Public Works and Local Elites: The Politics of Taxation in Tlaxcala, 1780-1810

Abstract

In the winter of 1791-1792, meetings were being held in all of the principal towns of the Mexican province of Tlaxcala. Decisions had been reached that something had to be done about the recurring flooding of the Zahuapa river in central Tlaxcala and, independently, about the lack of an adequate water supply for the southeastern provincial town of Huamantla. As a result of these meetings, two independent projects began both of which were locally conceived and, more importantly, locally funded. In a burst of civic pride groups of Spanishvecinos(landowners and merchants who claimed Tlaxcala as their home) and Indian communities collaborated in constructing and financing these improvements. The work on the Zahuapa lasted until 1802, and the work to supply water in Huamantla was ongoing in 1810 when the Hidalgo revolt interrupted it. What is interesting about these decisions is not the success of the projects themselves—the first failed badly and the second was foundering when aborted—but rather what they highlight about the way Spanish and Indian leadership in local communities interacted politically in the late Bourbon period, both with each other and with Bourbon officialdom.