CHA

Conquest and Colony

n 1519, Hernan Cortes, commander of an expedition of a few more

I than 500 Spaniards and several Africans, in an act of mutiny ignored

the orders of the governor of Cuba to abandon his exploring
expedition and instead sailed from Havana for what we nov, call
Mexico. First the expedition landed on Yucatan and then on the Isth1nus
of Tehuantepec, where they rescued one Spaniard from an earlier
expedition who had been living with the local peoples and left another
Spaniard behind because he had married into the indigenous community.
Then, the conquistadors continued north along the coast, landed, and
fought a pitched battle against the inhabitants. In order to reinforce
peace after the combat, the native people, as was customary, presented
Cortes ,vith a young woman, called Malinche, who soon proved invalu-
able because she could translate the indigenous language. At first she
had to speak with the repatriated Spaniard, but she soon learned Spanish
herself and translated directly for Cortes. In this role as translator,
Malinche has been portrayed as a traitor to Indian Mexico, and her
narne serves as symbol for betrayal of the nation to the present day.
Cortes arrived on the edge of the Aztec E1npire in 1519 because of
decisions n1ade an ocean away in Europe. In 1492, Queen Isabella
of Spain had financed exploration by the Italian Christopher Columbus
to search for a western trade route to India. Instead he discovered the
A1nericas. lsabella decided that Spaniards should conquer and convert to
Christianity the peoples Colu1nbus had encountered there. For twenty-five
years, the Spaniards had focused on the Caribbean islands and nearby
coasts. The governor of Cuba had planned to send an expedition to
Mexico. He first offered the position to Cortes, then, deciding he did not
trust this co,nrnander, tried to cancel the voyage. Cortes ignored the gov-
ernor's cancellation and sailed for the coast of Mexico in 1519. Cortes,
from Spain's central region of Extremadura, combined in equal mea-
sures daring, courage, and charisma that enabled him to inspire fol-
lowers, intrigue strangers, and intimidate opponents. His superiors
 found hi1n untrustworthy, his lieutenants unrelenting, and his opponents
undaunted. He destroyed one world and created another.
Cortes, Malinche, and his expedition turned north along the coast
until reaching the area of gold, where they founded the town of Veracruz,
near the modern port of the same name. The local Totonaco people
received the Spaniards with wonder and curiosity at the horses, guns,
and bearded men. The Totonacos had been conquered by the Aztecs, so
the local Aztec imperial lords sent messengers racing into the interior to
report the Spanish presence to the Aztec emperor, Montezuma II.
Cortes's men, who had rnutinied against the governor's authority,
identified the people they encountered on the coast of Veracruz based
on their expectations created by a casual knowledge of the Bible, travel
accounts by Marco Polo and others, chivalrous novels, and the exagger-
ations, superstitions, and reports of previous expeditions around the
Caribbean, such as the Grijalva visit to Mexico's Gulf Coast the year
before (1518). The Aztecs, trying to understand who these visitors were,
consulted their gods by reading auguries that confirmed their fatalistic
expectation of a cataclysmic end to the world they knew and that
explained the arrival of the surprise visitors.
Neither the Aztecs nor the Spaniards considered the other group
exactly hu1nan, although they held rather different opinions. Some
Aztec wizard-priests saw the Spaniards as gods, perhaps even
Quetzalcoatl, the Toltec god who had departed with a prornise to return;
rnany Spaniards sa,v the Aztecs as some strange, pagan species, perhaps
human and perhaps not. Later Spanish lawyers and clerics in a court
hearing argued the case for and against Indian humanity that eventually
resulted in the decision that Indians were human beings but with a
childlike character.
Cortes, after sorne weeks, planned to visit the great Montezun1a
in his island capital, Tenochtitlan, on the site of modern-day Mexico
City. Some of the Spaniards objected that in the interior they could be
cut off and killed by the powerful Aztecs. Cortes settled the issue with
the daring act of ordering the burning of the Spanish ships, dramati-
cally committing the Spaniards irrevocably to march into the interior.
With their guns, crossbows, and horses, the Spaniards were an
i1nposing ar1ny. They fought several battles probably inspired by the
e111peror to test them as warriors, and after each one they obtained
allies from the peoples who opposed the Aztecs. Notably, they reached
an agreement with the Tlaxacalans, who had successfully resisted
Aztec conquest. With these new allies, they a1nbushed and 1nassacred
the people of Cholula. The massacre transpired after Malinche

20 f\1EXICO IN \i\/QRLD HISTORY

reported to Cortes that the Cholulans planned to welcome the
Spaniards and then kill then1 all.
Once the Spaniards arrived at the island capital, Cortes and the
emperor met. Bernal Diaz de! Castillo, one of Cortes's soldiers, years
later wrote what he called The True History of the Conquest of Neiv
Spain, in which he described his first sight of the lord of the Aztecs. He
recalled that after Montezu1na stepped down from his litter, other great
chiefs "supported him beneath a marvelously rich canopy of green
feathers, decorated with gold work, silver, pearls, and chachihuites
(jadite precious stones]." Montezu1na's magnificent clothes included
sandals, with soles made "of gold and the upper parts ornamented with
precious stones." 1 At the meeting, both men adopted policies based on
exigencies of the moment: the Aztec leader tried to appease the Spanish,
including their obvious lust for gold and silver, and the Spaniard
atten1pted to 1nanipulate the emperor to mitigate the overwhelming
numerical odds that might overwhelm the expedition.
For several days, the comrnander and the emperor cautiously nego-
tiated and rnade efforts to inti1nidate each other. Spanish guns and
horses astonished the Aztecs, and the Aztec numbers and weapons,
especially the macana (a wooden sword whose blade was inlaid with
razor-sharp obsidian), impressed the Spaniards, but it was the island
city itself that over,vheln1ed their imagination. Cortes soon despaired,
both out of fear they 1night never be able to escape the city and out of
urgency to respond to reports of another Spanish expedition on the
coast. Desperate to control the situation, Cortes seized Montezuma in
an attempt to rnake him a Spanish puppet, placed a lieutenant in
command in the city, and led an expedition carrying sarnples of Aztec
treasure back to Veracruz to confront his newly arrived country1nen.
Facing Spaniards sent by the governor in Cuba to arrest hi1n for
1nutiny, Cortes persuaded them to join his men in subduing the Aztecs
and profiting from their treasure. His resolute actions were not 1natched
in Tenochtitlan, where his lieutenant Pedro de Alvarado, rnisinterpret-
ing a religious celebration as a military strategy, ordered an attack,
killing the Aztecs gathered for the fiesta. The n1assacre turned Aztec
leaders against the emperor and his captors.
Shortly after returning, Cortes attempted to use Montezuma to
repair the situation, but this effort ended \vith the death of the e1nperor,
as a mob of Aztecs angry with his appeasement policy attacked the
Spanish position and Montezuma died in the battle. War followed, as
the band of Spaniards and their Indian allies fought the warriors of the
Aztec E1npire. Battles continued for several months and were punctuated

CONQUEST AND COLONY 21

 by atrocities, as the Spaniards tortured captives and the Aztecs sacri-
ficed horses and conquistadors by beheading then1 or ripping out the
hearts of prisoners taken in the fighting. With a population of several
million as a source for warriors, the Aztecs far outnumbered the
Spaniards and their Indian allies. Cortes, fearing defeat through attri-
tion (he later wrote the king of Spain about the threat of an Aztec
strategy of "removing the bridges at the entrances, and abandoning the
place, they could leave us to perish by famine without our being able to
reach the main land"),2 decided on a daring night escape from the city.
Bernal Diaz recalled the harrowing flight, in which they battled Aztecs
both in front and behind them, and often in boats on both sides as iliey
fled on a causeway from the center of the city. Eventually, the Spaniards
escaped the city, but on this dreadful night more than 900 Spaniards,
including five wo1nen, and at least a thousand Tlaxcalan allies died in
the battle or as sacrifices. 3
Cortes regrouped his surviving 400 men and about a thousand allies
and developed a plan to subdue the city and the Aztecs. At the heart of
his strategy was the construction of ships that could be used to patrol
the lakes and lay siege to the city. Later, he wrote the king, "I made
great haste to build four brigantines ... large enough [for] three hun-
dred rnen and the horses." Using these boats, he established a blockade
that lasted weeks. The Aztecs had fresh water from one lake, but food
became a proble1n. Moreover, the priests who perforn,ed daily auguries
reported nothing but impending destruction of the empire. A surviving
scrap of Aztec poetry expressed their despondent attitude and the des-
. .
perate situation:
We have chewed dry t\vigs and salt grasses;
We have filled our n1ouths with dust and bits of adobe;
We have eaten lizards, rats and worms ... '

Under these conditions eventually the city fell to the Spaniards, and the
Aztecs, whose religion had always predicted their destruction, neverthe-
less voiced their sorrow. The same poem captured their la1nent and
defeat:

Broken spears lie in the roads;

We have torn our hair in our grief.
The houses are roofless nO\V,and their \Valls
Are red \Vith blood ....
We have pounded our hands in despair
Against the adobe ,valls,
For our inheritance, our city is lost and dead. 5

22 IVIExico IN \iVoRLD HISTORY

The city fell to the Spaniards on August 13, 1521. 6 Because the victory
occurred on the Day of Saint Hippolytus, he becan1e the patron of the
new Spanish city; a banner of green, white, and red dedicated to him
was paraded through the city each year to celebrate the victory. The
banner and colors would eventually become the flag of independent
Mexico.
Cortes wrote Carlos V, the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor,
to announce his victory, explain away his mutiny against the governor
of Cuba, and proclaim his faithful service to both crown and church. In
all, he 1,vrotefive letters to the crown. In the second letter he atte1npted
to impress on the king the magnitude of his conquest by describing the
Aztec Empire, its capital city, and its wealth.7 As he described the city
and its tee1ning population, he provided prospective by saying that of
the 1nany public squares, one was "twice as large as that of the city of
Salan1anca, surrounded by porticoes, where ... daily assembled more
than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where
[were] found all kinds of 1nerchandise that the world affords, embracing
the necessaries of life." Cortes alluded to Aztec natural wealth by
enu1nerating the products in the 1narket, especially "all kinds of green
vegetables, especially onions, leeks, garlic, watercresses, nasturtiu1n,
borage, sorrel, artichokes, and golden thistle; fruits also of nu,nerous
descriptions, amongst which are cherries and plums, si,nilar to those in
Spain; honey and wax fro1n bees, and fron1 the stalks of 1naize, which
are as sweet as the sugar-cane." Further enumerating their rich diet,
Cortes listed the bread they made fro,n 1naize, fish in many forms, pate
of birds, and eggs. Beyond foods, the market held a great variety of
cotton and other 1naterials for 1naking woven goods, that Cortes con1-
pared to the silk market in Granada. It also had pottery for a variety of
uses including storage. Additional sections of the market had vendors of
dyes and pigments for painters, and, on what the conqueror called an
"herb street," others sold remedies and solvents that formed the basics
of the 1nedicine of the Aztecs. Moreover, he reported a surprising nu,nber
of available services including barbers, restaurants, and porters.
Fine letter writing aside, Carlos V had no intention of allovving his
new possessions in the Americas to re,nain in the hands of an adven-
turer who had ignored the royal governor and sailed to Mexico on his
own initiative. The king planned on exercising his authority in Mexico
to increase his personal political power, financial incon1e, and religious
reputation through missionary endeavors. In his kingdoms, because
of arrange,nents ,nade between Pope Alexander VI (a Spaniard)
and Spanish 1nonarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, the church, both its

CONQUEST AND COLONY 23

 hierarchy and its missionaries, forn1ed another of the Spanish royal
administrative agencies. Crown authority over the church, called the
Royal Patronage or Patronado Real, enabled the king, not the pope, to
direct the church in Spanish lands.
Quicker than the arrival of the king's conquistadors, missionaries,
or bureaucrats, European diseases swept through the indigenous
population. Smallpox, pneumonia, and measles, previously unknown in
Mexico, proved fatal to many Indian peoples. The death rates from
those diseases exceeded those of the Black Death and other pandemics
familiar to the Spaniards. The waves of these epidemics had severe
effects in the society under construction by the Spaniards who occupied
the capital. As death overwhelmed the indigenous peoples, it created the
gloomy feeling of a ghost town in Mexico, despite the arrival of rnore
and 1nore Spanish n1en with a growing nu1nber of African slaves.
News, often exaggerated, about the conquest of the Aztecs inspired
furious searches for even greater indigenous centers and their riches.
These carnpaigns resulted in expeditions to the Andes and the eventual
conquest of the Inca En1pire, and in other expeditions in search of
wealth. Sorne continued pursuit of a sea route to the riches of Asia,
exploring north (Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's expedition to what is
today the southeastern United States, and Francisco Coronado's search
for the cities of Cibola, the cities of gold, in the south,vestern United
States}, south (Pedro de Alvarado in Guaten,ala}, and even an expedition
(initially led by Alvarado} from Mexico's Pacific Coast to the Philippines.
These expeditions often co1nbined Spaniards with their Tlaxcalan allies,
so that the people fro1n what today is Mexico's smallest state left a
cultural impact in northern Mexico, the southwestern United States,
and the Philippines-including Tlaxcalan words in local languages. The
conquest of Mexico inspired the conquest of Peru and the exploration
of most of the Americas.
Missionaries, at first Franciscan n1onks, who were followed by
1nembers of the Do1ninican, Augustinian, and Jesuit orders, saw hun-
dreds of thousands of souls to save everywhere in the Spanish domin-
ions. Whether by design or, for the church at least, happy discovery,
some missionaries found indigenous women to be faithful converts,
who perhaps learned that Catholicis1n reinforced their do1nestic
authority and particular relationships with n1ales while offering the1n
solace during their lives and pro1nises of a better situation after.
Depending on the mission, indigenous women found that both the mis-
sionaries and the crown backed them in various ways, ordering Spaniards
to end the practice of living with several Indian wo1nen and directing

24 JVIEXICO IN vVORLD HISTORY

 I
1cmoqu.ayattq
qtu tlatoqru.

Franciscan n,issionaries baptized Indians, especially the leaders, giving them

Spanish names after the saints to indicate their conversion to Christianity, based
Ott modest i11structiollin the catechism. All Indian artist painted this baptism

ceremony with the title "The lords have been baptized" in the Lienzo de Tlaxaca,
a pictoglyphic history of the con,munity Oil cloth, no111lost. The version here has
been re-created using images from a lithograph facsimile printed in 1892. The
Mesolore Project, ,vww.mesolore.net, Center for Latin A,nerican and Caribbean
Studies, Brown University, and Prolarti Enterprises, LLC

them to 1narry ,vomen with whom they had established relationships.

The importance of the Virgin Mary provided a significant role model,
e1nphasized by both the 1nissionaries and the new wo1nen converts. 8 In
ocher regions, especially in the north, n1issionaries reduced the influence
of wo1nen in communities and delayed con1munion for them. 9 They
often reinforced patriarchal forms of the family.
As 1nissionaries carried on their efforts co convert the pagans,
Spanish entrepreneurs recognized the potential for huge profits fro1n
sugarcane, cochineal (a natural red dye), and tobacco. These 1nen
demanded land titles from the king and labor, at first Indian servants,
and then African slaves. Beginning with Charles V, the Spanish crown
ordered the registration of all migrants, to prevent ne'er-do-wells fro1n

CONQUEST AND COLONY 25

 polluting the colonial population. These registration records reveal pat-
terns of n1igration and the n1ost prevalent characteristics of the typical
migrant. The Spaniards who \Vent to Mexico were generally young,
single males from Andalucia (the southern region of Spain that Queen
Isabella, \Vho had endorsed the early expeditions, directly ruled).
Beyond these general traits, the records reveal, understandably, that
persons from different regions of Spain tended to follow relatives,
friends, or at least people from the same community. As a result, some
of the regional character, especially accents, music, and food, of the
Iberian Peninsula became e1nbedded in the larger American colonies
and eventually Spanish-American nations; thus variants, for example,
of Andalucian culture predominated in Mexico and of Extremadura in
Peru. Moreover, Basque traders, although never a majority of the
population, predo1ninated in the merchant com1nunities of 1nany colo-
nial port cities. They embedded their commercial skills based on fan1ily
networks (including Crypto-Jews who used the networks to escape
Spain for the colonies) in these co1nrnunities.
The king soon appointed a brigade of bureaucrats to represent hi1n
in Mexico and in his growing An1erican colonies. Of these colonial offi-
cials, the most prominent was the surrogate of the king himself, the
viceroy. The office was first created in 1535 with the appointment of
Antonio de Mendoza. The kingdo1n or viceroyalty of New Spain
was divided into s1naller units of different kinds involving judicial-
administrative a~tdiencias, 1nilitary outposts as captaincy-generals, and
strong cornrnunity rule through city councils, called cabildos or ayun-
tamientos. The viceregal structure ren1ained in place for just short of
three centuries, that is, until ilie independence of Mexico in 1821. The
regional ad1ninistration was revised in the eighteenth century, but
tO\vn government ren1ained essentially unchanged. The viceroyalty of
New Spain came to occupy an enormous region, with a northern
boundary from California in a swooping line to Georgia's coast, Spain's
Caribbean possessions, Central America, the coast of Venezuela, and
the Philippines.
The confirmation of Spanish colonization, administrative units, and
future exploration reflected the decision of Pope Alexander VI in 1493
to prevent conflicts between Spain and Portugal, the first European voy-
agers on a global scale. He divided the non-European world between
them by creating a boundary line through the Atlantic Ocean and pre-
SLunablyaround the globe at 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands.
The Spanish and Portuguese monarchs accepted the division in the 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas. The Portuguese received confirmation of their

26 ~1EXICO IN v\/ORLD HISTORY

trading and slaving posts on the African coasts and co1n1nercial centers
in the Indian Ocean and Far East. The Spanish crown received the
Americas and some Pacific possessions, notably the Philippines. The
line placed eastern Brazil and the South Atlantic in the Portuguese zone.
Although both Spain and Portuguese generally adhered to this treaty, by
the mid-sixteenth century, the English, Dutch, and French had rejected
the division of the non-European ,,vorld between the Iberian nations
and sent explorers and pirates first and later colonists and navies to
overthrow the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly.
The largest of all the European colonies, New Spain quickly proved
to be the wealthiest, with its silver mines, sugar and tobacco planta-
tions, cochineal dyes, and general agriculture. As such it received the
special attention of the king. Wheat provided the basis of the Spanish
diet and served as the only acceptable source for co1nmunion wafers. As
significant as the introduction of wheat proved to be, bread did not
replace the corn tortilla in the diet of indigenous and other co1nmoners.
The primary change in food for the native peoples was the introduction
of chickens and pigs; their meals ca1ne to include eggs regularly and
1neat fron1 both anin1als occasionally, resulting in altered and enriched
diets.
Perhaps even more significant were the natural products from
Mexico that enriched the diets in Europe. Corn became the basic food
source for horses and cattle, while chocolate beca1ne a delicacy and
tobacco an addictive pleasure. Other food products included avocados
and turkeys. Peru sent potatoes, and the plantations on the Caribbean
coast, the islands, and Brazil provided Spain, Portugal, and eventually
1nuch of Europe vvith both sugar and rum. Nevertheless, the basic diet
in Mexico, with the addition of eggs, remained corn, beans, and
chilies.
Spaniards, as agricultural producers and miners, demanded enough
workers for their enterprises. The combination of declining indigenous
population because of continuing epide1nics and escalating efforts to
,nine silver and to produce com,nercial agricultural products resulted in
,najor changes in the 1nanagen1ent of Indian labor. Over the first century
follo\ving the establishment of colonial administration, the institutions
governing the indigenous vvorkforce changed three ti1nes.
First, the Spaniards followed the hon1eland pattern of social organi-
zation devised during the seven centuries of the Reconquest, when
Spaniards fought to drive the Islamic invaders called Moors out of
Spain, concluding in 1492 at the Battle of Granada. They placed Indian
heads of fa1nilies in trust to Spanish conquistadors and nobles, just as

CONQUEST AND COLONY 27

 0 300mi
NORTH AMERICA
0 300km

c\..,.
,.
St. Augustine
Atl,uuic Ocea11
• -")
Guadalajara -.,
Gu/JoJMexico , ~ :,
l-lavana 7 .. .-

•
Za atecas.,
Guadal~jarn •• Guanajuato
M' .
e~~~ )~•
c·
11
.Rll{ll del Mo~te
e...vcr.a
etuz ,
g ~.,C~-...,__ .;
~
c,,,
c:,-~
Santo
Domingo
.
-:,,:
•~
! •
Ta co \1cxico • . Santo Dorningo ,
Pacific Ocean _ _,,....._
0
d:a;rnalaiCity
Guatemala
." .~
.
Caracas
.,, /,--
The V1CEROYALTY OF
NEW SPAIN, 1650
D Gm1dalajarn
0 Mexico
VICEROYALTY
D Guatemala
OF PERU
D Santo Domingo
.. Majorsilver mining town
• Ci1y

surv1v1ng peasant families reclaimed from the Moors were placed in

feudal fiefdoms for the Spanish officers and noblernen. Called the
encomienda system in Mexico, it mirrored the peninsular feudal arrange-
1nent of theoretical reciprocal responsibilities. The Spaniards oversavv
the conversion of Indian families and provided for their minimal
well-being with food and housing. In return, Indian peoples supplied
labor, tribute in the form of cotton blankets or special products such as
honey or chocolate, and loyalty to their lords.
The enconiienda system became the target of 111issionarieswho
became advocates for the Indian peoples. Most notably, Father
Bartolo111ede Las Casas denounced the violence of the conquest and the
exploitation of the colonial syste1n. His propagandistic argun1ent
addressed to the king, entitled A Very Brief Account of the Destruction
of the Indies, described the situation in Mexico with these words in the
introduction: "Their reason for killing and destroying such an infinite
nu111berof souls is that the Christians [the Spaniards] have an ulti111ate
ain1, which is to acquire gold, and to swell then1selves with riches in a
very brief time." He continued, "It should be kept in mind that their
insatiable greed and ambition, the greatest ever seen in the world, is the
cause of their villainies," and followed with exa111plesof tortures and

28 IVIEx1co 1N \iVoRLD H1sTORY

 •

~ __:~i.., ~ ::::::::- -~ -
~
.. n~
~ .•
, ...
.
.,.,
•

2}.,.,,..~-M~::::"\i~i1-
...-• ~ f

This engraving of the Spaniards enslaving Indians illustrated the accounts

provided in A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies h)' Padre Bartolome
de Las Casas. Such pictures created a general view of the brutalit)' of the Spanish
conquest i11the Caribbean, Mexico, and Peru, that u1asused b)' England, Fra11ce,
and the Netherlands to justif)' attacks on Spanish silver fleets. Snark/ Art
Resource, NY

cruelties that he swore he had witnessed. This and other similar accounts
were obtained by i1nperial rivals and used as attacks on the Spaniards.
These works circulated in translation served to create the so-called
Black Legend of Spanish colonialisn1 used to justify French, English,
and Dutch attacks against the Spanish E1npire.10
The barrage of contradictory clai1ns and charges took son1e tin1e to
evaluate, but eventually the monarch decided to change the relationship
bet\.veen Spaniards in the Americas and the Indian workers. Although
his explanations focused on the issues of Christian behavior, his actions
revealed a concern with international diplon1acy and his clear co1n1nit-
1nent not to allow the formation of an autono1nous nobility with
economic independence from his authority that a system of permanent
indigenous peons might allow. His first effort ordered the abolition of
the system by n1eans of the New Laws of 1542. Encomenderos, those

CONQUEST AND COLONY 29

 individuals who held the labor grants, collectively ignored the royal
degree because it would leave them without workers unless they could
afford to purchase slaves. Colonial officials in Mexico likewise made no
effort to enforce the decree after learning that the viceroy of Peru's
efforts to implement the law resulted in an uprising in which he was
1nurdered.
The king's decree notwithstanding, the enconiienda system ended
when it no longer provided the labor necessary for agricultural produc-
tion, especially of \vheat, for the towns with gro"ving Spanish popula-
tions. Encomiendas had been distributed as recognition of service to
the crown or of noble status rather than specifically to those farming
wheat. Faced with a system that no longer provided the workers
necessary for the production of Spanish foodstuffs, the king in 1549
introduced the repartimiento system that recognized the significance of
labor in the public interest. In practice this meant wheat production
and silver 1nining across Mexico, and in Mexico City it meant work on
the drainage systern as flooding beca1ne an increasing problern in the
colony's capital. In other colonies it often 1neant almost exclusively
1nining. Indian con1n1unities had to provide a fixed number of n1ale
workers each week; these men reported to a colonial official who
divided thern among Spaniards based on the area planted to wheat or
the severity of the flooding. In 1nining regions, the workers went directly
to the 1nines.
The system worked well as long as the population remained stable,
but it did not. The number of Spaniards increased, and the number of
Indians declined. Pri1narily disease, but also abuse and injury in the
workplace, n1alnutrition (in some part caused by the elimination of chia
as a major food item because of churchn1en's belief that it was connected
to blood sacrifices), and psychological depression all contributed to
constant high death rates, in which some villages lost their entire
population and in others it was greatly reduced. This forced labor
system required co1nn1unities to supply a fixed nu1nber of workers, so
when the population declined, the labor demands becan1e more onerous
for the community. The repartimiento required workers to travel fron1
their communities to a central location, and from there to an hacienda
(plantation) or other work site. Travel exposed these workers to press
gangs and robbers. Plantation owners soon con1plained to colonial
authorities about workers who did not arrive. Officials in turn wrote
the crown looking for a labor syste1n chat would provide needed workers
and protect the individuals from attacks that destroyed any sense of
personal security.

30 IVIExico IN \iVoRLD HISTORY

 By the 1630s, the Indian workers subject to public service through
the repartirniento suffered n1ounting insecurity because of epiden1ic dis-
eases and other causes of population decline. Spaniards, in need of
workers, or fearing they would soon be, became reluctant to trust the
colonial officials to supply an adequate number of field hands. They
turned to illegal ways of recruiting workers. Contract, or gaiian, labor
offered a solution welcomed by both parties. Hacendados (estate
o"vners) gave contracts to workers that offered a small salary, a place to
live, a patch for the family's subsistence farming, and protection from
other labor contractors. In return, the hacendados got a reliable work-
force. In this way, as the ganan system provided workers for large land-
owners, it also provided a more secure life for Indians for the first time
since the conquest. With the emergence of this contract system, in 1632,
the crown abolished the repartimiento syste1n in Mexico. 11
The search for personal and con1munity security inspired some
Indian leaders to master the Spanish legal and administrative system.
This allowed the1n to utilize Spanish courts and the colonial bureau-
cracy to advantage. First, leaders turned to the legal systen, to conserve
their lives in traditional fashion-their lands, their civic festivals, and
their dress-insofar as possible by suing in the courts against Spaniards
who carne into their town to exploit the comrnunity or in efforts to
regain lands taken fro1n them. Second, con11nunity leaders recognized
the legal protections given through 1nunicipal incorporation, so many
sought and received incorporation as municipalities in which they pre-
served traditional governmental and economic patterns, including co1n-
1nunal landholdings.
This mastery of Spanish law codes and bureaucratic procedures
beca1ne a preoccupation of so1ne indigenous leaders, who turned the
legalistic colonial system to their account. The Spanish crown recog-
nized the rights of incorporated local govern1nents, \l'Jhether they were
Spanish or Indian communities, and protected them. Courts ruled against
Spaniards "vho disrupted life in indigenous communities by trying to
force them to sell their crops at ruinous prices, or pay imaginary taxes,
or provide uncalled-for personal services. Judges sent then1 to fight on
the northern frontier, ordered their transportation to the Philippines, or
returned them to Spain. The crown increasingly recognized a responsi-
bility to the indigenous peoples that included protecting then, fron1
unwarranted exploitation. The crown's concern showed clearly in the
decision not to allow the Holy Office of the Inquisition to investigate
Indians except in the cases of cannibalis1n and biga1ny as well as a
succession of court decisions to protect Indian co1nn1unity properties.

CONQUEST AND COLONY 31

 Fro1n Cortes's first display of cannons and horse1nanship before
Aztec officials when he arrived in Veracruz, the Spaniards used public
rituals to demonstrate the authority of the crown and church, and to
reinforce the social structure of the colony. These celebrations included
the installation and funerals of viceroys and archbishops, swearing alle-
giance following the coronation of a new 1nonarch, and various reli-
gious holidays. Nothing matched the celebration of Corpus Christi in
Mexico City for pageantry and significance. This holiday quickly
combined official and popular participants in the procession that moved
fron1 the cathedral on the central plaza, through the n1ost important
neighborhoods, and then returned to starting point. Location of groups
in the parade made visible the social order and indicated the lockstep
relationship of archbishop and viceroy and the prevalence of Christian
religious beliefs for organizing the life of the colony.
The typical procession began with unofficial Indian dancers, as a
metaphor revealing their presence in a society that officially gave them
little place. Follovving the dancers ca1ne a large dragonlike float called
the tarasca that expressed Christian views of sin and evil. The dragon,
like the ones slain by Saint Michael and Saint George, appeared with
seven heads that represented the deadly sins. The tarasca confirmed a
social order of serious men, as it often featured as the rider of the dragon
a wo1nan or mern1aid playing a guitar. This pictorial conflation of Eve
fron1 the Bible and the Sirens fro1n Homer's Odyssey linked won1en,
1nusic, and sin. Following the dragon came the guilds, from the n1ost
common to the pov,rerful silver workers, follov,red by religious brother-
and sisterhoods fro1n the most accessible to the 1nost prestigious, school-
children, and government bureaucrats, religious orders and parish
clergy, followed by the church and civil hierarchy. The archbishop with
the host occupied the penultimate place and the viceroy, his retinue and
body guards concluded the parade. The people of the community cele-
brated their beliefs and themselves, finding the significance of civil and
religious institutions in the people who formed them.
At various points the parade halted with the host before a tempo-
rary altar, where so1ne guild or confraternity had paid for a sern1on
combining praise for the church vvith that for the sponsor. Occasionally,
these ser111onsthrough the use of puns and double 1neanings offered
hu1norous or at least irreverent descriptions of colonial life. Often reli-
gious words were slurred together or separated to form the na111esof
common fruit such as bananas, mangoes, or avocados in the co1nmu-
nion or as one of the saints. Following the procession, the city enjoyed
a n1ajor fair in the central plaza that by tradition offered new clothes {it

32 f\1EXICO IN v\/ORLD HISTORY

is not clear if merchants sent advertise1nents and even sample clothes to
the city's elite 1nen, as they did in Madrid on Corpus Christi), among
the myriad items on sale. Residents could use this and other fiestas to
express piety, salute civil authorities, march with other social club mem-
bers or use the opportunity to earn some money from their small busi-
nesses. When the parade and shopping ended, a festival followed with
drinking, food, and a good deal of dancing to music disapproved by
both the church and the government. 12
With zeal matching that of the Spaniards seeking wealth through
discovery, mining, or agriculture, the first missionaries worked fever-
ishly to salvage the souls of people they considered to be indigenous
heathens. In 1521, twelve Franciscan missionaries (a number sent in
honor of Jesus and his loyal disciples) walked into Mexico City. Cortes
expressed their significance when he received them by dropping to a
knee and kissing the hems of their robes. Evangelization under the
Franciscans resulted in mass baptisms and giving Spanish names to
indigenous peoples. All the rnajor religious orders soon sent 1nission-
aries to con1pete in these evangelization ca1npaigns. Once Ignatius
Loyola and his follo,vers organized the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits (as
they were called) swarmed into Mexico to convert and educate the
native peoples as well. Leaving aside the niceties of the Roman Catholic
faith, the 1nissionaries rushed to save souls by baptis1n, signaling
conversion. Only the Don1inicans approached conversion fron1 the
opposite position, delaying baptism until the prospective convert had
some knowledge of the catechism.
The long-standing efforts included the use of dramatic perfor-
1nances, dances, and fiestas to make biblical and Christianization stories
come alive in the indigenous i1nagination. How much the indigenous
peoples appropriated Spanish Catholicisn1 and used it as a cover to con-
tinue their own beliefs and how much the indigenous and European
religious practices resulted in some combination of both religions
re1nains unclear. Certainly so1ne Indians identified the Christian Trinity
and saints with the Aztec gods, and church leaders reported the contin-
uation of Aztec religious practices, even some sacrifices. One hypothesis
argues that indigenous peoples mastered a system of parallel religious
practices and the ability to switch codes of behavior as it was necessary.
Whatever the situation, the population of Mexico beca1ne and re1nains,
at least in nan1e and outward practice, Ro111anCatholic.
The most dramatic and enduring event of the evangelization era
was the 111iracle,if one is a believer, of the appearance of the Virgin
of Guadalupe. The legend reports the appearance of the Virgin to an

CONQUEST AND COLONY 33

 indigenous shepherd boy, Juan Diego. Juan Diego reported it to
Archbishop .Iuan Zu1narraga, 1,vhodismissed it as the hyperactive imag-
ination of a recent convert and asked for indisputable evidence of the
miracle. The Virgin appeared three more times to Juan Diego, and twice
1nore the archbishop rejected the story. During the Virgin's fourth
appearance, she had the boy take roses wrapped in her cloak to the
archbishop. The cleric opened the cloak to discover not the roses Juan
Diego expected but instead the image of the Virgin emblazoned on the
cloak. The Virgin in this avocation appeared 1,vithphysical features sim-
ilar to the indigenous peoples, with coarse dark hair, dark eye color, and
dark pigmentation.
Following this appearance on December 12, 1531, the cult sur-
rounding the Virgin of Guadalupe grew slowly for a few years and then
became more i,nportant. Today skeptics point to so,ne evidence that the
cloak was painted with indigenous pigments by a member of the Indian
painters' guild called Pablo. Nevertheless, now the Virgin is the patron
saint of Mexico and of Latin Arnerica. The image of the Virgin, along
with the eagle, is the ubiquitous and popular sy,nbol of Mexico. 13
Fro1n the first landing of Cortes, the Spaniards experienced one sur-
prise after another in Mexico. The crown, in order to protect the indig-
enous peoples from the shoddy religious behavior and moral turpitude
of many of the Spaniards, issued decrees meant to structure life in his
colony. Of these efforts, the n,ost sweeping was a law to create a society
divided into two parts: the Republic of Spaniards (la republica de los
Espafioles) was supposed co consist of the Spaniards and their African
retainers and slaves; the Republic of Indians (la republica de los Indios)
was supposed to include only Indians. The two groups were to live sep-
arately. Spaniards and Africans were prohibited fro,n spending the night
in indigenous co1nn1unities, and other visits fron, n1erchants and labor
organizers were severely restricted. A second decree regarding n1arriage
also aimed to 1naintain the separate societies and regulate im1norcal
behavior. All Spaniards with wives in Spain were ordered to bring them
to Mexico, or face deportation. Single Spaniards living "vith Indian
women were ordered to marry the won1an or end the cohabitation.
Despite these efforts, the surprise for the cro\.vn and royal officials
ca1ne with the appearance of two large populations they had not antic-
ipated. First, the African population grew 111orequickly throughout the
colony than anyone expected. In tropical agricultural zones and urban
centers, African slaves and freed peoples outnu1nbered the Spaniards.
Second, despite the efforts to keep Spaniards and Indians separate,
1nany of the largely 1nale Spanish arrivals developed relationships with

34 IVIEx1co IN \iVoRLD H1sTORY

Indian wo1nen. This occurred in such high nu1nbers that there quickly
emerged a population of n1ixed ethnicity, generally called mestizos, that
also outnumbered the Spaniards and who, for the most part, wanted co
be recognized by their Spanish fathers. Many were not, and they became
a resentful population that eventually "vould threaten colonial rule.
These included the predominant patriotic con1mander from 1811 to
1815, Padre Jose Maria Morelos.
The ethnic intermixing soon included the African population as
well. Overzealous Spanish bureaucrats eventually concocted a table of
ethnic types called castas that divided the New Spanish population into
sixteen groups based on ethnicity. Artists in the eighteenth century
soon painted pictures to provide the royal court and the curious in
Spain with an image of the different castes, their pigmentation and
dress. The colonial society designed only for Spaniards and Indians
beca1ne a curious mix of ethnicities in which an individual could pass
for a member of different categories based mostly on his clothing and
language. Mestizos usually adopted Spanish clothing, especially trou-
sers and jackets, and women wore skirts and blouses; Indians, at least
cultural ones, continued to wear shirts and pants of native cotton (or,
lacer, muslin) without buttons, and ponchos rather than coats, and the
fe1nales wore huipils, one-piece s1nocklike dresses, or skirts with pon-
cho-like tops. The inability to speak Spanish 1narked the indigenous
comn1un1t1es.
Mexico City, within a century of the conquest, became one of the
world's largest cities-more populous than any in Europe, with an
overlay of educated individuals and sophisticated institutions above a
sea of emnicities characterized by poverty and poor health. The capital
boasted a university (a century before Harvard), a newspaper, a book
publisher, and a cadre of polyglot individuals, including playwrights
and composers}• In the midst of wealth and luxury expressed by the
viceroy, the archbishop, and the colonial court, the poor, ragged
population, the incessant flooding, the periodic disease epide111ics,and
occasional grain shortages rivaled the disparities of wealth that charac-
terized such cities as Paris, London, and Madrid.
Among capital city elites of the late seventeenth century, the savant
nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz stood out for her poetry and religious
exercises. Many consider her writings to be the beginning of Mexican
literature. She taught herself to read, write, and do arithn1etic, and dur-
ing her teenage years she mastered both Latin and Nahuatl. She entered
a convent in 1667 and two years later became a regular 1nember of
the Order of Saint Jero111e.As a nun she wrote devotional studies and

CONQUEST AND COLONY 35

 literature, including satire, and took an interest in science. Her work
was widely read in Spain as well as in Mexico, where she was praised as
the Tenth Muse. In 1690, a letter to the viceroy attacked her interest in
science as opposed to theology. Sor Juana replied in the "Response to
Sister Filomea," a statement in favor of women's right to education. For
this action, the archbishop conde1nned her willful behavior and forced
her to give up her scientific and literary activities. 1s
The desperate conditions of many people notwithstanding, the city
had a cosmopolitan character as the center of the far-flung of colony of
New Spain. The colony reached west across the Pacific to the Philippines,
and the connection was maintained largely through the annual voyage
of the Manila galleon, a massive ship that traveled from the islands to
Acapulco and returned, starting in 1565. The galleon became the sailing
ship of legend, a huge 1nahogany vessel packed with Asian spices, silks,
ceran1ics, and occasionally slaves. Captains made enough money to
retire after a single four-month voyage. Capturing the Manila galleon
becarne the drearn of every pirate, and two British buccaneers, Francis
Drake and Tho1nas Cavendish, did so and were knighted for it. Generally
the ship eluded the pirates and overca1ne bad weather to arrive with the
Asian goods that became fashionable in the capital city. The galleon
hauled back Mexican silver pesos that soon became the comrnon trade
currency in Asia from China to East Africa.
The "vorld's richest colony faced major changes "vhen European
wars, concluding with the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713, and
royal dynastic changes enabled the Bourbon fa1nily to replace the
Hapsburgs. The Bourbons, with French and French-trained advisers,
introduced Enlightenment practicality, with its e1nphasis on efficient
progran1s of civil government, public health, and tax collection and
with goals of tightening political authority and revenue collection in the
colonies, especially New Spain. These reforms were analogous to pro-
grams introduced in the Portuguese (the Pombline refonns) and British
colonies (the Granville reforms).
In one of the n1ost dran1atic steps, Carlos III ordered the expulsion
of the Jesuits, whon1 he regarded as a threat to his authority from Spain
and the colonies in 1767. This was paired with political and economic
reorganization handled by the all-powerful inspector general, Jose de
Galvez, \vho atte1npted to strea1nline colonial adn1inistration and
econon1y as he liberalized trade and introduced enlightened practices of
health and agriculture. The independently organized Sociedades
Econ6micas de! Amigos de! Pafs becarne centers of enlightened prac-
tices, prornoting such practices as smallpox vaccinations. 16

36 IVIExico IN \iVoRLD HISTORY

 Miners and merchants benefited most fron1 the Bourbon reforms.
But ,vhen Napoleon placed the Spanish king under arrest and invaded
and occupied a portion of Spain in 1808, the merchants' profits were
threatened. They began to consider their situation. Many discovered
they had a stronger co1nmitment to their native land of Mexico, its peo-
ples and its prospects, than to Spain and its monarch, caught up in
European affairs. These Spaniards born in New Spain (called creoles),
the mestizos, and other castes with this glimmering of national aspira-
tions began to consider independence. Once again decisions in Europe
shaped events in Mexico.

CONQUEST AND COLONY 37