After Moctezuma: Indigenous Politics and Self-Government in Mexico City, 1524–1730

Abstract

William Connell’s book traces the evolution of indigenous governance of the parcialidad of Mexico Tenochtitlan, one of two indigenous sectors of colonial Mexico City. He focuses especially on the position of gobernador and discusses how the post developed and changed between the early sixteenth century and the early eighteenth. The book covers the careers of several governors as well as the role of the indigenous cabildo. As a narrative of the evolving indigenous bureaucracy, one based on extensive archival research, the book is highly successful. Readers will find important insights into native political culture in colonial Mexico City. Readers will not, however, learn much about how that political culture fit into broader patterns of indigenous political change within or beyond the Basin of Mexico.One of the book’s central arguments is that a significant degree of continuity existed between governance of late Postclassic Tenochtitlan and that of the very early colonial city’s indigenous sectors (Mexico Tenochtitlan and Mexico Tlatelolco). But Connell also shows how that continuity declined as both indigenous and Spanish political maneuvering led to transformations in the nature and functioning of leaders as well as the bureaucracy. The early chapters therefore focus on continuities in indigenous governance between the two time periods. Although death and destruction occurred, Connell argues that both the Mexica and the Spanish, especially the first viceroy, Antonio de Mendoza, strove for stability and continuity in the political realm. Even as the nature of political jurisdictions and terminology began to change early on (Connell’s discussion of these issues is detailed and insightful), Mendoza “reestablished the legitimate royal lineage in Tenochtitlan” by appointing a nephew of Moteucçoma Xocoyotzin, don Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin, to govern Mexico Tenochtitlan (p. 11). But the changing circumstances of indigenous life during the rest of the sixteenth century fed and magnified conflicts over political legitimacy, the role of the descendants of the ancient high nobility, and land ownership.Because Mexico Tenochtitlan was part of the city that housed the Spanish seat of power in the viceroyalty, Spanish officials and institutions would become important players in such conflicts within the parcialidades. Much of the book carefully traces how the process of Spanish involvement in indigenous politics unfolded. Connell analyzes elections of indigenous governors in detail, using lawsuits connected to several elections. He illustrates the tensions among members of the ruling group and between elites and commoners. After Moctezuma also argues that as individuals and interest groups turned to Spanish courts and officials, they gave those courts and officials license to interfere in ways that Spaniards did not always seek.One of the most significant findings of the book is that viceroys and other Span-ish officials — even with their obsession with tribute collection, a responsibility that came to lie at the heart of a governor’s responsibilities — often involved themselves only reluctantly in the internal affairs of the indigenous parcialidades. Viceroys clearly preferred to let indigenous leaders deal with the sometimes intense conflicts over tribute collection, land, crafts, and trade. In discussing the histories of particular governors, Connell provides biographical portraits of figures like don Antonio Valeriano (the elder) who governed Mexico Tenochtitlan from 1573 to 1599. Valeriano dealt with the consequences of epidemic death during a period of transition away from a politics still shaped by conquest-era issues toward a period in which indigenous law and politics became inextricably intertwined with the Spanish bureaucracy.Later chapters depict an increasingly impoverished native population surrounded by and interacting with a city whose explosive growth created an increasingly racially diverse population. In this context tribute collection grew still more conflicted. As native and Spanish officials struggled with how to carry out that task, the city’s diversity began to become an issue in the selection of office holders in the parcialidades. By the eighteenth century, indigenous politics became focused on coalitions that competed to elect particular candidates, maneuvered to use the legal process to disqualify candidates or overturn election results, and strove to support the election of members of “veritable dynasties” (p. 163).The reader may be left to wonder how the transition to Bourbon viceroys influenced Spanish-indigenous political relations in the early eighteenth century. One might also ask how the political evolution of the governorship and the practices of indigenous politics in Mexico City, especially in the realm of tribute collection, compare to that in other communities and regions within and beyond the Basin of Mexico, given that a number of historians have examined colonial indigenous governance. After Moctezuma, nevertheless, is a significant contribution to the literature on colonial Nahuas, especially in Mexico City. A unique city then and now, its demographic importance and cultural influence mean that an understanding of what happens there politically, socially, and economically is crucial for comprehending Mexican history and society more broadly.

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