Indigenous Life after the Conquest: The De la Cruz Family Papers of Colonial Mexico

Abstract

Indigenous Life after the Conquest: The De la Cruz Family Papers of Colonial Mexico offers a unique glimpse into the dynamics between one prominent Nahua family and their community of Tepemaxalco in the Toluca Valley. The volume presents translations of five Nahuatl- and Spanish-language documents produced by the De la Cruz family, including a record book, a tribute document, an excerpt of baptismal records, and two testaments. The volume also provides a transcription of the original Nahuatl and Spanish of the record book kept by don Pedro de la Cruz and his descendants between 1647 and 1821. The documents represent various genres of colonial Nahuatl writing and address a number of important social, economic, and cultural themes. Together these sources highlight both change and continuity in an Indigenous community of colonial Mexico.The records from Tepemaxalco demonstrate the persistence of Nahua social organization and stratification. A noble class, including don Pedro and his descendants, hold political and religious offices, sponsor the church, and possess impressive amounts of wealth in land, houses, livestock, and goods. Commoners appear as those who pay tribute in labor and coin; don Pedro remembers the “poor” with a bequest of food in his last will and testament. References to family members and ritual kin reveal social networks within and beyond the household. Records concerning tribute and communal labor shed light on the ways that households, and especially groups within the altepetl (Nahua ethnic state), pooled resources and worked tribute lands to pay for community and church expenses.The material in the sources on religious culture is particularly rich. The Nahua authors speak of local devotions to saints and describe how individuals and the community sustained the saints and church with their labor and bequests. Members of the De la Cruz family and Nahua church officials, especially cantores (church singers), make substantial donations and organize labor drafts on communal lands to purchase expensive decorations and altarpieces for the church, clothing for the saints, and garments for dancers. They buy paints and dyes for artistic endeavors and commission Spanish and Nahua craftsmen to paint and guild murals, lienzos (Indigenous painted cloths), and retablos. They are particularly concerned with music as an aspect of religious expression and describe efforts to buy an organ, guitars, and trumpets for the church.As a volume intended for classroom use, Indigenous Life after the Conquest provides a rich collection of documents that introduce students to the complexity of the colonial Nahua world. It is a world in which the altepetl remains the basis of sociopolitical organization, even as there is evidence of change in religious beliefs, material culture, and many other matters within the community. An insightful introductory essay will help students make sense of the bigger picture that the myriad details in the sources reveal. A glossary and brief commentaries on each of the documents will help make the material approachable to an undergraduate audience. This fascinating collection would be of interest to students in courses on colonial Latin America, Indigenous peoples of Mexico, Mexican religion, or ethnohistorical sources and methods.