar de (3): Considered a criado and married the daughter of encomendero Hernán Sanchez (258). Ávila, Juan de (Dávila) (3) Avilés, Pedro de (7) *Baeza, Alonso de (4): His father Rodrigo was one of Mendoza’s criados, Alonso married the daughter of Gonzalo Gómez de Betanzo (258). Bañuelos, Baltasar de (6) Barbero, Juan (2)

278

APPENDIX A

15.

*Barrionuevo (7): Could be Rodrigo or Velasco de Barrionuevo who received 93d and then a further 62d in 1539 (qv). Bernaldino (1) Betanzos, Antonio de (3) (possibly related to Gómez de Betanzos, see below). Betanzos, Juan (6) (possibly related to Gómez de Betanzos, see below). Bolonia, Alexandro de (1) Bracamonte, Tomas de (1) Bracamonte, Andrés de (1) Calzada, Matías de (1) Camargo (1) Carvajal, Rodrigo (Diego?) (3) Carvajal, (1): Could be Antonio de Carvajal (or related to him) who came with Mendoza from Spain (cpi). Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia considered him one of Mendoza’s­allies in the cabildo. Could also be Juan de Carvajal who was married to Bernaldino Vázquez de Tapia’s niece but was considered a favoured relative and allegado of the viceroy, who married the widow of Francisco Rodriguez de Magariño. Castilla, Gaspar de (6) Castilleja (1) Castillo, Francisco del (7) Castillo, Miguel del (2) Caxco, Tomas (1) Cepeda, Antón de (1) Cepeda, Pedro de (1) Cepeda (1) Chaves, Nicolás de (3) Coca, Francisco de (3) Contreras, Cristóbal de (1) *Contreras, Juan de (2): Possibly same as individual paid for his services as an interpreter in 1543 (qv). Córdoba, Alonso de (1) Corzo, Antonio (1) Dávalos, Gonzalo (2) Dorantes, Esteban de (4) Duarte, Francisco (7) Durán, Gonzalo (1) Espino, Alonso (1) Estévez, Jácome (2) Ferrara, Cipio (7) Figuero, Francisco de (5)

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

Prominent Courtiers 48. 49. 50. 51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75.

279

Fioz, Juan de (could be Pioz Ríos instead) (9) Flamenco, Nicolás (possibly same as Nicolás de Amberes) (4) Flores, Juan de (2) *García, Juan (el Sordo) (8): Also known as Juan García de Plasencia. He came with his wife Mencía de Molina at the same time as the viceroy (cpi); according to don Hernando, Indio governor of Tlatelolco, he was an important member of the viceregal household, who organised its supplies and provisions and dealt with Indio lords (258). He may also be the same as Juan García de Beas or Juan García de la Madalena mentioned in qv or Juan García Camargo (see below). García, Juan Camargo (5, though may be same as Juan García el sordo). Garcivaca (2) Gayan, Gerónimo (4) Gayan, Juan de (1) Giales, Gonzalo de (1) Gómez, Alonso (1) Gómez, Francisco (10) Gómez, Gaspar (4) Gómez, Juan de Leyva (1) Gómez Ochoa (1) Gubrino (Sobrino?), Pedro (1) Gudiel, Diego (1) Guernyca (Guernica), Maestre Antonio de (20) *Guerrero (Martínez), Juan (10): Agustín Guerrero’s nephew, married mestiza daughter of encomendero Rodrigo Gómez (258; 259). *Guerrero, Agustín (23): From Alcaraz son of bachiller Juan Martínez Guerrero and María Ximénez Orillana (cpi). Captain of the guard and viceroy’s mayordomo until 1545 (258; 259); rewarded from treasury for organising the production of artillery, 718d to arranging material for paving roads and 1,000d for auditing the previous administration with Ceynos in 1544 (qv). *Guevara (2): If this was don Pedro de Guevara, then he received 155d for his maintenance in 1544 (qv). *Gutiérrez, Diego (1): If this was Diego Gutiérrez de la Caballería: 257d for his maintenance in 1539 (qv). Hernández, Manuel (8) Hernández, Pero (1) Hurtado, Juan (5) Juarez, Diego (Juárez/Suarez) (3) Jurado, Antón (Antonio de Jurado) (2) Laines, Diego de (3) Las Casas, Gonzalo de (1)

280

APPENDIX A

76. 77. 78. 79.

Lerma, Sebastián (1) *Leyba (Leyva), Juan de (1): He received an additional 155d in 1546 (qv). Lezama, Martin de (2) *Lezcano, Julián de (del Escaño) (8): From Mendoza’s domains in Socuéllamos (cpi). Lima, Sebastián (1) Loaysa, Garci Jofre de (5) López, Alonso (2) *López, Francisco (2) López, Gaspar (1) Lozoya, Martin de (7) *Lucena, Francisco de (3): Named as the viceroy’s secretary (259). Luz, Gerónimo de (2) Luz, Jerónimo de (2) Macías (1) Macías, Andrés (3) Madrid, Juan de (1) Mallorquín, Antón de (5) Mallorquín, Bartolomé (León) (3) Mallorquín, Francisco (2) Manorgas, Pedro de (3) Mansilla, Luis de (2) Manzanas, Francisco (1) Manzanas, Francisco de (5) Manzanas (1) Martin, Alonso (2) *Martin, Alonso (2): Granted 39d for his maintenance (qv). *Medinilla, Pedro de (11): From Medina de Pomar, an important part of the domain of the Constable of Castile (cpi), considered one of Mendoza’s criados who was favoured in a legal case over an encomienda when he married Guillén de la Loa’s widow. He came with Mendoza from Spain (258; 259). Méndez, Gutierre (1) Mendoza, Alonso de (1) Mendoza, Gaspar de (9) Mendoza, Pedro de (21) Mendoza (1) Mexia, Alonso (1) Mexia, Francisco (3) *Mexía, Gaspar (13): From Alcaraz, like the Guerreros, probably came with the viceroy (cpi). Mendoza granted him 93d in 1539 (qv).

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110.

Prominent Courtiers 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144.

281

Mexía, Gaspar (‘el mozo’) (1) Molina (1) Molino, Juan de (1) Monteagudo, Martin de (4) Montemayor (1) Montemayor, Francisco de (3) Montoya, Francisco (2) *Monzón, Arias de (2): Likely also known as Baltasar de Monzón, trumpeter from Granada (cpi). *Moreno (3): Possibly Anton Moreno, a trumpeter who was granted 77d for his maintenance (qv). Moreno, Alonso (1) *Moscoso, Juan de (4): Mendoza’s mace bearer, married, and considered violent by Mendoza’s accusers (259, 258). Muñoz, Benito (2) Muñoz de Sotomayor, Garci (1) Murcia, Juan de (1) Nncibay, Pedro de (4) Oropesa, Bartolomé de (3) Ortega, Pedro de (3) *Oznayo, Antonio de (5): Described as Mendoza’s maestresala and maestrecasa (258). Oznayo, Juan de (or Hoznayo) (5) Palomyno, Francisco de (1) Pavia, Hernando de (1) Peralta, Alonso de (5) Peralta, Luis de (10) Pérez (1) *Pérez, Hernán (Páez) (10): Granted 77d in 1539 and a further 93d in 1541 (qv). Pérez, Sebastián (5) Perez, Diego (2) Ponce, Juan (2) Portugués, Manuel (7) Portugués, Pablo (1) *Pradano, Gaspar de (Prado) (12): From Madrid (cpi). In 1541 Mendoza granted him 77d for his maintenance and a further 155d in 1544 (qv). Rabanal (1) Rabanales, Juan de (1) Ramírez Dávalos, Gil (14)

282

APPENDIX A

145. Raoli, Pedro de (8) 146. Regidor ‘el mozo’, Pedro (2) 147. Regidor, Pedro (4) 148. Rendón, Juan (3) 149. Ribera, Álvaro de (6) 150. Ribero, Andrés de (1) 151. *Ribero, Antonio de (8): Viceroy’s criado from Medina del Campo (cpi); Mendoza granted him 77d in 1539 and another 116d in 1545 (qv). 152. Rindero, Juan (1) 153. Rodríguez, Juan (Carvajal?) (15) 154. Rodríguez, Pedro (4) 155. *Rodríguez (1): Either Antonio, who was in charge of supplies for the viceregal palace (258), or Hernando Rodríguez, who was awarded 101d in 1545 (qv). 156. Roque, Pedro (5) 157. Ruiz de Medina, Juan (6) 158. Ruiz de Rozas, Marcos (4) 159. Ruyz (1) 160. Salas, Juan de (1) 161. Salazar, Cosme de (4) 162. Salazar, Luis de (3) 163. Salazar, Melchor de (1) 164. Salazar, Miguel de (1) 165. Salazar (1) 166. *Salazar, Francisco de (3): Awarded 116d in 1545 (qv). 167. *Salcedo (Sauzedo/Saucedo), Pedro de (8): Appointed veedor de plata and compensated with 77d in 1543 and again 1544 (qv). 168. *Saldaña, Gaspar de (8): From Guadalajara, came with the viceroy to New Spain (cpi); awarded 46d in 1539 for his maintenance (qv). 169. Salinas, Pedro de (1) 170. Sámano (1) 171. Sámano, Julián de (3) 172. Sánchez Moreno, Pedro (2) 173. Santabaya, Juan de (1) 174. *Santacruz, Francisco de (2): Possibly the same as the hostile witness in (258) and whom Mendoza accused of being one of those in ‘passion’ against him in (259), in which case he had ascended to the cabildo of Mexico City and, at some point, turned against the viceroy. 175. *Santacruz, Juan de (1): Awarded 39d in 1546 (qv). 176. Sauzedo, Miguel de (1)

Prominent Courtiers 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185.

186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196.

ii 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

283

Segura, Martin de (1) Socuéllamos, Francisco de (21) Tejada, Pedro de (9) Temiño, Carlos de (6) *Temiño, Pedro de (2): From Santillana (cpi). Torre, Antonio de la (2) Torres, Pablo (1) Vaca, Juan (1) *Valdivia, Andrés de (6): It was alleged that Mendoza wanted this allegado to ­marry a girl in the custody of Alonso Ortíz de Zuñiga, though this was disputed (258). Valdivia, Luis de (1) Varela, Alonso (1) *Vargas, Pedro de (6): Awarded 46d in 1539 and 77d more in 1545 (qv). Velasco Barrionuevo (1) Vera, Alonso de (2) Villalobos, Antonio de (2) Vizcaíno, Juan (4) *Zambrana, Álvaro de (1): Awarded 101d in 1546 (qv). *Zarate (5): If this entry refers to Diego de Zarate, he came with the viceroy from Guadalajara (cpi) but became a hostile witness by 1545 (258). *Zayas, Luis de (1): Awarded 77d for his maintenance in 1546 (qv). Zugasti(e), Santorun de (2)

Individuals Described Explicitly as Mendoza’s Household Dependents in Witness Testimonies Found in agi Justicia 258 Alarcón, Hernando de Almaguer, Antonio de: Viceroy’s secretary, married the widow of encomendero Hernando de Torres. Avila, Gaspar de Carvajal, Juan de: Married the widow of encomendero Francisco Rodriguez Magariño and according to rumour was ‘a relative of his sons,’ suggesting he was related to his wife’s family. Cerón, Jorge García, Juan: In charge of distributing the provisions brought daily to the viceregal palace by the polities of Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco. Gómez de Betanzos, Gonzalo Guerrero, Agustín

284

APPENDIX A

9.

Guerrero, Juan (Martínez): Married the mestiza daughter of encomendero Rodrigo Gómez. 10. Lerma, Francisco de 11. López de Nuncibay, Iñigo: was originally from Vizcaya and then settled in Malaga before going to New Spain with the viceroy. 12. Manuel, Luis 13. Medinilla, Pedro de: Married Isabel de Alvarado the widow of encomendero Guillen de la Loa. 14. Merida, Alonso de 15. Moscoso, Juan de ‘El macero’: Served as the viceroy’s mace-bearer, married Antonia Hernandez, widow of Bartolome de Perales. 16. Osorio, Pedro: Married the daughter of encomendero Hernando de Torres. 17. Oznayo (Hoznayo), Antonio de: Mendoza’s maestresala. 18. Peralta, Martin de 19. Rodriguez de Baeza: Married the daughter of encomendero Gonzalo Gómez de Betanzos. 20. Samaniego 21. Sotomayor 22. Torre, Bernal de la 23. Vanegas ‘el negro’ 24. Venegas, don García 25. Zapata, Juan (Additionlly Mendoza mentioned in agi Justicia 277 that Juan de Aguilar and Fernando Arias Mansilla were ‘absent’ from his household, representing the viceroy at the royal court in Castile).

iii

Individuals Described Explicitly as Mendoza’s Friends or Favourites in agi Justicia 258

1. 2.

Cadena, Antonio de la: Appointed to several corregimientos. Castilla, Luis de: Beneficiary of all sorts of offices, commands and commissions. He would use his friendshiop with the viceroy and invest the wealth he ­accumulated from his offices to become one of the wealthiest miners of New Spain. Chavez, Francisco de: Encouraged to marry Marina Montesdoca, who held the strategically important encomiendas of Tinhuandín and Tacascaro in Michoacán. Gomez, Gonzalo: Owner of at least two cloth-making enterprises and Mendoza’s business partner.

3.

4.

Prominent Courtiers

285

5.

Juárez (Suárez or Xuaréz), Juan: Encomendero and appointed alcalde mayor de minas in Ayoteco in Chautla. 6. Maldonado, Francisco: Encomendero and an important ‘strong-man’ in Oaxaca for Mendoza. He was a lieutenant and trusted as an intermediary with allied and enemy Indios during the Mixtón War (not to be confused with the oidor of the same name). 7. Medina, Geronimo de: Trusted encomendero and a rival of Alonso Ortíz de Zuñiga (a hostile witness against Mendoza), for tributary rights in the the same region. 8. Merida, Alonso de: Treasurer of the Mint. In Spain he and his brothers had been clients of Mendoza’s brother, the marquis of Mondéjar. 9. Peralta, Martin de: Recepient of an encomienda and offices from the viceroy. 10. Pérez de Bocanegra y Córdoba, Hernán: originally from Cordoba, where he had held a seat in municipal government, he became alcalde ordinario of Mexico City; encomendero of Acámbaro and Mendoza’s ‘strong-man’ of the northern Chichimeca frontier, who mediated with the Indio paladins of the frontier, most notably Fernando de Tapia of Querétaro. 11. Rosales, Francisco de: Recepient of corregimientos. 12. Salazar, Gonzalo de: The first Christian born in Granada since the reconquest to the king’s doctor. Charles v appointed him factor of the treasury of New Spain in 1524, and his sons and heirs Hernando and Juan Velázquez would inherit the office and the encomiendas of their father. 13. Sámano, Juan de: Alguacil mayor of Mexico City, married to oidor Ceynos’ wife’s sister. Oidor Tejada’s wife was considered Sámano’s deuda. 14. Sámano, Lope de 15. Sosa, Juan Alonso de: Royal Treasurer. 16. Tejada, Lorenzo de: Oidor of the audiencia of Mexico City. 17. Vitoria, Fray Francisco de: Along with his unnamed nephew. 18. Turcios, Antonio de: Escribano Mayor. 19. Varela, Pedro: Mendoza’s agent in Veracruz. 20. Vázquez de Coronado, Francisco: Elevated to the governorship of New Galicia, granted encomiendas and allowed a favourable marriage. His career never recovered from the failure of the Cíbola expedition.

iv

Individuals Registered as Travelling to New Spain with Mendoza at the Casa de Contratación in Seville

These individuals registered New Spain as their destination at the Casa de Contratación. Their day of departure was on or very near the time of Mendoza’s embarkation on 25 June 1535. The names included are those that were specifically noted as travelling with the viceroy around this date except for those with an asterisk (*), who are likely to

286

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have travelled as part of the viceroy’s entourage from secondary evidence or inference. It is worth noting how many came from traditional Mendozan areas of influence like Granada, Guadalajara, Santillán or Socuéllamos and their provinces. 1.

Alarcón, Hernando de: Son of Antonio de Torres and doña María de Acuña, from Granada. 2. Aller de Benavides, Juan: Son of Alonso Aller and Isabel De Benavides, from Villanueva de Valdejamuz. 3. Almaguer, Antonio de: Son of Francisco López de Almaguer and Juana López, from Corral de Almaguer. 4. Arnalte, Juan de: Son of Juan de Arnalte and Elvira de Calatayud, from Griman (Griñón?), near Madrid. 5. Ayala, Pedro de*: Son of Rodrigo de Ayala and Mari Sánchez de Zamora, from Alcaraz. 6. Carvajal, Antonio de*: Son of Antonio de Carvajal and Elvira Ramírez, from Aguilera. 7. Cortés, Pedro*: Son of Alonso Cortés and Mari López, from Tendilla. 8. Duque, Colinea (?)*: Son of Juan El Duque and Juana de La Viña, from Flanders. 9. Ecija, Bartolome de: Son of Alonso de Ecija and María Hernández, from Granada. 10. Espino Pedro del: Son of Juan del Espino and María de Muciente, from Medina de Rioseco. 11. Espinosa, Andrés de:* Son of Blas de Madrid and María de Pursia (?), from Madrid. 12. Garcia de Plasencia, Juan: Son of Juan García de Plasencia and Inés Gómez, from Murcia, along with Mencía de Molina, his wife, daughter of Lope de Molina. 13. Guerra, Toribio*: Son of Pedro Guerra and Catalina Gutiérrez, from Santillana. 14. Guerrero, Agustín:* Son of bachiller Juan Martínez Guerrero and María Ximénez de Orillana, from Alcaraz. 15. Guzman, don Cristobal*: Son of don Alonso de Calatayza and doña Leonor de Guzmán, from Toledo, and with him came his criado Pedro Serrano, son of Pedro Serrano and Mari Sánchez, from Belmonte. 16. Guzman, Juan de*: Son of Diego de Guzmán and doña Luisa, from Guadalajara. 17. Hernandez, Diego*: Son of Gonzalo Hernández Gallego and Teresa Hernández, from Granada. 18. Hernandez, Gonzalo*: Son of bachiller Luis Alvarez and María Hernández, from Montilla. 19. Hoznayo (or Oznayo), Miguel de: Son of Juan Doznayo [sic] and doña Leonor Beltrán, from Guadalajara. 20. La Torre, Bernaldo de*: Son of Doctor de La Torre, the crown’s fiscal general, and doña María de Caravajal, from Granada.

Prominent Courtiers

287

21. Leal, Pedro*: Son of Pedro Leal and María González, from Alcaraz. 22. Lezcano, Julian de*: Son of licenciado Lezcano and Teresa Alvarez Gil, from Socuéllamos. 23. Medinilla, Pedro de*: Son of Francisco de Medinilla and Susana Hernández, from Medina de Pumar. 24. Mendoza, Francisco de*: Son of comendador Diego de Mendoza and Isabel Segura of Seville, with Beatriz de Montoya his wife and Pedro de Mendoza, Isabel de Mendoza, Leonor de Montoya and Juana Ruiz his children. 25. Merida, Bartolome de*: Son of Francisco Rodríguez de Mérida and Gracía Sánchez, from La Pera (?). 26. Mexía, Gaspar: Son of Rodrigo Mexía and Mestesia Rodríguez de Molina, from Alcaraz. 27. Montero, Pedro de: Son of Juan Sánchez Montero and María Alvarez, from Cáceres. 28. Monzón, Baltasar de*: Trumpeter, son of Luis de Monzón and Valentina Hernández, from Granada. 29. Nuñez, Diego*: Son of Juan de Córdoba and Beatriz Hernández, from Granada. 30. Ortiz, Cristobal*: Son of Pedro de Olea and Juana González de Llerma (?), from Guadalajara. 31. Palomeque, Alonso: Son of Alonso de La Peña, and María de Palomeque. 32. Parada, Juan de: Son of Juan de Parada and Mencía de Villalón, from Huete. 33. Prado, Gaspar de: Son of Alonso de Prado and doña Juana de Loaysa, from Madrid. 34. Proaño, don Rodrigo de*: Son of don Antonio de Proaño and doña María Maldonado, from Guadalajara. 35. Quesada, don Luis de: Son of Pedro Díaz de Quesada and doña Francisca de Mendoza, from Granada, and Bartolomé García de Jaén, son of Pedro García Colomo and Elvira Jiménez la Limona, from Jaén. 36. Quiralte, Francisco: Son of licenciado Francisco Quiralte and Teresa Juárez, from Socuéllamos. 37. Rivero, Antonio de: Criado of the viceroy, son of García de Espinosa and Francisca del Rincón, from Medina del Campo. 38. Roa, Alonso de: Criado of Hernando de Alarcón, son of Pedro de Ubite and Elvira López Valero, from Villamayor. 39. Saldaña, Gaspar de: Son of Juan de Saldaña and María de Salcedo, from Guadalajara. 40. Sánchez Amoraga, Juan*: Son of Francisco de Santacruz and Isabel López, from Huete. 41. Soto, Sebastian de: Son of Sebastián de Soto and doña María Barbaz, from Guadalajara. 42. Tejada, Isabel de*: Daughter of Juan de Mendoza and Maria de Tejada, from Granada, along with Gaspar Agueda and Melchor, her sons with Pedro de Toledo.

288

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43. Temiño, Pedro de*: Son of Bernardino de Temiño and Teresa González de Cortiguera, from Santillana. 44. Tercero, licenciado Francisco*: Son of Pero Hernández Tercero and Ana Gasca, from Corral de Almaguer. 45. Torres, Sebastian de: Son of Sebastián de Torres and Catalina Ruiz, from La Villa de Almazán. 46. Venegas, don García*: Son of don Alonso Venegas and doña María de Quesada, from Granada, with criado Lorenzo de Padilla, son of Juan de Baena and Isabel de Medina, from Granada. 47. Zarate, Diego de: Son of Hernando de Zárate and Elvira Porcel, from Guadalajara.

iii

Treasury Disbursements from the Quitas y Vacaciones Fund (1537–1546)

The number in brackets indicates how many separate disbursements the individual received. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Acebedo, Baltasar Aguado, Fray Alonso Aguayo, Pedro (2) Águila, Domingo: interpreter. Águila, Juan del Alarcón, Hernando Albor, Miguel Hernandez *Albornoz, Juan Alcaraz, Toribio (2): architect of church in Michoacán and constructing a bridge and buiding in Malinalco. 10. Aliero, Antonio de 11. Almaguer, Antonio don 12. Almyron, Alonso 13. Alonso, Francisco: alguacil de Tianguiz (market). 14. Alonso, Hernando 15. Alonso, Rodrigo 16. Alvarado, Fernando de: justicia mayor of Colima. 17. Alvarado, Hernando (2) 18. Alvarez, Lorenzo de 19. Angulo, Francisco 20. Arana, Gaspar: interpreter in Soconusco. 21. Arias de Sayabedra, Hernan: in consideration for various services and because he could not be given a corregimiento at the time.

Prominent Courtiers 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

289

Arias Sotelo, Juan: alcalde mayor of Veracruz. Balbuena, Diego Barrionuevo, Rodrigo Barrionuevo, Velasco de Bartholome: artillery maker ‘of [the viceroy’s] household’ Benavides, Juan Benavides, Pedro Bermudez, Floyan Bermudez, Francisco (2) Buenaventura, Pascual de: manufactures the locks for the treasury and providing certain equipment. Cadena, Hernando de la (2) Calderon, Francisco Calderon, Gaspar: for going to Veracruz by royal instruction. Camacho, Bartholome (4) Canelas, Francisco Canseco, Alonso de Cardenas, Hernando (2) Cardenas, Lorenzo de Carvajal, Francisco Carvajal, Juan (2) *Castilla, Pedro Castillo, Garcia del Castillo, Hernando del Ceron, Jorge (3): for conducting the residencia of Juan Jaso; visitador of the pastel plant and maintenance of roads around Veracruz. *Cherinos, Lope (2) Cieza, Diego Contreras, Juan: interpreter. Cortés, Pedro (2) Cuevas, Juan de Darias Sayavedra, Hernan Delgado, Alonso Delgado, Bartholome (5) Delgado, Francisco Delgueta, Hernando Diez, Francisco Duran, Juanote (4) Ecija, Bartholome Entramas, Juan: for building the smelting house. Escobar, Francisco de: for going to Veracruz.

290

APPENDIX A

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66.

Escobedo, Luis (2) Escobedo, Alonso de: for the capture of Alonso Lugo. Espindola, Cristobal de (2) Espindola, Tomas de Estrada, Salvador Figueroa, Sancho de: for his services as visitador of the towns of his province of Tlacotepeque. Fraile, Juan: interpreter of the audiencia. Franco, Pedro (2): vecino of Oaxaca comissioned as a visitador. Frias, Rodrigo (2) Fuentes, Luis Galeote, Anton (4) Galera, Juan Gallego, Juan (2): interpreter. Gallinas, Cristobal (2) Gaona, Jerónimo (3) García (?) de Beas, Juan (2) García Corona, Hernando García de la Madalena, Juan Garrido, Juan Gaytan, Gabriel (2) Gomez de Almazan, Juan (2) Gonzalez Esquivel, Juan Gonzalez, Alonso Grijalva, Juan de Guardado, Lorenzo Guerrero, Agustín (3): for artillery making services, providing material for paving roads and other services. Guevara, don Pedro de Gutierrez de la Caballeria, Diego Guzmán, don Pedro de (3) Herbas, Gonzalo de Hernandez Aferrado, Diego (3) Hernandez de Sayabedra, Martin (Heirs of) Hernando, Gaspar Herrera, Francisco Holguin, Diego (2) Indio residents of the town of Tepeapulco: for bringing copper to the viceroy. Jaramillo, Juan Jimenez, Luis (2)

67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

Prominent Courtiers 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136. 137.

291

Juarez de Avila, Gaspar (4): to aid him as alcalde mayor of Zacatula. Juarez, Andrés (2): to aid him as alguacil. Juarez, Gomez Juarez, Pedro (3) Leon Romano, Luis: for conducting the residencia of officials of Zacatula. Leyva, Juan de Alvarado, Lic. Arevalo, Lic.: to aid him as regidor of Michoacán. Benavente, Lic.: for services as prosecutor. Caballero, Lic. Ceynos, Lic. Santillan, Lic. Tellez, Lic. Loaysa, Alonso López de Alcantara, Pedro *Lopez de Cardenas, Garci López de Nuncibay, Iñigo (2): to aid him as alcalde of the mines of Zultepec and alcalde mayor of Zumpango. López de Zavala, Juan López, Diego López, Francisco López, Juan Luna y Arellano, Tristan (3): to aid him as justicia mayor of Oaxaca. Maestre Juan: for his services as surgeon and in curing wounded and poor indios. Maestre Miguel Malpaso, Gonzalo de Manrique, Alonso Manuel, Garci Marquez, Francisco: to aid him as alcalde of the mines of Zumpango. Martín Aguado, Pedro (2) Martín, Alonso Martin, Domingo Mayorga, Cristobal (2) Mederos, Clemente (3) Mendez, Benito (2) Mendoza, Diego (3) Merino, Alonso Messa, Antonio de Messina, Juan de Mexía, Gaspar

292

APPENDIX A

138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143. 144. 145. 146. 147.

Mezquita, Diego de (2) Molina, Alonso (4) Molina, Gil (2) Montanches, Juan Montero, Diego (executors of) Morales, Hernando Morcillo, Gaspar Moreno, Antón (6): for his services as a trumpeter. Moscoso, Luis de (2): for services as corregidor of Tlaxcala. Muñoz de Castañeda, Alonso (3): to aid him as alcalde of the mines of Zumpango and alcalde mayor of mines. Muñoz, Diego (3): for his services as mayordomo ‘of the house of his majesty’ and in charge of royal cattle. Muñoz, Francisco (3): for his services as interpreter. Muñoz, Hernando Muñoz, Juan (3) Nieto, Alvaro Nuñez Mercado, Juan (3) Oliber, Martin Ordoñez, Sancho Orejon, Andrés Ortega, Francisco Ortíz de Zuñiga, Pedro Ortíz, Francisco Ortiz, Juan Osorio, Francisco Osorio, Antonio de Ovando, Nicolas de Paez, Hernando (2) Pantigosa, Juan Paz, Alonso de Paz, Diego (2) Perez de Tamayo, Alonso Pinelo, Luis Pomar, Antonio (2): to aid him as alcalde mayor of the Zumpango mines. Ponce, Bartholome Ponce, Pedro *Portugal, Fernando de Prado, Gaspar (2) Puelles, Diego de Quesada, Luis de

148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172. 173. 174. 175. 176.

Prominent Courtiers 177. 178. 179. 180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186. 187. 188. 189. 190. 191. 192. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. 198. 199. 200. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 206. 207. 208. 209. 210. 211. 212. 213. 214. 215.

293

Quiroz, Diego de Ramírez de Vargas, Luis: to aid him as alcalde mayor of the Chautla mines. Ramírez, Garci: for his mission to the Chontales ‘to pacify and reform them.’ Ribero, Antonio (2) Rincón, Alonso: in reward for his design of coined silver. Rincón, Antonio del Rivera, Miguel de Roa, Pedro de Rodriguez, Hernando Romo, Alonso Robles, Melchor Ruíz Lobillo, Juan Ruíz, Marcos Salamanca, Juan Salazar, Cristobal (3): for his services as architect and master of works. Salazar, Francisco Salcedo, Alonso Salcedo, Pedro (2): for services as veedor of silversmiths. Saldaña, Gaspar (2) Salgado, Payo Sallaz, Juan Samaniego, Lope de Sámano, Juan San Juan, Alonso Sanabria, Diego Sánchez Naranjo, Diego Sánchez, Alonso (2) Sánchez, Anton Sánchez, Francisco: for his services as a blacksmith and as compensation for purchase of 3 slaves and a furnace for the royal munitions house. Santacruz, Juan de Santillan, Francisco de Sayabedra, Hernando Sevilla, Francisco Siciliano, Juan Silbera, Diego de la (2) Soltero, Alonso Soto, Sebastian de Sotomayor, Jerónim Suárez de Ávila, Gaspar: for his time as alcalde mayor of Cacatula, until the residencia Luis de León Romano conducted of his tenure.

294 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224. 225. 226. 227. 228. 229. 230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238. 239. 240. 241. 242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. 251. 252. 253. 254. 255.

APPENDIX A Suárez de Ávila, Juan Tapia, Diego (Camargo?) Tapia, Hernando de (4): for his services as interpreter. Temiño, Leonis de Terrazas, Francisco de: for his work on the construction of the smelting house. Tinoco, Diego Torre, Bartholome de la Torre, Bernaldo de la Torres, Juan de Torres, Luis de *Tovar, Pedro Trejo, Pedro Trujillo, Pedro Urrea, Lope de Vaca, Luis Valverde, Martin Vanegas, Alonso Vargas, Pedro (2) Vargas, Juan de Vargas, Luis Vargas, Pablo Vázquez, Diego (3) Vázquez, Juan Vázquez, Pero Vega, Juan Velasco, Pedro de Velázquez, Juan Velázquez, Juan (heirs of) Vellerin, Cristobal Verdejo, Juan Francisco Villagomez, Bernaldino Villamayor, Diego (3) Villanueva, Bartholome (2) Villanueva, Hernando de Villaseñor, Diego de Villegas, Juan Yeberis, Pedro Zagarra, Francisco (heirs of) Zanbrana, Alvaro de Zayas, Luis

Appendix B

Monetary Terms, Weights and Measures All figures in the main text of the thesis will be expressed as ducats (d) for ease of comparison in accordance with the following methodology.

Ducat Traditionally a gold coin containing 3.6 grams (g) of gold: • In 1497 it was valued at 375 maravedís or 11 reales. • After 1537 it was valued at about 350 maravedís. Maravedí The maravedí did not actually exist in coin form by our period but rather as a method of establishing value. Marco of Silver One fifth of a ducat. Real Español Was c. 3.35g of silver or about 34 maravedís. • It was coined in pieces of 2, 4 and 8. The piece of 8, made famous by English speaking pirates and their parrots, was extremely common and it was worth 1 silver peso. Tomín One eighth of a peso de oro or 575 milligrams of gold. It seems that at the start of Mendoza’s viceroyalty one tomín could buy 11 loaves of bread. Escudo de oro Contained 3.4g of gold was worth 350 maravedís or 16 reales. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���8 | doi 10.1163/9789004341456_012

296

Appendix B

Peso de Oro • When coined or considered de ley perfecta or de minas, it was valued at 450 maravedís. • When un-coined: ○ de tepuzque, it was valued at 271 maravedís; ○ común, it was valued at 300 maravedís; ○ común con tres quilates, it was valued at 360 maravedís. Castellano de Oro Valued at 485 maravedís. Cacao Had different values: Guatemalan was the best, Colima less so. • 80–100 cacao beans were valued at 1 real. • Sold in cargas and each carga was worth 28–30 silver pesos (of 8 reales each). • A Guatemalan load of cacao could fetch up to 3–4 silver pesos more per load. Alonso de Villaseca became a millionaire with the exchange rate showing its continued use into the viceregal period. (See J. Suárez de Peralta, Tratado del descubrimiento de las Indias, ed. T. Silva Tena (Mexico, 1990), 157.) Fanega One fanega was a measure of capacity equivalent to c. 55.5 litres, c. 215 gallons or 27 bushels. It could also denote the amount of land needed to produce a fanega of grain. A fanega was equivalent to 2 almudes, the more usual measurement for maize.

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Archivo General de Indias Contaduría 663B Gobierno, Audiencia de México 19 58 68 92 96 280 323 Justicia 258–277 Patronato Real 184 180 182 203



Archivo General de la Nación Instituciones Coloniales/ Tierras/16031/vol.37 exp.2 fs. 125.

Index abuses 58, 77, 251 Acámbaro 143 Acampichtli 32, 39 Acapulco 83, 105, 110, 117, 266 acceptance 77, 194, 198, 240 Acolhua 38, 169 Acxotecatl Cocomitzi, Lord of Atlihuetza (Tlaxcala) 66, 78, 86 adelantados 81, 101, 109 adherence 85 aeque principaliter 12, 94, 239 afán nobiliario 50 affection/affective links 96, 106 Afghanistan 7 Africa/Africans 6, 47, 130, 214 agents 76, 88, 115, 262 commercial 105, 140 ineffective Spanish 175 of polities at viceregal court 194 of viceregal authority 183, 233 trusted 145 unofficial 146 See also ‘intimate representatives’ Águila, don Jerónimo del 205 Aguilar, Francisco de 43 Aguilar, Juan de 108, 114 Ahuizotl 64 Aigues Mortes 153, 198 Alameda, Fr. Juan de 176 Alamonte, Juan de 171 Alarcón, Hernando de 110, 142 Alba, iii Duke of (Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel) 102 Alberti, Leon Battista 232–235, 250 Alborán, battle of 153 Albornoz, Rodrigo de 76–77, 114, 121 Alcáçovas, treaty of 47 Alcalá, Jerónimo de 167 alcaldes 149, 184, 255 alcaldías mayores 73, 135–136, 249 Alexander ‘the Great’ 64 Algiers 104 alguacil 191 Alhambra 96–97, 120, 232

Allegados 122, 134, 150 Alliances between polities, viceroys and friars 162, 164 Almaguer, Antonio de 103 Almayete 97 Altepeme, see polities (Mesoamerican) Alumbrado/alumbradismo in New Spain 146, 164, 218–219, 258 Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Fernando de 28, 31 Alvarado Huantzin, Diego de 179 Alvarado, Juan de (Pedro’s nephew) 110 Alvarado Pimentel Nezahualcoyotl, don Hernando 87 Alvarado, Juan de (Pedro’s brother) 81 Alvarado, Pedro de, 66 (check before) 78, 81, 86, 99–101, 103, 109–111, 123, 133, 140, 142, 149, 157, 185, 191, 200, 246 Amadís de Gaula 51 Amazons 65 Ambassadors 94 Amecameca 86 Americas 16, 43, 49, 51–53, 56, 65, 74, 100, 199, 220, 268 New Spain’s mission to convert 202 Spanish expansion in 102, 111, 207 See also New World Amillpan 87 Andalusia 47, 120 Andean region 161 ‘Another Jerusalem’ (City of God, ­millenarianism) 1–4, 202, 105, 207 ‘New Jerusalem’ 163, 267 Antonio of Michoacán 182 Arellano, Pedro de 80 Arias Mansilla, Rodrigo 114 Aristotle 2, 44–45 Asia 84, 100, 111, 113 assemblies/parlamento of conquistadores 148 Asturias 46 Athens 172, 197, 267 Atlantic Ocean (‘Ocean Sea’) 6, 47, 218 Atlihuetza 86 Atlixcatzin 61

314 Atlixco, valley of 60, 69, 86 Audiencias 76, 80, 97, 109, 114, 128, 136–137, 171, 178, 193, 227, 261, 264 able to launch visitas and residencias  246 as limiting liberty of officials 228 Audiencia de los Confines 112 Chancellor of 122 complaints against 263 government of New Spain 120 in Naples 264 interpreters of the 186 of New Galicia 115, 117–118, 160 President of 83, 93, 150, 264 repressive after death of Velasco 251, 264 Augustinians 85, 162 Augustus Caesar (Octavian) 13–14, 64 authority/authorities 13–14, 17–19, 39, 57, 72, 82–83, 85, 88, 110, 268 bureaucratic 98 competition for 263 diffusion of 100 emergent 71 episcopal 220 formal 100 informal/unofficial 74, 95, 114, 120, 139, 183, 238, 259, 261–262 King’s/Royal 18, 56, 115, 132 legislative 94, 120 local 102 lordly 98 natural 38, 216, 258 new definitions in New Spain 116 of Spaniards in Mesoamerica 88, 157 over expansion in New Spain 118 parallel 106, 118 personal 99, 132, 155, 172, 193, 221 Polity 27, 68, 79, 175 sources of 99 unified political authority of Mesoamerica 197 viceregal 18, 98, 101–102, 115, 120, 129, 133, 141, 144, 160, 168, 172, 183–184, 190–191 See also formal autonomy 5, 13, 56, 60, 70, 85 lordly 240 municipal 72–74, 149

Index of Indio polities 86, 194, 221, 237–238 of magnates 81, 100 of New Spain 267 of provinces 128 of royal officials 124 of viceroys 94 Axayacatl 64, 70, 251 ayuntamiento 81 Azcapotzalco 38, 58 Babylon 2, 200 baptism 68, 87 Basque country 133 Bautista, Juan 251 Bayonne 164 Béjar, ii Duke of (Álvaro de Zúñiga y Pérez de Guzmán) 77 Benavente/Paredes, Toribio de, see Motolinía Benavente, v Count and ii Duke of (­Antonio Bernardino Alonso de Pimentel y ­Pacheco) 84, 199 Bible 2 ‘‘black legend’ 8, 268 Bocanegra family 263 Bocanegra y Córdoba, Hernán Pérez de 111, 143–144, 149 Bogotá, Santa Fe de 235 Bourbon reforms 265 Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias 5 Burckhardt, Jacob 236 Bureaucracy/bureaucratic 7, 13–14, 74, 116, 211, 240, 260 colonial 245 courtly 19 efficiency 247 hierarchy 74, 146 logic 155 mechanism 120 modern 10, 197, 240 procedures and rules 128, 240 professional 139, 244 Weberian 240 banausic 44 Burgundian 73 caballeros 45, 143, 188 See also knights/knightly

Index cabecera 24 Cabeza de Vaca, Alvar Nuñez 100 cabildo 88, 100, 149 of Indio polities 183, 192, 212 of Mexico City 123, 143, 145, 149–150, 153, 156 Cacama 59 cacao 42 cacique y señor natural 57, 68–69, 179, 182, 190, 192 See also princes Caesar, Julius 207 calmecac 36 Calpolli 25, 86–87 Canary Isles 47, 241 ‘Cantares Mexicanos’ 204 Captain General 97, 100–101, 116–117, 133 Captain of the Galleys of Castile 153 Carbón de Tehuantepec 105 Carceda, Andrés de 101 Caribbean 52, 72, 78–79, 89, 100, 120, 199, 211, 234 Carolingian settlement 73 Carrillo, Luis 120, 251, 263 Carvajal, Antonio de 149 Casa de Contratación 75 casas pobladas 130–131, 133, 138 cash/coin reserves 126–127, 248 Castañeda, Gabriel 68 ‘Catholic Monarchs’ 48–49, 73 Castile, Kingdom of (Castile) 6, 17, 43, 46, 49, 51–52, 54, 70, 72–76, 78, 81, 85, 89, 94, 102, 104, 107, 109, 111, 113, 115, 121, 127, 140, 144, 150, 156, 167, 186, 210, 214, 218, 247, 259, 260, 264, 266 aristocracy 51, 81 ‘caballero renaissance’ 232 market town 51 municipalities 72–73, 80, 131, 194, 237 perception of viceregal virtue 230 remoteness 71 vested interests in 266 See also new nobility Castilian Monarchy 6, 10, 13, 43, 47, 52–54, 56, 93, 102, 121, 131, 155, 161–162, 176, 212, 216, 218, 221 opinions on New Spain 237

315 attitude to legitimacy of viceregal government 239–240 challenge to viceregal authority 244 developed gradually in Americas 264 fear of rebellion in New Spain 263 laws in New Spain 240 loyalty to and local patriotism 263 suspicion of local arrangements 224, 247–248, 259 unwanted interference of 228, 245 ‘urban statutes’ 237 See also Empire, Spanish Castilla, Ana de 143 Castilla, Diego de 143 Castilla, Luis de 110, 122, 129, 142–143, 149, 154, 225, 263 Castilla, Pedro de 137, 263 castrum 51, 232 as urban model 208, 234–235 Catalan 56 cathedral 86 cattle 145, 214 Caxcanes 107–108, 157, 214 Cazonci 67–78, 182 cédulas 98, 108, 111–112, 128, 147, 150, 210, 232, 261 centralization 19 centre-periphery relations 10–11, 18, 74, 118, 164 Cerdegne 47 Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco 206, 236, 251–252, 266 Cervantes y Saavedra, Miguel de 44 Cervantes, Leonel de 151 Ceynos, Francisco 122–123, 126, 263–264 Chalca confederation 34, 39 Chalco 39, 59, 83, 86, 141, 157, 175, 191 Chapultepec 206, 267 Charles of Habsburg (Charles v) 2, 4, 60, 69, 72–73, 75–76, 84–85, 93–94, 95–96, 110–111, 143, 145, 186, 188, 198, 201–202, 205, 213, 218, 232, 234 as represented in Tlaxcalan spectacle 199–201 Chiapas 101 Chichimecas 25, 64–65, 117–118, 144, 157, 160, 171, 207, 217 Chichimecatecuhtli 38, 182

316 Chiconautla 26 chinampa 39, 59 Chinampaneca Tlacalaquilli 59 Chirinos, Perálmindez 76, 111, 121 chivalry/chivalric 44, 48, 53–54, 65, 73, 75 ceremonial/display 110–111, 255, 260, 262 ethos 47, 54 franchise 44 ideals 188 Indio 187 orders 49, 54 romance 51, 53 values 50 Cholula/Cholulans 60, 80, 177, 192 Christianisation 83–84, 88, 175, 203 Christianity 5, 53, 72, 84–85, 87, 163, 175, 188, 204, 209, 215, 238 ‘Old Christian’ 46 armies 199 Christendom 47, 54, 96 See also Christendom Christians 46, 54, 78, 13 displays of piety 86–88, 96 local cults 131 rituals/ceremonies 68, 85, 86–87, 188 universalist 164, 266 Cíbola, ‘Kingdom’ of 99–100, 105–106, 108–109, 111, 113, 142, 182, 212 Cicero, Marcus Tullius 43, 213 Cisneros, Archbishop Francisco Ximénez de  49, 84 citizens 44, 222 Ciudad Rodrigo, Fr. Antonio de 175 civic architecture 198, 236 civic virtues 19, 27, 225, 260 Classical learning/models 51, 201–202, 206, 208, 213, 267 Clement vii, Pope 186 clients 77–78, 135, 148 Coacalli 64 coats of arms 54–55, 78, 190 Coatzacoalcos River 68 Cochineal 75 codices/ ‘painted books’ 171 Codex Bodley 34 Codex Mendoza 27, 39 Codex Osuna 213 Florentine Codex 31

Index coercion 79, 137, 158, 175 Coixtlahuaca 178 Colhua 38, 169 Colhuatecuhtli 38 Colima 68 Colio, Diego de 244 Collateral Council of Naples 264 College of Santa Cruz Tlatelolco 122, 140, 166, 200 Colomocho, Michoacán 68 colonies 68, 81, 117 colonists, see settlement/settlers Columbus, Christopher 5, 47, 52–53, 96, 266 commands 12, 13, 58, 133, 168, 211, 241, 243 See also mandamiento commensurable intelligibility 163 commerce 105 commonwealth/common good 44–45, 70, 97, 212, 214, 223 of New Spain and Christianity 190 ethos of service to 225, 243–246 community of interests 127 competition between Indios and Spaniards 214 ‘composite monarchy’ 19, 94–95 Compostela 68, 144 communal memories 84 Comuneros/Comunero rebellion 3, 18, 72–75, 76, 80, 94, 96, 121, 135, 218, 232 concubines/concubinage 66 confederacy 38–40 ‘confidence of ignorance’ 65 congregación 87 Conquest of Mexico (the Conquest) 7, 17–18, 27, 31, 42–43, 54, 58, 62, 65, 69–71, 76–77, 79, 89, 104, 119, 131, 149, 157, 173, 175, 177, 191, 200, 202–203, 205, 235, 250, 261 as a conversion 202–204, 212 as a legitimate venture 267 conquest 17, 27, 40, 57, 70, 158 legitimate 17, 72 imperial 25, 39 conquest as Reconquista 47, 53, 56, 72, 201–202, 234 by New Spain 143 of ‘Jerusalem’ 198 and urban transformation 234

Index conquistadores/conquerors 23, 51, 53–54, 56, 58–59, 61, 63, 65, 68, 70–73, 75, 77, 79, 102, 142, 148, 151, 157, 200, 207, 211, 214, 225, 234, 238, 244–245, 249 as ‘Perseus’ 267 as heirs to Mexica aristocracy 216 colonisation 7, 25, 67 Indio 111, 142, 188 of New Spain’s frontier 143 consanguinity 31, 42, 146, 260 See also lineage, kinship groups conspiracies 141, 251 Constable of Castile (Pedro Fernández de Velasco y Tovar) 121, 144 Constantinople 47 Contador 76, 120, 122, 230 continuity 4 Conuncil of State 75 convent 29, 83, 85–87 atrial spaces (‘open chapel’ or ‘Indian chapel’) 29, 73, 163, 168, 236 Indio voluntary construction and ­maintenance of 164 San Francisco, Mexico City 163, 204, 236 San Luis de Tolosa, Tlalmanalco 86 San Martín Huaquechula 86 San Miguel Arcángel, Ixmiquilpan  182–183, 205 San Miguel Huexotzinco 86–87, 176, 203 Santiago de Tlatelolco 236 conversion/converts 4, 6, 42, 83, 88, 194, 200–209, 215–216 Christian 2, 72, 163, 167, 216 of Mexico City 266 political 2, 167, 206–207, 228 urban 201, 233–235 voluntary 200 converso 73 Copala 117, 118 Coronado, Francisco Vázquez de 107, 110, 113–114, 138, 142, 144, 147, 149, 244 Corpus Christi spectacle, see Tlaxcala corregidores/corregimientos 73, 80, 85, 103, 125, 135–136, 138–141, 144–145, 147–148, 168, 173, 247, 249 correspondence/letters/reports 150, 211–212 corruption 10, 75, 122, 128, 139, 154, 164, 222, 226, 243–245, 264

317 cortes 44 Cortés, Hernán 5, 34, 43, 44, 50, 53, 57, 60, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74–79, 81, 84, 86–88, 99–103, 105–106, 108–113, 120, 129, 133, 142, 150, 153, 156, 182, 191, 200–201, 232–233, 251–252, 267–268 As ‘Moses of the New World’ 206, 230 As represented in Tlaxcalan spectacle 200 Cortés, Martín (eldest son of Hernán, El mestizo) 118 Cortés, Martín (father of Hernán) 49, 75 Cortés, Martín (second son of Hernán, ii Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca) 113,    117–118, 126–128, 146, 153, 155–156, 229, 258, 261–263 Cortés, Totoquihuaztli, don Antonio (lord of Tacuba) 203, 213 Cortés-Ávila conspiracy 251, 263 Cosrtésian Settlement 70, 74 Council of Castile 73, 93 Council of the Affairs of State 264 Council of the Indies 75–76, 113, 115, 123, 172–173 Council of Trent 162 courts 15, 73 ‘and country’ 19 access to 96, 114, 140, 146 complicity 93 court studies 15–16 European royal courts 15–16, 232, 253 of the Alhambra 232 Purehpecha 67–68 royal court of Castile 18, 72–73, 75–77, 79, 82, 94–95, 97, 101, 107, 110–111, 121, 133, 140, 150, 230, 234, 244–245, 252, 263, 265, 268 Tudor court 15 See also viceregal court courtesan 145 courtiers 15, 71, 74–5, 106, 116 Castilian 93–94, 223 courtier-official 76–78 courtly government 15, 36, 175, 194, 250 associations 121 Indio officials 183 intimacy/trust/confidences 15, 111, 113, 121, 123, 145, 190, 209, 226

318 courtly government (cont.) mandate 99 persuasion 128 strategies 120, 149, 155 Coyoacan 68, 70 criados 134, 146, 153 of the King 98, 108, 119, 209, 211, 253 of the viceroy 133, 223, 265 criollos 126, 129 Cristóbal, Fr. 164 Crosses 68 crusade/crusading 47, 188, 198, 201–202, 204–205 Cuauhtémoc 58, 60, 202, 204 Cuba 44, 49, 74 Cuernavaca 79 Cuilapa 117 Cuinierángari, see Pedro of Michoacán, don cultural permeability 162 ‘culture of authority’ 13, 19 See also ‘political culture’ custom 94 De Bello Iudaico 201 debt 126–127, 138–139 decrees 80, 116 delegate 75 Democracy 197 dependence/dependent 107, 122, 140 directly on the crown 116, 148 on viceregal patronage 126, 136–137 trusted 141 untrustworthy 222–223 deracination 130 derogation 33, 36 Díaz de Aux, Miguel 148–149 Díaz de Mendoza, Ruy 144 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal 50–52, 54, 64, 71, 139, 153, 192, 207, 210, 230, 246 diminishing resources 155 discourse, see polemics disputes, see polemics do ut des, see voluntary service domination 4, 19, 39, 94, 158 Dominicans 85, 86, 162, 218 Dutch 56, 263 dynastic unions 66, 87, 95, 121, 147, 151

Index ecclesiastical hierarchy 162, 204, 208–209, 219 El Dorado 65 election 149, 176 Emperor, see ‘Charles of Habsburg’ empire 5–11, 13, 39, 61, 68, 72, 74, 84, 260 ‘Aztec Empire’ 38 Babylonian, equated with pagan Mexica 201 classical Athenian Empire 172–173 continuity of Mexica iconography 204 control 237 discourse of 220 function of 177 Habsburg motifs 188 imperial polities 61, 177 Medusa equated with Mexica 267 mendicant condemnations of 218 micro-imperialism 38, 61 ‘overseas territorial’ 264 parasitic tradition in Mesoamerica 19, 130, 260 pre-Conquest Mesoamerican imperial traditions 68, 169, 216, 250 Spanish adoption of Mesoamerican ­traditions 155, 216 Spanish 5, 19, 218, 268 struggle for justice in 241–242 sub-empire of Mexico City 3, 19, 163, 202, 265–266 Tenochca/Mexica 39–40, 42, 58, 66, 68, 155, 173, 204 universalist 266 encomenderos 68, 80, 85, 88, 101, 117, 131, 134–135, 162, 167–168, 178, 215, 217, 219, 230, 238, 249, 250 as hereditary elite 132 as tyrants 214, 242 become pensioners of viceroys 136–138, 255 despised by Indios 193 land tribute 172, 174 Martín Cortés woos 262 rebellion in Peru 240, 259 viceregal patronage of 152, 25 encomiendas 72, 75, 77, 79, 81, 97, 104, 108, 110, 122, 124, 136, 140, 143, 151, 155, 165, 202, 212, 214, 223, 225, 230

Index and ‘New Laws’ 150–151 escheatment of 79, 104, 125, 136, 137–138, 258–259 inheritance of 136–137 ‘in perpetuity’/patrimonial 132, 148, 150–151, 219, 258 opposition to 164 viceregal redistribution of 142, 146–147, 154 Enconchado art 267 enfranchisement/enfranchised 10–11, 129, 149, 191, 199, 209, 211, 222, 230, 235, 245–246, 252, 255, 258–260, 265–266, 268 England/English 47, 56, 232 ennoblement 36–37, 43, 47, 49–50, 131, 184, 227 Enriquez de Almanza, Martín 264 entrepreneurs/entrepreneurial ­activities 123–124, 140, 144, 187, 206 as ‘good for commonwealth’ 226 epidemics 173–174 Erasmus of Rotterdam/ Erasmian 219 Estrada, Alonso de 76, 142 euergetism 78 Europe/European 18, 32–33, 35, 43, 56–57, 64, 72, 84, 93–95, 126, 130, 140, 155, 162, 188, 198–199, 207–208, 215, 266 admiration of Mexico 233, 236 cities 233–234 evangelisation 3, 18, 207, 211 See also conversion expectations 17, 24, 38, 43, 56, 58, 71, 105, 124, 143, 154, 192, 194, 198, 227, 236–237, 258 exploration 82, 103, 108, 113, 140, 142 Extremadura 108 ‘Face of the night’, 4 Jaguar 32, 34 faction 3, 34, 57, 60, 65–66, 77–78, 88–89, 128, 156, 172 and violence after death of Velasco 251, 264 factional conflict/strife 61, 100, 119, 121, 147, 174, 177, 197, 261, 263 in Castilian court 108 in support of Velasco 248

319 Spanish, in New Spain 82, 262 usurpation of power 61, 67, 70, 202–203 factor 120–121, 126, 141, 243 farmers 80, 131 fatalism 8 favourites/favouritism 135, 144 royal 19, 73, 75 viceregal 135, 137 See also privado Ferdinand ii of Aragon 47, 49, 74, 76, 97 Fernández de Córdoba, Gonzalo 50, 246 Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo 31 Fernández-Armesto, Felipe 18, 42, 63 First Audiencia 78, 81, 85, 88, 164, 166, 175 Flanders 232 Florence 13–14 Florida 100, 117, 143, 212, 257 Fonseca, Bishop Juan Rodríguez de 74–76, 116 Fonseca, doña Petronila de 74 Fonsequistas 74–75 formal 13–14, 74 administrative hierarchy 146 attributes of the viceroy 139 political office 101, 109 practices of government 17 France/French 46, 51, 56, 164, 199, 263 Francis I, King of France 51, 198 Franciscans 1, 5, 79, 83–88, 162, 167, 198–199, 201, 212, 218, 266, 268 Francisco of Michoacán, don 182 freedom/free will 44–45, 177, 223, 225, 242, 258 See also liberty ‘Free men’ 44, 222 Friaries, see convents Friars 4–5, 87, 115, 145, 171–172, 204, 216–217, 228, 258 accused of rebelliousness or ­apostasy 219, 251 and episcopal authority 220 and New Spain’s providential ­mission 230, 266 and urban transformation 233 as agents of the viceregal ­administration 162–182, 251 as intermediaries 166–167, 193

320 Friars (cont.) authority in polities 163 dependence on Indio patronage 164 exalt personal and courtly government 168 influence on morality of New Spain 218, 228 influence over viceroys 168 involvement in princely succession 182 loyalty to local arrangements 219, 248 networks 168 possible authors of polemical letters 254 standing 167 trusted by polity authorities 168 undermine Spanish standing 216 unofficial authority 238 See also Mendicants frontier of New Spain 117–118, 143, 182, 187, 205 García Bravo, Alonso 232 García de Albornoz 243 garrison 68, 265 Gattinara, Mercurino 75 Genghis Khan 64 Genoa 234 gentleman, see nobility Germany 232 Ghent, Fr. Peter of 84 Gibbon, Edward 13 Gibson, Charles 174 Giscala, John of 202 gobernadores (new Indio officials) 183–184, 190 Gogol, Nikolai 80 Golden Fleece, Knightly Order of the 188 Gómez, Gonzalo 140 Gómez, Rodrigo 225 González, Juan and Miguel 62, 256 ‘good government’ 128, 175, 210, 216, 222 government 79 governors of New Spain 75–77, 93, 101, 106, 108, 115, 118 Granada, Kingdom of 47–50, 53, 72, 76, 96–98, 120, 122–123, 133, 161, 178, 208, 225, 264 ‘Greater New Spain’ 112, 118–119, 123 Greece/Greek 56, 68, 206

Index Guadalajara (Castile) 97, 133 Guadalajara (New Galicia) 54, 118, 157 Guadalupe, Our Lady of 267 Guam 266 Guanajuato 158 guards 102, 139 Viceroy’s halberdiers 134, 140, 169, 252 Guatemala 56, 68, 69, 81, 86, 101, 103, 110, 112, 115, 123, 128, 133, 139, 190 Guebara, don Cristobal de 171 Guerrero, Agustín 103, 110, 114, 121–122, 126, 139–140, 142, 150, 166, 186, 194, 244, 252 guest-friendship (xenia) 68 gunpowder 63 Guzmán, Beltrán Nuño de 76–79, 81–82, 85, 93, 99–101, 106–107, 112, 120, 122, 147, 158, 212, 243 Guzmán, Esteban de 187 Guzmán, Sálvago de 108 Habsburg monarchy 19, 72, 111, 178, 239–240, 268 Constructed by parasitic nobiles 260 New Spain as a more virtuous appendage of 230 Participation/enfranchisement in  258–259 See also ‘composite monarchy’ Hanke, Lewis 241 Hernández de Portocarrero, Alonso 75 Hernández Girón, Francisco 132 Herrera, Juan de 101 Herzog, Tamar 207 Hidalgo, Miguel 158 Hidalgos 32, 45, 49, 51, 54, 141, 191 Hidalguía 11, 43–44, 50, 53, 260 See also nobility Hispania 46, 53 See also ‘Spain’ Hispaniola 211, 242 ‘hispanization’ 11 History of the Indians of New Spain 1, 198 See also Motolinía Holguín, García de 58 Honduras 77, 101–102, 124, 149 honour 45 horizontal associations 77, 124

Index household 98, 107, 110, 139–141, 159, 210 dependants of viceroy 134, 243, 251 duties 139 of ‘principal men’ 133, 147 proximity 134 style of government 133 viceregal 121, 135, 224, 244 Huaquechula 59–60, 69, 86 Huasteca 68–69 Huatulco 105 Huehuehtlahtolli 33, 35, 184, 204 Huexotzinco/Huexotzinca 34, 60–61, 65–66, 80, 87, 167, 175–177, 185, 188, 192, 202, 213, 228 Huey Tlatoani 38, 42 Huitzilopochtli 163 Huizinga, Johan 50 Human Rights 6, 258 humanist precepts 232 Hungary/Hungarian 96, 199, 232 hunting/hunters 76, 145, 152 hymns 58 Ibarra family 118, 144, 146 Ibarra, Diego de 121, 144 Ibarra, Francisco de 118, 144, 244 Ibarra, Hortuño de 104, 121, 125, 144, 229–230, 243, 262–263 Ibarra, Miguel de 144, 214 Ibarra, Pedro de 144 Iberia 95, 201, 208 ideals, political 23, 42, 77, 235 good government 245 justice 245 of household intimacy 134 ‘ideals of life’/‘life ideals’ 17, 50, 58 historical 50 sui generis to New Spain 19, 260 identification 10, 71, 87–88, 95, 131, 152 163–166, 207, 253 mutual between Indio and Spanish nobiles 265 of Indios with viceroys 187, 193 of parasitic nobiles with viceregal government 260 of viceroys with New Spain 253 identity 11, 19, 52, 134, 178, 193, 214, 217, 230, 253, 266

321 ideology/ideological 65, 77, 146, 155, 164, 242, 248 idolatry/idolaters 163, 182, 203, 205 ‘idols’ 87 imperial/imperialism, see empire Inca 160 income 103–4 independence/independent 56 Indies, see Americas, New World Indios 8, 11, 17, 57–58, 67, 71, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89, 101, 130, 145, 155–156, 169, 172, 200, 208, 216 acceptance of viceregal authority  193–194 accuse Spaniards of tyranny 214–215 adopt providential rhetorical trope  230–231, 266 agency 65 ambiguous legal definition 265 and urban transformation 233 as blameless or innocent 167, 211 assertion of rights 242–243, 258 autonomy 212, 221, 238 Christianised 83 collective memory of viceregal authority 193–194 complaint of visitador 226 demographic decline of 155 devotional expectations 236 during Conquest 58, 79, 175 educational institutions 145 enfranchisement 199, 235, 242–243, 258, 263 forced labour of 80 identification with viceroys 193–194, 260 identify with New Spain 266 Jueces Gobernadores 187 leadership 78, 82 military service 212–213 notions of liberty after Conquest 209, 212 of the ‘heartlands’ of New Spain 160–162, 190 offices independent of polity 185–187 petitioners at viceregal court 168–169, 171–175, 186, 251 political development of 228 population 23, 82

322

Index

Indios (cont.) post-conquest leadership 68–69, 79, 84, 157, 167, 172–175, 186, 193–194, 204–205, 230–231, 235–236, 248, 250 recalcitrant 164 regionalist identity 230 rhetorical victimhood 217 rights ius gentium 258 traditions of public spectacle 198 voluntary conversion as origin of ­legitimacy 204–205, 212 See also naturales informal arrangements/links 98, 124, 129 as strategies of government 125, 149, 154, 248 institutions/institutional 94, 134 Respect for 132 insurrection, see rebellion intention 197 intermediaries 10, 83, 85, 88, 133 cultural 187 friars promoted as 166–167 interpreters 167–168, 171–172, 186–187 intimacy 15, 121 ‘intimate representatives’ 74–75, 84, 101, 108, 110, 122, 124, 140, 145, 171, 194 Iraq 7 Ircio, María de 151 Ircio, Martín de 151 Ircio, Pedro de 151 Isabella i of Castile 47–49, 53, 93 Isabella of Portugal (Queen-regent and ­Empress) 94, 96, 98, 113 Israel 204 Italian Wars 47, 56 Italy/Italian 49, 51, 56, 75, 145, 232, 234, 236, 244 Itzcoatl 24 Ixtlilxochitl 59, 87 Izúcar 60

Jerusalem 2, 199, 201 as a crusading notion 201 equated with Mexico City 201–204 Jews/Jewish 46, 49 Josephus 201–203 Juan de Huaquechula, don 86 judges 88, 116 judicial processes/inquiries 76, 82, 105, 107, 121, 167 functions of Indio gobernadores 183 particular to New Spain 246–248 political intention 243–246 See also visitas, residencias traditions undermined by ‘original sin’ 241 justice 2, 5, 12, 18, 46, 79 discovered through negotiation at ­viceregal court 241 Indio 192 Natural Justice 2, 214 royal 47, 114, 154, 211, 213, 222 self-contained in New Spain 241 social 267 viceregal 168–169, 172 justifications 45, 51, 65, 84 divine 218 experience as 225, 229 moral 218 of Indio lordship after Conquest 202 of patronage 141 of viceregal authority 225 Justlaguaca 142

‘Jaguar-Claw’, 8-Deer 32, 34 Jalisco 213 James, King of Aragon 50 Japan 266, 268

La Celestina 51 La Cueva dynasty 81 La Cueva, Beatriz de 112 La Cueva, Francisco de 112

King 12, 43, 54, 65, 76 See also ‘Charles of Habsburg’, Philip ii King’s recognition 56 Kingdoms 94 kinship groups 52, 84, 131, 176 See also ‘consanguinity’ knights/knightly 44, 53–54, 56, 111, 145, 152, 186, 211, 225 See also caballeros, chivalry

Index landed property 124 Factional dispossession of 177 Viceregal appropriation of 173 Viceregal distribution of landed property 150 Lares, Amador de 50 Las Casas, Agustín de 146 Las Casas, Bartolomé de 3, 5, 53, 114, 146, 214, 219–220, 242, 266 Latin 206, 213, 215–216 laws 12–14, 33, 45, 94, 179, 239, 243–244 code 43 coherent framework 264 Common Law 241 Derecho Indiano 12 distrusted in New Spain 241 ineffective for protection of Indios 242 influenced by New Spain’s polemics 259 ‘Laws of Burgos’ 241 legal precedent 12, 51, 241 letter of the 125, 128, 137, 150, 261 ‘New Laws’ 132, 150–151, 215, 218, 219–220, 240, 254 obeyed but not enacted 240 Roman Law 241 royal legislation 13, 58, 116, 125, 132, 146, 162, 208, 223–225, 227, 229, 237, 261–262 ‘spirit’ of in New Spain 241 lawyers 73 Lazarillo de Tormes 131 legalistic 110, 128, 155, 251 legality/legal formality 69, 79, 93, 109 contested 140, 174 legal powers 135 Legazpi, Miguel López de 117 legitimacy/legitimising 2, 11, 13, 17, 23, 33, 53, 57, 72, 75, 77, 81, 85, 87–89, 107, 143, 171 ambiguities of in New Spain 118, 153, 175 attained through courtly logic 155 benchmarks/framework of 18, 82, 88, 198, 208, 217, 245 Christian principles behind 209 claims to lordship 179, 211 created at viceregal court 172, 253 crisis of in New Spain of 119 experience as 225, 229

323 language of 19, 199, 205, 245, 262 New Spain’s internal logic of 226 of claims to preferment 139, 149 of disbursements 127 of friars assuming political roles in polities 164 of Indio noble authority 167, 194, 201, 228 of viceregal authority 193, 225–230, 240 rites 87 sources of 102, 106, 110, 218–219 struggle for 124 sui generis to New Spain 217 varied forms of 101 viceregal patronage and 184, 191–192, 194, 252 Leo x, Pope 74 León, Juan de 111 letrados 4, 80, 93, 150, 174, 224–225, 230, 248, 264 liberty/liberation 82, 150, 210 and trustworthiness 222–223, 226 guaranteed by viceroys 227–228 ideals of 209 libertas 44 of smaller polities from larger ones  177–178 through conversion 206–207 See also freedom libraries 99 licences, viceregal 86, 186–192, 225–226 Lienzo de Quauhquechollan 86 Lienzo de Tlaxcala 86, 220 Lienzos 69 Lima 105, 234–235 lineage 45 Livy, Titus 207 loans 138 Loaysa, Francisco de 123, 149 local political arrangements 76–77, 79, 82, 84, 108, 116, 156, 185, 247, 248 López de Gómara, Francisco 69, 77, 103, 110, 253 López, Jerónimo 64, 148, 151, 154, 157, 193, 207, 210, 215–216, 227, 241, 254 lords/lordships, Indio  17, 24–36, 69, 79, 82, 87–88, 135, 159, 172, 176–177, 183–185, 190, 201, 203, 214, 218, 248, 250–251, 263, 265–266

324 lords/lordships, Indio (cont.) arguments against 254 consent needed 248 embrace notion of ‘Conquest as conversion’ 202 gramáticos (literacy/knowledge of Latin)  192–193 imperial 155 in Mesoamerica 211 links across Mesoamerica 171 outrage over broken agreements 261 patronage of friars 164 Spanish 155 See also nobility, principales, Tecuhtli/ Teuctli, Tlatocayotl Los Cobos, Francisco de 49, 75–77, 81, 96, 104, 109, 113, 116, 120–121 loyalties 130 ancestral 131 between patron and client 134 local supersede Castilian 188, 219, 247 of mendicants 163–164 Lucas, Alonso 122 Luna y Arellano, Tristán de 110, 142–143 Luna, i Count of (Diego Fernández de Quiñones) 84 macehuales 174, 176, 185, 216–217, 225, 248 Machiavelli, Niccolò 7 Machuca, Pedro 232 maestresala 110 magnates 57, 64, 82, 84, 89, 108, 110, 116, 142, 190–191, 244, 258, 261 ‘administrative’ 119–129 ‘territorial’ 99–100, 103–104, 106, 143 viceregal attempts to create new 141 mail, see correspondence maintenance of Spanish population 134, 255 Maldonado, Alonso de 101–102, 111–112, 123 Maldonado, Francisco de 142 Manco Inca 105, 161 mandamiento 12, 241 See also commands mandate 99–100 Manrique, Jorge 46 Marianas Islands 266

Index Marina, doña (Malintzin or La ­Malinche)  60, 68 marital alliances 147 Marquesado de Salinas 151 Marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca 81, 103–104, 116, 118, 128, 133, 143, 156 marriage 87 Marroquín, bishop Francisco de 101, 112 Martín de Huaquechula, don 86 Martínez Guerrero, Juan 140, 225 Martínez-Millán, José 16 Matalcingo 88, 262 Matzatzin Moctezuma, don Gonzalo 59 Maxixcatzin (princely dynasty of Ocotelulco, Tlaxcala) 65–66, 86, 185, 200 mayorazgo, see titles mayordomo 102, 110, 140, 252 mediation of disputes 102, 175–178 Medici 13–14 Medina del Campo 51 Medina Sidonia, v Duke of (Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán) 104 mendicant orders 83–87, 108, 163, 201, 209, 213, 215 allies of Indios 243, 250 as a parallel source of legitimacy 89, 92–93, 115, 185, 221, 225, 229, 239–241 polemics about empire 218, 241 undermined by visita 246 Mendieta, Fr. Jerónimo de 206 Mendoza dynasty 51, 96, 115, 153 Mendoza y Pacheco, Luis de (iii Count of Tendilla and ii Marquis of ­Mondéjar) 97, 115, 120, 123, 178, 224 Mendoza, Antonio de 4, 18, 57, 80, 86, 89, 93, 95, 97, 108, 118, 120–122, 201, 205, 220, 245, 263 ability to determine virtue/merit  178–179, 211, 254 accused of usurpation/tyranny  221–227 advice to successor 177–178, 197, 211 and ‘New Laws’ 240 and Huexotzinco 176 and Mixtón War 157–161, 176, 205 and urban transformation 208, 232–236 arbiter of political disputes 252 as patron of the oidores and royal officials 124

Index as represented in Tlaxcalan ­spectacle  199, 208, 221 attitude toward Indio humanity 242 attitude towards Indio polities 183 authority in New Spain 114–115 competition with cabildo 149, 227 competition with magnates 100–101, 105–106, 109–113, 115, 119–129, 221–230, 265–266 complains of royal interference 246 courtier and ambassador 232 creation of Order of the Knights Tecle  176, 187–188, 255 direct patronage of Indios 171, 173–175, 178 direct patronage of Spaniards 139 dynastic/patrimonial ambitions in New Spain 96–98, 115–116, 125, 140, 155, 221, 229, 243 effects of visita 246 encourages access to his person 169, 171–174 encourages liberty and ‘good order’ in polities 228 enfranchises Indio leadership 228, 230 Granada as a point of reference 178 guarantor of liberty 227–228 identifies with New Spain 253 in collective memory of Indios 193–194 ‘men of confidence’ 149, 244 patron of Indios 169–180 patron of Spanish population 132–143, 151 personal authority 132, 139, 155, 172, 193, 221, 240 record of viceregal precedents 241 reform of salaried offices 135–137, 249 regarded as a tyrant 150 style of government 179 sui generis/‘secret’ political ­arrangements  124, 151, 154–155, 188, 221, 229, 237, 241 suspected by Castilian officials  224–225 ‘true father of the Indians’ 230 trust of 132, 190 veto on Indio princely succession 182 Mendoza, Beatriz de 143 Mendoza, Bernaldino de 153

325 Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de (i Duke of Infantado) 51 Mendoza, don Diego de (later known as ‘­Austria y Moctezuma’) 182, 184, 187 Mendoza, Francisco de (‘El Indio’) 98, 113, 115, 144, 151, 246 Mendoza, Iñigo López de (ii Count of ­Tendilla and ii Marquis of ­Mondéjar) 96–97, 120, 153, 232 Mendoza, María de 151 Mercado, Gerónimo 146, 218 mercantile 56 mercedes 45, 49, 105, 147, 261–262 and enfranchisement 209, 245, 249 and maintenance 249–250 merchants 131, 152 Mérida, Alonso de 120, 122, 147, 150, 153 merit/meritorious 36, 50, 54, 75, 82, 141, 154, 211, 254, 262 and common good of New Spain 243 and visitas and residencias 243–246 debates over 214 civic 249, 260 proofs of (probanzas) 188, 211 ‘treasury of’ 245 viceregal standards of 182, 225, 244–245 Mesoamerica 4, 6–7, 13, 16–18, 23–25, 39–40, 42–43, 52–53, 58–59, 63–66, 68, 70, 72, 74–76, 83–84, 101, 126, 161, 202, 208, 215, 234, 267 density of population 242 enfranchised inhabitants of 230, 268 Spanish adoption of imperial traditions 216 Spanish expansion in 99, 156, 207 mestizos 58, 140, 186 Mexica 38–39, 42–43, 60–61, 64, 66–67, 163, 199, 204 acceptance of ‘Conquest as conversion’  203–204 ancestral iconography 204 aristocracy 72 post-Conquest society 186, 221 Mexico City 1–3, 18–19, 31, 54, 57, 68, 70, 74, 78–81, 85, 88, 99–100, 115, 117–118, 121, 130, 140, 142, 145, 168, 186–187, 206, 248–249, 261, 265–266

326 Mexico City (cont.) as head of a crusading kingdom 202, 204–205 cabildo of 149, 164 equated with Jerusalem 201 hinterland 150 Indio districts 179, 185, 236, 251 influence over urban style in Spanish Empire 237 renaissance ideals in civic centre 208, 232–236 Spanish population of 100, 130–131, 149, 157, 263 See also Tenochtitlan Mexico, basin of (valley of Mexico) 24, 28, 38, 173, 186 Mexico/ Mexican nation-state 26, 251, 267–268 Meztitlán 122 Michoacán 67, 78, 81, 110, 123, 142–145, 160, 182, 233 migration/migrants 25, 35, 37, 52–53, 64–65, 87, 89, 134, 138, 174 Miles Gloriosus 73 military operations/expeditions 40, 68, 115, 117, 157, 159 joint Spanish-Indio 68, 82 viceroy’s ability to recruit for 138, 157–158 voluntary participation in 212–213 millenarianism 1, 157 mines/mining/miners 117 private interests in 122, 142 silver 144, 155 Mississippi 112 Míxes 142 Mixtecs 29, 32, 160 Mixtón War 107, 111, 113–114, 140, 144, 157–161, 176, 182, 186, 193, 205, 214 Moctezuma, doña Isabel 213 modernity/modern 13, 245 Early 10, 15, 74, 197 monarch 45, 47, 94 money/monetary 102, 248–249 See also cash Montaigne, Michel de 249 Monte Alban 28 Montealegre kinship group 126 Montejo, Francisco de 75, 81, 99–102, 112, 149 Montemayor, Alonso de 253

Index Montesinos, Fr. Antonio de 53, 218, 241–242 Montúfar, Archbishop Alonso de 162, 220, 258 Moorish Conquest of Hispania 46 Moors 49, 50 Morelos 103 moriscos 161, 178 Morones, Pedro de 118 Moscoso, don Calisto de 171 Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (Motecuhzoma ii, Montezuma or Moctezuma) 26–29, 42,  59–62, 64, 70, 73, 82, 156, 179, 202–203, 207, 226, 252, 267 Motelchiuhtzin, see Tapia Motelchiuh, Andrés de Motolinía, Fr. Toribio de Benavente 1–3, 6, 84, 88, 130, 177, 198–199, 201–202, 233, 241–242 municipalities 49, 51–52, 73, 76, 80, 87, 130–131, 222, 232 municipal authorities 149 prerogatives appropriated by viceroys  149–150 privileges 237 Muñoz, Alonso 120, 251, 263 Muslim 46, 53, 208, 234 mystics/mysticism 146, 219 Nahua polities 23–25, 36, 64, 67–68, 160, 163, 192, 199 Nahuatl 169, 215 ‘Nahuatlization’ 11 Nájera, Duke of 44 Naples 12, 50, 74, 76, 96, 98, 239, 264 Napoleon 97 nations (naciones) 6, 58, 197, 199 barbarous 203 states 210 naturales 67 Nava, Alonso de Navarre (Kingdom of) 96, 133 Nebrija, Antonio de 49 Necuametzin 59 negotiation 73, 80, 93, 98, 108–109 at viceregal court 132, 137, 154, 156, 167, 171–172, 175, 179, 185–186, 193–194, 197–198, 213, 229, 238, 250–251, 259

327

Index and discovery of justice 241 religious 163 with the crown 240 networks 74, 98, 108, 116, 126, 131, 143 clients 146 mendicant 168 viceregal patronage 139–140 viceroy’s Indio clients 183–184 ‘New Conquest History’ 8–9 New Fire ceremony 42 New Galicia, Kingdom of 78, 81, 101, 107–112, 115, 124, 128, 144, 146, 158, 214, 244, 246 ‘new man’ (homo novus) 49, 54, 73, 182, 236, 153 new nobility 47 New Philologists 8–9, 16 New Spain, Kingdom of 3–5, 11, 16–19, 51, 53–54, 57–58, 66, 72, 75–76, 85, 131, 141, 145, 147–148, 199, 208, 266 and ‘natural order’ 216 as a ‘work of art’ 236 as a sub-empire of Mexico City 19, 72, 163, 202, 265–266, 268 as providential kingdom 202, 230–231, 266 autonomy 231, 238–239, 259, 265 common ideals of enfranchised ­inhabitants of 230–231 conceived by enfranchised inhabitants of Mesoamerica 230, 252 constructed by parasitic nobiles 260 displays of patriotism towards 267 Erasmian thinking in 219 expansion of 143, 265–266 governance of 156, 197, 229 ‘heartlands’ of 160–162, 190–192 idealised origin of 201 internal logic of legitimacy 226, 239 internal vistas and residencias 246–248 jurisdictional disputes in 105, 118 moral superiority of 230 nature as either colony or constituent kingdom 197 ‘original sin’ 13, 17, 58, 62, 89, 106, 119, 157, 162, 192, 194, 197–198, 202, 235, 241 periphery of 101, 164 polemics about nature of 254–258

political conflicts in 263 political legitimacy determined at court of 172 relation to Castile 238–239 self-contained practices 239, 241 urban transformation of 232–237 violence and discord after death of Velasco 251 New Vizcaya, Kingdom of 118, 144, 244 New World 3–4, 43, 52–53, 75, 81, 108, 167, 200 See also Americas Nezahualcoyotl 26, 165 Nezahualpilli 27, 31 Niza, Fr. Marcos de 107, 109, 111 nobiles of New Spain 260, 264–268 nobility 17, 19, 23, 33, 43, 45, 50, 64, 83 Indio 29, 32–33, 35, 42, 80, 86–87, 89, 110, 163–164, 167, 174, 177–178, 184, 202, 228 of blood 46 of service 36, 43, 106 recognition of 142, 179 Spanish 17, 105, 143 noblesse oblige 35 Noche Triste 61, 72 nomads 25, 171 semi- 25, 117, 157 Normans 56 Numa Pompilius 207 Nuñez de Balboa, Vasco 74–75 oaths 188 Oaxaca 28, 40, 67, 117, 142–145, 160, 190, 233 objectives 59, 72 Indio 201 See also expectations ‘Ocean Sea’, see Atlantic Ocean Ocotelulco 66, 86, 185 Ocuituco 169, 186 official powers 74, 93, 116 recognition of dynastic rights 182 See also formal officials/offices 56, 72, 76–77, 98, 103, 105, 106, 114–116, 118, 120–121, 136, 141–142, 145–146, 154, 167, 171, 209, 217, 244, 247, 249, 251, 259

328 officials/offices (cont.) accountability 243 and enfranchisement 209, 260 as magnates 119 as patrons 131 defend viceregal government 261 dependence on viceroys 136–138, 224 distribution of as patronage 133–139, 143–145 in perpetuity 226, 246, 252 Mendoza’s reform of 135–138, 147, 249 of treasury 99 tribute 173 oidores 79, 99, 101, 149, 156, 171 as governors of New Spain 251 as magnates 119–129 as perpetual office 226, 246, 252 See also judges Olíd, Cristóbal de 67, 103, 171 Olivares, Count-Duke of, Gaspar de Guzmán 94 Ometochtzin Chichimecatecuhtli of Texcoco, don Carlos 182, 207 Oñate, Cristóbal de 127, 144, 214 Oplicingo 83 ‘original sin’/political illegitimacy in New Spain 13, 17, 58, 62, 89, 106, 119, 162,     175, 197–198, 202, 235, 241, 250, 254,     260 Ortiz, Antonio 169 Otomí 37, 65, 143, 160, 182, 187 ‘crusaders’ 182–183, 205 Ottomans/Ottoman Empire 25, 47, 96, 153, 258 as represented in Tlaxcalan play  199–200, 207 Ovando, Nicolás de 74 ‘overmighty subjects’ 82, 125 Pacheco, Margarita 145 Pacific Ocean 82, 100, 103, 105, 110–111, 113, 117, 140, 265, 266–267 pacification 68, 72, 117, 207, 142, 183, 203 pagents/pageantry 87 palaces (Mesoamerican) 26–30, 37, 64, 70, 85, 133, 165, 169, 177, 183, 193, 252 as granaries (petlacalco) 29–31 as private property 186 courtyards 28–29, 236

Index entailed land 174 See also tecpan Palencia (Castile) 133 Pánuco 78, 124 papacy 84 parasitic 19 parasitic nobiles, see nobiles Pardo de Tavera, Juan 73, 76 parochial 61 paternalism 133 patrimonial/personal interests 97–99, 110, 116, 120, 125, 155, 243 patronato regio 47, 84 patrons/patronage 31, 65, 78, 81, 84, 88, 111, 116, 118, 121, 131, 133–134, 142, 155 internal to Indio polities 183 local 130 mendicants dependent on Indio 163–164 network of 74, 98, 116, 126, 131, 183–184 royal 73, 96–97, 124, 193 sources of 156 to relatives or close associates 125 unofficial 186 viceregal appropriation of 127, 135, 137–138, 188 Pátzcuaro, lake 28, 123 Pavia, battle of 51, 63 Paz, Pedro 262 Pedro of Michoacán, don 67–68, 182 Pericles, ‘Funeral Oration’ 197 peerage 46 Pegasus myth 267 Pelayo, King 46 Peralta, Gastón de (iii Marquis of Falces)  120, 219, 249–251, 261, 263–264 Peralta, Martín 141, 147 Pérez de la Torre, Diego 107–109, 246 Pérez, Gonzalo 113 performance 198, 205 personal style of government 115, 132, 155, 179, 193, 221, 223 fostered by friars 168 loyalty of Knights Tecle to 188 Peru/Peruvian 2–3, 57, 64, 99–100, 105, 115, 132, 140, 143, 148, 156, 161, 197, 199, 202, 219, 230, 234, 240, 246, 253–254, 259 petitions/petitioners 12, 28, 148, 179, 251 Philip ii 75, 113, 125, 128, 156, 219–220, 258–259

Index Philip iii 129 Philippines 113, 117, 265–266 picaros/picaresque 73 Pico de Orizaba 160 Pinome 65 Pizarro, Francisco 100, 102, 105 Pizarro, Gonzalo 115, 240, 254 Plato 7 Plautus 73 poblador, see settler pochteca 37, 88 polemics 2, 197–198, 211, 216–218, 254, 259, 264 about authority 216 about legitimacy 198, 250 and visitas and residencias 222, 243–246 imperial discourse 220 influence on royal policy 85, 219, 247, 259 political 207–209 reform of New Spain 254–258 terms of 225 polis 38 political criteria for merit 243–244, 254, 265 political culture/imagination 10, 18, 24, 35, 42–43, 52 expressed in urbanism 236 idealism in 236 participatory 197, 211–212, 258 ‘rational’ 26 rhetorical tropes 198, 214 sui generis to New Spain 17–19, 173, 198–199, 210, 225, 236–237, 247 theory 43, 254 political debate, see polemics political illegitimacy in New Spain, see ‘­original sin’ political nation of New Spain 18, 210, 212, 218, 222, 231, 249, 255, 258, 268 See enfranchisement political projects 78, 124, 164, 188, 259 expressed through visitas and residencias 243 political settlements 72, 74, 177 political theory 235 polities (Mesoamerican) 24–33, 38, 42, 60, 64–66, 68, 70, 80, 83–88, 103, 110, 123, 131, 146, 157, 160, 178, 201, 209, 248, 255

329 ‘complex’ 185 ‘good government and Christianity’ in  248 ‘peer-polity interactions’ 38 acceptance/consent of viceregal ­government 162, 238, 240–241, 248 amnesty in 177 autonomy after the Conquest 164, 194, 209, 221, 238 competition between 70 confederations 38, 65 ennoblement through services to 184 friars attain standing in 167 hegemonies 38, 59, 70, 86 internal strife 38, 176–177 Mendoza’s administrative reforms of  183–184, 228 migration between 174 new political routines 185 nominal royal stewardship of 190 offer of subsidy to crown for autonomy  258 patriotism 164 population 174 post-Conquest authorities 172 regional idiosyncrasies 179 representatives at viceregal court  171–173, 177, 194 resistance to tributary impositions 251 segmentation 25 supra-polity arrangements 38 tradition of princely government 169 trust in friars as intermediaries  168, 238 uncertain political legitimacy in 175, 184, 250 See also ‘original sin’ unrest after death of Velasco 261 visitas 187 polyarchy in New Spain 106, 119, 124, 156 polygamy 163 Pope 199 Portuguese Empire 6, 47, 56 Portugal, Fernando de 125, 127, 263 power 3, 14, 19, 42, 44, 65, 102 bases of 57, 82 centralisation of 73, 197, 258 personal 64, 222–223 viceregal 138

330 prestige 96, 105, 131, 143 princes, Indio 24–25, 32–36, 38, 42, 59–60, 68, 179 accession and succession 29, 39, 179 hereditary dynasties 32, 66, 183 inheritance via primogeniture 176 patrimonial wealth 183 post-Conquest claims 179 princely government 169 supremacy of favoured dynasties 177 See also Huey Tlatoani principal men and ‘citizens’ of New Spain 131, 147, 156, 241, 245, 250,    254, 259 complain of royal interference 246 justified by civic criteria 260, 265 parasitic 260 unlike European or pre-Conquest elites 260 See also nobiles principales 69, 172 See also princes, lords/lordships privado 75, 81 See also favourites/favouritism private economic activities 124, 134, 146, 250 processions 58, 87, 163 province/provincial 57, 169 Psalmodia Christiana 204 public ceremonial civic 204 competition in 152–154 display of viceregal authority 152–154 dynastic/patrimonial 153–154 Indio noble 191 Puebla de los Ángeles 80, 123, 131, 176, 190 Puerto Caballos (Honduras) 102 Puga, Vasco de 128, 247–248, 258, 261–263 Purehpecha 28, 67–68, 160, 171 Querétaro 143, 183, 187 Quesada, Rodrigo de 123, 128, 177 Quiauhiztlan 86, 185 Quinatzin Map 27, 29–30, 165 Quiñones, Cardinal Francisco de 84, 88 Quiñones, Lebrón de 146 Quinto real 103 Quiroga, bishop Vasco Vászquez de 123

Index Quitas y Vacaciones fund 125, 135–138, 140, 142, 145–147, 186, 249, 255, 261 Quito 103 Ramírez de Fuenleal, bishop Sebastián 83, 88, 93, 108 Ramírez, Diego 146 real acuerdo 120 rebellion/rebels 3, 9, 56–57, 59–60, 62, 68–69, 72, 79, 82–83, 85, 88, 101, 107, 115, 132, 161, 221, 242 slave 142 Spanish 148 threat of 261 unrighteous/tyrannical 221 See also Mixtón War recognition of status 68, 86, 155, 179 Reconquista 47, 53, 56, 72, 201–202 redress 12 regidores 51, 123, 143, 149–150, 154, 184, 255 Relación de Michoacán 67, 167 Relación, cartas de 59, 61, 66, 72, 75 renaissance in New Spain 232–236 repartimiento 147 representation/representatives 15, 74, 101, 108, 113, 140 of the crown 132, 156 repression 83, 114, 156, 174, 251 republics 29, 50, 52, 73, 118, 175, 187, 194, 212, 244 New Spain’s two autonomous/­parallel  208, 211, 220, 236, 253, 256, 258, 267 ancient Roman 13–14 ‘good republican’ 141, 226, 245 ‘useful for the republic’ 226 New Spain as a 254 of Indios 5, 19, 156, 167, 187, 189–190, 194, 250, 258–259, 265 of Spaniards 5, 19, 131, 148, 156, 167, 187, 250, 259, 265 See also municipalities residencias 73, 101, 107–108, 121, 123, 187, 243–248 effect on corregidores 247 resistance 83, 85, 88, 101, 158, 251, 263 retainers 153 retinues 78, 107, 133

Index revenue 104 revolt, see rebellion Revolution 57, 58 rhetoric/rhetorical tropes of New Spain, see polemics rights to rule 60, 69 contested 108 defended 242–243 equal political 258 of conquest 81 of exploration 110, 12 seigneurial 128 rituals, new/communal 162 Robledo, Diego de 111 Rodríguez de Montalvo, Garci 51 Roman Curia, see Vatican Romano, Luis de León (Luigi di Leone) 145, 233 Rome/Roman 84, 145, 186, 199, 233–234 ancient 51, 94 empire 13–14, 200, 216, 238 ‘New Rome’ 234, 267 nobiles 260 Romero, Marcos 169 Romero, Pedro 145 Roussillon 47 royal government in Mexico City 80–81, 83, 104, 110, 119–120, 131, 137 royal grace/recognition/favour 12, 52, 56, 74, 79, 148, 154 royal instructions 80, 98, 102, 121, 139, 223 contravention of 190 royal judgements 108 Royal Mint of New Spain 122, 150 Rubinstein, Nicolai 13–14 Sahagún, Bernardino de 26, 29, 35, 39, 167, 204 Saint Hippolytus 58, 199, 202, 204 Saint James/Santiago 199 salaries 124, 134, 138, 217, 249 Salazar, Catalina de 120, 144 Salazar, Gonzalo de 76, 120, 138, 144, 149, 214, 217 Salazar, Hernando de 120, 126, 149 Salazar, Juan Velázquez de 120, 125–126, 149 Sámano, Juan de 117

331 San Juan del Río 152 San Luis Montañes, don Nicolás de 182, 188, 205 Sandoval Acazitli, don Francisco 68, 157–159, 183, 191, 205 Santa Croce in Gerusalemme 84 Santa Cruz, Alonso de 232 Santa Fe (Andalusia) 51–52, 123, 141, 233–234 Crusading camp in Tlaxcalan ­spectacle  199, 208 ‘utopias’ in New Spain 123, 208 Santiago de Calimaya, Count of (Francisco Altamirano y Velasco) 129 Santiago de los Caballeros 54, 123 Santiago, knightly order of 54, 81, 111, 188 Santillán, Hernando Gómez de 125, 185 Second Audiencia 80–82, 88, 99, 105–106, 122–123, 131, 135, 138, 147 Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de 220 sermons 164 service 43, 45–47, 50, 52–54, 56, 69–70, 73, 76, 81, 100, 106–107, 119, 209, 262 civic ‘republican’ ethos of 225, 245, 260 corrupted by tyranny 222–223 do ut des 97 ennobling 131, 188–191 ethos of 37, 52, 55, 77, 97, 102, 105, 131, 188, 260 meritorious/deserving 245, 254 military 159, 173, 212–213 opportunities for 142 public 118 rewarded by viceroys 136, 141 royal 120, 131, 139, 141, 210, 212, 261 suffering and 218 through benefiting Indios 216 trust to serve virtuously 216, 226 voluntary 44–45, 54, 72, 111, 127, 160, 212 settlement/settlers/colonists/pobladores 3, 39, 40, 42, 52–54, 56–57, 67–68, 77, 107, 118, 123, 130–131, 141, 145 justification for Spanish 201 Seville 75, 94, 185, 233–234 sexual-progenitive alliances 66 Siete Partidas of Alfonso ‘the wise’ 44, 54 silver mines 117

332 slavery/slaves/servility 75, 78, 81, 141, 197, 213–215 and moral corruption 222–223 and tyranny 222–225 rebellion of 142 ‘small political nation’ 210 social status 84, 155, 185, 186 contested after the Conquest 250 privileges 94, 260 viceregally sanctioned 152–153 Soconusco 40, 190 Socrates 108 Socuéllamos, Mancha de 97 Solís, Francisco de 178 Sosa, Juan Alonso de 114, 121–122, 125, 144, 149, 154, 247 Soto, Hernando de 100, 111, 138 Spain 17, 47, 74, 84–85, 101, 104 Spaniards/Spanish of New Spain 23, 43, 53–56, 58–61, 65–69, 73, 79–81, 87–88, 110, 130–133, 135, 155, 164, 176, 214–216, 263 accept trope of ‘Conquest as conversion’ 205 accuse Indios of vicious nature 215 alienated by audiencia 262–263 as sources of corruption to Indios 167 authority challenged by Indio standing 216 claim greater virtue than Indios 215 competition for preferment 154–155, 243 complaint of visitador 226 despised by Indio authorities 193 enfranchisement 199, 230, 247, 263 exalt viceregal authority 228 faction 263 language 94 leaders of 131, 152, 235 maintained by viceregal patronage  247 notions of liberty 209 practical benefits accrued from viceregal government 155 rhetorical victimhood 217 settlements in New World 237 See also ‘municipalities’ Spanish administration/authorities in Mexico City 84, 146, 164, 173 weapons 86

Index spectacle (races, jousting, cañas, ­bullfights)  106, 152–153, 192, 198–199 ‘Spice Isles’ 110 ‘Spiritual Conquest’ 7 standing 18, 74, 77, 83–86, 88, 97, 101, 128 of friars 167 of viceroys 172 education and 215–216 Starkey, David 15, 74 state, the 24, 245 ‘Early Modern’ 197 as separate entity 240 ‘stranger effect’ 18, 63–65 strangers 59, 63–64, 67, 84 ‘strongmen’ of the frontier 142–143 ‘structural bias’ 94 ‘Struggle for Justice’ 10, 241–242 Suárez de Peralta, Juan 132–133, 145, 147, 152, 156, 191, 230, 251, 266 sui generis practices of viceregal ­government  163, 173, 223, 237, 239 Sumerian proverb 63 suppression 69 Syme, Ronald 13 Tacitus, Publius Cornelius 244 Tacuba 38, 64, 205, 213 Tamazulapa 178 Tapia Motelchiuh, Andrés de (­Cihuacoatl)  37, 186 Tapia, Andrés de (Spanish ­conquistador)  139, 150–151, 155, 229, 245–246 Tapia, Fernando de (Conín) 143, 182 Tapia, Hernando de 169, 185–187, 189, 226, 236 ‘Tarascan Empire’ 28 tax collection 128 Tecles, Order of Knights 176, 187, 205, 255 Tecomastlaguaca 142 tecpan/teccalli, see palaces Tecuhtli/Teuctli 25, 187–188 See also lords/lordships Tehuantepec 42, 109, 117, 190 teixhuiuh 33 See also derogation Tejada, Lorenzo de 123, 125, 141–142, 182, 187, 223, 226, 246 Tello de Sandoval, Francisco 114, 121–122, 134, 140, 149–150, 154, 164, 178, 190, 212, 222, 224, 226, 237, 246, 259

333

Index Tenamaztle, Francisco 214 Tenochca 67–9, 82, 169, 171 See also Mexica Tenochca provincial governors (Tlenamacaque or Papahuaque in Nahuatl) 39 Tenochtitlan 24–31, 33, 35–40, 42, 58–59, 67–68, 70, 88, 158, 169, 173, 190, 202, 204, 232–233 post-Conquest polity of 179, 185 See also empire Teotihuacan 26 Tepanec 38 Tepeaca de la Frontera 59, 67, 177, 192 Tepexi de la Seda 59 Tequesistepec 178 Tequipans 142 tercios 49, 56, 73 terrazgueros 33, 174 terror 69 Tesorero 76 Testera, Fr. Jacobo de 164 Texcoco 26, 29–31, 37–38, 59, 64–65, 87, 169, 182, 192 Thucydides 42 Tilantongo 32 Timas 67–68 Tiripitío 110 titles, aristocratic 47, 57, 73, 82, 97, 109, 126, 140, 155, 176, 185, 262 without entailed rights 255 titulos primordiales 205 Tizatlan 66, 185 Tizoc 39, 41, 64 Tlacaelel 24 Tlacaxipehualiztli 64 Tlahucolli 37 Tlalmanalco 59, 68, 86, 157 Tlatelolco 38, 40, 58, 65, 88, 169, 173, 185–186 sovereignty over other polities 178, 182 Tlatoque 24, 200 See also Princes Tlatocayotl 11, 17, 23–24, 37, 204, 260 See also lords/lordships, nobility Tlaxcala/Tlaxcalans 29, 33, 37, 42, 59–61, 65–66, 71, 80, 82, 85, 159, 167, 185, 192, 199–200 conversion of 200–201 Corpus Christi spectacle in 198–203, 205, 207–212, 221 identification with viceregal regime 221

model for other polities 201 new civic centre 208 pride in Conquest 202 Tlecanen, don Juan de 111 Toledo 44, 218 Toledo, Pedro de (viceroy of Naples) 96, 98 Toltec 32 Tonalá 108 Tordesillas 73 Toro, Pedro Martín de 182 Torre de Vegezate 97 Torres, Fr. Pedro de 167 trade 56 Trastámaran usurpation 47, 96 treasury, royal in Mexico City 102, 117, 126–127, 136, 139, 153, 211, 247, 251, 255 Triana, Francisco de 169 tribes/tribal segments 25–33, 64, 68, 86, 183 See also calpolli tribute 5, 18, 31, 39, 42, 53, 59, 68, 88, 103, 122, 126, 128, 131, 134–137, 172, 183, 188, 254, 258 assessment 146 attempts at imposition 263–264 competition for a share of 249 exemptions from 173, 260 failed attempts at reform 261 ideologically induced reductions 218 Indio consent essential for 247–248 negotiated at viceregal court 172–175, 247 prerogatives/rights to collect 125, 137, 174, 214, 247 viceroys essential for collecting 228 Tridentine policies 162, 220 ‘Triple Alliance’ 33, 38, 42, 59, 177, 205, 219 Tula 160 Turcios, Anonio de 171 Turks, see Ottomans tyranny/tyrants 2, 13, 70–71, 79, 150, 201, 213–214, 221–224, 236, 255 Tzintzincha Tangaxoan ii, Cazonci of Michoacán 67, 78, 182 Tzintzuntzan 67 Úbeda 76 ‘unarmed prophets’ 218 uncorrupted humanity 65 universal claims 84, 266 University of Mexico City 206

334 University of Salamanca 3, 44 unofficial associations 127, 162 authority/auctoritas 13–15, 183, 259 techniques of government 155, 238 use of horses and European weapons 191–192 Uppsala Map (Santa Cruz Map) 186, 236 urban architecture/urban ­transformation  87, 237 conformity with Mexico City 233 European 232–234 grid-iron plan 237 illustrative of New Spain’s local arrangements 237 instructions 93 renaissance ideals in 145, 201, 232–236 royal statutes regarding 237 usurpation of political power 67–68 (check previous), 70, 74, 88, 203 in renaissance Italy 236, 244 Indio leaders accused of 215 of land-ownership 177 utopias 123, 208 Valadés, Fr. Diego de 165, 236 Valderrama, Jerónimo de 53, 114, 117, 125, 127–128, 137, 146, 154, 156, 164, 167–168, 173, 175, 215–216, 218–219, 224, 228, 243, 246–248, 258, 261–263 Valencia 49, 56, 264 Valencia, don Martín de 185 Valencia, Fr. Martín de válido 114 Valladolid 109, 225 Valletta 234 Varela, Pedro 140–141 Vargas, Francisco de 148–149 vasallos 134, 209 vassals/vassalage 29, 35, 60, 67, 76, 82, 88, 94, 174, 214, 216 ‘natural vassal’ 201 sense of loyalty 255 Vatican 47, 84 Vázquez de Tapia, Bernaldino 149–150, 155, 222–223, 229, 246 Vázquez, Alonso 139 vecinos, see citizens veedor 76, 121, 243

Index Vela, Blasco Nuñez de 132, 240 Velasco, Francisco de 146, 263 Velasco, Luis ‘the younger’ 151, 263 Velasco, Luis de 4, 18, 93, 108, 114, 116–118, 132–134, 160, 162, 171, 193, 217, 219–221, 243, 258–259, 261–262, 265–266 and Ibarra family 244 and New Laws 151, 219–220 and political settlement in Huexotzinco 175–177 arbiter of political disputes 252 authority over Indio elites 193 authority over Spanish population of New Spain 118, 124, 229 competition with magnates 116–129 conflict with audiencia 261 continuity in patronage networks  143–145 direct patronage of Spaniards 139 dynastic/patrimonial interests 125, 155, 243 effect of visita 246, 258 encourages access to his person 169–172 in collective memory of Indios 193 lordly style of government 152 pater patriae 221, 228 patronage 261 ‘protector of the Indians’ 228 reform of encomiendas 136–138 sides with Indio nobility 175 sui generis arrangements 247–250, 261 support against visitador 229 suspected by Castilian officials 224–225 Velasquista party 146, 156, 263 Velázquez, Diego de 74 Venetian ‘Golden Book’ 46 Veracruz 17, 52, 73, 140–141 ‘Vertical’ associations 77, 102, 114, 119, 124 viceregal court in Mexico City 10–11, 15–19, 98, 118, 133, 140, 143, 154, 175, 197, 220 access to 140, 169, 171–172, 182, 194 and discovery of justice 241 and Indio rights 242, 243 arbiter of justice 172, 229 competition in 155, 198, 214, 243 continuity of between administrations  151 disputes mediated at 175–178

Index

335

heading two republics 167, 187, 258 feasts and pageants 145, 152–153 Indio participation in 192 informal bonds at 124, 129, 244 indispensable for social structure 253 intimacy and confidence in operations of  justified from New Spain 254–258 139, 141 largesse 111 logic of legitimacy 155, 175 norms and routines 132, 235 loyalty generated at 235 practical benefits of 155 ‘men of confidence’ 145, 149 redemption of ‘original sin’ 236, 252, 260 redress of grievances in 168, 210 resentment of royal interference 228, 245 routines and practices 10, 18, 24, 139, 194, sui generis practices of 208, 223, 237, 231, 235, 252 239, 260 space where New Spain was embodied/ supremacy of 100, 106, 108, 129, 146, 254, realised 11, 251 259, 264 substitute for royal court 253 unofficial techniques of 154–155, 173, 238, sui generis arrangements 155, 173, 221, 259, 260 223, 231, 248, 259 viceregal palace in Mexico City 107, 111, 121, tribute negotiated/negociantes at 173, 134, 138–139, 154, 173, 241, 251 198, 251 National Palace of Mexico 251 voluntary attendance at 176–177 specialised chambers in 252 viceregal government in New Spain 24, 57, ‘viceregal party’ 126, 149, 263 82, 99, 108, 151, 233, 236, 254–258 viceregal patronage/grace 128, 138–139, ‘as a work of art’ 236 147–148, 154–156, 178–193, 245 objective of creating consent 241 and encomenderos 147–152, 255 ability to create new princely dynasties  and Indio lordship 176, 178, 190–191 182–183 and social hierarchy of New Spain  able to launch visitas and residencias  152–153, 178 246 and the exercise of power 245 administrative strategies 155 approximation to those of a monarch  agreements upheld by 132 155 aims to redeem ‘original sin’ 260 as a form of ‘bastard feudalism’ 259 and particularities of provinces 169, 173 as service to the crown and and royal law 245 commonwealth 244 as redemptive 250 civic criteria for 260 authority 120–121, 152, 168, 190, 193, 240 competition for 249–250, 265 centralisation on 254, 259 concentration of means to distribute 137 commands/instructions to localities 168, dependence on 155 194, 24 direct appointment of Indio officials 187 competition for surplus wealth 174 disbursements 125, 138, 145, 249 continuity of strategic interests with discretionary use of 136, 138 Tenochca 190 extension of 135 courtly style 244 Indio competition for 191, 198 defined in polemics 222 legitimises status 252 discretionary judgements 137, 154, 172, maintains Spaniards 247 174 networks extend into Indio polities  efficacy at solving polity tensions 194 183–184 enfranchisement into 235, 243, 252 nexus with appointment to office 249 factional strife in absence of 263 friars influence over 168 over College of Santa Cruz ­Tlatelolco  generates principal citizens 260 122, 140, 166

336 viceregal patronage/grace (cont.) over weaker polities 177–178 personal 174, 188, 221–223 political, not bureaucratic, considerations for 260 to ‘good republicans’ 245, 247 to promote allies or dependants 141–144 viceregal expectations of merit 153–155, 192, 211, 243–244 viceroys as arbiters 101, 172, 193, 229 viceroys/viceregal title 12, 57, 67, 79, 89, 93–94, 109, 119, 122 advocate autonomy of New Spain 227, 238 ambiguities of status 153 and visitas or residencias 246 as autonomous agents 221, 253 as link to royal authority 238 associated with common good of New Spain 229 authority associated with New Spain 225 benefit Indios 228 considered perpetual 226 counter allegations of tyranny 225 dominance over distant provinces 247 equated with kings 265 establishing authority of 133 experience as source of authority 229 guarantee to principal citizens of status 259 guarantor of justice 229 hereditary/ in perpetuity 98, 112, 115, 129, 246, 253 ignore royal legislation 225, 229, 237 influence on royal policy 247, 259 informal authority 244 not sovereign 244 of New Spain 96, 98, 132, 151 personal authority 221, 223–224 political rather than legalistic or ­bureaucratic 240, 258 promote patriotism of New Spain 263 proposed suppression of 224, 229, 251, 264 sui generis notion of 227 ‘Viceroyalty of the Ocean Sea’ 96 Vilcabamba, Inca kingdom of 160

Index Villanueva clan 125 Villanueva, Andrés de 54–55, 128 Villaseca, Alonso de 206 violence 57–58, 156, 214, 224, 240, 242, 246 Virgin Mary 86, 163, 267 virtue/virtuous 31, 36–37, 43–45, 54, 73, 167, 182, 188–191, 206, 225–226 and trustworthiness 226 and viceroys 230 equated with good of Indios 216–217, 225 expressions of 218 greater than European 267 how to foster 226 Indios ability to attain 212 service 102, 178–179, 210, 225 viceregal display of 138, 152–154 Visigoths/Visigothic 46 visitador 108, 114, 118, 120, 125, 134, 146, 156, 262 visitas 97, 121–122, 127, 137, 140, 145, 149–151, 154–155, 168, 190, 221–223, 243–247 Vitoria, Francisco de 3, 53 Vitruvius Pollio, Marcus/Vitruvian 234, 251 Vivero family 146 Vivero y Velasco, Rodrigo de 266 war/warfare 36, 70 Williams, Penry 15 Wood, Stephanie 193 Xicotencatl (ruling dynasty of Tizatlán) 185, 200 Xicotencatl ‘the younger’ 66 Xicotencatl, doña Luisa 66 Xilotepec 143, 152, 187, 214 Xipe Tótec 42 Xochimilco 39, 59, 187 Xuchipila 157–158 Yopes 83 Yucatán 112 Zacatecas 144 Zacatecos 107 Zamora 218 Zapatistas 9

Index Zápolaya, John 96 Zapotecs 142, 160 zero-sum game 249 Zorita, Alonso de 128, 207, 217, 219, 252, 259, 263

337 Zuazo, Alonso de 88 Zumárraga, Fr. Juan de 78, 87, 163, 166, 175, 207, 219, 220 Zúñiga, Juana de (la marquesa) 142–143